Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!

We have finally arrived in Kigoma. After another long and dusty 9 hours car ride we have arrived and man is it worth it! We are staying at the most beautiful hotel on lake Tanganyika. The drive was dusty beyond belief. Myself being particularly prone to car sickness, I sat in the front seat with the window rolled down. We aren't just talking plain dust from country roads, we are talking RED CLAY, dust storm, dust that not only dyes the trees colors but also my pale white skin! It is safe to say it is a few shades "redder". The long drive was well worth the view :) Our hotel is not only overlooking the deepest lake in Africa, but it is also home to 5 punda milias (zebras) that roam around, climbing stairs, eating the grasses, and welcoming costumers. Marilyn, Efraem, and I enjoyed taking pictures with them and are now getting ready to enjoy some bia biridi and some local food for dinner. We are heading out tomorrow around 8am for some "chimp trekking". Fingers crossed and please say a prayer that Efraem is able to join us. We will have a Gombe guide tomorrow, but have assured Efraem that he has driven us this far.... there is no way he is not going to join us! He is afraid that the locals will not allow him to come over on the 2 hours boat ride with us!

We look forward to frolicking amongst the chimpanzees and are so very blessed to be taking part in such a once in a life time experience! Can't wait to share stories and pictures with you tomorrow!

Here on some pictures from todays travels:

Trek before the trekking!

As if we hadn't already had enough travel, we started out our day at 11pm..... why you might ask?!?! Well jetlag is why! Marilyn and I enjoyed a pizza and some drinks on the Impala Hotel patio and were amazing to confirm it was only 7pm. Both of us were more than ready for bed so we decided, why not! We were getting up at 5:30 am anyways for an early start, being in bed by 8 couldn't be such a terrible idea.... boy did we think wrong! Both of us were WIDE awake at 11pm. Marilyn suggested a cold serengeti and I was not to argue. We enjoy our cold drinks, some internet, and reading hoping that it would do the trick. This was not the case. We both remained awake until the wee hours of the morning and had probably just fallin back asleep by the time our alarm sounded at 5:45!!! Oh well! We had a long drive ahead of us that we knew we would have ample time to sleep during.

We made our way to breakfast and loaded up the Land Cruiser for the long journey ahead :) A short stop for the choo (bathroom) was all we needed until our half way stop for chips ma yai (french fries and eggs... a staple of our Tanzanian diet!) We then headed on the rest of the way. It took us a total of 9 1/2 hours to arrive at our "third of the way there" point, Kihama. The drive was extremely beautiful. We got to view a side of Tanzania that we had never seen before. It was just a glimpse into what lay ahead :) We had to drive around a bit to find a sufficient "guest house" for the evening accommodations. The town of Kihama was busting. It has been quickly growing due to the Australian "gold minding" company that has taken route just outside of town. We were also interested to learn that diamond mining has become a big thing in TZ, as well as the gold mining... none of which is owned or operated by Tanzanians :/

The three of us finally found a place to call home for the evening at "Pine Ridge Hotel". It was much like the "resort" hotel we like to stay at on our way to Ngorogoro crater. As long as it had a bed, warm showering water, and a cold beer we were happy with it! We checked in and grabbed some wonderful food for dinner and then decided to hit the sack before heading out again for our driving adventures at 8am tomorrow. Our plan is to drive to Kigoma, stay the night, and then head out for a 2 hour boat ride in the morning to Gombe National Park. From there we will take a "trek" to locate the chimps! We are so thrilled! This is something we have talked about doing for years now and are so happy to share it for the first time with Efraem, who will also be visiting for the first time :)

We look forward to sharing those adventures with you! Stay tuned!
Usikumwema (good night!)

A day to relax....

I'm not so sure you would call it relaxing but Marilyn and I spent the day running all over Arusha getting things accomplished and purchased. First on our list was reactivsting our cell phones and getting an internet modem for our computers. Sorry again mom for calling at 4am. I definitely counted the difference in hours wrong!

Now that we had connections, we headed to the book store and found some "school" workbooks that will help both Marilyn and I learn Swahili, aswell as, supply us with more teaching materials! We had a lovely American meal at an outside restaurant, then made our way to the shop rite for some cookies for our travels tomorrow.

As we drove off for our return home, Marilyn and I spotted a shop that we HAD to stop at :) we both purchased obnoxious tie-dyed comfy pants and some gifts for our illustrators! We're certain Efraem was sick of our lists of demands so we headed home to enjoy our new reading materials, Internet, and a bia biridi.

We are headed out early tomorrow for the long drive to Gombe. The plan is drive about 9 hours and then stop in a quaint village for the night. We will drive the rest of the way on Wednesday. We cannot wait to cross lake Tanganika to see the chimpanzees :)

We look forward to sharing our "trekking" adventures with you all!
God bless and Happy First Monday for all you teachers!

Back in the T Z of A

We have arrived alive! All is well in our world! We were greeted by an enthusiastic Efraem who carried a happy birthday/welcome back sign for Marilyn and I. The flight from Addis was short and sweet. We managed to exchange some money, stop at a curio to purchase Marilyn a birthday gift, and head to the Impala Hotel for a shower, bia biridi (cold beer), and a short cat nap. This evening we have plans to celebrate Marilyn's birthday with a nice dinner at the Impala with Efraem, Winnie, and there daughter Efrancia! We are so excited to reunite with our Tanzanian family :) we will be even more excited for a relaxing day in Arusha tomorrow. No plans on tap accept for running a few necessary errands before Gombe National Park on Tuesday!

We will have access to Internet while at the Impala for today and tomorrow, but are unsure of our access accommodations in Gombe! Marilyn and I have begun discussing further topics for our course at the university and are excited for the rest of our time in Tanzania now that we are officially here! We have made it out mission to learn as much Swahili as we can while here! We have vowed to practice as much as possible, and with Efraem by our side it should be exceptional :)

Best of luck to those back home! We are anxious for our teammates to get here and hope that they are expert packers and schleppers for their own long journey here! We will be able to drop course materials, including the 300 some story books off at the tour office and not have to worry about them for our week in Gombe ::::hooray::::

Until next time,
Kwaheri

Here are some great shots of Marilyn's birthday celebratory dinner with Efraem and family. We had a blast and had plenty of cake left so that Efranzia had breakfast the next day :)

Here we go a schlepping!

Our day, thankfully, began around 8am this morning with a wonderful complimentary breakfast at the Toronto Hilton hotel :) we managed to fuel up enough to schlep our bags from the room onto the shuttle. We were pretty proud of ourselves for making it all the way to the Ethiopian Airlines check in counter with no help from any men! The airline staff was soooo helpful. It was faith that there were only a few others in line. They let us open bags, weigh them, and move stuff around as much as we needed to! We had a few books pulled out on stand by in case we needed any fire power to back our good intentions. Again, God must have been on our side because the "weigher" wasn't working properly so we only got charged for 2 heavy bags instead of the 3 that it should have been. It was partially in part to the attendant paying little to no attention. $120 later we were rid of bags and no longer had to worry about schlepping until we arrived in Arusha, where we would then have Efraem's help :).... (We can only hope).

On to the gate we went with a short finall Starbucks stop for a dirty chai! In line to board a gentleman in front of us noticed my Kansas license. He inquired where abouts we were from and was pleasantly surprised we both were from Kansas, in Toronto, heading to Tanzania via Ethiopia. To make things an even smaller world, come to find out his very outgoing daughter who was his traveling companion just finished her first grade year with Mallory Vielock, my freshman year dorm hall roommate!!!! How ironic! We had fun visiting with them and Arianna, of course had to come visit, color, and sing with us in the long flight.

We made it through the grueling 13 hours writing many a thank yous, reading some new books, and watching a few movies. It truly did go by pretty quick! Here we sit in the Ethiopian airport awaiting our next and final flight to Kilamonjaro. We are little like kids on Christmas full of excitement to finally reunite with Efraem. We are thankful to have Internet and to be enjoying fresh squeezed orange juice after our day/night/ afternoon (we're rather unsure at this point) of travel. Only a few more hours and we will be back on Tanzanian soil :)

Best wishes and god bless to everyone at home! We look forward to sharing pictures of our schlepping adventures soon :) until then, kwaheri!

From one "T" to the other!

Marilyn and I managed to get ourselves to Toronto! We started our travels with a mess of luggage in KC around 3. The question being, better to take three bags or 2 super heavy ones??? It was a matter of ease for us. Three bags a piece we simply could not handle. Thankfully we were greeted with a more than willing "attendant" who understood our efforts were pure. He charged us what he had to and we paid the $200 to get our 250 pounds of luggage in check! This shocking amount, however, did not include our now heavily weighed down carry on suitcases and "personal items" (AKA FULLY LOADED BACKPACKS) Off to Toronto we went.

The flight was average! The women in line a head of us to check luggage ended up being a seat mates! :::: eye roll :::: she had a yorkie in a vented "doggie carrier" but the little yipper managed to stay quiet throughout the flight until we landed at which time he probably realize he had taken a snooze and now needed to go potty! We made our way through the crazy long and dull airport to baggage claim, where we claimed our elephant load of baggage. If it weren't for the carts we're not sure we could have managed. It was then time to locate the hotel shuttle. We managed to do so with ease, waiting a bit, and hopped on. We're pretty sure we were the best (or rather most challenging) passengers the driver had seen in a while. He was little help so we loaded ourselves and drove the 5 minute ride to the Hilton where we had plans to catch some z's before catching our flight to Tanzania (with a 2 hour stop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian) tomorrow at 11.

Marilyn and I enjoyed a wonderful meal at the hotel restaurant and bar. Our "peach bellini's" were delicious and we hope they help us have a restful nights sleep before the long flight tomorrow. We enjoyed convsersing about all the new adventures we were going to have this year, as well as, the ones we were going to get to share with our families!

That's all we have for now. Stay tuned for our further travel ventures tomorrow! We are really hoping we can turn on the water works when we have to re-check baggage tomorrow.... which means re-talking the counter assistance into not charging us much for the extremely heavy luggage in tow!!! Wish us luck and pray for safe travels!

XO from Toronto!
Kwaheri!

Another year in the "T"

It is seriously hard to believe we are preparing for another summer in Tanzania. We have made HUGE efforts throughout the school year. It seems like yesterday we were meeting to discuss our publishing efforts that have flourished into something we never imaged!

For those that do not know. We have published 7 children books in both English and Swahili. It was a dream that began while we were in Lushoto last summer at the Irente Children's Home. Mama Ndamu (head House Mother of the home) began sharing "fables" around the playground of the facility. We were so intrigued by her capturing expressive story. Even though we couldn't understand but a few words, we could tell the children loved it and loved participating with her. Marilyn and the rest of the team from the 2012 summer decided we needed to put these stories into written form. Children in Tanzania have little access to story books in their native language, especially children up in the more remote areas of Tanzania. Therefore, the "Hadithi za bibi" (Tales of the Grandmother)literacy "books in a bag" project was born!

We began by collecting fables from our university students at SEKUCO. Our students were so enthusiastic and more than willing to share their tales. After returning to the states, our most beloved guide, Efraem, translated the stories for us (thank you thank you thank you). From there, we began employing local Manhattan illustrators. Courtney Smith (Marlatt Elementary Art Teacher), Diane Dollar, Royce Kitts, and Marian  got to work making beautiful artwork to fit the uniquely written stories. From there it was up to our team to find a local publishing company that would be willing to help us "newbies" publish this wonderful books. Able To Print in Aggieville was just the place. It was in the heart of the "Little Apple" and presented the "small business" atmosphere we appreciated. "Danny" our go to guy gave me (Nicole) the run down of the exact editing process. It was then my job to take the original images, edit them in Photoshop, add text, save as PDF, and send to the publishers for printing. This process was easier said than done.....

The books were complete.... or so we thought! So who wouldn't post pics on facebooks :) We wanted to share our superb creations. Thank the lord above that Efraem (our beloved guide) saw the images and mentioned that there were errors ::::::GASP::::::: no need to panic though, Able Printing was able to clear up the mishap so long as I could correct the text. (again easier said than done). We were down to the wire, but as of 1:30pm on Thursday, May 24th the books are in our possession and completely packed!!!! Nothing like last minute preparations to get you ready for your 4th summer in Tanzania!

We couldn't be more proud of the work we have accomplished throughout this school year. The team and I have raised over $2,000 to publish literacy materials for school children with disabilities in Tanzania, Africa. God has blessed up beyond belief and we are so excited to share our work with Tanzanians. Our efforts were not complete without weekly "bag packing parties" for the months leading up to our travels. We enjoyed putting the bags together and are so thankful that Anna's mom was able to make the 88 bags full of not only story books, but also activities to go along with the stories, markers, glue sticks, scissors, and more! We hope that both our University Students and families we contact through outreach enjoy them as much as we do!

Marilyn and I leave for an overnight in Toronto before heading on to Istanbul and then Tanzania tomorrow at 3:45pm. Tune in for more traveling adventures. We are thrilled to spend 6 weeks in our most favorite place on Earth. Here are a list of new adventures you can look forward to hearing about:
- Gombe National Park where the famous Jane Goodall did her work with Chimpanzees
- Teaching an actual course at the nearly re-named SEKUMO teacher training college
- "Dorm-like" living on the University grounds, fully equipped with our own "house keeper" :)
- May weather ::::dun dun dun:::: rainy season in the jungle like mountains should make for some interesting conditions.
- Girls Weekend in ZANZIBAR!!!!! Island oasis here we come!!!!
- Finally..... Family Safari in the never before visited Serengeti National Park (we better be seein' some leopards Efraem!!!)

I hope you will enjoy reading our travels as much as we enjoy taking part in this always changing project. We wish you all the best as your summers begin and ask that you keep us in your prayers. Tanzania or BUST 2013!

P.S. Don't forget to visit our official website humanitylooksgood.com or our donation page at
  https://secure.piryx.com/donate/IE5Tlw7f/Humanity-Looks-Good-on-Everyone/

The rest of our team will be coming over late June so will be available to pick up further materials if funds are donated before they travel ;)