Hello all!

In exactly 1 week from today we will be leaving or preparing to leave the Udzungwa Ecological Monitoring Center here in Mang’ula and will be on our way to Dar es Salaam! I am actually going to be really sad to leave the UEMC. We have great locals who work with us and it is pretty comfy. We have all made multiple comments about bringing out cook, Justin, back with us to the US. This guy does amazing things with food. It’s all so healthy (other than the carb overload) and yummy – I will miss him!

In exactly 2 weeks from today I will have been home for almost a full day! How crazy is that?! I can’t believe we are this far in. When I first signed up for this study abroad experience, I thought I would be ready to go by now but I am not at all! I’m already trying to think of ways I can make it back to Africa in the future. I’ve got the travel fever.

 Now it seems like things are moving so quickly. We have our big semester projects to complete before Friday plus a paper due on Tuesday and paper due on Saturday! Wheww! It is going to be an intense workweek here in Mang’ula.

We have all decided and finalized our semester projects. We have such an array of topics being covered. Some are working with the village of Tundu – creating design projects for water runoff, roads, population growth and alternative fuel usage. We have some people working on projects for the UEMC here – designing an alternative fuel demonstration and creating a mock website for marketing the park and local village to tourists. My project is really great for my two majors (management and community development). I will be creating a management guide-booklet for development plans. I am pretty excited about it but I have A LOT of work to do – a lot of people to talk to and a lot of information to find. Plus we don’t have access to internet so we are forced to work with what we got. It should be a huge growing experience. In the real world we may not have internet or alternative databases to work with communities. It really forces us to work harder and stretch ourselves.

Amidst all out work here we have been finding time for some fun. Last night we went into town to watch the USA world cup match against Britain. Although it was something so normal, it was exciting. I’m not really sure what type of building there was but the set up was great! A projector was playing the live game up against the entire wall. We all sat back in our lawn chairs and enjoyed with some locals. It is great how interested people are in soccer. I know we have big fan bases for sports in America but it kind of makes me wish we were a big soccer country. It is a pretty interesting (and impressive!) sport. Plus the US tied so we were able to walk away with some bit of pride. It is just so interesting how a normal day activity can be something completely new.

I made another attempt to post pictures but it failed miserably. So sorry.

I don’t really know if I will have any time or any subject matter to write about for the next few days but you can expect to hear from me once I make it to Dar. Wish us luck on our work and travels!

Location: Mang'ula, Tanzania