2025 Tanzania Menlo Abroad

We are heading to the airport later this morning, so this will be the final blog post. We’ll leave Karatu in a couple of hours for the 2 ½ drive to Arusha, where we’ll visit a cultural center and outdoor market and eat lunch. Then it is on the Kilimanjaro airport and the long flight(s) home. So I guess it is appropriate to share some final thoughts…. We read the applications our students wrote several months ago when they first expressed their desire to be on this adventure: they wanted to challenge themselves; they knew parts of the experience would be hard; they were worried about being homesick; and they worried about being inadvertently disrespectful to the Tanzanian culture (eg by being leery of trying certain foods). Well, they met all those challenges. And they learned something that few could have anticipated.  Watching them say farewell to their Banjika peers was touching. Many of our students and theirs were in tears (albeit the tears were not spread evenly across the gen...

  This post might not interest you, as it is not really about your kids and their experience; it is just local flavor and a long and kind of amusing story.  Like the Menlo students, I have been paired with a Banjika student – Jackson. (Poor guy) Like the vast majority of TZ kids he is slight and older than he looks. His English is probably better than he lets on, but in response to about 90% of what I say to him, he gives me the Gary Coleman whatchu-talkin’-‘bout look of consternation and confusion. So at our breakfasts and walks to school together, I don’t say too much to him. He says even less to me. But smiles and routines can cover much of what words can, and we get along well – although I wish he would not address me as “sir” all the time. It makes me feel old or British or both. We spend the mornings together, but at school he mixes with his peers while I do my own thing (mostly hovering on the periphery taking pictures of the activities), and then we walk home at the en...

What’s up families! It’s Shuga and Becks (Shaan and Sam) writing today’s blog. We had an early start this morning where we had to be at school before 7 am to leave for the Ngorongoro Crater. We drove there in safari jeeps alongside other Menlo students, and once we got into the park, we integrated with our homestay siblings into the jeep groups, and set off around 9:30.  Our safari kicked off with a bang as we saw herds of zebra, buffalo, wildebeest, and pumbas (warthogs). Along with seeing all these beautiful creatures, the highlight of our safari was definitely seeing three rhinos, a herd of elephant, and hippos, along with all the majestic scenery of the crater walls (we took plenty of photos). We took a pause from animal-spotting for lunch around noon, which was next to a calm lake brimming with hippos. Our safari came to a close at 4, when we had to bid our homestay siblings farewell. It was very emotional, with many tears, hugs, and posing for dozens of photos. After a (kinda...

 Hey guys! It’s Adrian and Sophie (aka Cola and Mitch) Wow. Today was our last full day at the school. We started the day off with a late wake up, meaning we got to sleep in and arrived at school at 9 A.M. for tea and donuts. After, students came together in groups, socializing while playing cards and making friendship bracelets: we laughed and joked with our homestays while eating breakfast. Knowing this would be our last day at the school, we took today as an opportunity to take many pictures to savor these moments. We then had the Banjika students teach us a dance. It was rough at first, but then we got the hang of it! After, we had a small dance party to the Cha Cha slide, the Cupid Shuffle, the Macarena, Gangnam Style, and, of course, the song of the trip, Summer by Calvin Harris.  we practiced our dances for the big performance at the celebration We then had lunch and made our way to the goodbye ceremony (tears were shed). The  ceremony started with speeches from Ba...

The point of this post is to give you some more of the backstory behind your kid’s experience and to provide some fodder for questions you might want to ask them about their learning and growth (although, I acknowledge, you are a not likely to be hurting for questions when you see them). Menlo Abroad: Tanzania is a course, not a trip. And starting back at Menlo, we made the distinction, which the students absolutely picked up on, between being a tourist vs being a traveler.  So we’ve had learning lessons in our nearly three weeks here. Hopefully, the students captured many of these takeaways in their journals, because their most profound learning is likely about themselves – how they dealt with new or difficult situations, how they have developed some independence being away from the comforts of home, and how they have had to reach out to people and just understand a world different from what they are accustomed to.  Students most likely developed new self confidence and resil...

 I can’t help writing up my thoughts about the big soccer match, because the student-written blog did not capture the epic nature of the contest. We brought from home a bunch of old Menlo uniforms to give to Banjika. After Wilson passed them out, and we all put them on, there were 30 people in Menlo jerseys. 30 against 0 – we have a shot at winning this game! 30 against 0 -- we might win this game But someone decided we should play Banjika students vs Menlo students. To me, this was unfair, because the Banjika kids have skills that we (I) don’t have, like controlling the ball with their feet, using their head to advance the ball, and making precise passes as opposed to just swinging wildly with my leg as hard as possible if the ball came within five feet.  (Yeah, but I bet I know a lot more about James Madison than they do).  One of the things that I had intended to praise our students for is their lack of complaining (although, weirdly, they had very negative (and ad hom...