Holiday

Just got back from vacation. We had 2 weeks off to travel. Tanzania has so many amazing places to visit it was hard to choose were to go. Some people climbed Kilimonjaro, some went on safari in the Serengeti. I was supposed to go to a refugee camp in Kigoma to see how they work and then visit the national park where Jane Goodall did all of her chimpanzee reserach. But a few days before we were supposed to leave there was an outbreak of TB in the refugee camp and they said they could let us in but if we were exposed they wouldn't be able to let us out. Can you imagine "Sorry Mom can't come home this month, I'm being quarantined inside a refugee camp and I might have Tuberculosis." So we skipped the refugee camp and went to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar instead. It was a much needed reprieve from village life. Dar is a bustling African city with a strong Arabic flare. We ate some great ethnic food went to the movies and the national museum. Zanzibar was absolutely beautiful. Some of the other SPW volunteers rented a house on the beach called Kipepeo lodge. The lodge was on the quiet eastern side of the island. It's name means butterfly in Swahili. I thought we would get there and see butterflies but it's actually named after a fish that lives off the cost of Zanzibar that looks like a butterfly. We went snorkeling in an old wooden boat with flour sacks stitched together for a sail. The boat is called a dhow you see them all over Zanzibar. They use the same model to make the boats today as they did hundreds of years ago when the Arab traders first sailed into the island. I saw kipepeo fish as well as angel fish, eel, sea urchin, coral and star fish. The water was shallow and you could reach out and touch the fish from the surface. It was a great experience. Mostly I just relaxed on the beach and had some laughs with friends. It was a true vacation and much needed. I'm on a bus back to village tomorrow. I can't say I'm looking forward to it. Once you have a taste of the good life its hard to go back. But we still have a lot of work to do in our village. We are planning two more festivals a soccer tournament, more seminars, an art competition and more school lessons. It's going to be a very busy two months. I'm not sure when I'll get back on the internet. Please send me a letter if you get a chance and I'll write you back. I made friends with the postman in the neighboring village and now I can receive a letter relatively quick. The average time is about 2 weeks. The best address to write to me is

Amanda Leipold
PO box 0
Ilembula, Tanzania

Thanks everyone. I hope your summer is going well and you're enjoying the summer sun. See you in September!