Baadaye from Your OEs

Rainy season has commenced, and at what perfect timing. In our last few weeks here in Tanzania we all patiently awaited the rains to start here in Africa, whether it be waiting physically for the sake of our homestay families’ crops or rhythmically through song (insert ironically awesome reference to Toto’s Africa here- this one is for you Jada). It is bittersweet that our group left just hours before the… Read More

Farewell!

Hard to believe three months has gone by! With teary eyes we said goodbye to the people that has become inseparable to our wellbeing. If you sit down with any member of our Hongi group, we will be telling you stories for days. This trip turned out to be a first time for many things. Whether it was first time away from home, first time in New Zealand/Fiji/Australia, first time… Read More

Final Weeks

It seems crazy, but this is our final blog of an amazing three month experience! Nevertheless, these last two weeks have been just as meaningful and fun as the previous ten. After a free day in Cairns to relax after our SCUBA adventure we drove two hours into North Queensland to work in the Daintree Rainforest. In Port Douglas we met John Rumney and Damien Settle who are working on… Read More

Final Days in Zanzibar

Blog from Jada and Brent Salaama Lekum! Jada and Brent here reporting from Zanzibar, again. We have finally reached the last leg of our journey! We spent a week of exploring and getting lost in the streets of Stonetown, 3 days of which were spent interning at local shops getting a taste of what it’s like to work/operate a business in Zanzibar, more specifically Stonetown. Initially arriving in Stonetown came… Read More

Shiva Crew is on their way…!

We’ve just heard from the leaders with the update that the entire Shiva group is safely off on their next adventures! A few will be traveling on their own in Asia for a while before returning home, while most are currently on the flight headed back towards San Francisco. They had a celebratory last day and said a joyful, tearful goodbye. Check out this sweet “final group photo!” Much gratitude… Read More

Shanti is on their way…

We’ve just heard from the leaders with the update that the entire Shanti group is safely off on their next adventures! Many will be traveling on their own in Asia for a while before returning home, while others are currently on the flight headed back towards San Francisco. They had a celebratory last day and said a joyful, tearful goodbye. Check out this sweet “final group photo!” Much gratitude from… Read More

SCUBA fun

How ya goin’, Mate? This past week, we embarked on our long awaited scuba/snorkel adventure in the Great Barrier Reef. For those of you who don’t know, the Great Barrier Reef, located of the coast of Queensland is the largest coral system on Earth. It can even able to be seen from space! When it comes to scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef is widely regarded as one of the… Read More

Ebbs and Flows

Blog from Matt N. Part One: Shock and Awe Before diving into the shenanigans of Diwali, Varanasi’s own Festival of Lights of the Gods, let us delve into the bizarre business of banking. Immediately following the unexpected demonetization of all high-value rupee notes, the Rs 500 and the Rs 1000, the group began to fear the worst. Will the trip continue? Will we have to go home earlier? What do… Read More

SCUBA!~

Like every other week of this trip, this week was none the less of amazing. So much has happened and we even became open water certified scuba divers.We had an interesting, unexpected turn of things at the beginning of the week when our flight from Alice Springs to Cairns wan cancelled. Which actually ended up being a treat because Quantas Airlines paid for everyone’s overnight accommodation along with $50 for… Read More

Thanksgiving, Dolphins, and Stone Town!

Blog from Matt and Jo During this past week of Thanksgiving celebrations, we are sure our friends at home are finishing coursework, reviewing the past semester and stressing to the max about upcoming finals. While they are anxious about freshman year, we are nonchalantly celebrating a Thanksgiving party with our homestay families, exploring the beautiful and historic streets of Stonetown in Zanzibar and swimming with dolphins in the Indian Ocean.… Read More

Happy Thanksgiving from Tanzania

Blog from Jada & Brent “Kamwene” (hello!!) From the Foxes NGO! After a fun week of student directed travel, we made our way over to the Mufundi highlands, where we started the week off in homestays. We were in groups of 2 spread among 3 villages within the community. During our homestays we had the privilege of learning and experiencing daily life in rural Tanzania. Students participated in everything from… Read More

Daintree Conservation Week!

Salutations! We just finished a great week in the Daintree Rainforest! We started off by staying at a local ice cream company, where we participated in a reforestation project while enjoying fresh exotic fruit ice cream. We planted over 100 trees in the course of two days! After the ice cream company, we traveled down the road to the Botanical Ark where we stayed for two days! Previously a cattle… Read More

Outbacking It

Our group had an eventful week in the outback! We started off our days emerging from our cocoons (also known as “swags”). There is no easy way to explain what they are, so if you are confused click the following link- https://www.google.com.au/search?q=swags&rlz=1C5CHFA_enNZ710NZ710&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=618&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOn83ui7XQAhWITLwKHfgqCREQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=roll+up+swags . Although it took a little convincing, almost our entire group put our underlying fear of the unknown creatures of the outback aside, and slept underneath the stars… Read More

Fall in Scotland

Blog from Alanna T Hello to everyone who is reading this latitudes blog post! While most students have their group semester in the fall and their latitudes semester in the spring, I decided to have my group semester in India in the Spring and head of on my own in the fall. It took me a really long time to decide where to go and what organization to be with,… Read More

Student Directed Travel Adventures!

Blog from Reed & Paiton Our week of student directed travel started early: at 5:00 AM as we boarded a public bus from Njombe to Songea. The purpose of student directed travel is to give students the opportunity to learn, on their own, travel without training wheels (Adam and Mary). We, the students, had to plan what we did, where we slept, how we got there, and how we managed… Read More

G’day

For our student directed travel time in Fiji, we stayed in a house on the coral coast and relaxed after our village homestays. The house had an amazing view of the ocean and plenty of room for activities. After leaving the house we said “Moce” (goodbye) to Fiji and hopped on a plane to Brisbane! After a day in the city, we hopped on a train Chenrezig Institute for a… Read More

20 Million Trees

Saturday November 5, 2016 probably around 6:00pm, the group headed out to a pizza place for dinner. The end of another fantastic week, we were ready to head to Australia and start planting some trees. Not knowing anything about what we would be doing, our lovely OE’ s gave us the mountainous task of dividing the group. Many discussions took place, a vote was made. Zack, Stevie, Teddy, Kate, Tara… Read More

Open Hearts: Ohana Amani

Blog from Reed & Paiton Habari za leo? Nkula has arrived in Njombe, Tanzania. After spending nine days at Ohana Amani Retreat Center, we are feeling rejuvenated and ecstatic for the final month of our trip. After traveling through three countries and immersing ourselves in a myriad of communities, it was wonderful to receive the opportunity to pause and reflect on how our journeys have impacted us thus far. We… Read More