On Geography

Inspite of my love for maps, I'm only really good at geography if I've experienced a place, and even then my ability to describe locations can be sketchy. I'm heading out to Tanzania in just over a week and in describing this country's location to people who ask, I can only remember a few things: it's in the eastern part, south of Kenya and the equator. To help out a little bit, I consulted this map. (It's one of the purple ones on the right, south of the 'horn' shape.)

For my travels, I'll be flying from Newark, NJ to Brussels, then to Nairobi, Kenya. I'll stay overnight there and leave in the morning for a short flight (in a little plane) to Mwanza, Tanzania, which is on the coast of Lake Victoria. From there, I think it's less than a 2 hour drive to the village where I'll be teaching. Here's another map that helps locate these places.

When I arrive in Bulima, I'll be working with The Lion of Judah Academy (http://www.lionofjudah.info/) to teach math and possibly some science. The school has many needs and I could find myself doing any number of things there to occupy my time, but I hope to be of help in the instruction of the children, working with various grades.

Stay tuned to this blog for updates from Tanzania!

what do you do when a heat wave comes?

you stay indoors and catch up on blogging.

i finally uploaded pictures from my camera...the urgency of seeing pictures of my neices when they visited last weekend was what drove me to do it. i miss them tons!

Here is the Jeffers family in full, riding the NYC transit: Katie (with Baby 3 in belly), Samantha, Andrew and Hannah (making friends from her stroller).

Hannah. She was hilarious riding the subway. She waved at everyone, made friends everywhere and made lots of funny faces like this one.

This is Samantha, now four and a half years old. When I said goodbye, we were both really sad. She said, "I'll always remember you" or something to that effect.

I guess saying goodbye is sort of like dying??

She's not afraid of posing. I think this picture is so GORGEOUS.

I really do wonder if there are any kids cuter than my neices! I probably won't think so until I have my own. There's something about them being related to you that makes them more precious than anyone else's kids...