stephanie to merilee

Hi all and merilee, I'm interested that it is not the cow poop that caused a rash and yet it is the lovely black ink. We should find those Americans who liked to play with school children when they should have been learning, and see if they all have rashes. I bet they do and I bet they're terrified. A girl on our spice tour got bit by something and was so afraid. I assured her that biting flies are usually ok, unless they carry sleeping sickness. Ha.

The Crazy Ndn in Cape Town

Hey Everyone!

Well I have just arrived in Cape Town with Jessie after a spending about a week and some days travelling from Jo'burg. The coast of South Africa is absolutely beautiful!! Shuana I see what you mean about wanting to live in SA. Every little city I went to on the coast I could live in -- with a stunning ocean, with a backdrop of mountains.....it reminded me of home.

Anyways, for christmas Jessie and I spent it at the Tsitiskama National Park where we went Canopying -- basically the strung some wires at the top of the sub-tropical rainforest canopy and then we got to ride along them using pulleys. So we got to zip along the canopy of the rainforest! Our highest pt was 90 meters high and the longest zip line was 110 meters! It was lots of fun.

Then after that we went to Knysna were we got the chance to go quad biking, absailing (repelling) down an ocean cliff, and canoeing in a lagoon. The absailing freaked the !@$* out of me! We had the option to go again but I chickened out, however jessie showed me up and did it twice.

Now we are in Cape town with plans to go on a wine tour and I want to go diving with the great white sharks. Oh we have also met up with Cindy Zackafoo (sp?), Emily Yoeder, Liz Doerr and her family who are also staying in Cape Town. It will be a good time. Tomorrow we are going to go Salsa dancin at some club. It should be good times.

It is funny reading all of your blogs regarding missing Malawi because this whole trip I have become more and more homesick and can't wait to get home....I guess it is because I am still in africa.

Well will keep every one posted on my travels and I will send pictures via email so if you are not on my email list you will not get the pictures (I have sent pictures from my Tanzania trip).

Later,
Dakotah

Incident Report

Subject: Not-so-suspicious rash

Who needs a tattoo when their henna washes off in a week and leaves in its place a raised red rash that perfectly details the intricate swirls of the henna design? That's right. Three weeks ago I ignored the warning of Zanzibar's Kinazi Upepo lodge and had one of the beach ladies do henna on my right hand. (Stephanie: interestingly enough, it was from the black ink not the cow poop that left the orange koolaid stain). So I spent last week coming to the sad realization that I couldn't just call Dr. Max for medical advice, that the dermatologist takes a long time to get into, and that my Mom's house is not equipped with a great medical kit. The upside: prostituting myself on the M1 to get to medical assistance was not necessary. Lessons learned: (1) choose a henna design you really like, (2) the beach ladies should charge more for this special henna that lasts longer, (3) stay in Africa and no one will be concerned about the rash, and (4) most Americans are a little more squemish than the average PCV when the issue of rashes is raised.

Merry Christmas to all! Missing you guys and Malawi like crazy. I have to come up with a new way for my body to operate...living according to the day and sunlight means I would have only been active for a period of less than 20 hours in the past two and a half weeks.

Did anyone else get a kick out of the Red Cross setting up a hot chocolate and blanket aid station for those "stranded New Yorkers" who had to walk across the bridge due to the transit strike?

Love, Merilee

Stephanie

The kezboard is hungarian and the webpage is chinese. But I think Iám doing this right. But the z and y are switched and there is no explanation point or contraction. I will do without.

We are in Budapest having a nice time except for the freezing cold. By the end of the week we expect to be in Sarajevo. I do not know how we are getting there, but Joaquin and our friend Chris will figure it out. We are staying in a lovely apartment for onlz about 14 dollars a person a night.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas day and has an amazing New Years Eve and Day.

My tan is fading with every day and my ass expanding with every meal. Oh well.

I miss zou all verz much'

Kelly and Tom

Hello from Cape Cod! Tom and I are hanging out watching zombie movies and drinking 40s. We are trying to get sub jobs in NYC and an apartment. I've interviewed with Columbia and have applied to a couple of other schools-now it's just a matter of waiting. I also met with Dave Bouie-he says hello to you all. Tom has interviewed with some schools in Brooklyn and will hear back after the holidays. Hope you are all doing well in your travels and your readjustments!

From Martha

Happy Holidays, Everyone! (Whatever you may be celebrating!) Just thought I'd wish you all zabwino zonse. Basi.

Tommy says yo

Hey there all!
Greetings from the Bay Area and happy happy holidays! Yep, back home after a crazy time of interviews, travelling too much, freezing in New York, and eating lots of cereal with cold milk. Hmmmm, cereal. All of my interviews went really well and I was able to just ramble on about Malawi and my Peace Corps experiences...you know, beating my students and things like that. I really enjoyed D.C. since it was clean, the metro there was great, and the schools are right in the middle of the city. If only Lilongwe had a medical school I'd be there soon soon. No hernia surgery needed for those that knew about it so I'm pretty excited about that, I'm just supposed to wait a few years until my intestine pops out into my lap and then they'll operate. I'm moving down to San Diego on January 2nd to live with a friend of a friend...Ryan, will you be around then? All righty guys, miss you for sure and hope that everyone is adjusting and happy with life...
Tommy

Ndine Martha

Hey, Guys!
Just checkin' in to say I am home, in NH kwa my brother, and doing fine fine. I'm taking it slow. I do have my car, though, and have enjoyed driving it fast (but not fast fast). I am off to spend some more money today. Just keeps on flyin' out of my hands! Oh- and, I finished that number 6 HP last night, and frankly, did not think it was all that great. How do you like that? After all that build up of suspense. Go figure.

My nieces are adorable and I am enjoying them. I get to see one of my brothers tomorrow! Yay! Then just my Dad and one more brother left to see and then I can call myself officially home.

Hope you are all well.
Hey Ryan - when I read "Uh - oops" I knew it was you before I even saw your name at the bottom. :)

stephanie again

Hi all,

I checked on our corpscare and we also didn't get extened. So check it quickly and extend it online by credit card if it wasn't done right the firs ttime. I emailed Pam and she's having Betty look into our problem.

stephanie

hi. egypt was ok, as Joaquin said. I'd go back again if they could get rid of all the people. Being around that amount of greed made me miss Malawi. Camels suck. Bulgaria is freezing. I'm trying to learn how to read their stupid alphabet, but it is hard. All the letters are messed up. We didn't eat or sleep for a couple days transporting from the Red Sea to Bulgaria. But now we're at our friend's apartment. He has a TV and internet and a heater. So it's all good. Thanks for the heads up on CorpsCare, Jess. Miss you all :( Let's meet somewhere soon. Somewhere warm, please.

Joaquin

So Tanzania and Egypt were really cool. Egypt was nice. There was some kind of random white cheese at every meal and the eggs were white. Somehow in my confused state upon leaving Tanzania (an overnight flight across the equator...as you all know this is very disorienting) I thought eggs turned brown when you cooked them and all the eggs in Egypt were raw.

Anyway, all the monuments were nice, and the Red Sea was really cool. Camels impressed me as being cute stupid smelly dogs with tiny ears, supermodel eyelashes, and opposable nostrils. They also made some sort of horribly loud gurgling noise like the water dispensers that you have at offices. Like some other organisms I have heard about, you make kissing noises at them to make them move faster. I rode a camel up Mt. Sinai, but it was a grumpy old camel and kept stumbling and farting.

That didn't ruin the romance though. Mt. Sinai was beautiful, but it was so cold!. We are off to Bulgaria where it is even colder. I think we might just die. I hope everyone is doing well and that readjustment is going smoothly (or at least as smoothly as can be expected).

Miss you all,
-Joaquin

Matt- hitchhiking in the serengeti, party at wellingtons

greetings from mwanza, a town in NW Tanzania, along the lovely lake Victoria. last few days were spent soaking in the beauty of serengeti plains, ngorongoro crater, and lake manyara park. just as wonderful as everyone rambles about so that should suffice.

highlights- watching giraffes play fight in a courting ritual,
-seeing hundred thousand wildebeest spread out over plains(I imagine a lot like looking at Woodstock festival- hairy, dirty, things everywhere) ,
-feeling complete sense of awe/glory at expanse of plains of serengeti "endless plains"
-getting a good hitchhike in middle of serengeti national park in a Honda civic.
-learning a bit of Spanish from the Spanish couple I traveled with, such as elephante(elephant for those unlearned)

ramblings
*a zebra is a donkey in drag
*no matter who I talked with (animal or person) I could not find any proof of large numbers of animals gathering and singing/dancing in a choreographed fashioned, let alone sing
*the tribal masai people (Tanzania and Kenya) must be related somehow to Scottish people as they both wear kilts.
*giraffes should be in the big five, I mean come on.
*the serengeti would be great for dirt motorcycling if not for the pesky animals

hope all are well, happy holidays, don't worry the minibuses are still running

if you have too much time to kill you can follow on
http://www.steelintheair.com/Mattsblog/blog.html

Jess

well, i'm glad other people are starting to get back. i was feeling very sad at being the only one home...um...i guess i'll update on what i've been doing. i have a job and stuff, having spent most of my readjustment money before really attempting to readjust, but whatever. paul moved out here a while back and is running a campaign here for a special election in february. i'm buying a "new" car today, something just good enough to get me to and from work each day. and that's about it. oh, just to warn you guys, when i COSed, i signed up for health insurance extenstion, but they didn't do it. luckily i got my check all at once and noticed that money had not been deducted. so check online to make sure it got extended. you only have 1 month to correct it. i hope you all are doing well. i really have missed you guys

uhh. oops.

Okay, so I wrote that last post and forgot that my name isn't written anywhere for you to know who landed safe. I'm blaming it on jet lag. Because otherwise my mind is like a steel trap. Nothing gets past me.

Oh yeah, this is Ryan

On the ground

Okay, so I made it in last night. I am now in America. Spent the night in London with Lisa's friends and that was weird, but fun. Had mexican last night. Probably try and go again today as well. And I've also joined the no-baggage club. Hopefully I'll get it today. So, no Buffy. sniff. Hope you all are okay. Will figure out how to upload pictures of Zanzibar when I'm not on dial-up. Now to try and see what that TV thing is all about...

Kelly

Hi All! Tom and I just got a place in Danbury and we are busy applying for jobs. We're spending lots of time visiting family and friends. Today there is a huge snow storm. It's so crazy to think we were in sunny Africa 2 weeks ago! Hope all is well!

Stephanie

Hi everybody! What are you all up to? How is readjusting in the USA for those of you who are back? Joaquin, Ryan, Lisa, and I are having a fun time in Zanzibar. We hope to meet up with Merilee and Dakotah tomorrow on the beach. I hope everyone is good!

Tom

Kelly and I are back in America. They lost our luggage in Amsterdam and we just got it last night. Everything in America is so clean! And the people are so plump! Sarah - remember our agreement about McDonalds!