Hello Everyone,
Apologies for not writing anything up here ever and a big "Thanks!"
for all the Birthday messages. I just wanted to quickly write that my
homecoming (to Seattle) is set to be:
9th November at 11:20am
And after a quick week to start settling in, I plan to head home to
Spokane for a couple weeks. Southern Thailand is quite beautiful and
sends it's love, but I am So looking forward to seeing everyone in a
little over a week!
-Ryan
Hey everyone,
First please be advised that my pushing back of my arrival date does not mean I don't want to come home -- quite the contrary. This is officially my last night in Africa, although being at a backpackers with free internet is blowing my mind and really doesn't feel like Africa anyway. We (Kendra and I) are currently in Jo-burg, South Africa and there is no need to worry for our safety in a notoriously crimey city because we've taken every precaution and we are staying in our hostel until the shuttle takes us to the airport tomorrow, and the plane will take us on to Thailand! (by way of Abu Dhabi, UAE)
Anyway, not much time now, here are a few pictures from our last leg in Africa. Thank you to Kendra for being a good photographer (I never takes pictures unless I see a cool bug or a cool cloud):
* The sun sets beautifully off of Chizumulu Island, Malawi. (we got "stuck" there for longer than we expected--hard not to really)
* We spent two nights at the luxurious Nkwichi lodge on the Mozambique side of the Lake Malawi (a.k.a. Niassa). It was expensive for the delicious food, but worth it to pamper ourselves.
* Another picture of the white sand at Nkwichi, which means "It squeaks" in the local language, because that's exactly what the sand does when you walk across it.
* The coolest most disturbingly majestic trees I've ever seen, Baobabs are everywhere. The reason is that their wood is porous so bad for firewood and making things so local peoples haven't chopped them down yet. (Fun cartoon trivia for 10 pts: which movie trapped the villain in a baobab?)
* Me and Kendra enjoying yet another beach.
* A picture of me sneaking around the corner of the fort on Ilha de Mozambique. There was a gorgeous church on the point that you had to climb a bit to get to.
* A cool picture of Tofo/Tofinho in Mozambique. This is where we planned to surf and dive. Unfortunately I got sick so all I could do was a silly Ocean Safari where I went snorkeling with 20 foot Whale Sharks (the biggest fish in the world) and manta rays? I know, big deal right?
Loves and misses you all, will be home before too long.
I'm still alive, no worries. Spent a lot more time than we thought around Lake Malawi (beautiful and amazing). Will write more later. Currently in Cuamba, Mozambique.
Cheers,
Ryan
God Pose on the top of Mount Hanang, Tanzania's 4th highest peak. It was a lot of fun to visit Tara in her village, pick up a few words in Swahili and also have her accompany us on our ascent.
A wide angle view of beautiful snorkeling off of Pemba, Zanzibar Archipelago's northern island.
Nungwi beach on "Zanzibar" island. A little touristy, but an amazing place to relax and spend a few days being a beach bum.
Happily wiling away the hours on the beach with $5 of collective sunglassware.
Tropical sunset from Pemba.
Also check out, Kendra's Blog (link is fixed now, ha ha). She's better at writing stuff than me.
I don't have a lot of time to write now (I'm hoping to write some new posts on the long bus rides we're expecting on our way South), so here's just a few pictures to tide you over until then.
In the last week before leaving my site I had two major parties. One was a bit more formal and put together by the teachers, PTA, and SMC (School Management Committee). With a number of speeches, some music, and a feast afterwards I felt very filled up by all of the wonderful thanks that I had received.
Sorry to have been so quiet on the blog. To tell the truth, not too much is going on. The term has started so I've transitioned from digging in the morning and teaching computer classes in the afternoons/evenings, to doing random work in the mornings and teaching computer classes in the afternoons/evenings. Good ol' same ol'. The extra time to give trainings, add resources to the computers, and lock them down as much as possible has been good and we're transitioning towards a time when I won't be here to manage it.
So, things are going well, and there's definitely a sense of my upcoming departure. The computer lab is functioning well and getting lots of use, which is all we can really ask/hope for. I have yet to organize the Thank You DVD of pictures and videos and what, but I hope to have that finished and sent out sometime early next month. Also, some more serious thoughts of the future and job and transitioning back into normal American life are beginning to grumble up into consciousness a bit too.
The only other news I have is that there's an All Volunteer Conference (AVC) coming up at the end of the month. It's really awesome that we're having one this year as this volunteer-work-sharing-get-together had been indefinitley cancelled due to budget concerns by the previous Uganda director. The new director, Dr. J. Larry Brown, however, agreed with volunteers that if it's taken seriously and we share and network, there's a lot that we can learn from each other and different ways that we can work together. As volunteers who come into country in fairly large groups we tend to network very well within our training class, but inter-class communication isn't as good as it could be, and it's always better to tell someone how to make a wheel instead of them having to reinvent it (which seems to happen all too often in "development").
Posts
All Comments
