Project GO Tanzania
Over the summer I spent a total of ten weeks in East Africa, Tanzania studying Swahili, sustainable engineering and anthropology. It was initially nerve wracking and exciting traveling for more than 24 hours and arriving in a foreign country with people I recently met on the airplane.
My first night was spent at the research flats at the University of Dar es Salaam with two other students. One was an Army cadet studying biology, chemistry and forensics, and the other was an anthropology student from James Madison University. There was a tremendous amount of diversity on the trip, we had Midshipmen, Army and Air Force Cadets and dedicated non-military anthropology students. Our professors were also varied in discipline; combined they had PhDs in Anthropology, Biology and Engineering and there was never a moment when we were not learning something from them. …show more content…
A couple of us would wake up early, work out, and watch the sunrise. It was truly a magical experience. During the day we would spend a few hours learning Swahili and the history, culture and economy of the Tanzanian people. Every other day we would study engineering topics like mass and energy flow through systems, with the end goal of designing a stove for an indigenousness ethnic population known as the Maasai.
After the first two weeks we drove fourteen hours to northern Tanzania near Mt. Kilimanjaro. There the studies continued, but we also got to go on Safaris in Ngorongoro Crater. In one day, we saw wild elephants, lions, buffalo, hippopotami and a lot more. One of the locations we stayed at was in a wildlife reserve and multiple times we had elephants cruising through our campground. It was startling, especially at night, but definitely an