| the old pond / frog jumps in / plop! – Matsuo |
In the spring of 2012 I spent a life changing semester in Tanzania, studying ecology and human origins. We explored mountains, walked the paths of the cradle of humanity in the Great Rift Valley, and ate all kinds of good shit.
My girlfriend at the time gave me the perfect gift: a journal! I never had one before and kind of went crazy with it. I used it to chronicle almost every day of my life in Tanzania. That hemorrhagic spewing led to a 65 story blog, all of which is now consolidated here
Some of my best writing from this youthful time:
The Footprints of History, The Mountain of God, Cooking Maasai Food with Maasai People, Animals in a Boma, Giraffe Hunt and Goat Slaughter, Maasai Greetings and Stories, Goat Races and Bob, ‘Kilimanjaro’ and the Fish Market.
Below is the journey in reverse chronological order. Enjoy!
Today was our last day on Zanzibar. It was relaxing for the most part, with a tour of Prison Island in the morning. I got to see a tortoise that is 155 years old! I’ve decided that Zanzibar would be a beautiful place to honeymoon. Everything is just so beautiful here! And, since I now…
Today we did a variety of fun things. In the morning we took a long daladala ride to the other end of the island. Once there we got snorkeling gear, flippers and masks, and set sail to swim with dolphins! There were a few pods out there, swimming very fast. There were also pods of…
Today we took off on the ferry for Zanzibar (~45 miles off the coast of Dar) at 7:00AM. It was a fun ride! And seeing Zanzibar materialize on the horizon wasn’t half bad either. The architecture here reminds me of picture I have seen of Venice, Italy. It is beautiful! We ported at Stone Town…
We had our methods due for Research methods and we also had our toughest Kiswahili test yet today. Everybody said that they probably “bad failed” it and I felt the same way (although I ended up getting an A at 77%, totally not expected). It was just the worst test and we didn’t have time…
So I spent a large part of my day today filling out information for Luther’s Institutional Review Board, which I have to get approval from if I want to use my project in the future for like my Senior thesis or something. But because I got timed out of KATIE (Luther’s coursework website) it all…
Yesterday was pretty much a complete day of rest for me. I got up in the morning at 6:45 and went on a five mile run with Michelle A. It was boring because it was around the track, I felt pretty dehydrated, too. After that I came back to the dorm and watched Harry Potter…