Jambo!

As Emma wrote in the latest update, we have started our first week with lessons at SEKUCo! My name is Martina and this will be my very first narrative text at this blog. I will write in English since I have friends abroad who are interested in this course we're taking and want to hear about our experiences. From now on we've got access to the computers in school but since I brought my own laptop and the wireless broadband also is working in the university area, I will be able to surf while sitting in my room everyday from now on! So, hopefully, there will be many updates about our daily life in Lushoto!

We started this morning with the same breakfast as all mornings - white bread (mkate) with jam or peanut-butter, eggs, (mayai) avocado, cucumber (tango) and tomatoes (nyanya) and tea (chai). Later on, we had our first lesson in eco-tourism with our mwalimu (teacher) Shekivuli Sadiki. He taught us about the basics and the principles  of eco-tourism and also told us about the 15 National Parks of Tanzania, the 43 game reserves, the 23 game control areas and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority. We saw a short movie about the Manda Wilderness project and our teacher taught us about the importance of cooperating with the local people and to contribute to the ongoing conservation of natural areas. It was a really interesting lesson, and since I am very interested in natural and environmental sciences and would like to work with environmental questions during my time as a trainee, I guess I will have many questions for next lesson, next week!

In our Kiswahili-lesson today, we were taught more about the family members and questions about them but also about different activities and meals during the day. Our task and homework for tomorrow, is to write about our activites during a normal saturday (Jumamosi) or sunday (Jumapili) for us while here in Tanzania, but we can make up whatever activities we want.

This will be enough for so long, but I'll show some pictures from our time here so far since we weren't able to update the blog in the beginning of this adventure (some days I'll exclude since Emma has shown pictures from them already):


Matilda S and the view from the bumpy road up to Lushoto and SEKUCo


It's a beautiful day! Just before breakfast outside our rooms.


The view from our rooms.


Campus A, where we are staying.


The main buildning. The office of the provost - Anneth Munga - the secretary, computer laboratory etc.


Lunch at Irente Farm/Irente Biodiversity


Happy girls (and boy) near Irente view point.



Evelina and Turid, near Irente view point.


Happy, fantastic people in front of breath-taking, marvelous view at Irente View Point!


...including me, to the right!







Me by another edge.


Part of a sugar cane - to crunch on!



Linda & Emma fixing with their kangas, bought at the market.


Hiking to the nearest waterfall.






Matilda S and Evelina are doing a great job putting up a clothes-line.

Tutaonana baadaye!

/M