Tanzania

Today has been a very emotional day for me. I can’t help but reflect on the time I’ve spent in Tanzania. All the ups and downs. The frustrations that ended in laughter. The growth (mentally and physically… hah). All the wonderful people I’ve gotten to know on my journey here. Asante sana, Tanzania. A piece…

I’ll miss the colors. Everywhere you turn in Tanzania you’ll find a rainbow of kangas and kitenges, whether they are being worn as garments or baby carriers or thrown over a clothes line to dry. I’ll miss being constantly impressed by the new things I see women balancing on their heads. I’ll miss being referred…

Last weekend finally felt like Christmas. I was beyond stoked to be able to return to The Baobab Home, an orphanage I visited when I first came to Tanzania. The purpose for our visit was to do a little volunteer work that we’ve been promising/meaning to do forever, and also to deliver toys from the…

Today marks one year since my family of three said our goodbyes to friends, family, and everything that was familiar to us and embarked on our journey to Africa. I remember anxiously sitting in the airport, and then plane (and then another couple of airports and another couple of planes) wondering what our new life…

  Bongoyo Island is a small, uninhabited island off the coast of Dar. It has a beautiful beach and a forest you can hike through. If you have your own boat you can get there in about 10 minutes. If not, you can pay 15,000 shillings (about $10) to ride a ferry over there that…

Prison Island, known locally as Changuu Island, is a small island off the coast of Stone Town. It was originally built up to be a prison, but ended up being a place to quarantine people with Yellow Fever. To get there, you can pay a boat driver a negotiable amount of money. Or you can…

During our trip to Zanzibar, we took a sunset snorkel cruise on a traditional dhow. The snorkeling part wasn’t so great. The captain dropped us off in about 45 feet of water, which was probably awesome for SCUBA diving, but not so much for snorkeling (at least when you’re pregnant and not able to freedive…

Last week I finally visited Zanzibar for the first time. Zanzibar is an archipelago off the coast of Tanzania and home to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Stone Town. It’s a really popular destination for travelers from all over the world (except the United States, it seems). It’s kind of crazy that I had…