The students’ final exam was originally scheduled for Thursday, but since many students and teachers did not get much sleep on Wednesday night due to the accident at the military base, we postponed the exam until Friday. In small groups, students spent Thursday afternoon exploring a variety of artisans in…
You may have heard that last evening Tanzania experienced an unfortunate accident at a military base south of the airport. An accident caused an unknown quantity of ammunition to be discharged, which caused explosions that were felt many kilometers away. I wanted to simply report that all the students and…
On Tuesday Dr. Albogast Kamukuru, a marine biologist from the University of Dar es Salaam, gave us a presentation on the challenges and opportunities in managing Tanzania’s marine resources. He emphasized the extreme economic importance of both freshwater and marine fisheries in a country where approximately 5%…
This weekend marks a milestone in our trip (and perhaps the calendar year), as the first of the long rains reached Dar! Praise be to God! On Sunday morning we woke to cloudy and darkening skies and by mid-morning the wind, thunder, and torrential sheets of rain greeted us. If…
Our theme this week has been to explore how the unique attributes of natural resources determine which management approaches should be used for conservation. Forests, fisheries, and soils are very different systems which require unique management approaches depending on their biological attributes — sometimes education is enough, sometimes complete protection,…
Wow, we’ve had a busy few days! On Friday we spent 2 hours with Reverend John Magafu and colleagues discussing environmental justice issues facing rural Tanzanians in relation to the mining industry. Tanzania produces many tons of gold each year, and is ranked 4th in Africa for the most gold…
Wednesday the group came to our house again for unit house. Each week we ask what the students would like on the menu. We consistently get the same answer – fresh fruit! The pineapple, mango, passion fruit, and bananas are tamu sana! (Very sweet). We indulged in a vigorous debate…
In order to further explore the challenges and opportunities Tanzania faces related to education, poverty, and health care we visited WAMATA, a non-profit agency in Dar es Salaam which works to address issues related to HIV AIDS. WAMATA is an acronym for the Swahili phrase “Walio katika mapambano na AIDS…
This morning we all made it to Swahili class without a hitch, this after getting home Sunday evening after a full weekend. An impressive group. Tom Meyers, the SST Director, arrived for a 3-day visit to Tanzania to check in on the program, meet with the Tanzania SST local coordinators,…
We spent the weekend in a small town about an hour north of Dar es Salaam called Bagamoyo. Loosely translated it means “where I lay my heart down.” There are many reasons to visit Bagamoyo, and we tried to take advantage of all of them: we enjoyed the beach, visited…
