Some Progress, and a Pleasant Surprise

So my passport has been sent off to be renewed, and I will get the needed visas upon its return. Final payment has been made to the travel agency, so there's no turning back now.

Zenda, BZ's male lion

It's been arranged for me to have a roommate for the Tanzania portion of my trip. Chris Panek, from the staff at Brookfield Zoo and I will be rooming together for that portion, but he will not be going on to the Kenya portion. Too bad. He and I have spoken on the phone and he seems really great. Plus he has been to Africa before, last fall with another zoo group, so he knows a lot of the ropes.

I have upgraded my camera's memory chip supply (have over 5 gig now, enough for 9,000 photos or some video), bought a few clothes that I think will be appropriate, have a headlamp, a flashlight, and a few other goodies.

Tomorrow I go to the medical travel specialists for my inoculations:  Yellow Fever, Hep A&B,  and whatever else they recommend, plus I'm going to need a prescription for pills to ward off malaria. Not really looking forward to it.


Had some great news today about a really unbelievable coincidence.  I found out that two of my favorite

African Painted Dog at BZ

colleagues from my first teaching job at Jefferson Middle School in Villa Park  have volunteered to teach a five week session at an orphanage/school right in the same area of Tanzania where I will be. They arrive the same weekend that I come back to Arusha from the Serengeti, and will only be a few miles away in Mailisita on that Saturday night. I'm going to do my best to find a way to meet up with them for dinner, and am excited to see how that might work out. Here's a link to the school/orphanage/hotel where they are are volunteering, looks like a very worthwhile place:

The Mailisita Foundation