Thursday, November 26, 2009

Heading to Africa!

On Sunday, November 29, 2009, I'm heading to Tanzania in East Africa to learn about how my students and I might be able to pursue projects there in the near future.  I'll be joined by two former students who have traveled with me on deep immersion trips before: Shane Keane (who went on New Orleans trips with me three times, then moved there for a year and joined in on our last few trips there as our host) and Alec Tappin (who went to New Orleans with us in January 2008 and to the Brazilian Amazon in January 2009).  We are all very excited about our first trip to the African continent. We got our travel shots renewed and we have started taking our malaria medicine, which we must take before, during, and after our time in Africa. 

We leave San Francisco early Sunday morning and arrive in the city called Moshi at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro on Monday night after traveling for 25 hours!  We expect to be sore and tired when we arrive, but we also are eager to explore.  I am participating in (and presenting at) a conference there where the organizers hope to establish working partnerships between colleges and universities in East Africa and the West. 

If all goes as planned, we will get a good feel for the prospect of spending Jan Term 2011 in Tanzania and we will also learn about the possibility of establishing a semester long program there in the future.  Hopefully our internet connections will be reliable enough to keep folks posted back in the U.S., especially the students at Happy Hollow Elementary and Southwestern Elementary in Indiana!

1 comment:

  1. Shawny, Alec & Shane -
    This is fabulous! We at SMC will be following all that you do. Safe trip!
    Sue

    ReplyDelete