Chelsea
Muli Shani!!!? Hi everyone. (It means hi, how are you in Bemba). Well, we’re here! We arrived safely after over 30 hours of traveling. Totally worth it, by the way. There are nine students here and two teachers. The guys that work around here are really nice. Everyone from GU is getting to know each other and getting along great. We walk the 3 miles and back to the chimpanzee enclosures every day. On Friday we had a Brie. We went to Sheila’s house (the lady who started Chimfunshi) and cooked food and got to see all her animals that she has – turkeys, chickens, roosters, dogs, a monkey named Jacko and a hippo named Billy. The monkey was jumping on everyone and being crazy, but is totally friendly. We walked the six miles to Sheila’s house and played the picnic game on the way. We also taught it to one of the guys that works here that is Zambian. The sunset was gorgeous and it was right by the river. Sheila played Frank Sinatra music and the Mamma Mia soundtrack and there was dancing and games, too.
There is a group of international school kids that arrived today – 40 5th graders from Lusaka. We have teams of 6 kids and 2 GU students to monitor them. My group’s name is the Cool Chimps. Those clever kids… We went to the Dambo which is a huge grassy enclosure and we played futbol, kickball, monkey in the middle, etc. with all the local kids and the international students. They got along well for the most part.
This part of Africa is a lot different than other areas I have been to. We haven’t seen any of the “Big Five” or gone on a safari or seen any pyramids here! (Not that I was expecting to see pyramids…) The terrain is suuuper dry and dusty. We always track red dust into our rooms from our shoes. There are big termite mounds on the sides of the roads.
The chimps are really cool to watch and I am going to study the behavior of how baby chimps need and get attention and how it relates to human babies. For our biology class, we have been walking around and labeling which trees are which. I have learned a lot!
The bathrooms are more than a hole in the ground. There is an actual toilet. No door. MY CAMERA BROKE! The lens on it won’t close again. I had déjà vu, so I think this has happened before. But I am taking lots of photos with other people’s cameras that they are so kindly lending me. I’ve got some pretty great photos so far.
I miss everyone back home; I got homesick once so far. I am enjoying my time though and have made lots of new friends. The showers here are freezing. That’s all folks…
MANJA BWINO!!!