“Wow! what? I’m in…I’m in…Af… Africa? When did this happen??”

Stepping off the plane onto the soil of a continent, that I thought I would never be graced with the experience of stepping foot on to, my mind was constantly repeating the same words over and over again. I was in utter shock. How did this happen? Wasn’t I just sending out college applications a few days ago? But in reality its been years, and I have somehow managed to put myself on the content of AFRICA, with a group of my peers, and one of my favorite professors. I was so flabbergasted that in my first few minutes of being there, before I even got through customs, I lost my jacket. This wasn’t a total loss since I was currently in a pretty warm country, in the midst of their summer, Tanzania. And I was ready for the adventure of a life time.

We trecked only a small portion of the beautiful country of Tanzania, which is the size of three Montanas. We did so much while we were there its hard to even evaluate what to share and what to leave out whenever I have time to share my experience.

The reason we went to Tanzania was to have an anthropological expedition and learn as much as possible. Before we left we also planned on doing as much reforestation work as possible while we are there. This was an amazing opportunity all in itself. Overall we were able to plant over 600 trees in three different areas. The first area, during our first and second day in Africa, we planted trees at the location of where the first baby elephant orphanage in Tanzania is, located in Tarangire National Park. This helped add landscaping to an area that will be snacked on by the massive, beautiful, and endangered elephants. The second area where we planted trees was at a school that severely needed some sort of shade and greenery. This area reflected what I envision to be a dry desert. And the last location was at the base of a watershed that provides a large town with fresh water, including the school where we planted trees at. We hope for the trees planted in this last location to help preserve the water source for many people, for a long time to come.

I was blessed with the experience of being able to plant only a small amount to trees and help an amazing country that in the end gave so much to me, and that will be with me for the rest of my life.