Beautiful Africa!

Here is an accumulation of some of the pictures I took while on the trip!

Lest we forget the beauty of Zanzibar

A few pictures to remind us...

From our balconies overlooking the Indian Ocean...

From our BBQ on the beach last night. Which was followed by a dance show, dancing with an 8 ft. python, and then a dance party of our own where we taught the Cupid Shuffle and the Electric Slide to the local dancers. Great night...

Catching the ferry back to Dar in just about 5 hours. Then one more night and its on the plane...

see you soon.

Jubilee to Safari to Zanzibar

It has been a busy past week since we have posted any new pictures and now we are in our final days of this trip of a lifetime to Africa. Since there isn't enough time to explain all of the wonderful adventures we have been having this past week, We will simply give a taste with select pictures from the big events from the past week.

Our last pictures were from our trip to Songea town over one week ago on Saturday. The following Sunday the big even was a dance party that we organized at St. Laurent's primary school. This is the school that Ben taught at when he lived in Hanga so he still has good connections there and the headmaster offered to get one of the local DJs to bring his speakers and equipment to come set up a dance. A great time was had by all! The kids especially liked Erik's moves.
The crew walking back towards the monastery through Hanga village after the disco...
Monday was the final day of preparation before the big feast on Tuesday. The big event on Monday was the arrival of nearly 30 bishops including the cardinal to Hanga! All students from the schools in Hanga lined up along the entrane road to welcome the caravan of bishops. It was quite the site to see so many nice cars with a detail of security leading them into Hanga!

Tuesday was the feast. What a party. We came early to get our seats (sat down at 8:30am...the Mass was supposed to start at 9:30am) Mass didn't start until about 10:00am and it got over about 1:30pm :)


Here is a picture of the bishops during the procession. There were a lot of them!



This is the whole group of bishops that were there. Again, this feast was to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the bishops being a BISHOP. After he retired from being a bishop almost 25 years ago, he became a benedictine monk of Hanga Abbey and has been living there ever since. This is why the celebration was in Hanga.

From the road...

The day after the Jubilee we left Hanga for our safari! It was difficult to say goodbye to Hanga, but also good to know the fun that was ahead! We drove all day to reach Udzungwa Mountains National Park where we stayed in a beautiful hotel for one night and then hiked to a mountain waterfall to go swimming the next day. B-E-A- Utiful.

After the hike we drove about 2-3 hours to the town of Mikumi where we stayed for two nights. After a restful night we woke on Friday June 10 to head into Mikumi National Park! There are many pictures from this day (including pictures of LIONS that we saw just as we entered the park!) here are just a few samples...

After our second night in Mikumi we traveled on Izzy's birthday to Dar where we stayed at the benedictine guest house in Kurasini again. After Mass on Sunday morning we caught the ferry to Zanzibar!

Walking around stonetown (Zanzibar's main coastal city) I saw this kid jumping off of the ledge into the water. I asked him if he could do a flip for me and I would take his picture. As he jumped he held both hands out to his side and screamed, "SPIDERMAN!"

We had breakfast on the roof our our hotel on Monday morning and then started our day of adventures. Izzy specifically mentioned that she doesn't want all of our adventures shared before we get home, so we will simply say the morning was spent swimming with dolphins off the south coast of the island and the afternoon was spent visiting a spice farm and taking a tour of the different plants that have made zanzibar famous! quite the day.
From our spice tour...

Here is the beach at the hotel we are staying at for two nights to finish off our stay on Zanzibar. Pretty out of this world. If you are finding us on a map look to the northern part of the island-Nungwi Beach.

All for now. tomorrow afternoon (Wednesday) at 3:30pm we catch the ferry back to Dar Es Salaam where we will spend the last night at the monk's guest house before catching the flight to America at 11:00pm on Thursday, getting into MSP at 3:30pm on Friday if all goes well.

What a trip. we will be talking to and seeing you all soon!

Breakfast overlooking the Indian Ocean. Paradise.

Pentecost in Kurasini, then to Zanzibar!

We had a great dinner last night at an indian restaurant on the roof of a building near Dar Es Salaam city center. great food and great atmosphere. Food was pretty expensive (relatively compared to what we have been paying) but it was worth it.

When we returned to the monastery guest house, they had prepared a cake for us to celebrate Izzy's birthday! it was nice.

This morning we went to Mass with the monks at the guest house. Mass was celebrated by the former abbot of Hanga, Fr. Alcuin, and he did the Mass mostly in english so we could understand. that was nice. Then we caught the ferry to Zanzibar at 9:30am and arrived on the island at 11:30. We are staying at Funguni Palace Hotel (www.fungunipalace.com) tonight and Amaan Bungalows tomorrow and Tuesday night should be awesome.

We have already made plans for a tour of the spice plantations as well as a boat/snorkeling adventure where we may get to see some dolphins! Should be a good day. Then Tuesday we will probably just hang out on the beach :)

hope all is well back home.

-ben

Back in Dar

we arrived back in Dar Es Salaam this afternoon after our trip through Udzungwa National Park and Mikumi National Park. Bittersweet leaving Hanga...now we are off to Zanzibar for three nights tomorrow!

more pics to come when time allows. we are out at the "mall" in Dar right now just to see another side of this city. pretty shocking after 3 weeks outside of a major city. After the mall we are heading out on a mission to find an Indian restaurant for dinner tonight to celebrate Izzy's 19th bday!

talk to you soon!

Songea Town & Peramiho

Mambo from Isabelle and Hannah! Yesterday we ventured for a day trip into Songea town- a larger city in Southern Tanzania that is very busy compared to where we have already been.

Our tour started at a pastry shop where we bought fresh donuts, muffins, and sambusas for a midday snack. We then drove a little out of town to Peramiho to tour the hospital, cathedral, and schools all set up by German missionaries.

Br. Kastor Kanyopa, headmaster of St. Laurents Primary School in Hanga, accompanied us the whole day. He is good friends with Ben. Another note - we got to town in a land cruiser. That is all 13 of us (driver included) in the one car :) this is the same way we rode to Mbamba Bay...see pictures from the Mbamba Bay post. For that ride, there were only 12 of us so it was a little more comfortable!

We also saw a butcher shop and farm…very interesting for Hannah especially since she LOVES meat.

Afterwards we headed back to downtown Songea and went to Mtini Pub for lunch. We enjoyed chipsi mayai which is something like a frittata with eggs, veggies, and potatoes. We ate our delicious lunch with our hands! Later on we walked through the crowded streets and main markets to see everything and buy souvenirs. There was everything from dried fish to beautiful fabrics. (Notice the sign - Soko Kuu La Songea Mjini - Main Market of Songea Town)

We walked to the edge of town to settle our cravings for sweets and were extremely satisfied when we found ice cream, so delicious!

Here we are at Songea night club. upstairs in the VIP balcony of course...

After walking through Songea town we went to the all boys secondary school for a tour and visit with Innocent Mosses, a former student of Ben’s.

It was a long, but eventful day and we returned to Hanga tired and ready for dinner! We relaxed and read, went to dinner, and hung around the hostel to end the day.

Today was very relaxing. After waking up early for church that lasted two hours, we enjoyed breakfast and time to ourselves. Some read, others ran, explored, and cooked, but some just napped. This afternoon we are hosting a disco dance party for the students of St. Laurents primary school in Hanga. It lasts three hours and should be a great time! We are also looking forward to the Jubilee on Tuesday which celebrates the fifty years of service from the Bishop in the Songea region of Tanzania. The former president is scheduled to make an appearance which will be amazing. Lots of preparations are being done in Hanga and it is started to look quite beautiful.

We are all excited for the food, party, and celebration.
We miss you all and love hearing from you!

An older pic from our bus...after a long day riding all you can do is smile...

L

Pics from the Lake (Mbamba Bay - Lake Nyassa)