Wow. If I had a dollar for every time I've thought "school is awesome!" on this trip, well, I'd probably be able to pay for all the chocolate I've been buying!
I'm running out of blogging stamina though, so please excuse me for my lack of enthusiasm.
We arrived in Zanzibar on the Sunday. I could live here forever. Small winding roads, white-walled buildings, and cats everywhere... It's paradise.
What have we done since we've been here? Honestly, it's been a blur. My biology class has gone on a few awesome field trips, which included visiting mangroves, attempting to visit sea grass farms but not actually finding sea grass farms, playing with one-week-old baby sea turtles, and buying a jar of Nutella (I guess that was kind of just a little detour on one of the field trips).
My last official day of classes was spent taking a dhow (a traditional sailboat) to a sandbar, where we spent the entire day swimming and hanging out in the sun. We balanced it out by having exams and final presentations the next day, but how many McGill students can say they spent the day before finals at the beach? hmm...I'd say approximately 30.
Last night we he had a lovely little African graduation ceremony for the nine graduating students on this trip (myself included!). We were dressed in kangas and cute little grass hats that made us look like pineapples. We passed around a bottle of sparkling wine while we listened to Vitamin C and accepted our hand-drawn diplomas. Definitely better than any graduation ceremony that McGill could ever offer! So I've survived these past four years, and what a fantastic semester to end with!
One of my classmates put it quite nicely, in saying that now I am moving from the stage of life where I can check the box for "student" to the stage of life where I can check the box for "unemployed." Hooray!!!
So what's next in the book of Maria? Heading up to the beach tomorrow for a bit of solid rest and relaxation, and maybe a bit of snorkeling too! Then Kilimanjaro, one week from today!
Goodbye CFSIA, hello adventures!
Monday, March 25, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
chai [tea]
Once upon a time, I went to a tea plantation as part of my Environmental Management class! (This was back in Uganda, which seems like ages ago... An entire month ago!)
Everywhere you look, there were endless fields of tea.
Then it's on to weighing, wilting, more sorting, drying, more weighing, more drying, more sorting...Eventually, you end up with these buckets of nice black tea!
And here's the tea all packaged up and ready for export:
The factory even had a tasting room to taste for quality. Unfortunately I didn't get to test any, but I did buy half a kilo of tea (for barely a dollar!! Love cutting out the middle man!), so hopefully I got a good batch!
Everywhere you look, there were endless fields of tea.
I drink so much tea at home, but I've never really thought about what goes into the process of making tea. How do these vast expanses of tea plants magically end up in my kitchen cabinet, packaged all nice and neat in little single-serving bags? I had no idea until this day!
Here I am ready to go in my lab coat! Inspectors Maria and Alan, all suited up and ready to explore the inner workings of a tea factory.
Inside the factory, there were so many different conveyor belts. The tea leaves go through multiple stages of sorting, weighing, wilting, and drying. I believe the following picture is of the first stage, when the tea leaves are initially being sorted (unwanted things like sticks and bugs are removed, and then piles of tea leaves are put into these moving buckets for some mysterious reason).
Then it's on to weighing, wilting, more sorting, drying, more weighing, more drying, more sorting...Eventually, you end up with these buckets of nice black tea!
And here's the tea all packaged up and ready for export:
The factory even had a tasting room to taste for quality. Unfortunately I didn't get to test any, but I did buy half a kilo of tea (for barely a dollar!! Love cutting out the middle man!), so hopefully I got a good batch!
At the end of the day, we had to return our lab coats. Here's our group leaving through the tea plantation.
Uganda was so long ago. We're now on the last leg of the field studies program -- Zanzibar! Only 6 more days! Time is really flying.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Utalii [tourism]
Two internet modems, 35 students. It's been quite a struggle.
Just checking in from Karatu, Tanzania! We're near the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge... Pretty much the best fieldtrips on the trip so far! (I got to hold a mammoth femur that was 1.7 million years old!)
Driving to the Kilimanjaro area tomorrow -- not to climb it yet, but I hope it'll get us all excited for when we come back for the big hike in a few weeks! Everything is going by so quickly; I cant believe there are only 12 days left until I'm no longer an undergrad!
Expect a more thorough entry when I get to Zanzibar in a week or so! Kwaherini!
Just checking in from Karatu, Tanzania! We're near the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge... Pretty much the best fieldtrips on the trip so far! (I got to hold a mammoth femur that was 1.7 million years old!)
Driving to the Kilimanjaro area tomorrow -- not to climb it yet, but I hope it'll get us all excited for when we come back for the big hike in a few weeks! Everything is going by so quickly; I cant believe there are only 12 days left until I'm no longer an undergrad!
Expect a more thorough entry when I get to Zanzibar in a week or so! Kwaherini!
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Uganda today, Tanzania tomorrow!
Hello virtual world! It’s been so long! Have you missed me much?
I’ve been having a grand ol’ time here in Uganda for the past three weeks! (I figured I could break my tradition of Swahili titles since Swahili isn't really spoken in Uganda...totally not because I'm all out of vocab words or anything like that...)
After the last time I wrote, we traveled to Kibale National Park, where we stayed for ten whole days! It was nice to finally settle down somewhere for a bit. We stayed at Makerere Field Station which is a research station just outside the forest, and let me tell you -- I have nooo complaints! The bed: amazing. The showers: hot. The food: delicious. I’m talkin’ pizza, pasta, mac 'n cheese, cinnamon rolls, chocolate-frosted marble birthday cake (what a great surprise that was!)…basically all the things we’ve been dreaming of for the past several weeks.
The forest itself is only 200mm/year of rain away from a rainforest. Technically that makes it a mid-tropical altitude forest, but the rains are changing every year, so maybe someday soon it’ll be a rainforest!
Kibale is known for having the world’s largest biomass of primate species. You know what that means -- monkeys galore!! The species that I saw most often was the black and white colobus. They look a lot like skunks (though a certain relative of mine might argue that they look a lot like my mother).
Oh, and of course the baboons. Baboons everywhere.
On our final Sunday at Kibale, we went to church! It was remarkably different than my church experience in Kenya. Actually, I’d say it was more similar to church at home than church in Kenya, except that the singing was much better than at home, and a child accidentally brought a chicken inside during the service.
After Kibale, we traveled to Lake Nabugabo. Man oh man. Paradise. I stayed in a lakehouse with 20 other girls, in a very tightly packed bedroom. The lakehouse was only 20 feet from the water. Apparently there were beautiful sunrises, although sleepy Maria didn’t get to experience any. I did manage to catch the end of one though.
It felt so luxurious doing homework right next to the water, and taking naps to the sweet sound of waves. These were some of my views from my homework hideouts:
And that brings me to the present! I’m back in Jinja! I was here a couple years ago for whitewater rafting, but this time it's all about workworkwork! Yep, that's right folks... This trip is not all about monkeying around (hardy har har...get it?); there actually is quite a bit of learning going on! We've been working day and night on various assignments for my Environmental Management class, and today we finished up with a final exam...phew! Luckily we had time for one fabulously relaxing boat ride on the Nile yesterday, during which we collected a bunch of little-bitty fish species. Unfortunately some of the fishies died in the nets, but that meant we got to see a fish disection! Brains and gills, mmm!
Oh, and before I forget, let me introduce you to my good friend Larry:
I cant decide if the past three weeks have felt long or super quick. Either way, it’s been a blast! Off to Tanzania in the morning!
I’ve been having a grand ol’ time here in Uganda for the past three weeks! (I figured I could break my tradition of Swahili titles since Swahili isn't really spoken in Uganda...totally not because I'm all out of vocab words or anything like that...)
After the last time I wrote, we traveled to Kibale National Park, where we stayed for ten whole days! It was nice to finally settle down somewhere for a bit. We stayed at Makerere Field Station which is a research station just outside the forest, and let me tell you -- I have nooo complaints! The bed: amazing. The showers: hot. The food: delicious. I’m talkin’ pizza, pasta, mac 'n cheese, cinnamon rolls, chocolate-frosted marble birthday cake (what a great surprise that was!)…basically all the things we’ve been dreaming of for the past several weeks.
The forest itself is only 200mm/year of rain away from a rainforest. Technically that makes it a mid-tropical altitude forest, but the rains are changing every year, so maybe someday soon it’ll be a rainforest!
Kibale is known for having the world’s largest biomass of primate species. You know what that means -- monkeys galore!! The species that I saw most often was the black and white colobus. They look a lot like skunks (though a certain relative of mine might argue that they look a lot like my mother).
Oh, and of course the baboons. Baboons everywhere.
On our final Sunday at Kibale, we went to church! It was remarkably different than my church experience in Kenya. Actually, I’d say it was more similar to church at home than church in Kenya, except that the singing was much better than at home, and a child accidentally brought a chicken inside during the service.
After Kibale, we traveled to Lake Nabugabo. Man oh man. Paradise. I stayed in a lakehouse with 20 other girls, in a very tightly packed bedroom. The lakehouse was only 20 feet from the water. Apparently there were beautiful sunrises, although sleepy Maria didn’t get to experience any. I did manage to catch the end of one though.
It felt so luxurious doing homework right next to the water, and taking naps to the sweet sound of waves. These were some of my views from my homework hideouts:
And that brings me to the present! I’m back in Jinja! I was here a couple years ago for whitewater rafting, but this time it's all about workworkwork! Yep, that's right folks... This trip is not all about monkeying around (hardy har har...get it?); there actually is quite a bit of learning going on! We've been working day and night on various assignments for my Environmental Management class, and today we finished up with a final exam...phew! Luckily we had time for one fabulously relaxing boat ride on the Nile yesterday, during which we collected a bunch of little-bitty fish species. Unfortunately some of the fishies died in the nets, but that meant we got to see a fish disection! Brains and gills, mmm!
Oh, and before I forget, let me introduce you to my good friend Larry:
I cant decide if the past three weeks have felt long or super quick. Either way, it’s been a blast! Off to Tanzania in the morning!
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