Sun & Mon. July 18/19

Unfortunately it was time to leave the Serengeti :( Although it was great to be in the camping site for 4 days/nights, I was glad to be back in a permanent structure. I did not miss the bucket showers and was glad to have running water again.
Dad and I just relaxed and took some time to enjoy the African sun by the pool. The Tloma Lodge was absolutely paradise and gave me a great chance to take some up close flower shots with my new camera!











Sunday morning we visited Olduvai Gorge, where the Leakey's first discovered human/animal fossil fragments. A good museum and great view of archeological digs.

Monday we had our visit to a local school and learned all about Tanzanian education. This was one of the highlights of the trip as we got to visit a pre-K/kindergarten and a 6th grade class (ages 12-15), interact with the kids, and chat with some of their teachers. The school we visited had 720 students with only 16 teachers! They have a very similar schedule to US schools in terms of breaks/vacations throughout the year and learn similar subjects. The biggest difference is that the kids go home for lunch--there are no school buses...the kids have to walk everywhere (they have about an hour and a half break). Both boys and girls keep their hair very short and some even liked touching/playing with mine. We donated some chalk, construction paper, pencils and Washington D.C. post cards for the kids. I shared some of my pictures on my camera with the children and they LOVED it. We practiced saying the names of the animals in English and they showed me some of the sentences they had written for class in English. All the students loved going to school, had to stand up when answering a question, and were very respectful. We learned that if the students do not pass their tests at the end of the year they do not move on to the next grade. Also, one needs to score a certain amount on a test in order to get into secondary school. Sometimes if they don't get a high enough score their parents have to pay for them to go to a private school--which is very expensive.


Check out this video of the pre-K/Kindergarten kids singing to us. Many are just learning Swahili for the first time since they are used to only speaking their local tribes language.