Scuba Diving & Goodbyes

By Emily Rosberg

We left Stone Town bright and early on December 1st to make it to Matemwe to start scubaing! We split our group in half; some of us did the logistical training while the rest of us spent eight-ish hours learning scuba skills in the pool. On the second day, we switched and our excitement built to actually get into the ocean to dive!

We had two scuba days and our dives were absolutely incredible! We had so much fun exploring the magic undersea world and we all came up from our dives ecstatic about all the cool marine life we saw. We saw sea turtles, trumpet fish, starfish, eels, dolphins, lots of colorful coral, and so much more!

We spent our afternoons enjoying the beautiful white sand beaches and the Indian Ocean. As per usual, we also ate very well, enjoying all the fresh seafood the island had to offer us. We ate and hung Oceanside, and it was a full moon, so we were able to watch the moon rise over the ocean. It was really special.

On our last night in Matemwe we had a jam session on the beach and ended up attracting all the local kids—we had a real crowd! We had dinner and enjoyed reminiscing about our trip around a fire on the beach.

We transferred back to Stone Town to catch the ferry back to Dar es Salaam. We wrapped up our trip with dinner in typical Africa fashion: bargaining for fresh street food. We came back to our adorable hostel and circled up on the roof to reflect on our semester. We exchanged secret Santa gifts and shared a lot of smiles as we looked back on our trip.

For our last day, we had a group lunch at a really nice local cafe. As we say, we totally “balled out” and everyone had a big meal, as well as dessert to boot! With that, it was time to say our goodbyes and head our separate ways. As we all head out on our next adventures, we promised to remain in touch and to share all that we learned from our wonderful semester together.

Kifaru Out!!!