Hello and welcome to A Lil Journey!
Well, as you may or may not know by now I am embarking on another adventure! On Sunday, June 27th, at 8pm, I will be leaving my lovely home of 3 years, The Abingdon Manor, to go see about some animals…. The animals we will be looking for our The Big 5 of Africa….lions, elephants, white rhinos, buffalos, and leopards. Tanzania is the location we have chosen to unveil itself to us while we take a much needed holiday!
My friend, Nora, whom I took another extended holiday with before I came to Northern Virginia, three years ago, will meet me there. We figured what better way to celebrate the beginning of a new school year, in a new country, then to take a holiday to a place neither one of us have been to before.
We will begin our journey through Tanzania on Tuesday June 29th…. That is after my long flight from Washington DC, via Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), and finally arriving at 130am on June 28th. After a few hours of sleep or a long highly anticipated “catch up” session, we will leave the Jamboo Inn in search of some fun things to get ourselves into.
We plan to do the Northern Circuit and Zanzibar last, although these locations are extraordinary (Mt. Kilimanjoro, Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti National Park, etc )and they offer so many wonderful things to see and do…. we are heading south and off the beaten trail. We are heading to less touristy places like Ruaha National Park, Mufindi Escarpment, and small local villages that take a day to get there. We are actually looking forward to 12 hour plus long bus rides with wild animals, not enough leg warm, and fascinating conversations (mostly via charades) to be had. It make take hours to convey a simple thought but, “hey, what else can we do on a bus as the miles turn into hours.”
We also wanted to add gorillas to our must see and/or do list while we are there. So we will be either going overland via a few days in Rwanda, to Uganda, to go see about some silverback gorillas. We want to see the Genocide Museum and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Research Center. Why not see the gorillas in Rwanda? Good question, Nora and I both have friends who have done the tour in Uganda and we are going to do the same one. If we go overland there we will fly back or vice versa. We plan to end our trip on the beaches of Zanzibar, strolling through Darajani Market, visiting the old slave market and sitting on the beach looking out at the cyrstal blue water of the Indian Ocean enjoying the last few days and reflecting on all that we have seen, all that we have done and the beautiful people we have met along the way.
The end of my summer vacation is August 21st. It will be on that day I will be leaving Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and flying to yet another adventure…. I will begin training and professional development sessions at my new school in Erbil, Kurdistan, in Northern Iraq. I will be back in the ESL classroom teaching an inclusion classroom of 5 year old kindergarteners. Although I will miss my babies at KIPPDC LEAP Academy and look forward to hearing about their new school year, I am so excited to be working overseas again. I am really looking forward to teaching at the The International School of Choueifat.
Sorry for the long epic first blog entry……
I hope that when you have a moment at work, school, or when you are home and playing around on your computer, you will click on, my blog: www.aliljourney.com and see what I am doing on the other side of the world.
Miss you all already and I haven’t even left yet. I hope to hear from you all, from time to time.
Until my next blog…..
Tags: Next Adventure