This past week we headed north for a Buddhist retreat at the Pleekwiwek Dhamma center. We had no idea what a treat this would be! It was a week packed with activities, most of which involved hanging out with the novice monks. At the center, there were about 15 novice monks aged 11 to 18; they were some of the best kids we’ve worked with. Every morning we tried our… Read More
Kia Ora! Or, for English speakers, Hello and good health! Those words were what was said to me immediately by our Maori contact when she picked us up. I was confused, clearly I am not a fluent speaker, and I was so used to Bula! that hearing a language other than Fijian or English was a bit mystifying. But I soon got used to it, as we arrived in the… Read More
Hey there all friends and family of the Maya group, Ricky and Lizza here blogging this week on our time at Bona Fide farm on the island of Ometepe, Nicaragua! We´ve been very busy here lending helping hands to the volunteers when needed. Some of our tasks have included, constructing paths out of rocks, gravel, and bricks (all hauled uphill by hand), weeding by hand and with machetes, tending to… Read More
Just in case any of you are interested, here’s the link to the google album I post all of my photos from the trip. Uploading is sporadic, and I still don’t have everything from the beggining up (as internet speeds are very slow here) but there are a fair amount up for your viewing pleasure.
https://plus.google.com/photos/104932745759355222923/albums/5933659783766729089?banner=pwa&authkey=CM6IjIa-gNqPyAE… Read More
The week of Free Travel:
After two weeks, we left Arequipa last Saturday. We had an excellent time in the city, learning Spanish, talking with our homestay families, and enjoying our first stop in Peru. But eventually, it was time to go.
This time around, we travelled in (relative) style, chilling on the top floor of a double decker bus.
After ten hours (mas o menos) of bus travel, we… Read More
Greetings from all of us here in New Zealand! We just finished up with our tough but rewarding week at Blue Mountain Adventure. (BMAC) During our time there we all become stronger as a group and as individuals. Throughout our trip Lord Of The Rings has been an ongoing interest due to how incredible it is and the fact that it was filmed in New Zealand. As a result our… Read More
Arrival in Kigali. We touched down in Rwanda at around 8-8:30 AM local time after having a very early start to our travel here. Our first plane from Dar left at 5 AM, so we were up and ready to go at 3.. We had two short flights, with a leighover in Nairobi, Kenya. Right off the bat, Rwanda was a great place for me to practice my French, although… Read More
When I was younger, people used to ask me what it was like to have special needs brothers. Some people would even ap0logize, as if their presence was a burden on my life. I never really understood it. To me, they have always been perfect. I think it took me a very long time to even realize that there was something different about them. So yes, they might not have… Read More
When our group arrived at Zuni, we immediately went to the museum to meet with Jim Enote, the man whose land we were going to be staying on and who would be hosting us for our time on the Zuni reservation. After a fantastic tour of his museum as well as getting to learn of the Zuni origin story we were allowed to see a ceremonial dance before setting off… Read More
Hi world! We are in Guatemala! It´s really quite exciting to have yet another new country to explore. (: We said goodbye to Camaronal, Costa Rica and our precious sea turtle hatchery. We took a nice bus about 5 hours to Alajuela (just outside of San Jose and the airport) and stayed in a backpackers hostel for the night. We found our new European style home exceeding our expectations. Rustic… Read More
Hey everyone!
We just got back to Iringa after our 3-day safari with Warthog Adventures at Ruaha National Park. The experience was amazing, and we were able to see the “Big Five” (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino). We’re moving on to Mufindi Orphanage tomorrow, so look forward to seeing some great safari photos and hearing about our time at the orphanage in about 10 days!
-Becca… Read More
Greetings all! Becks here with the weekly update! Right now we’re in Wellington exploring the city and preparing for free travel. We just finished up at the Blue Mountain Adventure Centre (BMAC)! Dan and Meghan, our activity leaders, lead us through some awesome activities this past week!
BMAC is in the small town of Raurimu right on the edge of the Tongariro National Park, so our first adventure was trekking… Read More
Namaste family and friends!
We have just arrived in Rishikesh in time for Diwali after an amazing two weeks of exploration in the Himalayas. We started out in Gangtok, the beautiful capital city of Sikkim, at a lovely homestay nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. We spent our mornings taking long uphill walks to the Serenity Home to volunteer with men recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. We all… Read More
Since we didn’t have the world’s most interesting week (and we know that you all depend on us for your weekly dose of excitement), we’ve decided to spice this blog up with short bios of everyone on the trip, so you have an idea of who all these people are that we talk so much about.
In no particular order, here are the members of Carpe Diem Nkula, Greta and… Read More
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
Here are several photos from our stay in Varanasi. They are the burning ghat, the sunrise over the Ganga, Paffy and I on the boat, and our fire dancing instructor Krishna in action!… Read More
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
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
