Zach

Hey, just got to Mwanza from Kigali and I'm loving it here. The views are fantastic but the internet is sloooow.

Safari...HERE WE COME!

Habari,

After an 8 hour, bumpy, dirty, and significantly awkward bus ride from Benako, we have finally reached Tanzania's second largest city - Mwanza! It is absolutely gorgeous; we are surrounded by beautiful views of Lake Victoria and are preparing/stocking up for the next 3 weeks of exciting activities! We leave for our Safari in just a few days; everyone is EXTREMELY excited! Stay tuned for updates on all the wild animals and adventures that are yet to come... :)
Kwa Heri,

-Kirst

Scavenging

Ian and I (Kathryn) are traipsing around the beautiful city of Mwanza, and enjoying every boiling-hot second of it! We are practicing our Kiswahili with the locals, purchasing congas (sp?), mailing post-cards (expect one in the mail family!) and being led around by yet another Moses. Our hunt for lunch is about to draw us back into the heat!

-Ian and Kathryn

Still in a hotel we can't afford.

Walking around the city today has proved easier then my initial attempt in Kampala. Love the city of Mwanza and love Tanzania from what I've seen of it. Can't wait for the Safari and the Masai visit.

Sincerely,
Kaan (With Lizzie next to me)

In a hotel we can't afford.

Dearest beloved readers,

We are breaking a few social rules and asked a few favors of the locals for our endeavor. For instance we are using a residents only computer in a very cosmo hotel, and asked the kind receptionist if we could use her celly.

Otherwise we love it here, it's a little hot but it's absolutely beautiful. Huge rocks and a lake-side own enraptured us all at the first docking.

xoxo

Lizzie (with Kaan by my side)

Team Bangi (pt 2) DAN &DEV

Today we were spit in teams of two(Guy and Gal) to explore Mwanza,Tanzania.Devon and I are at an internet cafe which is extremely slow,but no worries(acuta matata)we've having lots of fun exploring.

P.S We're Half way done with our trip!crazy huh!
Anyway Toodles

Simply Dan

team bangi (pt. 1)

A haiku written in detication to my current situation:

my back is sweaty
this internet is too slow
drip... drip... down my back.


paz & amor
dev

(p.s. lovin' Tanzania, epitome of all that's beautiful in East Africa)

Goodbye Uganda, Hello Rwanda

Woooh!

It’s been quite an amazing disasters couple of days. As it being our first time planning free travel we’ve learned many valuable lessons. The most important being:

1-It’s not as easy as it sounds

2-Because of number 1 the earlier you plan the better.

3-Little to nothing (more of the latter) works out as planned despite how hard you’ve worked, so roll, roll, and keep on rolling with the punches.

The Matatu that was supposed to pick us up at 3:45 am (in order to get us casually across the boarder) didn’t show up until 6:30am, forcing us to accept that we were not crossing into Rwanda that day. To our advantage (this was another blessing in disguise) we ended up staying in the beautiful small city of Kabale, just 30 minutes outside the Rwandan boarder.

Once in Kabale we stayed at this epic hostel Edirisa, which means window in the local language. The hostel is a CBO whose main goal is to emphasize community development. There we met the man who created this CBO, headed and funded the hostel. He suggested we take an extra day to explore our gorgeous surroundings. We took his advice and the postponed the Rwanda trip for another day to see Lake Bunyonyi. Lake Bunyonyi is truly a treasure in Uganda. We canoed across the beautiful lake and spent the day cooking, working, and discovering more about the local women’s traditions and life style. It was AMAZING! Our day concluded with making various crafts out of papyrus grass and as always getting our groove on to some local beats! There was no better way to spend our accidental extra-extra last day in Uganda!

From there we finally had ourselves organized and headed off to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, which is where we are now. Kigali has been intense and shocking in many ways. The modern fast pace of this city took us all by surprise. It’s almost like being back in the US (or Canada for Kirst) with the double-foam-grande-mocha frappuccino and Mercedes that are parked on every street. Nonetheless we all smiles and soooooooo stoked for our Tanzanian Safari adventure. Everyone sends there love.

Miss you mom and dad and gamma and shmay.

dev dev dev

Spirtual Week

So after we spent a wonderful week working with Youth Encourage Services it was time to say our goodbyes. Jacob(volunteer) luckily volunteered to drive us to our next destination Lake Nkaruba which is only45 minutes away from Fort Portal.When we arrived the first thing everyone notice were the beautiful black and white colobus monkeys and the less attractive vervet monkeys.In the days to follow we practiced yoga daily with our very own Britt Base.The yoga was much need after a week of little to no activate.From their Zik led us through various activites like TOE 2 TOE which is a game were we stand toe to toe with a partner while Zik would shell out questions that we answered like (what does spirtuality mean to you) and so on.In the evening we went on slients hikes and looked for bush babies (needless to say bush babies are Awsome). We also met with two lovely Irish women Margret and farrah who spoke to us about spirtuality,Loving yourself, and other soul searching topics after we practiced meditation(Loved it).Marget and Farrah also acompanied us to visit the Sikh (which is a relgion that origined in India).After a joyest visit with the seek we head back to hostel to have more indepth conversations about spritual week.Spritual Week was wonder experience everyone began to open up more anbout their selfs with was great. Now were Head off to see the chimps.

That is all for Carpe Diem's First ever Spirtual week

Dan

CHIMPANZEEEEES

Hello from Rwanda! We are currently living the luxurious albeit expensive life in Kigali, but you'll have to wait for a future blog post to hear more about that. I am here to catch you all up on what we've been doing on the first half of our free travel (the beginning of this past week). After our rejuvenating retreat at Lake Nkuruba, we did a 180-degree turn away from relaxation and headed north to Budongo Forest Reserve, which is part of Murchinson Falls National Park in search of the elusive CHIMPANZEES!
Our adventure started with an exhilarating matatu drive (if you can classify a slightly terrifying ten-hours packed like sardines in matatu, at extreme speeds over bumpy roads as exhilarating).We had a few bumps in the road (literally) on our way there, but nevertheless pulled through and made it to our desired destination. We were all thrilled to be able to stretch our legs and go chimp trekking/tracking! We were incredibly lucky in this activity, not only because we saw chimps up close, but because in the few days before we arrived the chimps had been in hiding and none of the guides were able to find them! It just so happened that the day we showed up they decided to climb down from their nests and soak up a bit of sunshine. We had to stay at a distance of 30 ft away, and were not allowed to wear yellow or red clothing for fear that they might attack (the yellow and red simulate a flash of a camera which aggravates them). Fortunately, we had nothing but a safe and incredibly satisfying experience.
While the tracking took up the entire morning, we were still free for the afternoon and so decided to head to Murchison Falls to make our day complete. On our way there we saw baboons scampering on the sides of the roads and some buffalo in a watering hole, but they were nothing compared to the sight that awaited us. I think everyone in our group can agree that Murchinson Falls has been the most beautiful waterfall that we've seen in Africa, if not ever. It is a humongous roaring, rapid of a waterfall and we arrived at a perfect time: just as the sun was slowly sinking down and so formed perfect rainbows across the falls. We had a grand time soaking in the sight and the spray from the falls and taking photos.
The following day we headed back to Lake Nkuruba, to let our bums recover from the abuse they received during our matatu ride. We spent the day relaxing, doing laundry, journaling and finalizing more details for free travel. That evening the staff of the campsite performed a little farewell ceremony for us, which was genuinely heartfelt and entertaining. We all headed to bed fairly early that evening as we had to be up at 3:45 the next morning to start the next segment of our free travel!
--Kathryn

Fort Portal - YES Hostel

So as the trip reaches its 3 week mark we are in Fort Portal, Uganda volunteering our time to an NGO. This NGO, Youth Encouragement Services, works with children who are HIV / AIDS positive or have lost all family to the disease. Talking to Carrol (the founder of the organization) truly showed us what situations this children were in before they were helped. Some of the kids were living with a mother who could not care for them because she was so sick from the late stages of the disease, and others were living alone because the disease had already taken their parents. What YES does is it finds these kids who are so misfortuned and brings them into an orphanage.

The one home that we visit and work with is the Manna Rescue Home. Here there are around 20-30 kids who are all HIV positive. At the rescue home they recieve proper nutrition in the form of 3 meals a day, a bed, a playground, the medicine they need to fight the disease, and most importantly the love that these children deserve. It was incredible to play with these children as the littlest interaction could make the smile go from ear to ear. While coloring with the kids our inner children came out as we took the paper and made paper airplanes. Minutes later the kids were outside throwing the planes all over the yard. From coloring, to airplanes, to soccer, to just talking with the kids you can tell that your efforts were most definitely paying off.

Yesterday we also did our fair share of manual labor at the YES farm. This farm was put in place to guarantee that the children always have food. The foundation is also building a house on the property for a farmer to stay there 24/7. If there was not someone there to protect the crop the neighbors would "accidentally" farm into their yard. So yesterday was dedicated to helping around the farm. Britt, Zach, Dan, and Kirsten took the dirty end of all the work when it came to hoeing, weeding, and de-grassing a large area for the farm. Ian, Devon, Kathryn, Lizzie, and I did the more busy work when we had to move bricks and aggregate and move them to another location using shovels and 2 wheelbarrows. And our Super Man Zik took the more skilled end of the labor and plastered and smoothed the inside walls of the house. We all played a big part in moving the farm along.

Since we've been in Fort Portal we've had a few un-welcomed guests. A few thousand to be exact. Last night while some were cleaning dishes and others were inside just have a relaxed evening a whole nest of winged termites came out. Apparently they only come out twice a year and it is only for the purpose of mating. Thankfully the termites did not bite. When Devon, a member of the cleaning crew at the time, turned around in the kitchen looking for her co-leader Britt she had stated that Britt was, "Lost in a tornado of wings". When all was said and done and the termites had done their bussiness all that was left in the morning were wings.

We also had our first Ugandan earthquakes and we didnt even know it. While some were talking about it in the morning others, me being one of them, had no idea it had even happened. I am definitely upset I missed them as I have never felt one before. Zik described it two ways. One being "It was like a train was running through nearby" and the other being "It was almost as elephants were running". But family and friends need not worry as even me in my light sleeping habits did not awake from my beautiful malaria pill affected dreams.

Hope everyone is keeping away from Swine back home. And all other sicknesses as well.

We Love You All,
Kaan Yarar