Week 5: Anne, Charlotte and Jamie
This week has flown much faster than any of us have hoped because it’s our last week! We had a great weekend diving with Jamie and Charlotte completing their Advanced Open Water courses, teaching swimming and celebrating with a small party!
Our week began at Guinjata School painting one of the newly plastered classrooms as well as creating a new mural of a coral reef! We had a lot of fun teaching the kids about ecotourism and it was very rewarding to see them answering lots of questions! With the help of Pascal, we told them as much as possible about the importance of conserving natural areas like Guinjata and how they can help. We were also very happy to help Liz and Andrea with handing out donations to the kids to use at school.
We’ve had some extreme weather changes this week with a storm hitting us on Wednesday night leaving us with a power cut and a very loud night to sleep through. The rain did not stop in time for our 4km walk to fisheries where we carried out research using the tent to protect us from the wind and the rain. Still, we stuck it out all day returning with another 9kg of trash from the beach. Over the past 5 weeks, our program has managed to collect a massive 74.28kg which we are all very pleased with and we will definitely walk away from this a lot more conscious about the effects that single use materials are having around the world.
Luckily, the weather hasn’t affected our coral reef surveys this week. We have had amazing dives this week which have been very successful. For the first time ever, we finished our coral reef logging before our dinner! We’re hoping to have one more fun dive this weekend so fingers crossed we get some more surprises.
The last five weeks have simultaneously felt like a lifetime as well as going far too quickly. We have all learnt so much whilst being here thanks to the wonderful staff and we just wish we could stay longer. Despite some long days, some rigorous fish ID, sunburn and injured toes, it’s safe to say we would do it all over again. We have been lucky enough to share our time here together with the incredible staff at LTO, Jay’s, the restaurant staff and most of all – the OCEAN. Liz, thanks for putting up with all of our questions, our arguing and most of all, our singing.
Aaaand, it’s a wrap for volunteer season 2018! The past five weeks have flown by. It feels like yesterday that Anne, Charlotte and Jamie arrived, and we’re sad to see them go already. Thank you for being such a wonderful bunch – we’re surely going to miss the siblings’ dynamics, laughs and above all the singing! We hope Charlotte and Jamie have a great safari, and Anne has the best time in Pemba. Enjoy your next few months of travelling – and hopefully see you all again soon!