A Week of Finals

  Another week, another blog post

  This whole week has been a challenge. It's been on goodbye after another, filled with 'this is the last time I'm doing X.' There hasn't been a time on this trip I haven't enjoyed. Everything from the projects to the relaxing to the people I've shared it all with and I don't think I will ever forget this experience.

  Tuesday 22nd was a day of recovery. The bus journey on Monday really took it out of us so we stayed away from work and went into town in order to collect supplies for the journey to Kilimanjaro Airport and beyond. A number of us got talking about how close the end of this Tanzanian adventure was. It's so weird how close all of us have become over such a short span of time.

  Wednesday 23rd was my last day working at the school. I put in the extra 20% and managed to complete the concrete slab covering the toilet hole! Working on the toilet hole has been a 2 month challenge which I have thoroughly enjoyed. From digging the hole, building the foundations and, finally, laying the slab. It was sad to leave it but I feel that I have left the project in a suitable state for others to come and carry on the good work.

  Thursday 24th and Friday 25th have been days of community project work. Myself and the other campers who are leaving at the end of the month have been getting involved with small projects in the local village. The activities ranged from re-learning how to cook Chipattis and Vichettis to cutting firewood alongside the women of the village. I also took part in weaving grasses in order to make items for sale, such as hats, mats, food covers and an all manner of different things. All the way through there were little children coming to to see what we were up to and playing around us. It was a wonderful two days of interacting with the local community.

  Saturday 26th saw me and the  friends I've made this trip go to one the local restaurants and have a nice, fancy meal together. We enjoyed a balcony view as we reminisced about the last two months together and began to arrange plans to see each other again someday. A great deal of travelling is going to end up happening so I can meet all the wonderful people I've met here.

  Sunday 27th went by far too quickly. I made my goodbyes to freinds I'd made in the village and visited Balah, one particular gentleman who lost his working goat when we were working in the village. Alongside other people in the camp, I helped to buy Balah a new goat so he would be able to buy new clothes for his infant son, Duma. It was such an experience seeing the new goat, Gemima, and knowing that we had done something to make at least one family's life better.

  Monday 28th has been tough. We made our farewells to the campers who were staying for the third month and set off for Moshi. Saying goodbye to those guys, people I've shared two months of my life with, choked me up. I'm so lucky to have met people who have made me think of Camp Tanga as my home, a place of friendship, love and trust that made me feel so safe to be in. I am not going to forget those guys any time soon.

  I wish that I was able to stay for the next month with all my new friends. At the same time I cannot wait for the next step in my journey, South Africa! Very soon Julian will be a running feature of my blog.

See you all on the flipside!

Safari, Arts and Wildlife Work

  Apologies for the delayed blog post. I have been far, far away from any wifi for quite some time. It's been incredible but I'm glad to be back to tell you all about it!

  Technology tip for the week: when going on safari, don't drown your camara so that your only way of taking photos is an iPad with no optical zoom. It's a pain in the arse when the animals aren't right next to the bus!

  Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th were safari days. The journeys were quite long ones (between 5 & 7 hours) but once we arrived into Saadani National Park it all started to become worth it. On the way in some baboons posed for pictures, a warthog was rooting around for grubs just outside a small village where we stopped for lunch and on the actual game drive we saw a great number of giraffes and a whole herd of elephants! It was something else. Lions greeted us early Sunday morning and the hippos made plenty of appearances on the river cruise. On the way back the bus broke down! At least I'm not the only one breaking stuff this trip!

  Monday 14th was a recovery day. My neck was supremely sore so I spent a day with one of the guys, Harry, who has broken his foot (kicked the floor during football.) We hopped camp and spent a day doing arts and crafts! The marine conservation program uses flip flops washed up onto the beaches to make key rings, juggling balls and other cool knick knacks. I made a fish and a juggling ball, they look totally sweet!

  Tuesday 15th was the second day of arts and crafts. This day Harry and I were joined by the rest of the groups to all mess around with the flip flops and make some things. I helped people who were stuck and admired the artwork of the resident artist, Benson. He does lots of landscape pieces and I've bought a canvas of a cheetah mother and her cubs. Camps has really stuck gold with Benson, he's such a wizard with his art.

  Wednesday 16th saw us return to the school and begin covering our toilet hole with the concrete slab. It's messy work and I managed to cover one of my feet in fresh concrete, like the sensible soul I am! The hole has really come along and everyone in the original group is so proud of it!

  Thursday 17th was a day of continuous travel. A group of us packed our bags and journeyed across Tanzania to do wildlife project work. The game reserve we're working in, Ndarakwai, is 11,000 acres large and took us a grand 10 hours to reach! Living in England hasn't prepared me for such long journeys. A 10 hour drive in England would either end in mainland Europe or the ocean! It's a real eye opener as to how massive the world is.

  Friday 18th saw us all begin work around the game reserve. The managers eased us in with Elephant Dung paper making in the morning and using animal snares to make art pieces. They were both great fun to do and we got to do them in the middle of the African bush, far away from the busy world. It was such an amazing experience.

  Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th both began with us working around a water hole, dredging the existing channels and digging new ones so the water can flow through the dry season. It was tough and muddy but oh so rewarding! On both days we had herds of Zebras, Wilderbeasts and Elands waiting expectantly to finish our work! The afternoons were spent clearing invasive plants from the reserve (Mexican Poppies, thorny little things) and visiting a Massai Boma. The Boma was such a culture shock, coming from a life with so much and seeing people living a happy and content life with hardly anything at all. It made me have a long think about what I came out here for.

  Monday 21st marks the beginning of my last 10 days in Tanzania. The majority of the time was spent on the coach back to Tanga. It gave me plenty of time to reflect on my voyage so far and I'm so glad I made the effort to save up, organise and journey into the unknown to do my bit to help others. At the same time I can't wait to start my South African portion of my adventure and return home to share my stories.

  The work I've done in Ndarakwai, even if it was for only a few days, has been something I wouldn't have missed for the world. Being the guests in the wildlife's domain and meeting a truly opposite culture to my own has been outstanding! It's made me so eager to go out and experience more of this incredible world we live in.

Goodwill to you all and see you on the flipside!

Week One With The Newbies

  Another week down, another blog post.

  Saturday 5th was spent celebrating one of the original crew, Eilish's birthday! We got her a cake and spent a night in jubilation at the new camp. All the new people are friendly and have meshed with the old group really well. On a different note I have managed to burn through a whole pen so far! I'm down a pen that was brand new when I started the trip. That's what I get for writing essays for journal entries!

  Sunday 6th carries on the tradition of lazy Sundays. The newbies were quite restless all day, wanting to do something. They'll learn, in time, the ways of lazy Sunday. Bryony and I managed to be roped into showing the school children, who had just arrived, where the beach was and how to get to it. We both then did no activity for the rest of the day in true Sunday spirit!

  Monday 7th was our first day working with the newbies at the school. I stuck to bricklaying in the hole (which is nearly done) and the newbies began some projects of their own. The original crew's dynamic hasn't been too badly affected by the swarm of people. We're all far too resilient for that! I have formed and maintained a dream team with two of the guys from the OG crew, Mike and Jonny, and we've got so much of the hole done ourselves now!

  Tuesday 8th has been an exercise day. Along with work, I've begun running back from the school with Jonny & Mike and doing early morning exercises with a number of people around the camp. It's hard work but that's nothing new on this African voyage! Work continued with the dream team laying in more bricks. Another member, Victoria, has joined us and aced through a lot of the middle partition of the hole by herself! She's a real trooper. 

  

  Wednesday 9th rocked me up and down quite a bit! Instead of going to the two wildlife camps I am only going to one, Ndarakwai, for a four day wildlife program. Everyone has been shaken up by the news and we all had a long talk with the managers about the change and what was going to happen instead. The new camp manager, Gladiss, has been extremely helpful about it all and is organising extra community work in the village for us to make up for the reduced wildlife work. It's not the two weeks I was expecting but it's so much better than nothing at all!

  Thursday 10th was a work day back to old school manual digging. The walls and central partition of the toilet hole have been completed! Congrats everyone who helped out with it this far! I was part of the team that now has the mission to clear away all the dirt and soil from around the hole so that we have plenty of space for moving on and beginning to work on the actual building. 

  The other teams have finished painting the inside of the classroom that I helped to re-floor. It's been a long haul for so many of our projects but I feel that we're seeing proper progress! It makes all the effort worth it when you see all that you've done.

  Friday 11th has been a day of furious preparation. A number of us at the camp have organised a second safari trip as a supplement to the one that we will be doing at the end of July. It's been frantic because we only started organising it on Thursday! All of us raced from work into Tanga town to get our money, supplies and internet before getting back to camp for a briefing with the safari organiser. We're going to be doing a jeep ride one day and a boat tour the other! I can't wait to see all the animals!

  Best wishes to all of you out there and I shall see you on the flip-side!

One Month Down

Another week, another blog post!

  First, I have made a discovery. I installed the Blogger app to my iPad before leaving for Africa and have only just found out that I can prepare blog posts when I'm offline! So my lesson to learn this week is always double check what your functions are!

  Saturday 28th was a party day. It was the one month crew's last Saturday with everyone so we had a big night to celebrate. During the afternoon a number of us wandered into the nearby village to watch a local football match. Nearby a goat had caught it's head in a rope fence so we valiantly set it free and got it back to the herd. Early evening was a collection of drinking games and a little bit of dinner to add some variety. Eventually we all hired some taxis, hit the town and danced crazy for the night. I had an absolutely cracking time!

  Sunday 29th was a slow, lazy day. I awoke to discover that I have cracked the screen of my iPad! It's only around the home button but still a total pain. I've got to stop breaking things. I kept migrating from sun to shade and back again throughout the day and joined a small venture to the beach in order to swim in the sea. It all made for a relaxing time.

  Our camp manager, Eustace, has informed us that we will be moving to a new camp so that we don't have to share with a bunch of school children that are arriving at some point next month. We have also been told that Kenya is too unsafe to visit so we will be travelling to two game reserves in Tanzania instead. We have also got our work permit photos and $200 back!

  Monday 30th marks the final day of June and the halfway point for my adventure in Tanzania. It's felt like it's gone so fast and I've still got so much to do! The toilet hole has come along really well with us building the walls for the pit and preparing for the floor to be put in. The walls have only had 2 days of work on them and they're already reached 5ft high. I also received a message from home telling me my accommodation for university has been accepted! It's a wonderful day :)

  Tuesday 1st has been a fun start to the month. One of my tent mates, Mike, and I have had a real bro day. Everything from deep conversations to jamming to music on my iPad. He's a Yorkshire lad through and through and makes for a top tent mate. It's been such a great time making friends out here.

  Wednesday 2nd was a long hard battle to lay a single brick. We eventually got it done but it took way too long! In the evening I indulged my creative side and wrote a couple of mini stories about people in camp. I've started getting requests so my free time will be kept occupied!

  Thursday 3rd started with exercise of all things! I joined some of the others to do a morning workout and spent the rest of the day sore. A load of new arrivals have joined us today and our total has leapt ahead to an incredible 50 strong! It's a good thing we're moving to a bigger camp!

  Friday 4th saw us make our move to the new camp. It's larger than the old one and has a house for a social space. Instead of going to school we chased goats around the local village, attempting to de-worm them! Not to blow my own trumpet but my inner vet was having a field day. I was loving it!

  I've had one incredible month already and I cannot wait for what the rest of July has in store for me! The safari camp may interfere with my blog uploads but I shall do my best to find a way around it.

See you all next week (I hope!)