Kama SIMBA

Wow. I am so lucky. It's been awhile since I've written anything, but in that time I've had some crazy experiences! For the past ten days, I've been on mainland Tanzania! It is so amazing and different than Zanzibar! For starters, its not a muslim culture, so we can wear whatever we want! Scandalous. We had lectures at the University of Dar es Salaam, located in Tanzania's biggest city and capital. The university was beautiful and reminded me so much of college back home. All the students relaxing on the green and shuffling between classes, not the mention the library that I'm convinced was modeled after Bailey-Hower, made me miss UVM! It was awesome to be integrated with college students and talk with them, eat in the dining hall, etc.

We also got a lot of island... I mean class... time. For our coastal ecology course, we went out to Mbudya Reef and did shallow water snorkeling transects where we marked all the fish species, invertebrates, seagrasses, and ground cover. We also went to Sinda Island and learned about sea urchins as invasive species, and then removed them! We picked up around 2,000 sea urchins, which kill the coral, and then dumped them in a part of the ocean that doesn't have coral. I'm learning so much about marine ecosystems, which I've never studied before. They're so intricate and beautiful. I never really thought about what goes on under the sea... it's basically a whole other world.

Now we just returned from probably the coolest thing that I've done since I've been here... or maybe ever. SAFARI! We travelled to Mkumi National Park and did a total of four safaris! Two at dusk and two in the morning. I saw so many animals - elephants, giraffes, hippos (my favorite!), water buffalo, zebra, gazelles, storks, crocs, baboons, and... LIONS! It was so beautiful and picturesque and wild. Up until this point I haven't really felt like I'm in Africa, but when I saw a momma lion and her cubs prancing through the grass... it hit me. This is the Africa that I pictured when I pictured my semester abroad. I'm so so lucky to have these experiences!

We are starting our research projects on Monday. I'm super nervous to be out there on my own, but confidence in the process that got me this far and excited to see what the next month (only one month left?! ahh!) brings!

Miti na jua. Trees and sunshine.

Mambo!

It's been a packed week with lots of outdoor time. We have just returned from Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park! It was a beautiful, huge park/forest reserve. We got to use a lot of the forest sampling techniques that I've learned at UVM, which was cool to actually know what was going on and be able to quantify data! One of my favorite things about the park is that it is community/collaboratively managed, which means that the community gets 50% of the profits of the park. There is a commitee of community members from 9 surrounding villages who participate in conservation efforts and try to suggest ways that the park can better assist the communities. It's an awesome system, but it does have its flaws. For example, the community members' livelihoods and incomes revolve around the use of natural resources. They cut wood to make money, to use in their homes, and to use as food. They need the forest land to use as farms to grow crops. But since it is conserved land, the communities have to find other ways to make money and support themselves. And... (this is the really exciting part...) thats where I come in!

The reason I am excited about Jozani is because I have decided that it's where I'm going to spend the entire month of April, doing my Independent Study Project! After talking with the park warden, who is also my advisor, we decided that I am going to study the parks impact on the 9 communities, and how they view conservation/how they use the resources via interviews and other studies. From that, I will developing a new natural resource management plan/other money-making alternatives for the park in order to find a better balance between conservation and sustainable use! It's not what I have been planning on doing from the beginning, but I've realized that it's important to keep an open mind about what I will be studying and I'm really excited about the potential of the project. I will hopefully be able to incorporate place-based education into my project in some way, as well as be able to do some mapping (which we're also starting to do more of - yay!)! For the next week, I will be in Jozani conducting studies and writing up a mini proposal in order to get ready for the big project! Scary, but exciting to be on my own, using my Swahili, in Africa! Ah!

Being the in woods for the past week has made me super nostalgic about past adventures and excited for ones to come! In a weird way, the forest reminded me of the forests in Vermont, which was comforting but made me miss the company of my usual hiking buddies. I kept thinking how much everyone back home would love it and I wish you all could come visit! Big trees, lots of mahogony and even pines. The trails were so fun to hike around on and were beautiful! I even got a fair share of riding in the back of pick-up trucks, so I can check that off the to-do list. :)

All in all, things are going well. I'm excited for the two months ahead of me - it's so crazy to believe that it's March already! We just have portfolios, Dar Es Salaam (safari!!), and ISP left... and then it's time to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro! Time is going so fast - but theres so much to look forward to! Gotta live it for all its worth. For the record, family, I'm VERY warm and TOO well fed, so hakuna matata (side note: hakuna matata is not actually something people say here. Instead, we say "hamna shida" which literally means "there are no problems". But for understandings sake, we'll stick to The Lion King)!

Hokay, thanks for reading and also for caring about what I'm up to - its awesome to know that I have support from all corners of the world!

Karibuni tena :)