Saturday, August 13, 2011

Field Trip!

Ok so I have been neglecting my blog as per usual, but this time I actually have stories to tell. Hmm where to start...

For my birthday I went to the saba saba (7-7) mnada (market) and spent the week grading exams. I then became old and did something painful to my back/leg that won me a trip to Dar. I'm still not sure what I did and what went wrong but whatever I am slowly recovering.
When I got back I learned that CBG field trip to the Ngorongoro crater, shifting sands, and dupye gorge. After a day of trying to get permission to go to something that I already had permission for and planned to do I went.
I showed up at 5:45am ready to leave at 6. Um...no one was there. At last (around 6:20)the two land rovers come. From school to town wasn't bad...the kids were squished in the car but I had my own seat. Then we got to town and the mkuu (headmaster) magically appeared and took my seat. So I got the joy of doing the crater Tanzanian style and sat on top of another teacher and the corner of the wooden console. To add insult to injury now not only did my left side hurt from before but now my right side hurt in a different way.
We went to the gorge of dupye (spelling) where the first hominid fossils were found. Then we went to the shifting sands. Over years this sand made from a volcano keep moving as the shifting sands. It is super fun to play in and watch move. The students loved taking pictures and playing in it as did I. We then went to a hill to eat lunch consisting of bread, muffins, and soda. After lunch we crammed back into the car and headed toward the crater. The crater: going down the crater is like driving down the side of a mountain. It's super steep and winding and with an overloaded car with 20 people I sometimes wondered if the car would tip over or make it down and then back up okay.
I saw awesome scenery and animals including lions (male and female), ostriches, a bird i've never seen, zebras, baboons, elephants, camels (so cool), twiga (giraffes), a warthog, and wildebeests. The rest stop in the crater had zebras surrounding it which the students successfully scared away.
then we were running out of time because the gates closed at six and we had to go back up the crater and then back down the other side. so we carefully rushed up the side of the winding narrow road of the crater and then rushed back down the curvy green side to head to town and eat chipsi mayai. By the end of the day I had a great time, minus the pain. I got some awesome pictures but my memory card got a virus and hid all my photos, but alas I finally got it fixed and some photos are up and sent.

Back at school my students are preparing for the mock national exam and finals. Who knows what will happen in September but will try to update.
Baadaye