Currently I am sitting at Knobby Hill, a huge Kopje at the entrance, about to leave Serengeti National Park. We are waiting to get approval to enter the Ngorongoro Conservation Area again, I think. I’m not sure what the length of our wait will be. My body is achy, not sore, but sick of riding in cars all day everyday. Making camp near Olasiti soon will be a welcome change of pace. The severe lack of exercise that I have had of late has greatly affected my mood and lessened the quality of my interactions with other people, I think. I need to feel those endorphins soon or I fear that I will burst! I’m touchy to everything and everyone. I just want to run, or sleep. But I know that sleep is no good; only running or at the very least doing push-ups and sit ups can save me. I will just have to wait. I feel kind of sad.
Today we travelled all the way from our camp in Serengeti to our camp, called Camp Zion, near Olasiti, Tanzania, which lies along the road leading to Tarangire National Park. It is very beautiful here, again, like everywhere else I have gone in Tanzania! It all is just great. Like I mentioned earlier, though, today has been full of mood swings and internal struggles. After a while, though, I just took a deep breath and began to read my journal. I read some things that put my heart at ease and improved my mood. Mostly a story about the chaos during my first week this summer at Rainbow Trail, in which I thought all of the plans set in place by my village were unraveling. That seemed to happen a lot as a counselor, but really in the end things worked out, always better than I thought they would. I suppose and hope that it will be the same with my research project here. My heart tells me that it will feel chaotic at times, but like at camp it will work out; it will go much better in the end. I will just do my best to enjoy every moment in between, even the chaotic ones.
