mountains of Cloudcroft to cut down the Christmas tree... snow and all!

The Village

Our courtyard

Our kitchen and Wyatt peeking around the corner to our bedroom

Our home, with a rainwater catch system outside

Wyatt and the farmers with goods; from seeds to clothes recently donated

transportation

News from East Africa

We finished our final language test!! Everyone passed and we found out our village site for the next 2 years!! We will be in the northern part of Tanzania, about 6 hours from Arusha, really close to many national parks :) !!! Just a small plus.


Such a small world.... the volunteer before us, serving at the very same site as us, was from Las Cruces!



Near the top of the mountain was a natural spring. Many of the villagers who have cattle, take them to water up here. It's about a 6 mile round trip to the watering hole so the villagers use donkeys to haul up to 40 gallons of water back to village for drinking, washing etc.

This is a typical peace corp home. This shows the courtyard with passion fruit vines growing overhead. If you enter to the right you would see the kitchen, living room and bedroom. In the background are tomatoe vines and a papai tree in the foreground.

Jason and Becky, fellow volunteers who have served in country for the last year, took us on a tour of their village as well as a hike through the mountain range that surrounded the valley. The Baobob trees were enormous, acacia trees offered the much needed shade and these are strange looking cactus/trees which have poisonous sap and cause burns and or blindness. One of the villagers explained the uses of all the plant life as we explored.

This past week has been spent in the Mpwapwa district. We visited current volunteers at their village sites. These are just some of the children who sang, danced and played drums for us each night. The harmony and rythm of these children was simply amazing!

we love you and miss you all!

Dee and Wyatt

The other day we learned how to make alternative fuel sources from sunflower cakes, rice husks and cow dung... This is the stove we made from clay to burn firewood. This is a typical size stove for a Tanzanian family.










This is a view of our courtyard, they recently added cement and next month are planning to get electricity. The cistern is to the left, surrounded by the buckets. Every Sunday, Wyatt and the brothers bring water from the local well via 5 gallon buckets. Our room is to the right of the white pillar.








This past week we visited the Agricultural research center to learn about livestock management; cattle, pigs, chickens and goats. The cattle in the picture are hershire and Fresian.

Happy Birthday Maggie!
and Happy Anniversary Berto and Jen!

Love and miss you guys!
Life is good in Africa :)
love,
Dee and Wyatt

Pictures say a thousand words

This last weekend we went on a safari to MIKUMI national park. We were only 10 yards away from this young elephant! We saw giraffe, impala hippo, zebra and so much more!











We had our midterm language exam this week... it went really well for both of us. These are a few of the girls in the group of 25 Americans, Stephanie (left of me) and I are the only two environmental volunteers








Wyatt and our youngest (9 months)
brother Lhama. Bibi (our grandma) is in the background. This open courtyard is where all activities occur; eating, cooking, cleaning, washing clothes etc. Don't you like Wyatt's new Tanzanian style shirt :)









Our home
This is not a typical home in our village. Our father works very hard buying/selling and transporting commodities all over Tanzania. We rarely see him... They recently had glass windows installed!












Familia ya Hueli

Cultivating the Land

This week we visited two different primary schools, and at one school we established a small sustainable garden, filled with tomatoes and spinach. We also made compost piles, transplanted seedlings, and grafted two different fruit trees together. Everything is very new and very different, but we having so much fun and learning a lot. Hope all is well in the States! Love and miss you all!
Dee and Wyatt

First 3 weeks in Africa

Once a week our language and cross cultural group of five people meet up with the rest of the volunteers in training for health and safety seminars. This week also dug garden beds and planted corn and beans for the research center. Our leaders have so much enthusiasm, motivation and knowledge to share with us. This picture was taken after our usual meal of beans and rice, with either a side of spinach or cabbage.





This is the agricultural research center where we will be doing our training for sustainable farming systems.
Our first visit to the market, filled with kids playing soccer, fresh fruit, fish, and vegetables.

We love and miss you all!!!
We'll be in touch!

Wyatt and DeeDee

Group Picture at JFK

This is all of us, from all over the country... on our way to Tanzania. All smiles because its before we flew 18 hours on a plane.
Love and miss you all
Dee and Wyatt

we made it here

this is a picture of the hostel we will be staying at for the next few days. On sat. we drive to kilosa for the beginning of our pre-service training. Dee Dee and I had to spend our first night apart but we should be together from know on. If you want to mail things we will always get it if you mail it to

(name)

Peace Corps

P.O. box 9123

Dar Es Salaam

Tanzania

hope all is well

KILOSA

Orientation will begin in Dar Es Salaam where we will spend time at a local hostel. Here we will recieve briefings and general info about the Tanzania Peace Corps offices. From Dar Es Salaam we travel west to Kilosa, which is located between Dodoma and Morogoro. In Kilosa, we will stay at Ilonga Agricultural Training Institute and this will serve as our "training hub" for the next 3 months. Then we will be introuduced
to our host families! I'm sure there will be a local address, but we do not have this information just yet :)
Take care and we'll be in touch!
love,
Dee and Wyatt

Bon Voyage!

June 8 is our new date of departure, which is rapidly approaching so this will be our last message before we leave the States. We leave El Paso and fly eastbound to Philadelphia where our adventure begins. This is where we'll be doing our last minute preparations and then its off to Dar-es-Salaam, which you can see is on the coast, the Indian ocean to be exact. After 3 months of language, cultural, and safety training we could be sent pretty much anywhere in this massive country which is the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined!

Hopefully we get to see some of these big guys!

We will do our utmost to stay in touch via this website but who knows if the internet will be accessible or not. Thanks again for all the warm hospitality we recieved from everyone!

Take care, love you all!

DeeDee and Wyatt

In the wilderness of Pecos with the Wyatt's

I'm not sure you can sum up this weekend in one paragraph so I'm not going to try But I will say the laughter was never ending...

From 10,000 waves spa to the 11 mile hike and shishkabobs on the grill (not to mention the ever flowing beer) it was a weekend we will never forget. Thank you all for your support as we embark on our new adventure to Africa and we hope to see all of your smiling faces at the front door of our mud hut!

love you guys

Dee and Wyatt

Happy Birthday Wyatt!

From Mama Mary and Sister Jessie

Happy 24th Birthday Wyatt

A couple days behind schedule but Happy Birthday just the same!!!

Calving camp at Bar T Bar ranch. Several calves were unable to nurse the moms for one reason or another so we bottled fed them twice a day. The black calf in the background is being grafted onto a new mama by taking on the scent (hide) of the baby she lost. Charlotte (the one in the pic) is the Australian intern... she had a bit of a run in with a mean mama cow, but everyone survived.

Ana and I got the chance to visit the east coast this last week. We saw the sights and sounds; The Big Apple, Quincy Market, Freedom Trail, Irish Pubs and of course a Celtic game. We spent a couple days with the Jensen Family, Amy Orr and Alicia Dunphey, Thanks for the hospitality!

We recieved a invitation packet from the Peace Corps this morning for Tanzania, located in eastern Africa. Our project will consist of enviromental education and sustainable agriculture in rural communities. This includes a range of possibilities; from teaching in primary classrooms to working alongside the farmers in the fields. We do know we will be learning Kiswahili, which is the native language in Tanzania. The expected departure date is June 13 for Washington DC and after two days of immunizations and prep time we will be leaving for Africa. We are unsure of the available technology, but we will keep you in touch as the time of departure gets closer! All in all we are very very excited for this adventure!
love,
Dee and Wyatt

Winter Climbing

Wyatt, my mom, and I decided to try a little cold weather climb at a site called Rough and Ready outside of Las Cruces. About halfway up this route your hands go pretty numb, the rock temp is slightly decieving in this 60 degree weather. Can't complain though :)

Goodmorning!

Nothing like a hot cup of coffee for a muddy day on a flat-tired four wheeler :)

Congrats Sara

Life in Chile will be Amazing!

Hay Lake Ranch

Sunny side vantage

Wyatt climbing a route located in the hills above San Diego

High Altitude

So good to be top roping this route

Family rock climbing trip 2006

Joshua Tree 2006

Sun setting on Backside of Mountain

New Zealand

October 2006

Mt. Ruaphehu New Zealand

First Dance

Pre-wedding jitters

Cousin Brandon to the rescue before the wedding, you know just a few encouraging words like "I have the truck running and $100 in the glove box if you're not ready for this" :)