Many Thanks

New outfits!

When thinking about the Christmas spirit of giving this week, I felt the desire to give an additional shout out to all of the people who donated money, clothes, toys, and school supplies to the kids in Tanzania.  Thank you to my parents, Ron and Cindy, my sisters and brother-in-laws, Kellie, Joe, Sarah, Tony, and Jessica, my aunt Jane, my grandparents, Jim and Barb, and my friends, Catherine, Brian, Nora, Carmen, Sally, Nikki, Stephanie, and M.  Giving Christmas presents to my family this weekend will, of course, be lots of fun, but it won't really compare to all the gifts that I was able to give to the orphans and school children of Arusha thanks to these people.  My family who visited me in November definitely understand the feeling! 

New Books!

One person in particular from this list deserves and extra special thanks, and that is my mom.  As I was showing all of the photos from my trip to Louie (and yes, he was patient enough to look through over 600 of them!), I found my self saying over and over, "those are the books my mom donated, those are the clothes my mom donated, those are the toys my mom donated.....etc." 

It started off with books.  After my last trip to Africa, I had mentioned to my mom that I was really sad about the lack of books in the school for the kids to read, and I was pretty sure that none of the kids had books at home to read either.  I told her that this time, I wanted to bring a book for every student in the school, and that if she wanted to make a donation, maybe she could help me buy some books because I would need a lot.  Well....before I even thought about shopping for children's books, my mom (with the help of my dad and sister) had purchased over 100 books for me to take!! 

New Pajamas

In the months before I left for my trip, almost every time I went home, my mom showed me something new she had bought for the orphans.  Before I left, she had purchased 120 book, about 30 outfits and pajamas, and Christmas toys for all of the kids (all of which I did manage to fit into my suitcase!)  But she didn't stop there.

New Clothes at Jericho!

One weekend I was skyping with my mom while my friend Sofia was at my house.  We were discussing how Good Hope was like a palace compared to Jericho Orphanage where Sofia volunteers.  During this conversation, my mom (and my sister) immediately volunteered to make a significant monetary donation to Jericho orphanage.  After Sofia received the money, she e-mailed my mom and sister a list of the things that Jericho needed the most so that the could choose what they would like their money to go for.  The next think we knew, my family had arrived with their suitcases full of half of the items on Sofia's list in addition to the money!  For the kids at Jericho, my mom had sent toothbrushes and toothpaste, books, clothes, toys, and school supplies.

More books!

But of course she didn't forget the kids at Good Hope or Cradle of Love this time either!  She sent more books for the kids (since they loved the first batch so much), school supplies, sleepers for the babies, and more clothes for the kids!  I'm seriously surprised that my family had room for their own clothes!  I only wish that my mom would have been there to see the kids faces.  It was an early Christmas for all of us.

Playing in Poland!

Christmas Market in Krakow

For my last adventure before heading home for Christmas, I made a week-long stop in Poland to visit my cousin (no, she is not Polish, she is just studying there!).  I know Poland seems a bit random after three months in Africa, but my flight home had a layover in Zurich, Switzerland, which is a short two hour and $100 flight to Warsaw, so I decided to take advantage of the excellent 5-Star "mat and breakfast" accommodations at my cousin's apartment :) 

The Center in Krakow

My cousin is currently living in Krakow, so after I landed in Warsaw on Monday, I took the bus from the airport to the train station, then a three hour train ride from Warsaw to Krakow.  I was hoping to enjoy the scenery...little did I know that it gets dark at 4 pm in Poland in December!  And thank goodness that my wonderful sister Kellie brought me my winter coat when my family came to visit, because it was quite a bit colder in Poland than Africa!!  However, despite the cold and the dark, I had an awesome time with my cousin. 

I spent Monday to Friday in Krakow, a city that I am now completely in love with.  It is so much more fun to visit a city when you have a "local" to show you around.  My cousin has been living and studying in Krakow since October, so she was close enough to a local for me.  It was so much fun to check out all of the cute local spots with her, including the Christmas market, an amazing display of nativity scenes, an ice skating rink, the best zapikanka spots, and many many MANY local bars and restaurants!  I can't believe all of the cute places there are to hang out.  Five days was not nearly enough time to hit them all, but we certainly gave it a valiant effort!!

The "Swing" Bar

The "Singer" Bar

Zapikankas!  Delicious!

Ice Skating

Lots of Locks :)

We did make sure that we did our "homework" each day....a typical sightseeing stop like a museum or monument of some sort.  We hit up the Schindler's List Museum, housed in the actually factory building, visited the castle and saw several old churches (from the outside!), and we went to a classical music concert in a famous and beautiful old church which was excellent.  We also walked across a bridge with hundreds of padlocks locked to the rail.  When I asked my cousin why, she told me that when people get married in Krakow, they write their names on the lock, lock it to the rail, and throw the key in the river.  What a cute tradition!  However, apparently if you want a divorce, you have to swim to the bottom of the river to find your key! :)

On Wednesday, I visited Auschwitz.  It was, of course, a very sad experience.  Walking the same path from the train tracks to the gas chambers as hundreds of thousands of innocent people did less than a century ago is a feeling that really can't be described.  Seeing rows and rows of barracks and knowing that at least 700 people lived in each one is difficult to even imagine.  But the part that had the biggest effect on me was seeing the displays of personal belongings (including hair) that were taken from the Jewish people and other prisoners upon entering the camp.  Seeing an enormous pile of 40,000 pairs of shoes and knowing that they belonged to a tiny fraction of the people who were brought to Auschwitz gave me a small perspective of the massive amounts of people who lost their lives there.  It was definitely an experience that I won't ever forget.

On Friday, my cousin and I took the train back to Warsaw to spend the weekend there.  We were quite the adventurous explorers with our map written only in Polish!  We even explored Praga, the only neighborhood that my cousin was explicitly warned NOT to visit!  We checked out the Old Town (which was actually completely destroyed during WWII, and rebuilt shortly after), the super adorable Christmas market in the town square, and, in keeping with our tradition, several bars, restaurants, and cafes.  And we even did our "homework" by visiting the Chopin Museum and attending a piano concert featuring many songs composed by Chopin (he was from Poland, obviously!).  We were a bit lazy on Sunday, and spent most of our time eating crepes and croissants in a cute cafe :)  Then Sunday afternoon, my cousin took the train back to Krakow, and I headed to the airport for my flight back to Zurich.  I'll be home tomorrow!!!

Presidential Palace in Warsaw

Cape Town Adventures

Simon's Town

Well, it took me four flights and a very impatient 24 hours to get from Mombasa to Cape Town, but it was so worth it to FINALLY get to see Louie again!!!  We were reunited at the Cape Town airport last Saturday night, and we headed to our adorable hotel in Simon's Town, a suburb south of Cape Town right on the beach.  We had a very lovely week spending time together in the Cape Town area after almost three months apart!  I know nobody wants to hear the sappy stories (I can just hear my sisters making gagging noises as I type), but we did have a few pretty fun adventures as well.

Lots of Penguins

One of the things that we were most looking forward to doing was checking out the huge flock of African penguins that live on the beach just short walk from our hotel.  We were definitely not disappointed.  We saw at least one hundred penguins on the beach from a designated viewing area.  Then, as an added bonus, we ran into a few random penguins later that afternoon farther down the beach, and we were able to get really close to them and watch them for awhile.

Random Penguin Sighting!

Playing with seals at Alfred and Victoria Waterfront

We did venture into Cape Town twice via the slightly sketchy train connecting the suburbs.  We briefly hit some of the main tourist spots (I am not much of a sight-seer, but Louie forced me to check out a few things!) including the company gardens where we found a beautiful spot to sit and read for awhile, Greenmarket Square (typical souvenir stands all over, Louie got to witness my expert bargaining skills), and Alfred and Victoria Waterfront which is basically a really huge Navy Pier complete with a ferris wheel.  I also got to eat lunch at McDonalds which I had been waiting for weeks for!!  We also spent one evening in Cape Town checking out several bars and restaurants.

Stellenbosch Wine Country

One of the most fun things that we did was a bicycle tour through wine country, complete with two wine tastings.  Stellenbosch is such a beautiful place, but let me tell you, all the bike riding that Louie and I did last summer did not even come close to preparing us for the rolling (and some steep) hills of wine country!  And we were both really missing our own bikes with comfortable seats!  Our first tasting was in a gazebo on a cute little pond.  We got to try eight delicious wines and enjoy the beautiful day on the water.  Our second tasting was a wine and chocolate pairing (obviously our favorite one!).  We ended our tour with lunch at an adorable local restaurant with the best nachos ever!!

Tasting Number 1



Tasting Number 2



On our way up

Our biggest adventure was definitely climbing Table Mountain which is about 1,000 meters above sea level (Kilimanjaro is over 5,000 meters above sea level for comparison).  I did not particularly want to climb Table Mountain since seven days on Kilimanjaro was pretty much all the mountain climbing time I needed for this trip.  And there is a cable car to take you to the top!  But Louie really wanted to climb it, so after a quick stop at the Botanical Gardens, we headed up Skeleton's Gorge Trail to the top with the plan to take the cable car back down.  It took us about 3.5 hours of pretty strenuous but very beautiful hiking to get to the top, then another 45 minutes to walk across the top of the "table" to get to the cable car. 

Almost there!

To our dismay, the cable car had stopped running an hour earlier due to high winds!!  So after running into a poor guy from Japan who had taken the cable car up earlier in the day and gotten stranded on top, the three of us headed down the shortest (and definitely steepest!) path down the mountain.  I was by far the most experienced hiker of the three of us (which is pretty funny since I am not experienced at all!), and I practically had to drag Louie down the mountain because the path was "too steep" and the wind was blowing "too hard!"  His plan was the scoot down the mountain on his butt so that the wind didn't send him plunging to his death!  After calmly (he's lucky someone else was also with us!) explaining to him that if he didn't stand up and walk, we were going to end up hiking in the dark, we finally made some steady progress and made in down in about 80 minutes (with about 15 minutes to spare before dark!)  Then we hitch-hiked a ride back to town and treated ourselves to a few drinks!

Scary hike down!

Despite all of our fun adventures, we also really enjoyed just relaxing in quaint little Simon's Town and checking out the local hang-outs.  I think we hit every restaurant in town at least once (and the ice cream shop more than once!), and we even stumbled upon local live music twice.  And it was so lovely and relaxing to just sit by the harbor and watch the boats.

Our favorite restaurant

Louie and I parted ways last night, as he is heading back to Chicago and I am off to Poland (4 more flights to get there!!) for the last leg of my journey!  I can't believe that I will be home in just one week!

Mombasa, Kenya

A quick stop for bus repairs in Kenya

After a sad goodbye to the kids at Good Hope on Sunday night, Sofie and I boarded the bus to Mombasa bright and early Monday morning.  We were told that it would be a nice easy 6 hour bus ride, but we have certainly been in East Africa long enough to know that that won’t be true!  Despite the fact that our bus driver drove the bus off road like it was a four wheeler, it still took us nearly 10 hours to get there.  We encountered such obstacles as a small lake in the middle of the road (which we got stuck twice!), a bumpy dirt road for at least 4 hours of the drive, and major traffic coming into Mombasa (which is when our driver demonstrated his off roading skills in the shoulder of the opposite side of the road.  However, when we weren’t fearing for our lives, it was quite a fun bus ride, since we had lots of snacks including fruit salad, and we got a mini safari once we got into Kenya.  We saw three herds of elephants, zebras, monkeys, and my favorite, superb starlings!

Problems ahead!

Our lovely hotel (taken on our boat trip)

Once we arrived in Mombasa, we checked into our luxurious all-inclusive hotel on the beach.  Our original plan was to spend two nights on the beach, and then head to Nairobi for two nights, but after about 10 minutes in our hotel, we decided that we just couldn’t leave!  So we went ahead and booked another two nights.  And that turned out really well for us because not only did we get an upgraded room (ocean view), but we also got a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine delivered to our room since we were “returning guests!”

Sea Cucumber and Sea Star

As much as we wanted to, we decided that we could NOT spend the whole day every day at the hotel!  On Tuesday, we somehow got suckered into a “sea safari” with a random beach vendor.  It actually was really fun though, and we got to hold sea stars, sea urchins, and even a sea cucumber!  And we only gave him $2 at the end, so it was totally worth it.  Wednesday, we went on a glass bottom boat ride complete with snorkeling at a reef and also in a sea star village.  We actually got to feed the fish from our hands at the reef which was super cool, and I have never seen so many sea stars in my life! 

Feeding the fish.

Sea Star Bikini

Giant Tortoise

Finally on Thursday, we were really adventurous and headed to Haller Park to see and play with many animals including giant tortoises, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, and a wart hog!  I particularly wanted to visit Haller Park because it is the home of Owen, the baby hippo who was adopted by Mzee the giant tortoise!  Does anyone remember that e-mail forward with the pictures of the baby hippo cuddling with the giant tortoise??  Well, it turns out that was actually a true story!  However, they are now separated because Owen was starting to behave like a tortoise and they were also afraid that as Owen got older, if he realized that Mzee was not a hippo, he might kill him.  They were separated in 2006 (apparently that e-mail has be going around for a very long time!), but our guide told us that Mzee still really missed Owen and is quite sad, while Owen is very happy living with his new girlfriend Cleopatra.

Owen!

Feeding the giraffes!

When we weren’t off on adventures, we had lots of fun hanging out at the hotel, eating 4 or 5 meals a day and swimming in one of the three pools (and going down the kids water slide!) or swimming in the Indian Ocean.  It was the perfect end to my time in East Africa.

Family Fun!

I can't believe it has been so long since I've posted a blog!  I've had quite a busy past two weeks, but they have been filled with fun activities!  My family arrived Sunday, November 20, for a week full of African adventures!

After picking all seven of them up at the bus station, we headed to my little two bedroom apartment where everyone would spend the night.  Sleeping accommodations were a big tight, but we managed.  Everyone was quite tired after their 30 hour journey, so after a quick stop by Good Hope Orphanage to pass out some presents, we all headed to bed pretty early to be refreshed to start our adventures the next day.

Our transportation for the week!

We headed out pretty early on Monday morning since it was a day full of activities.  We started with stopping by Cradle of Love to play with the babies for a few minutes and drop off some donations.  As always, it was quite hard to leave!  Then we headed to a beautiful hot springs about 2 hours outside of Arusha for swimming and a picnic lunch.  After this, we headed in the opposite direction (quite in the middle of nowhere) to visit a Maasai village (a local tribe in Tanzania).  It was quite shocking to see that people still lived in houses built with sticks and mud with no electricity or running water.  It seemed like we were stepping back in time!

A traditional Maasai meal of goat cooked over the fire.

Dad loving the baby crocodile!

After camping near the village, we headed out bright and early the next morning for our three day Safari!  We visited Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater, and Tarangire National Park.  We had an excellent safari and saw many many animals.  Some of our favorites included cheetahs, lions, and baby elephants!  We also made a stop at the Arusha snake park where we all held a snake, a baby crocodile, and a tortoise.

Our last night all together in Arusha was Thursday night, and we headed out to a local bar to try chips mayai and konyagi.  Our waittress was very sweet, and after giving her an apparently HUGE tip (equal to $6), she had to give every single one of us a hug, and immediately show her coworker.  I'm sure it was more than she makes in a week! 

My all time seat in the middle back of the safari van!

Friday morning, we headed to Good Hope school to pass out more donations and visit with the kids before saying good bye to my Dad and Jessica who took the bus back to Nairobi on Friday afternoon.  The rest of us took the kids from the orphanage out for pizza on Friday night, which they loved!  Saturday, we returned to Cradle of Love to spend more time with the babies, and stopped by Sofia's orphanage to see the huge contrast between Jericho and Good Hope.  After a delicious lunch, we headed back to Arusha on the dala dala (my family were all quite dala dala experts by this time!).  We went out to dinner and watched a live Reggae band Saturday night, and finished up the weekend with a little last minute shopping on Sunday morning!  It was a very  busy week, but I really enjoyed intruducing my family to Africa!

Passing out pencils at Good Hope School