Elephants everywhere

At the sight of the first elephant we stopped and turned off the car. We watched for awhile. How amazing! Such a giant, powerful creature. 

We did the same with the first giraffe--we stopped and just watched for awhile.

But by the end of the day, after seeing herd after herd after herd of elephants and giraffe after giraffe, we wanted to see the cats! Where were they?! Though we heard the lions, leopards and cheetahs were somewhere, we couldn't find them. So from our experience, Tarangire is the place to see elephants and giraffe... but the Maasai Mara is still the place to see lions! (I saw 11 in one day!)

On to the Swahili lesson....

Habari zenu! Ninajifunza Kiswahili sasa, kwahiyo, nitajaribu kuandika Kiswahili. Je, mnaelewa?

(Hello everyone! I am learning Kiswahili right now, so, I will try to write in Kiswahili. Do you understand?)

Wikendi hii, mimi na rafiki zangu tulienda mbugu ya Tarangire kuona wanyama porini. Mbugu huu kuko Tanzania.

(This weekend, my friends and I went to Tarangire National Park to see wild animals. This park is in Tanzania).

Tuliona twiga nyingi...

(We saw many giraffe...)

...na swara...

(and gazelle)

na mjuzi mkubwa!

(and a giant lizard!)

...tembo NYINGI!

(MANY elephants!)

...na mbuni...

(and ostrich)

Tukaliona nyani.

(And we saw baboons)

Rafiki Zangu, Daniel na Maike. 

(My friends)

Je, unafikiri mahali paona kama Florida? Nilifikiri!

(Do you think this place looks like Florida? I thought so!)

(I'll just use English now... you might be tired of using Swahili, or maybe that's just me! I still have to do homework tonight, so I need to save my brain power).

The park is known for it's giant Boabab trees... notice the work of the elephants on the tree trunk.

Here is another little monkey that got in the car, my friend Mo-Mo! He and his family are from Germany and are classmates of mine. We enjoyed our long day in the car together.

It's my last week here in TZ studying and then I head back to Kenya on Saturday. Our summer (it's actually winter here, but it's the American "summer" season) begins as we welcome a team from Truman State University next Wednesday, then the day they head back to the US we welcome our NMSI summer intern team. I'm excited to have several visitors over the next few months. Karibu Kenya!

A view of Mt. Meru on our drive home. Our school is just at the base of the mountain, outside of Arusha.