Quick summary: I left France on February 28th for Tanzania. A longtime friend of mine has been living in Tanzania off and on for a few years and I finally got the chance to see his life. I started my trip with a bootleg safari in Mikumi Town, 3 hours west of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Following Mikumi, Toby and I hiked the mountains outside of Morogoro, just east of Mikumi where Toby has a couple friends. We had a very similar experience to hiking mountains in rural france, eating lunch in homes and walking all over the damn place. It was surprising and encouraging to find people living so similarly to me in the mountains of Tanzania. The only major difference being the intense heat. Following Morogoro, we took a bus back to Dar and a ferry to Zanzibar where we spent quality time watching the ocean from a cabana on the beach. Zanzibar was the icing on my african cake.

I put up a ton of photos in the last day from the end of france through my adventure in Tanzania. Check them out here: http://picasaweb.google.com/zigelbaum

Living abroad has most certainly changed my perspective on life back home. I think my next life research needs to focus on rural living in the US, see if that life is what I hope it is. Traveling has been a blast, but I’m weary and ready to come back to the comforts of home and the rest of my life, one day at a time.

I’ve got a lot of time on my hands these days. I’ve written about going for long walks in the past, but I think I’ve figured out my daily needs for a healthy constitution. The following are what I try to do every day to keep fit:

1. Sit ups and Push ups (about 50 and 30)
2. Floss
3. Go for a long walk or run
4. Stretch

I think if I do that everyday (in addition to eating well and remembering to laugh a lot) I’ll get to be as limber and healthy as my 78 year old dad.

After reading chunks of the Encyclopedia of Country Living I realize there is a shit-load of stuff I don’t know about how to hack it in the country. To start tackling that mountain of ignorance, I’ve made a new page on this blog called Mad Skills. Please comment on that page anything you think I should learn, or things you want to learn, and I’ll figure it out (eventually) and post how I did it and how you could do it too.

Hi there.

I’d like to take this moment to introduce you to Wild Humans, a blog about trying to shed the domestic life. I’m a 26, white, American man and so far have lived my life according to the recipe befitting my place in society. I went to private grammar school, private university and now enjoy a cushy office job at the height of my chosen career. I’ve always felt a tinge of emptiness in these pursuits and have worked to fill that hole with as much meaning as I could muster. To that end I work for a national non-profit environmental organization dedicated to preserving the planet’s natural resources. I try to reduce my personal impact on the environment, spread love and joy amongst my friends and family and help all those I can. But still, here I am, feeling a little underwhelmed by this ‘cushy’ life. I suppose, if you’re reading this too, you might feel the same way and might also be searching for something that helps.

Just to get things straight, I don’t know any answers. Most of my ideas have been said elsewhere, i’m sure. But I’m looking around and lately I think I’ve found a thread that works. Before I get too much into it, i thought I’d start this blog to chronicle my own feelings, allow any who are interested to follow along and basically use this forum to express ideas and thoughts that come to me. If I’m lucky, I’ll get some interesting comments and this experiment will add value rather than inflate my ego.

Take care,
Nick.