Back to Africa

I’m 21 years old and I’m graduating from the University of British Columbia in the Okanagan this June and would love your help getting to Africa. I went on a six week long trip to Arusha, Tanzania last summer for an anthropology field school (which is also my major) and fell in love with the country, as well as some people there. I met some good friends, whom I still talk to every day, and I met the man that I love.

                Love is a pretty heavy word, but I think I can go ahead and use it when it comes to Tanzania. What’s not to love? The people are friendlier than anyone I’ve ever met, and the food is amazing and healthy. The sun is pretty much always shining and the stars shine just a little bit brighter than they do here. The Coca Cola comes in glass bottles that seem to make it infinitely better than the type that comes in cans. I could write an entire book on the things that I love about Tanzania, and while I’m sure there are many things that I didn’t like at the time, I really can’t think of them now. I just need to go back, to have the chance to fall in love with it all over again or maybe to realize that it’s just not the place I’m meant to be. Either way, I won’t know until I do it.             

                I’m not sure what I’ll be doing yet when I get there, so I don’t want any of you to get the impression that I’m going to go over there and save lives somehow and donate for that reason. I don't know what I'll be doing in long long run, but for the first little while, I've been offered a position with the NGO Better Nation Tanzania, whose goal is to raise money, through entertainment, to put towards local public schools in Tanzania. The one thing that I DO know is that whatever I do, I’ll be writing about it. I’ve always wanted to be a writer and maybe a grand adventure like this will help me finally finish something I’ve started writing, and at the very least give me something to put in a blog for everyone back home.

                So here I am, asking for money from perfect strangers to move halfway around the world for a chance to be with the man I love in a country I love. That’s it – plain and simple. I’m not representing a charitable organization, YET, or in need of money for treatment for some sort of illness, I’m just a (soon-to-be) broke university grad who wants to travel halfway around the world to realize a dream.