Keeping Me Busy

I was in the process of writing a little bit about what I have been up to when the boys came running to us with a baby tortoise. It was a big distraction and interesting enough to take precedence over my previous thoughts. 

From a little bit of research, this is a Sulcata Tortoise or also called an African Spurred Tortoise. They are the third-largest species in the world and live up to 100 years. Males reach around 200 pounds (90 kg) and females 90-100 pounds (45 kg). Of course, this one is not yet fully grown :)

The boys found it out by a dripping spigot. An interesting fact is that they are very susceptible to dying from dehydration up until they are two years old. They have to soak in shallow water to hydrate their skin and shell. 

Size and rate of growth depends mostly on the environment they live in. Based on what we read, it seems this little guy might be less than a year old.

The boys were fascinated with the turtle and were very distressed when they could not find it after I hid it for its own self-preservation. Jason wanted to kiss it and kept saying over and over how much he loved it.

Anyway, back to my original thoughts. Besides figuring out how they do things here, reading thick operation manuals, flying, and settling in, I have been tasked with the MAF Tanzania communications role. Essentially what this means is more writing, checking the MAF Tanzania facebook page, and compiling stories. However, for the past two weeks I have been more specifically working on developing the new website at maf-tanzania.org

Yesterday, after much work adding content, wrestling with the layout, and working out the bugs on the website, it was officially published to the web! Go check it out! Who knows, you could be one of the first people to lay eyes on it outside of MAF. maf-tanzania.org

One of the things I had to do was create a map with the airstrips we regularly visit to embed on the website. Now I actually have a map for my blog. I love maps.