Our last weekend in Tanzania. Our last weekend of not knowing if we'll wake up and have electrcitiy/running water or not. Our last weekend of sun (apparently the weather at home blows?). Our last weekend with some amazing people. Our last weekend of what has been a rewarding, challenging, incredible, learning experience. We decided to spend our last weekend in Kigamboni. It's about an hour away from where we had lived for our 3 months in Dar. Kigamboni has some of the nicest beaches I have ever seen and is away from the hustle and bustle of the busy city. The rest of our group has either gone back to Canada or gone away to Tanga or Nairobi for a visit - Both of which are long bus rides away from Dar, and boy do I hate the bus. Jen and I opted for our own little weekend getaway to relax and reflect on our time here. So far I've spent a lot of time reflecting on sleeping. On Friday I had my last day at Ardhi University where me and another student gave a presentation about what we had worked on for the past few months there. I presented some of the maps I had made and explained some of the issues unplanned settlements are facing. Here is one of the maps:
The map shows the location of unplanned settlements (slums) in Dar es Salaam and areas that are especially prone to different kinds of flooding. The unplanned settlements in flood-prone areas was the focus of our research at Ardhi. How to improve the building quality and material of homes and businesses in these settlements is the focus of one of the PhD students we were working with. Pretty neat stuff, huh?!
Jen has been busy making a curriculum for an orphanage here. I think she wrote about it in a previous blog.
It has been a pretty uneventful past couple weeks as I have been busy finishing my work at Ardhi and Jen has been busy with curriculum. Oh, one of the cats that lives at the place we are staying in Dar had kittens and then got hit by a car 2 days later. A few of the students have been faithfully feeding the kittens with syringes and little bottles with milk formula in them since their mother has gone to cat heaven.
Here are a few pictures of me and Ardhi...
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| Welcome to Ardhi. |
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| This is "Chips maiai"/what I ate for lunch every day at Ardhi. It's french fries and egg mixed into one delicious concoction. All for only 1,500Tsh ($1 Canadian). |
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| Joel and Jerry |
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| Joel and Kibassa |
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| Kihila and Joel |
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| Joel and Deanna presenting at Ardhi |
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| Joel and Kibassa chatting. |
Hi Joel and Jen,
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to believe you're almost done there! We can't wait to see you both and are praying for a safe flight (s) home.
lotsa love Mom VH