Imiliwaha and Udzungwa!

Two years ago I came to Tanzania for one month on a service/immersion trip with St. Bens/St. Johns. Well, last week I was able to spend some time traveling with the current group of Bennies and Johnnies volunteering on that exact same trip. Without a doubt last week was one of the best weeks I’ve spend here in Tanzania. I’ll talk about 3 reasons why:

1) The group: First of all, one of my good friends (Paul) is leading the trip. It was fantastic to be able to spend time with him here and catch up on life for the last several months. Second, it was really neat to be able to get to know / spend time with a group of students from my school. I didn’t know any of them, but we all had an instant connection (CSB/SJU), so I almost left like I was hanging out with old friends. It was nice to spend time with so many people who come from the same place as me.

2) Imiliwaha: I met up with the group in Imiliwaha, the convent of 100+ Benediction sisters were I spent time 2 years ago. It was such a neat thing to go ‘back to where it started,’ in a way. It was cool to see the CSB/SJU group experiencing the same things I experienced 2 years ago, and it was such a blessing to be able to spend time with the kids at the orphanage there again. Our group got really close to some of the orphans. I remembered so many of them, and it was crazy to see how much they’ve changed in 2 years. There were some new children, but overall the feeling I experienced when I was there this time was the exact same as the last time. The entire time we were in Imiliwaha memories from my trip and my group just came flooding back – it was fantastic.

3) Udzungwa National Park: I was going to return to Sumbawanga after Imiliwaha but Paul and the group convinced me to travel with them to Mikumi and Udzungwa National Park instead. I had never been to Udzungwa before, and I might have to go out on a limb and say it is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen / experienced in the last 5 months (and I’ve seen some pretty beautiful things). Udzungwa is located in these beautiful mountains, complete with forests, waterfalls and monkeys. The group and I took a 3 hour hike to the top of the mountain / top of this huge waterfall. The overlook was absolutely unbelievable, and the waterfall was gigantic. After hiking back down we were able to jump in and swim at the base of the waterfall. It was probably the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever seen. The water was freezing, but we got used to it after a few seconds. It was such a spectacular thing to be swimming and look up to see this gigantic, 800+ foot waterfall pounding down.

Here are 3 pictures from my trip: The first one is of me and one of the orphans I was reunited with in Imiliwaha. The second is of the group of girls from St. Bens at the top of the waterfall. The third one looking up from the base of the waterfall (the little pool of water at the bottom is where we were able to swim).







My time here is winding down already. I have less than 2 weeks left in Sumbawanga, then I’ll be traveling to DAR to drop off James (who leaves before me). After that, I’ll meet up with Paul again and do a little traveling with him. I think we’re going to try to go to Zanzibar, and then maybe head down to Hanga where Paul lived as a volunteer for 3 years.

I am really excited to get back home and see everyone again … but I start to get a little panicky when I think about saying goodbye to the people here. I can’t believe my time is almost up.

Hope all is well at home! Keep the comments/emails coming!