"Just one look at Kilimanjaro will make you feel better... even when you're really missing ice cream"

Hi All,
Just wanted to post a quick blog to say hello from Kimana Kenya! As you have already gathered, we arrived safely and slightly fatter (from all the feta cheese, bread, ice creams, and doritos we purchased at the grocery store in TZ) in our new home for the next few weeks. IT. IS. BEAUTIFUL. The camp is everything I imagined plus some. I think any morning that you can wake up and see something as majestic as Mt Kilimanjaro looming in your backyard will be the start of a great day. And though we've only had two days here, they both have been amazing. The professors and the staff seem great. Because we have a large open space in the middle of camp (this camp is exceptionally larger than the TZ camp, much more space to run around in; the running trail boarders along the edge of the camp's fence and is 100 meters short of a mile) soccer games with the staff (hopefully) occur every evening before dinner. The camp, but more specifically the field is really dusty though. It makes for some very dirty legs; I think I'll have to shower much more frequently, maybe once a week now (haha) because it is SOO dusty. There are literally dust clouds blown across camp anytime there is a slight breeze.
We met and have already said goodbye to the other East Africa SFS group; we were able to swap stories and home towns to create some conversation (PS. I just had to correct myself, I wrote 'conservation' right there instead of 'conversation' - can you tell what's on my mind?) during the 1 1/2 days our stays overlapped one another. Kinda funny; the 3 people in the other group that are from (or have lived in) VT and I were all able to identify mutual friends of ours proving that even half way around it, this is a small world.
Today was our first day to have KBC to ourselves though. It was nice to finally feel like this was our home and not feel like we were intruding upon the other group. We had a 3 hour course and DR introduction before lunch and then afterward we had a brief camp orientation to learn any information we hadn't already figured out from our two days living here. We then went to a local Maasai boma and learned a little more about the Maasai culture. Ironically people don't really speak Swahili here - we have better luck trying to communicate with English. Tomorrow and the next few days are comprised of EP classes; we still have classes until we start DR on the 17th of November. Some highlights for the time in between now and then are our visits to some Kenyan National Parks; Amboseli for the day on the 4th and then an expedition in Tsavo starting on the 7th.
So as you can tell we do have internet here, but it's VERY slow. I think uploading any pictures will be impossible so I'm glad I had the resolution to not upload and pictures on here before I was forced to. I also may not get a SIM card. If there are any emergency calls needed I can get one or borrow a friends card but I think I want to try to not be as connected to home as I have been. I'm in Africa and I really need to start living it up. I love and miss you all, but I'll be home in 7 weeks and I don't want to spend that time wishing to be home and then regretting not taking full advantage of this experience while I'm actually here. This means less/no Facebook, email, and phone. I'll still try to blog once a week but that's it? I hope you understand. And hey, this way here you'll be that much happier to see me when December 14th comes along!
Hope all is well and as a school sign on the side of the road in between Tanzania and Kenya says: "Shine so others can see it."
xoxo Zee

"Ahh,water. The lubricant of life!" - Dr. Okello

Kwaheri Tanzania, Jambo Kenya!
(Goodbye Tanzania, Hello Kenya!)


I’m writing my last blog from Tanzania; a bittersweet event. Though I’m really looking forward to our time in Kenya (as when I was looking at study abroad programs last year, this program only consisted of Kenya and it was the campsite and environment I was first expecting) I’m also sad to be leaving the temporary home and family I have made here with the Tanzanian staff. We had a giant feast yesterday, so much good food like stuffed peppers, cheesy mashed potatoes, kabobs, mango tart, hamburgers, scalloped potatoes, salsa, and sour cream. It was so delicious! I’ve been helping out in the kitchen the past few days; whether I’ve been baking cookies for desert or helping Arthur with dinner I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to stay busy and kind of learn how the kitchen works here. On a sad and slightly scary note – while helping prepare the feast yesterday I ate entirely too much cheese (a whole block of it!!) and felt extremely sick afterward, hopefully I’m not lactose intolerant!!

Tomorrow, bright and early we are loading the cars and heading out by 6:30am. We will be stopping in Arusha TZ at a shopping center that has a grocery store, a coffee shop, and a sandwich store! Quite exciting, I’ll personally be stocking up on baby wipes, gum, and cookies but other than that will be trying to stick to my not-buying-any-more-food policy. We’ll hit the border around noon and depending on how long it takes there we will get KBC (Kilimanjaro Base Camp) anywhere from 2-5pm. We will meet the other group of students that are mirroring our experience, and be getting to know them over the next couple of days, until Friday when they leave for Tanzania. Apparently there is a guy from UVM in the other group, so I’m interested in seeing if I know him but so far his name – David Segel – doesn’t ring a bell. Anyone else know him? The other group is kind enough to move out of their bandas and sleep in tents for a few nights so we can move into our bandas as soon as we get there. We will be getting new roommates and the room assignments are a surprise until we get there. We also have new staff to meet! I’m really excited for the professors, Erica said that they have all been working with SFS for the past 10 years and if you google anyone of their names you come up with hundreds of papers and articles they have helped write. I’m happy that we will be with them to do our DR (directed research), as they will be plenty knowledgeable on the topics we will be able to explore and research in depth. We will probably learn more about DR when we get there, but so far I think I’m most interested in the Environmental Policy surrounding Wildlife Management. This is a little surprising as this was the course I was least excited for when this program started, but after the first half of the semester I have really come to appreciate and understand the importance of human cooperation, desire, and motivation to conserve wildlife, because without the local people being onboard to conserve and without the funding from the government or other organizations, conservation has no hope. I’d like to research more about what local people think and feel about the wildlife in the area and a way that conservation can take place that is most economically feasible for them. This of course is entirely way too broad of a topic to research on, but I’m happy to at least narrow my DR down to EP and know this general question of mine to answer.

But back to our transition tomorrow – it’s pretty exciting! KBC is more of a field research camp, more connected to the wildlife opposed to Moyo Hill which is very much connected to the town and culture of the Tanzanian people. Apparently at KBC it’s very common to be running on the trail in camp and see elephants, giraffes, and zebra. If that’s not an incentive to get out and exercise, I don’t know what is. It will be hotter in Kenya; not only because the seasons are changing to the warmer but because we won’t be at such a high altitude as we are here at Moyo Hill. We will also only have a communal bathroom, which I think will be a more sustainable change, which we will all share but our bandas will be larger. Also we will wake up to Mt Kilimanjaro every day the weather is clear, you know, no big deal. But other than these few changes that Erica has told us about, I’m not sure of the differences we will experience and am looking forward to finding out soon!

We DO need to get a Kenyan SIM card for our phones, but that may not be as big of a problem as I initially thought, because we could just switch cards with one of the other students in the other group. Either way I will try to post a blog with my new phone number as soon as I can, but who knows when that will be, so be prepared to not contact me for a few days. Hmm, other than that I’m not sure what else to say. I hope that everyone is good back home! Talk to you all when I’m in Kenyaaaa!!

xoxo Zee

PS. Days in between my two showers… 17. AND I DIDN’T SMELL.

"If I were a Sim, I'd be bright green right now"

So again, sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while. But we’ve had a busy past couple of weeks and I have much to write about. If you want more detail about what we’ve been up to, as I’m sure I will forget a few things, definitely check out my fellow classmates blogs. You should do that anyway – they are all fantastic and enjoyable to read. Also, I'm not going to be posting pictures like I have been; it is such a long process of waiting for them to upload and plus this way here the pictures I take from here on out will be that much more exciting for you all to see when I come home. So don't hate me!

So let’s see, we left for the Serengeti on the 9^th. It was about a 4 hour drive and I have to say that may have been the dustiest, bounciest, and hottest car ride of my entire life. We stopped for lunch at Oldupai Gorge and received a short presentation about the history of it. Oldupai is more commonly known as Olduvai Gorge, but this name is incorrect and our guide wanted us to pass this information along so we could educate and correct the whole world about the actual name. As you may or may not know Oldupai is where the first human footsteps have been archaeologically preserved. There was a beautiful overview of the gorge and a cute little museum describing the importance of this discovery.

We finally arrived at the gates of Serengeti, but still had a good 1 ½ hour drive to our campsite. This section of the drive wasn’t that bad because we could open the tops of the land cruisers and could treat the drive as a game drive. On our way to camp we saw our first leopard! You always know there is something cool (usually a big cat) near the road because all of the safari vehicles cluster around and you can spot the traffic jam from a while away. This leopard was lying in a tree, but it was especially awesome because on a limb lower in the tree was the carcass of its half eaten prey.

We were welcomed to our campsite by a herd of elephant that was passing by, only 50 or so meters away, always a great way to start camping! With the elephants still in view we broke up into groups and set up 8 tents for us to sleep in. We set these up in a circle with a few staff tents and the land cruisers parked around the outside, so we would have some sort of layer of protection from the curious animals that visited our site while we were sleeping.  And believe me there were plenty of night-time visitors! As soon as it gets dark you can hear lions, hyenas, and zebras. One of the guards from Moyo Hill came with us, Ascari Bura, so he and a guard employed by the Serengeti stayed awake every night to make sure nothing got too close or curious. After hearing about a zebra closely followed by a lion passing through camp, a group of us stayed up late in hopes of witnessing something like that. After letting Bura know our plans, we extinguished the campfire, climbed into one of the vehicles and continued to stay up listening and looking for the wildlife. As the night passed on though, our group numbers dwindled until it was just myself and Robbie (another student), with Bura and another professor of ours in the car. Eventually we all fell asleep too, only waking up to see the largest hyena I have yet to see (even Bura said it was exceptionally big) rummaging through our trash bin, that we had placed only 10 meters away from the car! Not as spectacular as a zebra-stalking lion, but cool nonetheless.

Besides these late-night animal observations we also had plenty of opportunities to see wildlife during the daytime as every day we were in the Serengeti we went on a game drive, if not two. These ranged from early morning ones before breakfast to all day ones, where we had to pack lunch and would get back in time for dinner. Some of these were just for fun but for others we conducted animal counts and other observations to complete assignments. There were so many animals; some of the more extraordinary ones were another leopard, crocodiles, a serval, and a legit pride of lions lounging under a tree. We still haven’t seen a rhino, so I’m hoping we will still have the opportunity in Kenya. An exciting thing happened to me while in the Serengeti – I got my “A-card” or “Africa-card” because I spotted two lions before both our driver and professor, I was so pumped! It was my goal to spot one before Kioko, our professor who literally has an eagle eye (he was the one who saw the lions in Ngorongoro) but he wasn’t in my car that morning I spotted them so we’ll never know if I would be able to out-spot him.

We also attended a few lectures while in the Serengeti. We listened to three guest lectures, concerning wildlife diseases, plant and vegetation available to herbivores in the park, and how tourism is an important part of the Serengeti. They were all interesting, but sometimes it was hard to stay completely focused, especially in a hot room, when you started thinking about the animals you could actually be seeing instead of listening about. We also had the opportunity to visit the Serengeti Safari lodge and treat ourselves to the luxuries presented to us there. Though I have a new resolution to not spend any more money on food here, I broke down and bought a plate to the lunch buffet and you better believe I only did so knowing that there was a salad bar with CHEESE available. The chocolate sauce that we could put on cakes and bananas was also much appreciated. The remainder of the time was spent lounging by or swimming in the pool before we headed back to camp.

It also rained while we were there. And I don’t mean just a little sprinkle, but it POURED. Buckets, complete with thunder and lightning. We all took cover when it started but some of us couldn’t resist and went out and frolicked in it. Of course we got soaking wet, but after standing up for a game drive we dried out a bit. Thankfully the African sun dries things much quicker than back home so the next day all our bedding and wet clothes were hung out and dried. I hadn’t been camping in a while, so it was great to have the opportunity to sit around a campfire, use a mess-kit, and walk far to use the bathroom, but even greater to do all the camping stuff while in the Serengeti!

We got back from the Serengeti on the 13^th and though we had some down time to rest, relax, and head into town to shop and grab a bite to eat, most of our time we’ve been back has been devoted to finishing up our final assignments. The work here isn’t necessarily been harder than it is back home but it is all due at the same time and when you are a procrastinator like me, it can get stressful when you’re down to the final days, hours, minutes before the assignments are due. We’ve had 3 papers, 2 sets of data analyses, a chart identifying all of the mammals we have seen since being in Tanzania, and a poster and presentation of the habitat/species association in Tarangire National Park all due from Monday to Wednesday. Here’s a little life lesson that I have learned: make sure that Microsoft Power Point is set to autosave, because working all day on a project and then losing right before your about to print it really makes for the worst night redoing it. Just FYI.  It was a stressful few days with everyone worrying about getting everything done, correctly but thankfully we are officially done with all classes, exams, and assignments in Tanzania and now have the next few days to relax, have fun, and pack for Kenya.

We do have a few more things scheduled for us to do, like our community service project. We have decided to mix and pour cement for the kitchen floor of the local primary school. Currently they are cooking on an open fire in a hole on the ground, so hopefully this will be the start to a more efficient kitchen system for them. We had to raise about $200 for buying the cement mix and instead of just splitting up the costs and all donating a certain amount of money, we decided to have some fun with it. So we had a charity auction! We all offered random, fairly insignificant things and services for one another to bid on. For example I offered two mornings of doing someone’s breakfast crew and a day of “owning” my hammock, meaning you could kick me out of it if you wanted to use it while I was. In return I bought a bar of dark chocolate and someone’s iTunes movie collection for $46. Not a bad deal since I’ve exhausted my Tanzanian M&M supply and have 40 more movies than I had to being with. Some of my favorite items that were for bid were an amateur pedicure, a day of silence, a dirty shirt off someone’s back (literally), compliments for a week, and a day of being someone’s slave. It was a fun way to raise money, and I think everyone was happy with their purchases. To top it off we raised what we wanted plus some, close to $550! So the cement has been purchased and is ready for us to mix and pour, which we will do tomorrow morning.

Do you all want to play a guessing game? Well it doesn’t matter if you do or not, because you’re going to. The thing to guess is how many days I had gone since last taking a shower. Here’s a hint: I’ve set the new student record. I’ll let you know next time I post a blog. You’ll probably be disgusted, but hey TIA.

Well I think that’s about it. I’ll try to post before we head to Kenya and I should give you all a heads up that our access to internet will be significantly reduced; the rumor is that there is only internet every other night. I’ll also need to buy a new SIM card for my cell phone, so there may be a few days when we first get there that my phone won’t work. I’ll post my new number too.

I just want to thank all of you that have taken the time to express your condolences about Mac. It means so much to me to know I have your support and kind words even half way around the world. I love and miss you all.
xoxo Z

"love like crazy"

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while... I have so much to say about the past week or so, but my heart just isn't into putting down in words quite yet. Bear with me for a few more days and I'll tell you all about the Serengeti, our last week in Tanzania, and our final assignments that have been piling up. I miss you all more than ever.

xoxo Z

<3 MMP <3

"I believe that one laugh can cure 100 unknown diseases" - Professor Mwamhanga

Heyyo,

Thought I would update you all about my life here from the past few days. Well I guess you can say they weren't too too exciting as they were mostly consumed by studying and taking our WE, EP, and WM exams. I think I did alright... It was hard to get into study mode here - I think it was a mix of "senioritis" and just being in an environment that makes you want to do anything but study! Regardless of how I did, I'm glad that they are done and behind me, now I get to look forward to conducting my directed research (which is the other half of our grade here)! And even though we are done exams we are no where near done classwork for our TZ professors. I still have to write two essays for EP, one for SSC and other work for the remaining classes and expeditions we have.
To celebrate finishing exams we went into Karatu yesterday and shopped around this giant market. Apparently the town holds one every 7th of the month. It was huge and there were so many people, vendors, and merchandise! I'm grateful for the opportunity to practice my bartering skills every time we head to town, and this market was no exception. It will be weird going back home and having set prices that DON'T fluctuate with your facial expression or the amount of money you say you have in your wallet. I've learned you can't act too excited when you see something you like and always first offer half of the price you are willing to pay. So there you go, Zarah's Bargaining for Dummies: Lesson One. OHH!! Speaking of Zarah... I met another Zara(h?) for the first time ever! It was quite exciting. One of my little vendor buddies, Jackson, introduced me to his sister who has the same name as me! Apparently Zarah (pronounced Zah-da) is a Iraqw tribe lineage here and is a name passed down through females. I asked him if it meant anything and he said it meant you were important. Duh!
On the health-front: I hope you all enjoyed the very detailed picture of my jigger, I've been hearing some very enthusiastic feedback! In case you are wondering my new jigger total is 3 but that's still very far away from the record high of 14 my friend Katie holds. And unfortunately my stomach has still been bothering me, not sure what's triggering all this nausea, but I guess if the only ailment, out of all of the ones Africa has to offer, I suffer from is an upset stomach, well I'm not going to complain too much. 
So today is our preparation day for our Serengeti expedition! In case I haven't explained it to all of you, we are going to the Serengeti for 5 days and camping! Erica debriefed us about what to expect and I now know to check the area of tall grass around the bathrooms before I enter and exit, not to panic if I hear a hyena digging around our tent for food, and to not leave the tent if I hear one of our vehicles running - it's just one of the guards using the loud engine to scare an elephant out of our camp. And apparently the last SFS group that went to Serengeti missed a cheetah killing an impala in the campsite, but the staff that had stayed behind for the day got plenty of pictures as proof. Say WHAAAAAAT! Oh, I'm so excited! I feel like this will finally be AFRICA. We will be having traveling lectures and game drives basically the whole time we are there, so not much down time, but still I'm sure we will be learning about as well as actually experiencing some really neat stuff! Obviously I will take many pictures so I can share with you when we get back to camp. And I should probably mention that, naturally, there is no internet at the campsite, so I won't be able to respond to emails or fbook messages.
Well I have to go help pack and prepare for the 'Geti; each cook crew has been assigned to help with a different part of packing and my group is helping Arthur, our chef, pack his traveling kitchen into one of the large trucks. Talk to you all in 5 days!

xoxo Z

OHH, Happy 22 to Dee! MUAH!

"j-i-g-u-z, that's how you spell jiggers right?"

View of Ngorongoro Crater. The floor of the crater is 250 sq km, which is only part of the 8,300 sq km Ngorongoro Conservation Area. I took this picture right before we descended into the crater for our expedition; it was so cold and windy at the top - you could almost see your breath!

Jambo!!

Sorry I haven't posted sooner, apparently African wireless has something against PCs and only the Mac users have had internet the past three days, thankfully it's working again for everyone! OH MY. I have had the craziest past few days! SOOO much to talk about... I'll try to remember everything.

I guess I'll start with the homestay that we had last Monday. All of us students were broken up into pairs and assigned to go stay with a house for the day. Every person was given a bag of provisions – a bag of corn flour, sugar, chai tea, a head of cabbage, soap, and toilet paper – and each pair was given about 4 gallons of water from camp that we could cook and drink with. I was paired with a girl named Megan and we were placed in a home just a five minute walk from the SFS camp. Thankfully one of our staff members walked with us there and carried our really heavy water jug. When we got to the house, our host Mom and daughter came out and met us. They were really happy and kept saying “Karibu! Karibu!” (Welcome, welcome!) As I said in my photo captions last post, their names were Mama Happi and Happiness. They knew very little English and our Swahili wasn’t that great so it was a struggle to communicate, but we found ways of overcoming the language barrier. Shortly after we got there we made chai tea over the fire in the kitchen which was in a hut separate from their house. After drinking the chai, we swept the driveway with bundles of twigs, washed the breakfast dishes and then started getting ready for lunch. Our lunch consisted of ugali (water and the corn flour mixed together over the very smoky fire) and a cabbage, tomato, onion, and carrot stir fry. It was delicious. After lunch we went a few houses over to where a rally for the upcoming election was occurring, it was fun to watch because they were singing and dancing. Megan and I were the only white people (“mzungu”) there, so we stuck out quite a bit. After the rally we went back to the house did the lunch dishes, made more chai and chilled. By this time the two boys were back from school and an intense game of monkey in the middle took place. Then I broke out my camera and we took a million pictures which was very entertaining for them. By this time it was 5:00 and we had to head back to camp. We left our family making plans to come back another day for a lunch of ugali and kuku (ugali and chicken). So that’s a very brief description of our homestay day. There are many more details about it, so if you have any specific questions about the homestay just ask!

Last Wednesday was also a very eventful day. After having a peaceful morning off to catch up on homework and sleep, we had an afternoon that I won’t be soon to forget. We slaughtered, skinned, roasted and ate not one, but two goats. It was absolutely insane. Obviously growing up on our little farm I’ve been exposed to the killing of our own livestock, but this was the first time in a long time that I have been present during the actually slaughtering of an animal and found it a little disturbing. I think because goats are more a pet in the US and are rarely killed for meat purposes it affected me so; wasn’t like killing cows, pigs, or chickens which are around usually for the sole purpose of eating, goats are more pet-like so it felt like we were killing a dog or something. As we were watching the slaughter (one of the cooks killed the first goat and one of our own students killed the second) I asked myself why was I making myself watch this? But I think this is an important process and realization of where your food comes from, especially any meat you eat. There are a lot of students here that are vegetarian, some are even vegan, and I agree with their point that if you are willing to eat meat then you need to be willing to be a part of this less-than-desirable process that you very often forget about. I think this is an experience that everyone should partake in once in their life, especially if you eat meat, because it is just so eye opening and makes you really think about the chicken, beef, or pork you are eating. This experience didn’t make me want to become a vegetarian, but now more than ever I am glad to say that I know where my meat comes from and that it was raised and slaughtered in humane conditions.

On Friday we went to Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Ngorongoro crater is the largest caldera in the world and is also the only protected area in Tanzania that both humans and wildlife reside. Not only was the scenery fantastic, but we saw so many animals up close; it was great! There were so many lions! It was the first time we had seen so many especially so close to the road. It was an absolutely amazing day, maybe one of my favorites since we have been here and I have some great pictures as you can see to prove it.

Our first lion spotting! These were two VERY pregnant females. Our professor, who was driving, spotted them ( I'm not quite sure how, they were so far away and blended in so well!) about 150 meters away and we watched them walk towards, cross the road behind us, and towards a large herd of zebra and wildebeest. We were hoping to catch some hunting action, but they went out of our sight and because of how un-secretive of their position they were we drove away after a few minutes.

Fici! (Hyena) This guy has a wildebeest leg in his mouth, SO COOL! He ran along side our vehicle for a while and then into the road where we chased him for a while. It was actually really hilarious. We joke and say "Hey, remember that time we were in Africa and chased a hyena down the road?" I mean who gets to say that?!

One of my favorite pictures of the day. * Note the MALE lions near the LADIES room. * My professor asked me: "What would you have done if you were in the bathroom and came out to see this?" I responded "I guess I would stay in the bathroom for a while" to which he replied "Mmm - No. You would stay in the bathroom ALL day. And maybe part of the night." It was creepy because though it looks like they are passed out, in all of my pictures you can see that their eyes are open.... just waiting. King of the savanna, eh?

AWW! Cat nap time! We came across 4 lionesses and 4 cubs, lounging and sleeping by a little creek.

SO ADORABLE!

Most of the year there are only bull elephants in the crater (basically because it is too hard for calves to enter and exit over the rim) but every once or twice a year when there are 200 gathered here. This wasn't one of these times, and we only saw this bull and one other the whole day.

Papa simba! There were two male lions that stayed in the same spot all day just snoozing. When we came back right before we left, this guy was turned over on his back, sleeping with his paws in the air. He was maybe 4 meters from our vehicle... it was great, but also a traffic jam cause.

I don't know why I like African Buffalo so much. But aren't they great looking? They are actually the number one killers of people in Africa each year. It's because they don't have great eye sight and often charge when they feel threatened. And obviously you don't stand much of a chance against that helmet of horns. Guess what the number one killer of tourists are? Hippos!

Me and my roomies! (Kat on the left and Hannah on the right) We obviously took great care in matching our t-shirts before we left! (FYI. Tusker is a brand of beer here. On the back of the shirts it says "Baada ya kazi" or "After work")

 And now for my health update. I've had my first sick day here. The night after my homestay I woke up at 3:30 to throw up a few times. It was honestly the sickest I have felt in a long time. I had to miss a traveling lecture, but after being able to sleep in until 11:30 (the latest I've slept in here by a long shot) I felt fine. Erica (our SAM thinks I just ate something that didn't agree with me, so it's really nothing to worry about.) Since then I've had two other interrupted nights of sleep due to an upset stomach, but I haven't had to run to the choo (toilet) those times. And to top it off, I think I jinxed myself last blog post, because yesterday I dug TWO jiggers out of my toe. It actually wasn't that bad, my toe had been aching the past few days so I was kind of expecting it. There are maybe only 3 people here who haven't gotten jiggers, so I was anxious as to why I hadn't gotten them yet. One girl has actually gotten ELEVEN jiggers. ELEVEN! But I kind of enjoyed taking them out of my foot. It didn't hurt and it was slightly satisfying to see they squwooze (new word I made up, purely for describing jigger extractions) out. I'm one of the few people who extracted my own jiggers, you need to make sure you get the whole jigger out and it's easier for someone else to do it. But after inspecting my toesies this morning, I think I did a good job and for the time being, I'm jigger free!

Yummm, jigger toe!

Well I should probably cut this blog short. We have exams next week and I have some reading I need to finish by then. But I think I shared most of my past week. I'm really enjoying myself here, especially now that we have found a little art gallery in Karatu that sells ICE CREAM and BBQ CHICKEN PIZZA and SALADS! We are actually headed there in a little bit when people get back from church (apparently mass here goes for 4 hours sometimes! Yeesh!) so I really need to get some reading done before we go. Hope everyone is great back home! I got my first letter the other day, it took 16 days to get here so if you are planning on mailing me in the future (which you SHOULD be!) then keep in mind we head to Kenya on the 26th, so send it to the Kenya address after the 10th. But you are all in my thoughts, especially those of you at Mac's softball tournament... there better be some pictures sent to me! Miss you all!

 xoxo Z