First Week in Tanzania

Archive East Africa- NKULA
Hamjambo, Marekani! We are currently in Iringa, celebrating the one week anniversary of our arrival in Tanzania. We flew from Kigali to Dar es Salaam last Thursday, stayed the night in Dar es Salaam, and then took the world’s hottest and longest bus ride to Iringa, a city in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. Although apparently no one on the 9 hour bus ride to Iringa wanted to open their… Read More

Boat Tours, Internships, and Cows! Oh My!

Archive India- SHIVA
I heard the clean snip of the scissors and gazed up into the mirror of the barber shop into the eyes of a tall, cheery Indian man. With sparking eyes, and eccentric smiles, he and Payton held up my pony tail. Ten minutes later, I was officially bald… Namaste family and friends! Megan (the recently bald group member) here. This week was as fast paced and hectic as ever. We… Read More

Arequipa

Archive South America- INTI
hey yall, We’ve been in Arequipa for about 11 days now and have a had a lot of fun. We all met our awesome homestay families and have been having fun with them frequently. For the weekdays, the group is split in two.  One group learns spanish while the other helps out this cool dude Rick out at the orphanage he started here. Last week the group at the orphanage… Read More

Liam’s Canadian Thanksgiving Experience!

Archive East Africa- KIFARU
Here’s the Thanksgiving story (October 14th): Starting the day, Jack and I woke up and our homestay mother put us right to work. We were sent to the ‘shamba’ (farm field) to clean up the old corn stocks. Mama John (the homestay mother) gave us Djembes, a gardening tool much like a hoe, and told us to chop down the old dried-up stocks. We worked for about half an hour,… Read More

Happy Halloween!

Archive Central America- MAYA
Hi all! Maya and Shane here, recapping on this past week. As we write this, we are sitting in the common area at Project Bona Fide, a farm dedicated to the diversification and availability of plant species in Nicaragua. The common area is completely open, and overlooks the lush jungle/farm, as well as the lake that could most certainly be mistaken for the ocean due to its endless horizon. We… Read More

Ho’zhoo’doo

Archive Indigenous America
Well it’s now almost November and the brief sleet storm which just hit us in Cornfields on the Diné (pronounced “Din-ay” and the more polite name for “Navajo”) Reservation is a definite testament to the oncoming winter.  In the past couple of weeks, we have travelled from Diné College to Canyon de Chelly and to Ganado and Cornfields, two of the 126 chapters which make up the Diné Reservation. Our… Read More

Kifaru Photo Update Y’all!

Archive East Africa- KIFARU
 Rock Gardens near Morogoro  Getting the Fish’s eyes ready to eat! (Yum)  Liam and big big fruits  Siafu! (ants that CAN and WILL eat you.)  Stranger Danger (Siafu)  Kellie and Amanda teaching the locals how to make peanut butter cookies!  Foggy mornin’ hen keepin her chicks warm  Liam helping Msafiri prepare for his national Math exam (Mufindi Orphanage)  Zaoda on the swing that Liam and Kulywa fixed at Mufindi  Zaoda… Read More

Tortugas Galore

Archive Central America- QUETZAL
Adios Nicaragua. Next stop Costa Rica. After a four hour luxury bus ride we found ourselves in Liberia, Costa Rica. Although we were only staying in a hostel for a night, we still had a decent amount of exposure to Liberia. Some of us were more than happy to leave the rustic Bone Fide farm. Privileges such as Air Conditioning, TV, a washer/dryer and quality shower rooms were highly anticipated.… Read More

Let the adrenaline flow!

Archive South Pacific- HONGI
Parents, Friends,  and Followers of our Hongi Adventurers, We had a wonderful day in Auckland and we are now headed south for a week of adrenaline pumping activities  with the Blue Mountain Adventure Center. We are hoping for a tramp around/up Mt.Doom as well as any other Lord of the Ring locations we can find! We won’t have access to Internet, so stay tuned until next Monday.   Ryan and… Read More

Ruaha Safari

Archive East Africa- KIFARU
Hi!! Where do I even begin?! I could start by telling you all about the amazing animals we saw during our stay…but someone (*cough* liv) forgot to bring the list to the internet cafe. That is okay though, you will all just have to wait a week to see our nerdy list. Just imagine birds of every color and size, ones that passed too fast and we couldn’t help but… Read More

WOOFing in New Zealand!

Archive South Pacific- WALKABOUT
For the first time in over a month of travels we are in the comfort of a home again. The smells of morning porridge, the comfort of a warm bed, and the energy of a bustling family. For the past week the Walkabout crew has been WWOOFing (Worldwide Oppprtunities on Organic Farms) on a farm Carpe has visit several times about an hour from Hastings. The experience I’ve had at… Read More

We Almost Saw A Perezoso

Archive Central America- MAYA
But not quite. The group has just returned from a hike up to a Nature Reserve called Ampante on the edge of the city. Spirits were high as we embarked because Quintin had a premenition that a sloth would fall from the trees into his open backpack. We believed him as he was correct about his host family making pancakes this morning. When we got to the reserve we were… Read More

Da Farm Lyfe

Archive South Pacific- HONGI
Hey guys! We just finished our second to last day of work on Sheila’s farm. This week has gone by so fast and we are sad to see it come to an end. Each day we wake up at 7, eat breakfast and start that days work. The work involves planting trees (720 total), herding cows, feeding baby cows, repairing/building fences, gardening and other various jobs around the farm. We… Read More

Mompiche, Free Travel, as decided upon by the group

Archive South America- INTI
African dance lessons, surfing, delicious burritos for only two fifty, bonfires on the beach, baked treats, a sweet hostal, and sleep. These were some of the great experiences we had in the small fishing village of Mompiche. As of four years ago there was not even a road to the village the only way to access it was by boat. We arrived early Wednesday morning and all crashed after a… Read More

Currently a Kiwi!

Archive South Pacific- HONGI
For the past 5 days the Hongi group has been staying on a farm on the North Islands of New Zealand. Shela (farm owner) has been having us work everyday from 8 – 12 with jobs such as herding cows, cleaning cow pies, and planting hundreds and hundreds of trees. I can speak for everyone when I say there is not one thing we can complain about. After our working… Read More

Rwanda

Archive East Africa- NKULA
Greetings from Kigali! We’ve been in Rwanda for the past four days and are having an amazing time. Shortly after getting settled into our hostel here in Kigali, we got lunch as a group and made our way to the Hotel des Mille Collines (where Hotel Rwanda was based). While there, Mia (as this week’s NatGeo) led us in an awesome discussion about the Rwandan Genocide. She was able to… Read More

Creating Chocolate, From Beginning to End

Archive Central America- QUETZAL
¨Watching Willy Wonka as a little girl and giggling at the umpalampas never prepared me for the real cacao, the ashy skins and haunted history of this scared plant. In an open-air jungle kitchen, we gripped sticky blocks of cane sugar and rushed them back and forth over a cheese grater, creating mini mountains of molten, oozy sugar. We ground coconuts upon a hand grater on the counter, a simple … Read More