Wednesday, July 5, 2017 Today we drove out to Magogoni Primary School, a public school built by Asante Sana for Education in 2013. The roads were unbelievably bad. As a matter of fact , I think that it was a trail for walking and NOT a road!There are 290 students from Pre k to standard 6. There are 4 teachers for all these students. Whately Elementary School in Massachusetts, USA, where I am a special education teacher, gave desks and a roof for teacher housing. The latrine

Sunday, July 2 It was hard to say goodbye to my Kenya student Zura Mahmoud this morning as I may never see her again although I thought that last year when I said goodbye at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, USA where she was a post graduate student. We took off for Saadani National Park for our river boat safari on the Wami River. We drove through Datoga land, a nomadic tribe quite similar to the Maasai but an enemy group. Their land was beautiful and so were

Today was a full day. I cried, I laughed, and I experienced many different emotions and circumstances I never had before. This morning, I woke up to the sad news that my grandfather had passed away. Being thousands of miles from my family and friends only made the news that much harder. My grandfather loved to travel and experience new things. He had a passion for learning and teaching and was constantly challenging me to open my mind to new things. Therefore, I believe he wa

Tuesday , June 27 We left the hotel with Abbas and headed to Lake Manyara National Park for our 2nd safari day. It felt very different immediately as we were in a wooded jungle like area. The day started out cool and overcast and got warmer and sunnier by afternoon. We enjoyed the baboons and beautiful birds that we had never seen before. We saw many elephants and some were very close to us. We came to an area with an expanse of shallow water and beautiful white and pinkish b

Monday, June 26 After a breakfast buffet in Rhino Lodge we packed up and Abass started our drive into Ngorongoro Crater, 1,000 sq miles of crater floor from volcanic activity long ago. It is a gigantic natural crater floor surrounded by steep mountain walls with all the African animals that we love to see in pictures and in videos like Planet Earth. Laura and I were thrilled to see the first set of zebras and Abass, knowledgeable about all things taught us lots. Things like .

Sunday, June 25 Safari Day! We left at 3:15 am for our journey to Dar Es Salaam airport with Ashley, Laura, Tuma, Emma their little son Derrick and Rahema who is their 16 year old housemaid/nanny. Didase drove and the car was packed. Luckily our flight on a small propeller plane was uneventful since it was Rahema's first flight and she was a little nervous. The escalator had been scary enough. Laura distracted her with taking selfies during take off. Seeing the tallest free s