Round the World

hello! sorry about the lack of updates - nothing much has changed since i last wrote.

We have been continuing to teach at the school and have prepared an environmental seminar to do on Saturday to help educate the local people on water conservation etc.

We will be leaving the snake park next week to spend a week at the new project which is in the process of being set up before going to Zanzibar for our final week which i really cant wait for!!

Happy birthday to Trish and Mags although ill have already rung you by now!

We fly to Spingapore on 1st April, i really cant wait to move on now. Tanzania ia amazing but The far east is calling!

hope everyone is ok, ill update you all once something more happens!

Thanks for the phone calls, its really nice to hear from people.

speak soon

lou

xx

hiya! all is going great at the snake park -on Saturday night (the only night we are allowed to drink) we had a HUGE night inteh bar which resulted in approximately 13 shots each - with the exception of myself of course who caputred the whole thing on camera much to the embarasment of everyone else in the group! Tom was INCREDIBLY drunk

Lessons at the learning centre are goign really well - tom and i have been put in charge of computer lessons at the learning centre and are going really really well. We have also managed to get 7 computers working now which they are really really happy with.

The science work should be starting tomorrow - hopefully we will get our permit today which willl be cool as the lessons are only once a day so the rest of the day appears to be wasted reading many many books - not that im complaining though!

anyway nothing much to update on so i'll go for now until we have done somehting more interesting!!

miss you

lou

xxx

P.S. we are now at 40oC!!

helllooooo from Mezzerani Snake Park. This is the biggest and best snake park in Tanzania and it is the place where they make all of the anti-venoms for east africa so im safe if i get bitten! They also have a HUGE zoo with crocodiles and lots of other animals, going to go check it out on Saturday. It's run by 2 crazy australians and its just so cool!

We are planning on being here for 3 weeks at the moment but it may increase dependant upon other plans. At the moment we are teaching in a local learning centre which caters for everyone from children to adults which is really cool, i have been doing coputer lessons today and yesterday and tom, Mikey and I have managed to get 3 computers working that they had written off which is ace! They tried to rope me into doing maths lessons but that wouldnt have been such a great idea seeing as the 10 year olds are all doing algebra - they are ridiculously good at maths unfortunately!!

We will be doing some science work once we get permission from Tanzanian Wildlife foundation - so much paperwork to be done but we will be doind surveys to find out what animals are living in the area!

Still eating ridiculous amounts of rice and now cabbage added to that pleasure - wonderful!! At least the snake park has a bar that serves toasties (only cheese and tomato though) so dont worry nan - i wont starve!!

we are all ok, having a great time here and looking forward to the science stuff to come (though personally i much prefer the school!)

the weather is incredibly hot now - the last 2 days have been almost unbearable heat - not that im complaining as there's always a nice cold drink to be found in the bar!

hope you liked the pictures

miss you lots

lou

xxxxxx

hhheeellllllooooooooo! went back to camp yesterday - it was strange, really spooky and so so empty! It has been decided that camp will be demolised and the wood used to build a new camp down in the village if Greenforce decide to stay in the area. I h ope they do, the Massai would lose so much from us leaving and to make the whole thing worse there's a disease called rift valled fever which is killing all the cattle at the moment. No milk, eggs or meat can be eaten so they have nothing to eat or sell as it can also kill people. Its awful :-(

they still havent decided what we are going to do but whatever it is starts tomorow so this may be my last e-mail/update for a while. We may be working in a snake park which sounds so exciting - i really hope we do that!

we are both ok - having a grat time despite everything.

miss you all loads

love you

lou

xxxx

ok well sorry for the super short blog yesterday - the photos took AGES!!

so we got back from our mid-phase break yesterday so i'll give you the run-down. It was incredible!!

On Saturday we started our trip by going to the waterfall camp where we will be spending all of next week. We spent the afternoon swimming in the waterfalls and just lazing around in the sun whilst our 3 course meal (!)yes no rice!! was cooked for us by the safari cook. The only downside to this day was that tom, dave (our expedition leader) and Mikey got their shoes stolen while they were swimming! It's just not our lucky trip i guess!

Anyway on Sunday we climed a mountain/very veyr big hill which nearly killed me! my new cheap army boots (bought due to the lack of any walking boots in Arusha) are 1 size too big and despite 3 pairs of walking socks still gave me the biggest blisters EVER - not good! That afternoon we drove to our next campsite and just spent the evening drinking - we do that quite a lot!

Monday was spent at ngoro ngoro crater on safari where we saw:

lion (lots!)
cheetah
Black rhino (we saw 7 and there are only 80 in the world!!)
ostrich
hippo
giraffe
elephant
zebra
hyaena
buffalo
monkey
gazelle
dik dik
wilderbeast
and loads of birds.

Unfortunately my camera battery had died so i had to use my phone camera so the pictures are going to be harder to get onto the computer. They are amazing photos though (the camera on my phone is almost as good as my real camera!) so ill get them up asap.

We then drove to Arusha to our next camp site and again spent the evening drinking and playing pontoon.

On Tuesday we went on a wlaking safari in Arusha national park where we saw loads and loads of giraffe - they were so close it's incredible! they are so tall and majestic - the photos i took dont do them justice! I managed to charge my camera the previous night so i had photos of this! We also saw loads of monkeys and buffalo too. We then went on a canoe safari in momella lake in the park where we saw hippo and also more bufallo along with a HUGE water python. It really was awesome thoguh i truly am incapable of rowing in a straight line!

We then left Arusha and drove to our next campsite - the hot water springs. Unfortunately by the time we arrived it was too late to do anything other than eat (yes another 3 course meal!) and sleep (i forgot to mention - we were in tents for this entire trip - it was BOILING!)

Wednesday morning we went for a walk along the river to look for crocodiles, of which we found 3 before going back to camp and spending several hours in the beautiful sperings. It was a series of gorgeous pools in a glade that was refreshingly cool whilst also being pleasantly warm. It was ace! there's photos of the pool and us in it on the other site which hopefullly should be working now.

Wednesday afternoon we spent driving back to Arusha and you got my update form yesterday and here i am now!

to view my full phots you need to go on www.facebook.com and log on using kath@56.eclipse.co.uk and the password is louise (no capitals)

on th left hand side scroll down and you will see a picture of me, click on it and you will be able to view my photos :-)

enjoy!

hope everyone is ok, say hi to nan for me

love you and miss you lots

tom says hi too!

lou

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