Vacation!!!

Damn that was a good break.  For the past three weeks, I had a sweet vacation, watching some of the sights of Tanzania, and just having a good time meeting new volunteers and becoming closer to some old ones.  It was nice to have a giant increase in social interactions, and now it's a bit eerie to be back in the somewhat solitary life.  To make matters a bit more difficult, I have received terrible news that my headmistress will be transferring to another school.  After relying so much on her in both social and work aspects of Saba Saba, I feel like I am up for a new start.

And so a picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand more bites (or byte? whatever the plural for the unit of computer memory is).  Here's a parsimonious selection:

This is my travel companion, Lim Sunguang (aka Julius).  Julius works in a sweet ass office in Dar es Salaam, in an institution that trains important people.  He helps out with various IT and computer work.  We became travel buddies for both wanting to spend less and not plan too much.  A trip inside Julius' head was also a trip in itself.

There is a famous resort in Zanzibar amongst the volunteers for its special discount ($75 a night).  Not too cheap, but with unlimited booze and food, plus all the nice five star resort service, it is quite popular.  Julius and I decided at the last minute to follow our friends there, but was persuaded Miyoung, our host for one night, to have a thriftier trip in Zanzibar.  So we did, and we spent 4 days eating cheap food and exploring this free beach.

Julius and I did manage to meet up with the rest of our friends, when we all decided to crash at a volunteer's house in the heart of Stonetown.  The streets of Stonetown is a complete maze, and I lost all sense of direction.

And then we left on the first ferry, which was so bumpy that about 10% of the passengers vomit.  The weird French animation shown in the ferry with a lot of boobs and annoying sounds did not help with the sea sickness.

 

For our next destination, we went to Mbeya, where Youngsin lived.  He was spending his last days in Mbeya, saying good bye and packing, so we thought, what a perfect time to crash.  We took the 24 hour long train, which wasn't as comfortable as we thought, and we both had diarrehea.  We ended up missing all the signs of Mbeya (not too many tough), pooping a lot, and playing Monopoly on the computer.

After full recuperation, we went up to the Usambara mountains, known for its hiking and views.  We first thought of doing the three day trekking from Lushoto to Mtae, but that I soon realized that I wasn't fit enough, so we just took a bus instead.

The view was stunning, with clouds rising during the day, and falling below our feet towarrds the evening.

A volunteer from Zanzibar visited Mtwara before, and took some photos of the school.  

Oh teaching sometimes is such an uphill struggle.

 

And this is Kyungbok, my dear neighbor/friend/mentor/co-worker.  She left, and I will forever miss her.