Sofia’s Birthday and Jericho Orphanage

Friday was Sofia’s birthday, and I was lucky enough to be invited to the orphanage that she volunteers at in Usa River, Jericho Orphanage, for the birthday celebration!  Usa River is also where Cradle of Love is located, so I am quite experienced at navigating the dala dala system there, and Sofie picked me up at the bus stop to guide me on the fairly adventurous hike to Jericho Orphanage.  As I was carrying a cake, jumping across huge ditches and skipping across rocks through a stream seemed particularly hazardous! 

The birthday party with the orphans at Jericho was a blast!  Sofia had lots of fun games planned, including bobbing for marshmallows, decorations and balloons, and treats for the kids, including ice cream!  There are around 50 orphans at Jericho, and this was probably the first party they had ever had!

The "Kitchen" at Jericho

Honestly, Jericho Orphanage makes Good Hope look like a palace.  The orphanage consists of only 5 rooms, two small bedrooms, an office, one classroom, and a semi-bathroom since there is no running water!  The “kitchen” is outside.  I would try to describe it, but it is better to just see the picture.  Since it is so small, only 12 of the kids sleep at the orphanage; the others sleep with host families in the neighborhood, but they take their meals and spend the day at Jericho.  In addition to no running water, there is also no electricity, but I know that Sofie is working on that and is looking for donations!!  (Feel free to donate through me if you are interested, and I will make sure that she gets the money.)  I know she has already exhausted a few of her resources at home since a few weeks ago, Jericho had no food for the kids or money to buy food so she did a bit of fundraising then.

The TreeHouse

Anyway, after the party with the kids, we ventured out to a place called the TreeHouse, which is on the road between Arusha and Usa River, and we have seen it on the bus many times and wanted to stop there.  We enjoyed dinner and birthday cake (complete with candles) at the best table in the house (the one in the tree, of course!), and after, we headed back to Arusha for a night of dancing and fun.





Birthday Cake!

Delicious!

Volunteering

Well, I’ve almost finished my first full week of volunteering, and while I am quite tired, I have really enjoyed spending time with all of the kids, and I am looking forward to the next three weeks!  I say almost finished because tomorrow, I am spending the day at Jericho Home where my friend Sofia volunteers, and I am really looking forward to it because I have heard many stories from her!

I spent Monday and Wednesday at Good Hope School and Orphanage, which is where I volunteered last year for two weeks, and also where I have spent a bit of time volunteering already this trip.  I was off to a bit of a slow start Monday morning after our busy weekend, so after working with some of the children at the school, I decided to undertake a pretty big task at the Orphanage….organizing the children’s book/toy shelf.  It took us several hours, but with the awesome assistance of many little helpers, we got the shelf looking fabulous!  It was so funny to see the kids discover toys and games that have been sitting on the shelf for who knows how long, but were simply hidden from view in the mess! 

Before

Lots of helpers!

Finished!

On Wednesday, I had to pleasure of delivering many new clothes (thanks to my mom who had so much fun shopping for these guys in the months before my departure!) to the little kids who attend Good Hope school.  The kids were so excited about their new clothes, although one of the teachers told me that they didn’t quite know what to think since they rarely ever get gifts!  Many of the volunteers at Good Hope typically give their gifts to the orphans living at the orphanage, but as I’ve found from living here, many of the kids who attend the school come from very poor families who struggle to have enough money to buy food, let alone clothes and toys.  The school children are often jealous of the orphans, actually, because they regularly get gifts and get to go on trips. 

Excited about new clothes!

After spending some time with the kids at school, I headed back over to the orphanage to tackle my next task….the volunteer shelf.  This shelf is suppose to contain activities, games, and projects for the volunteers to use with the children, but from the looks of it yesterday, it definitely hadn’t been used in awhile!  It was nearly as disorganized as the kids’ shelf!  But with the help of another volunteer, we whipped that shelf into shape as well!  Now my fingers are crossed that both shelves will stay neat and organized!  I’ve talked to the kids, the volunteers, and some of the permanent staff about keeping things organized, so we’ll see how it goes.

Enjoying the beautiful day

On Tuesday and Thursday, I volunteered at Cradle of Love, which is a Baby Home about 30 minutes away from Arusha where I live.  I had visited Cradle of Love last Friday and completely fell in love with it.  I knew immediately that I wanted to spend some of my time volunteering there.  There are currently 47 babies living at the Home, ranging from 2 month to 3 years old.  They are all so cute!!  And they all love to cuddle.  There are several other volunteers there, but with 47 babies to take care of, there is always plenty of work to go around.  Lunch time in particular is quite an adventure as most of the babies need to be fed by an adult.  There are usually about 5 to 8 adults helping to feed the babies, but that still leaves quite a lot of babies waiting patiently, or not so patiently, for their turn!  My personal favorite place to be, however, is in the nursery with the very little babies (under 6 months).  It reminds me of my days as a volunteer cuddler in the special care nursery at Rush in Chicago.

Lunch Time!

Feeding Baby Charles

As much as a love spending time at Cradle of Love, getting there isn’t always the most fun part of my day!  I have to take two different dala dalas (the equivalent of public transportation around here, very crowded and sketchy vans), and it takes me over an hour to get there from my house.  It is cheap though, each dala dala ride costs me approximately 30 cents!  But the part that is really starting to get annoying is that in the short walk from my house to the first dala dala stop and the five minute walk when I switch dala dalas at least 20 people call out to me “mzungu, mzungu! (which literally means ‘white person’)  or try to start a conversation with me.  I swear, I am like a celebrity around here, just because I am a white person, or more specifically, a white girl.  I try to respond with at least a hello, but usually that results in the person following me for a block trying to continue talking to me!  It seems really rude, but sometimes I just look straight ahead, keep walking, and completely ignore people trying to talk to me!  Seriously though, nine times out of ten, they either want me to give them money or give them my phone number, or they want to tell me how beautiful I am and how much they love me and want to marry me!!!

Weekend Fun and International Cuisine

Before I even left for my Kilimanjaro trek, my friends here decided that we would celebrate my attempt whether I made it to the top or not.  But since I actually made it to the top, it was an extra special celebration, complete with three nights of dancing, three delicious dinners (and one brunch!), and of course, lots of dessert! 

A small break from dancing for a photo!

I wasn’t really planning on going dancing on Thursday night, as my poor legs were really not quite up to it yet, but after a few persuasive text messages from my friend Sofie, I was convinced to start the weekend early.  And actually, I think the dancing loosened up my muscles, because my legs were feeling better after about 3 songs!!

The boys enjoying tacos!

Friday night was the real celebration, complete with improvised tacos for dinner and ice cream straight from the carton.  Tacos were not originally on the menu for dinner since I didn’t really think that the ingredients would be available, but as we were cruising through the ShopRite on Friday afternoon, we saw both taco seasoning and taco sauce!  I was pretty excited since, for those of you who know me well, tacos are one of the few things I know how to make!  We came across one major problem, however.  No taco shells!  After entertaining several options, Sofie and I decided on Doritos as a substitute, and that turned out to be an excellent choice!  None of our Tanzanian friends had ever had tacos before, and actually several of them had never had lettuce before either!  The tacos were a big hit!

We seriously debated about the purchase of ice cream at the grocery store since the freezer at my apartment is about 4 inches tall, and the power goes out regularly (almost daily!) so it is difficult to keep things frozen!  But once we had the cartons of chocolate mint and blueberry cheesecake in our hands, putting them back really wasn’t an option.  We figured if they both wouldn’t fit in the freezer, we could just eat one entire container when we got home!  Luckliy for our figures, we did squeeze them both in, but she and I managed to eat almost both entire containers throughout the course of the weekend!

After a very relaxing day on Saturday, it was Sofie’s turn to cook us a “traditional” Swedish dinner, complete with dessert!  After making a very extensive grocery list, we were about halfway to the store when we realized that the list was still sitting on the coffee table.  Good thing Sofie’s memory is excellent!  We again had to do a bit of improvising since lots of common ingredients are not readily available here, but Sofie’s meal of pasta, delicious sauce, and chocolate balls turned out wonderfully.  Although apparently the chocolate balls didn’t taste anything like they do in Sweden!!  And of course, since the boys had never eaten lettuce before, we simply had to make a salad for them to try! 

So after our third night of dancing on Saturday night, we almost felt like we were staying at the Hilton, when on Sunday morning, my roommate knocked on our bedroom door to let us know that brunch was ready!  We are quite spoiled around here J  We were planning on having a very relaxing day on Sunday, and possibly going to the pool to lay out, but another of our friends had different plans!  He wanted us to go to the pool, but not by ourselves….with the 15 kids from the Good Hope Orphanage!  Not exactly the relaxing day we had in mind, but we couldn’t really say no!  And we ended up having a blast with the kids.  And we came home to a Tanzanian dinner of rice and chicken and vegetables in delicious sauce prepared by my roommate.  It was the perfect ending to our excellent weekend celebration!

1...2...3....JUMP!!!!!

Relaxing in the hot tub.

Donate with Paypal!

Okay, I have my paypal account set up to accept donations for either Good Hope School and Orphanage or Cradle of Love, a baby home where I will also be volunteering (blog to come!).  No pressure at all, but if you are interested in donating, just click on the link to donate with a credit card, and then please send me a message and let me know exactly what you would like your donation to be used for.  I'll make some suggestions in future blogs, but the websites also both have lists of things that are needed.  I'll personally make sure that all of your money is used appropriately, and I'll post pictures!  Thanks!

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=libbysue00%40hotmail%2ecom&lc=US&item_name=Good%20Hope&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted

The Ups and Downs of Kilimanjaro

My awesome climbing companion Eivind (a retired teacher from Denmark) and I at the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro

Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro was by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.  But it was also one of the most amazing.  I would say it was about 50% amazing and 50% completely miserable (maybe even 60/40 leaning towards miserable).  Now that I am finished and back in my comfortable apartment, I mostly remember it being amazing, but fortunately, I did write a few notes in a journal every night throughout the week.  Reading through that reminds me of how I really felt at the time!  I’ll share my daily schedule which I received from the company when I signed up, along with a few of my notes.  But first let me say that unfortunately, the pictures do not do the amazing scenery justice at all.

Day 1:  Arusha – Machame Gate – Machame Camp

After breakfast, leave the lodge/hotel drive for 1 hour to Machame gate.  Finish the formalities and start the hiking through the rain forest to Machame Camp (3000m) in about 6 hours.  All meals and overnight, Machame Camp.

It was raining the WHOLE time we were hiking (over 6 hours)!!  My legs are tired, but I feel okay.  The rainforest was beautiful and our meals were delicious.

A picnic in the rainforest

Day 2:  Machame Camp – Shira Camp

Breakfast,  the hike begins through the forest, cross the valley along the steep bridge going into rock ridges and through heather.  The route turns west into a river gorge, reaching Shira camp (3800m) in about 6 hours.  All meals and overnight Shira.

Today was a VERY steep and rocky climb!  We saw a bit of sun in the morning, but it started raining in the afternoon for most of our hike.   I had a stomach ache for most of the hike which caused me a lot of anxiety since stomach problems are not something that I wanted to deal with on Kilimanjaro, but fortunately it turned out to be just a stomach ache.  It was quite cold at the end of our hike, and I was very happy to finally get to camp.

A very rocky climb

Day 3:  Shira Camp – Baranco Camp

Breakfast, continue with hiking east towards Kibo, passing the junction, then east towards the Lave Tower.  Shortly after this, climb down to Baranco camp (3940m) in 3-4 hours.   All meals and overnight Baranco.

The weather started out beautiful this morning.  We had an awesome view of Kili from our campsite, and it was actually sunny!  Unfortunately it started raining after only a couple of hours of hiking.  It was miserable and freezing!!  We reached 4600 meters above sea level (approx 13,800 feet), and stayed for about an hour before hiking back down.  I didn’t feel sick, just tired and a small headache.  It did warm up after lunch and we saw a bit of sun, but it pretty much kept raining the whole afternoon.  We hiked down into a beautiful valley for camping.  At this altitude, you cannot go anywhere fast!  Even walking at a normal pace has me winded in about 30 seconds.  It is really weird.  Also, we’ve discovered that you cannot listen to any time estimations from the guides.  It’s always AT LEAST an hour longer than they say it will be!  And don’t even bother asking if we are almost there because they will always answer “YES” regardless of if we have 20 minutes or 3 hours left!  It’s become a bit of a joke, actually.

Our campsite in the clouds :)

Day 4:  Baranco Camp – Karanga Valley Camp

This is another day for acclimatization, breakfast, continue with the hiking through a steep rocky Baranco walls then up and down until you come to Karanga Valley in about 3 hours.  All meals and overnight Karanga Valley.

I am so tired!  I’m so glad that I decided to do 7 days instead of 6.  I never would have made it.  I actually have cell phone service today, and I got a few much needed motivating text messages from my parents and Louie.  We did some very scary rock climbing today.  I was not prepared for this kind of hiking!  Again, it was sunny in the morning, but raining all afternoon.  Both yesterday and today, we have spent many hours climbing up to a high elevation for acclimatization and then coming back down.  I know this is a good idea, but it is so frustrating to spend hours and hours climbing uphill, only to climb back down knowing that you have to climb right back up the next day!!  At least it is not nearly as cold as yesterday.  I am getting so tired of the rain, but at least it is sunny now which means dry clothes for tomorrow, yay!!  And we are over halfway done!

Very scary rock climbing!

Day 5:  Karanga Valley – Barafu Camp

Breakfast then continue with the hiking up and down along the stone and sand until you reach Barafu camp in about 3 hours.  As soon as you arrive at the campsite make sure you try to rest a lot and prepare all the stuff you brought for the mountain because you will start the last point around 1:00am.  All meals and overnight Barafu.

I am getting quite tired of climbing and rain!  We had a pretty short and easy hike today, only steep at the beginning and the end.  We have a beautiful view of Kili.  We had nice weather in the morning, but cold, rainy, and super windy for the last hour of our hike.  I am happy to be in my tent now and up to the summit tonight.  I am so ready to get off this mountain!!

**That is the last thing that I wrote in my journal, so I am going from memory from here.

Barafu Camp is at quite a high elevation, and after about two hours at camp, I started feeling really sick.  I was completely panicking that I wouldn’t be able to go to the summit because I was feeling so weak and nauseous.  I wanted to take the altitude sickness medicine, but my guides told me it was better to just drink a lot of water and sleep to let my body adjust to the altitude.  That turned out to be good advice, because by the time they woke us up at 11pm to begin hiking to the summit, I was feeling well enough to at least try.  But it was a VERY stressful afternoon!

A typical campsite toilet.....gross.

 

Day 6:  Very early breakfast, then start for the summit at 1:00am, first to Stella Point and then to Uhuru peak (5895m).  It is recommended to take a few minutes for photos and then descend to Mweka camp for dinner and overnight.

We actually started climbing to the summit at midnight.  I was still feeling a little weak, but I was definitely going to try!!  The first two or three hours were kind of fun with everyone hiking in the dark with their headlamps on.  But after that, the only thing I could think of was that this was by far the worst day of my life!  I didn’t think that we were ever going to make it to the top.  And towards the end, the path was so steep, it seemed like it had to be a joke!  Finally, after a miserable nine and a half hours of climbing, we made it to the summit!!  It was an exciting 10 minutes taking pictures and enjoying the view, but then the realization set in that we still had to hike all the way back down!!  It took about 3 ½ hours to get back down to Barafu camp, the whole time feeling terrible from the altitude.  Fortunately, I was able to take two Tylenol and a two hour nap before we packed up and headed to our next and final campsite.  And when we finally reached our campsite and concluded our 15 hours of hiking, we realized that this was the first day that we didn’t have to hike in the rain!!

Day 7:  Mweka Camp – Mweka Gate – Moshi/Arusha

Breakfast, the descent downwards to Mweka gate for 3-4 hours.  Collect your diploma if you make it to the summit.  Transfer back to Arusha in 2 hours.

Last day, finally!!  Don’t ever let anyone tell you that hiking downhill is easier than uphill because it is simply not true!  My legs and knees are still killing me!  But we finally finished….hooray!!!!

Finally finished!!!

Fun with Kids!

Now I know you are all probably thinking "I thought she went to Africa to volunteer...."  I KNOW that's what my family has been thinking because they've recently been questioning me about it!!  Well, after over three weeks of traveling and adventures, I finally got to spend some time with the kids at Good Hope School and Orphanage!  And, of course, we had a wonderful time with them.  Traveling is so much fun, but the kids are the real reason that I came back here.

On Saturday, there was a party at Good Hope to celebrate the opening of a new clinic on the grounds.  The school children all performed songs, there was a live band, and lots of food!  We were lucky to be able to attend to see the children and to celebrate their new clinic!

Dancing at the party.

Sunday, Sally and I headed over to the orphanage to spend the afternoon playing with/entertaining the orphans.  Sally brought water balloons, and we filled up over 200 as the kids had a huge water balloon fight in the front yard of the orphanage!  I mostly filled balloons and avoided being hit by any, but Sally was definitely the target of a few kids!  After the water balloon fight, I passed out a few of the donations that I brought, including bubbles from my grandparents and pajamas from my mom.  I am trying to pass out the donations slowly since I will be here for a long time, and it is better not to overwhelm the kids with too many presents at once!

Bubbles!



Water Balloon fight!

Filling over 200 balloons!!

Yesterday and today, Sally and I spent time at school working with both the orphans and the school children on their studies.  My mom's students from Wisconsin had written letters to the kids at Good Hope School, so we spent a lot of time reading the letters and helping the kids write back to their new penpals.


Finally, thanks to the generous donations from our friends/co-workers Catherine, Nora, and Carmen and also my own former 6th grade teacher Mrs. Woodworth, Sally and I were able to take the girls from the orphanage shopping and out for pizza yesterday!  (The boys will go on Thursday with Sally while I am climbing Kilimanjaro.)  The girls had such a blast at the store picking out their own present.  I want to personally thank the ladies who donated money because Sally and I had so much fun watching them!  They each changed their mind about what they should choose at least 4 times!  The excitement in the car on the ride home was something that I can't describe in words, but I am smiling right now thinking about it!  The kids also loved going out for pizza, and my goodness, can these little girls eat!!!!  Sally and I were shocked!

Picking out presents!

Waiting patiently for our pizza

Tomorrow, I leave to begin my seven day trek up Kilimanjaro, which is my last adventure for awhile!  After that, it's four straight weeks of volunteering.  If anyone is interesting in donating to the children at Good Hope School or Orphanage, I am going to create a paypal account once I get home from Kili which you will be able to donate to by credit card.  More information on that to come!

Zanzibar



Sunset in Zanzibar



Despite the ELEVEN hour bus ride and two hour ferry ride to get there, Sally and I had a wonderful time in Zanzibar!  The white sand beaches were gorgeous, and the water in the Indian Ocean is clear and sparkling!  We stayed in an adorable little bungalow steps from the beach, and had a great time swimming, relaxing, and taking in the scenery.  On Thursday, we were lucky enough to get to see the sunrise over the ocean from our bungalow on the east side of the island AND the sunset over the ocean from an adorable restaurant on the west side of the island!  A person isn't able to do that very often!!!

Sally and I enjoying the beach

In the evenings after enjoying our days at the beach, we checked out local restaurants and bars along the beach.  Zanzibar has been almost completely spared from the tourism industry so far, and almost every hotel, restaurant, and bar is locally owned.  We were served fresh food at every meal, and sometimes it even took nearly an hour to get our food because we suspect that the chef actually went to the market after we ordered to get the food to cook!  One evening, we met a couple of local boys who made a campfire on the beach and played their drums and sang for us.  Another evening, we saw a show with traditional African music and dancing, and we, of course, got pulled up on stage to dance!

Learning to play the drum at our beach campfire

Traditional African dancing???????

By far, our favorite activity in Zanzibar was swimming with the dolphins!!  Now, I am not talking about swimming with a couple of trained dolphins in a swimming pool.  We were swimming with about 20 wild dolphins in the middle of the ocean!!  It was so amazing.  The pictures don't really do it justice.  We were able to get within inches of the dolphins, they were playing and swimming with us, but the minute you would try to reach out and touch one, it would playfully swim away just out of your reach!! 

Swimming with dolphins!

After our travels to Zanzibar, we were prepared for the nightmare travel day back.  We knew that it would be even worse, actually, because on the way to Zanzibar, our bus ride and ferry ride were broken up with an overnight stay and some sightseeing in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  However, on the way home, we would be taking the ferry back to Dar es Salaam at 7am, and then head straight to the bus terminal to get the bus back to Arusha.  Unfortunately, the ocean water was pretty rough at 7am, and our boat ride was miserable!!  Sally and I did manage to keep down our breakfast, but many people around us were not quite so lucky!  Fortunately, a member of the crew passed out vomit bags during the voyage, so no one was throwing up over the side of the boat!!  Our bus ride back to Arusha was fairly smooth and uneventful for Africa standards, and it was even a bit shorter...only 10 hours.  However, I should mention that during the ten and eleven hour bus rides, we were only allowed to get off the bus twice (even though it seemed like the bus stopped at least a hundred times to pick people up, drop people off, drop packages, etc).  Once we stopped at a rest-stop-like area with food and bathrooms, and the other stop was just along the side of the road to pee behind some bushes!