City of peace and SAFARI

I went to Dar es Salaam (translated for House of Peace) for 10 days. Dar is a city of close to 5 million people, which is a ton of people, considering that Zanzibar only has 1 million people. It is the largest city in Tanzania, and 2nd largest city in Eastern Africa (following Nairobi, Kenya). Although it is a big city, full of horrendous traffic, the worst air pollution I have ever seen (it was actually difficult to breath some of the time), and even a few skyscrapers (I had forgotten what a building with more then 3 stories looked like!) the people there still live with a village mentality, and the infrastructure surrounding the city is clear evidence of this. Downtown Dar is extremely small for the population of the city, and surrounding downtown are mass amount of small concrete/mud/coral one story homes with tin roofs. Being in Dar reminded me that I am living in a place that is struggling with development. While traveling on the bus to one of our snorkeling field trips one day it really hit me hard that I am living in a third world country. I was literally holding back the tears as we passed through countless number of streets that were full of these tiny little houses, and watching little kids play in the streets wearing tattered clothes that were too big for them. A large percentage of the people in Tanzania make $1 a day, and in many cases that dollar has to support an entire family. It really made me think about my life style, and I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of guilt as I was thinking about how back in the America I would easily spend $5 at starbucks, while people here have to feed a family on maybe a $1 a day. It made me realize that after seeing how people live like this then there is absolutely no way that I can sit back and not do anything about it. There is no way I can be apathetic to this situation, that is not only happening in Tanzania but I am sure in many places in the world. There is no way that I can go back to America in May and continue to live the way that I was living before. The question that I now face is how do you actually do something about this? Is it wrong for me to go back to America and spend the five dollars on starbucks? How do you even begin to approach helping out a struggling city of 5 million people, let alone an entire nation? These are questions that I have been wrestling with and haven't really come to any conclusions yet except that I know the only way to begin helping these people and changing my life style is through a little at a time.

On a lighter note, after our trip to Dar we traveled four hours south-west to Mikumi National Park for SAFARI! Upon driving into the park to our accommodation we passed by all sorts of big game like baboons, elephants, buffalo, impala, zebra, and giraffe!!! Yeah and we weren't even on the safari yet. Over the course of three days, we went on four safaris, driving in these awesome land rovers for a couple hours each time. My favorite part was that the land rovers basically had an entire sun-roof on the entire ceiling, so you could stand on the seat with your head sticking out of the car the entire time. Mikumi is an absolutely amazing and gorgeous place. The lodges that we stayed in overlooked the African Savanna with a mountain range in the background. Every morning I would wake up, look in the "front yard" and see herds of zebra and impala, with elephants and giraffe in the far off distance. I can't even tell you how amazing the sunsets were there as well. It was literally like a 360 degree sunset, everywhere you looked the clouds were a beautiful pink and orange and just looked so beautiful against the mountains. I also can't even tell you how amazing it was to see all of these wild animals that I have dreamed about seeing since I was little (thanks to the Lion King, haha). If a picture is worth a thousand words, I guess I'll leave you with tens of thousands of words then :)

Tomorrow I leave for Chumbe Island (a tiny island 8 miles off the Coast of Stonetown) where I will be for about 3 weeks working on my Independent Study Project. I am going to be taking a survey of the sponges on the reef there, so basically I am just going to be snorkeling everyday and hanging out on the beach the rest of the time. It's going to be a hard life :) I won't have internet while I am there, so I won't be able to post again until I get back. However I may be able to come back to Stonetown once a week to check my e-mail, so feel free to send me a message! All the best!

Emily