After months of preparations and waiting, I'm finally leaving for Tanzania on Friday! I've been casually telling people all summer "Oh yeah, I'm going to Africa for the fall semester..." and now the full meaning of that statement has settled in. I'm going to Africa for a whole semester!! I feel lucky to even get the chance to do something like this. I'm also feeling pretty overwhelmed at this point. So, equipped with my Swahili dictionary, malaria pills, snorkel and fins, I'm headed to Zanzibar. I leave from JFK on Friday night (August 28) and get into Amsterdam on Saturday morning, where I have a 10-hour layover. I'm planning on leaving the airport and exploring the city for the day, I just wish I had some company. (Maybe one of the other students on the trip will have the same flight schedule?) On Saturday night, I leave Amsterdam on a flight to Nairobi, Kenya, landing in Kenya on Sunday morning (my second overnight flight in a row). One last short flight will get me into the Zanzibar airport on Sunday, August 30. After 30 hours of traveling, I'll finally be on the island!
Some quick facts/history about Tanzania:
- Tanzania was created in 1964 by the union of mainland Tanganyika and Zanzibar, an archipelago consisting of the islands Unguja (aka Zanzibar) and Pemba.
-Despite the union, Zanzibar remains semi-autonomous and has its own parliament and president.
-Tanzania is almost 4 times the size of the UK and twice that of California, and has a population of 36 million. Zanzibar's population is 640,000.
-Tanzania is among the world's poorest countries, with an average salary of $50 a month for those in work; a third of the population live below the UN's dollar-a-day poverty line.
-The currency is the Tanzanian shilling, and the exchange rate is currently 1317 Tsh to $1.
The program I'm in is through SIT (the School for International Training), a study abroad school for American students. The Zanzibar location focuses on Coastal Ecology and Natural Resource Management, so that's what I'll be studying while I'm there. We're also learning Swahili and doing a homestay with a Swahili family! As it is only 6 degrees south of the equator, it is a tropical area on the Indian Ocean, so we'll be studying coral reefs and snorkeling a ton. The first picture that comes up when you Google "Zanzibar" is this one, just to give you an idea of what the area looks like:
I'm bringing my computer, and although internet access is limited there, I'll be posting in this blog throughout the semester when I can. That's all for now, so wish me "Safari njema!" (have a good journey!)
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