.getting ready for the rooftop/ Lake Chala.

Okay,

I won't pretend that I am completely prepared to climb mount Kilimanjaro. I also have to admit that along with sadness, the prospect of leaving Africa next week makes my heart palpitate a little too quickly. I am so nervous to return home. I know that I'll be the girl having the freak out in the grocery store and dreaming endlessly of my kids' hands in mine and their precious voices. I also know that there are so many things left to do before I go. Since I decided to "adopt" this new orphanage Bahati, I must start preparing ways to fundraise and support it while at home. I have to plan for school and rush, finish profiles and a proposal and try to get everything packed and ready to go! So, planning/exercising for the mountain has been pushed to the side a tid bit. 



On the other hand, however, I need to be home for a lot of reasons. I need to see my family, I need to physically be with them and give them the love that I was infused with while in Africa. I need to be the changed and hopeful for change me while in America, too. I need to see my grandma and give her a lot of good busus! I hear news about my friends and I know that seeing them will be wonderful. I have never been more of a fb stalker until now - I will repeatedly comb through albums to glean a much as I can out of them in a small effort to be closer. I will also return home knowing that I am coming back. I am currently set for next summer and I know I can get it done :), so it's not kwaheri, just tutaonana baadaye.

So...back to getting ready for Kili. See? I'm putting off even in my blog. I feel as though the experience will be both the hardest and one of the best things I've ever done. I am so happy that Becca, Rachel and Kayla are climbing with me. They are truly an amazing group of girls, and I am so blessed to have them with me! We will have a great time. I just feel that culminating my experience by being on the rooftop of Africa will be, for lack of a better word...incredible. So...we will see, eh? (If you're reading this Amanda, that "eh" is for you).

Anyway,

I never talked about Lake Chala in my posts!! I went to Lake Chala two weekends ago and it was truly one of the best weekends I've had in Africa (which is really saying something!).
Attendees: Chris, Erick, Paul, Katyann, Becca, Rachel, Dana, Kayla and myself!
Location: around 1 & 1/2 hour outside of Moshi, Lake Chala
Accomodation: a bad-a giant tent (don't worry, it was pink and teal and had little "windows")
Transportation: Erick's car
Food: Grocery store buys, food we ordered there.
Main Activities: Walking safaris, tembo trekking, swimming and canoeing in the lake, almost getting charged twice, going to Kenya, getting demolished by thorns, hanging out/getting steam rolled in the tent, sitting and singing by a fire pit.

I wish I could really just take everyone I know there so they can experience it for themselves, but I will try to give it justice here. The lake is surrounded by hiking area/cliffs and it is quite big. 1/3rd of it crosses into Kenya, but you can see the entire lake when you stand high on the cliffs. The area is also home to many elephants (which basically means I should move there).
When we first arrived we put our stuff into our tent and hurried to see the lake. The campsite has nice bathrooms, a kitchen, a bar and fire pit area, places for people to bring their own tents, a tented area and a dining area. The gardens are well taken care of, and it is very clean and nice! The bathrooms are all mzungu toilets and nice (actually warm) showers. The lakeside is a fifteen minute walk away from the campsite, however, they are currently building a new dining hall area on the lakeside. So, next year when I return it might be finished!
At the lakeside Chris and Paul tried to throw things into the water. Unfortunately, due to our height and the copious amounts of monkey-infested trees below they couldn't get their stones into the lake. We then went back to the campsite and got settled before we walked to the bar. While the sun was setting we sat outside and contemplated our food options. We listened to great music (Dave, Jack Johnson, Dispatch...a good shift from our usual African music!) and just spent time together and were...really...happy. It was like taking a good breath of fresh air. That night we ate a delicious meal and sat by the fire with our music. When we got back to the tent we had some fun times with Katyann steam-rolling Becca to the ground (you know, mature stuff) and then Chris, Katyann and I decided  to go tembo hunting. I borrowed Kayla's headlamp and we set off to find ourselves a tembo. Now, before you go judging me because it was pitch black and potentially dangerous - just remember  that elephants are the freaking best.
So, this adventure got exciting when I saw movement in the brush. We shone our lights and low and behold we saw a blink of red - an eye. After this Chris started walking in serious pursuit of our potential friend while Katyann and I tried to convince him otherwise. Then, we heard a freaky growl and a bunch of yelling in the distance that we could of sworn was yelling "Help me!". Needless to say, that scared us back to camp.

The next day we woke up for the sunrise - orange, big and bright over the Acacia trees and amidst the small clouds. It was truly incredible and it reminded me of the moon rise I saw on safari. There is nothing like the sun rising in Africa. After our nutella, bread and cereal breakfast we followed a guide off into the area by the campsite. He had a machete and a rock....pretty fitting for our non-english speaking guide eh? We began to walk and then before we knew it there were elephants!! There was a family in the distance and it was so incredible to actually BE there and see them outside of a safari car. Then, as we walked in the opposite direction we nearly ran into another big elephant!! It looked straight at us and flared its ears. This made us excited until our guide chucked a rock at it and yelled for us to run. Good thing he was there to recognize it was about to charge...otherwise I think we definitely would have stayed admiring its stature and beauty!

After this exhilarating experience we began our walk to the lake. This was not only long, it was thorny. I honestly have never seen that many thorns, burs and cacti in one area in my entire life. Our good old guide was walking at normal speed with his machete just hacking down things in his way and powering through the land that honestly seemed to resist human existence with every inch. The trees, the bushes and the grasses had thorns, the cacti seemed to enjoy their place either within or next to these thorn bushes and the burs seemed to have no problem with sticking to you and clinging for dear life. We had to stop multiple times for literal catch-ups. My headband was taken off by a thorn tree, as was Chris' hat. The worst of it ended on Kayla's pants, which we had to end up picking at for a significant amount of time after the lake visit ended. However, while walking through this difficult terrain we passed into Kenya. (Okay, it was illegally and we were only in Kenya for a minute). Because the lake crosses into Kenya the land surrounding it contains the border! We walked into Kenya for a moment and Paul got a chance to leave Tanzania!! It was so amazing to see his smile (during the entire weekend, but at this point in particular). He made the weekend so much of what it was :). When we got back into TZ we walked up a hill and you could physically see the border - it was kichizi! Once we got to the lakeside the area became rocky and cool and, believe it or not, thornless. It reminded me a lot of being close to Flathead Lake in Montana.

Once we got to the water we all stripped to our swimsuits and jumped on in!! The water was cool, and incredibly beautiful. It was both very blue and very clear. We swam to feel the sun on our faces and took some good pictures on a large tree/log that was in the water. We also ended up taking a canoe further out into the lake and I just sang while we rowed serenely out onto the water. The surrounding area looked so different from here, it was as though we were within a little natural fishbowl- we were inhabiting our own little spot of the world. After the canoeing we walked back - a walk that proved to be much easier than our trek earlier in the day. We finished the night power-less and sharing the camp with around 20 new people. We ate and hung out and ended up playing funny games in the tent.

The next day was unbelievable. We walked to a watering hole that the elephants of the area frequently use, and then we went out to a large crater. After the crater we began to walk again and we saw a whole herd of elephants! I nearly had a heart attack and we walked and got very close to them so that we could hear and see them throwing dust and also see their immense size. While there we heard a large elephant give out a trumpet - which sounded initially like a deep lion-like growl and then a horn-like sound. It was so loud and it gave us a start! We quickly went the opposite way and got to higher ground. From above we could see that our pack of elephants was actually a GIGANTIC herd of over 60!! We watched them for awhile until we saw four or five start walking and we followed their path from above. This landed us right above a mud/watering hole that contained ten or fifteen elephants throwing mud on their backs and stomping in it! We ended up watching the entire 60+ group (including teeny tiny mtotos and kubwa sana adults) walking in lines, throwing dust and mud bathing in turns. It was ...amazing! There isn't even a word for it. I said I could die then, I could just die happy. We sat and watched these elephants for a long time, until they all ran back away from us because some idiot honked his motorcycle horn at them and scared them away. Ugh, civilization haha. i still can't believe I witnessed that. I kissed my elephant necklace and held it out to the wind throughout the weekend, so that must have helped, right? Haha, just kidding, but truly it was a moment that will be ingrained in my mind forever.

After this elephant trek we went back to the campsite and got ready to go home. The ride home was really wonderful too. We listened to good music and I just sat and reflected on myself, on Africa and on the way fate as weaved its way into the facets of my life and created a masterpiece. More than ever I have felt that things happen for a reason. Each conversation I have been having, the people I am meeting, the things I have experienced and will continue to experience...they all were supposed to happen. We all just felt at peace and I could feel the love just flowing through the van...haha, but really.
 
Since then...

We danced onstage with the rappers at the Serengeti Fiesta!! (Yes me, totally crazy!) We had to say goodbyes to Tyler, Chris and Abby and I have had amazing connections with some of the new volunteers. I miss so many people now, and I am so grateful for the way they have shaped me it is getting overwhelming. While crying on the way to school this morning I thought, how is it that I am living this life? I truly can't believe it. I am so so blessed, and just because it happened that way. Anyway, it is quite late here in Moshi, and I have to get up and do a lot of work tomorrow (well, today)!!

Ninakupenda sana, amani kila siku na lala salama (or siku njema for those in the US).

Leo Huzuni.

This will be brief. Yesterday we took one of our students, Abdul, to the doctor. While we were at school he began to complain about a headache. When I went to him I felt his head and it was boiling hot. We ended up taking Abdul home to his uncle and then to Majengo clinic. Abdul’s mother died when he was 1 (six years ago) due to AIDS. He has been living with his uncle and other cousins since then. He lives in a small apartment area in one room and he often misses school due to illness. We took him to the clinic along with his uncle and Octavio. Here we ended up standing in many lines and waiting for around 2 hours (which is actually considered a short wait0 until things were settled. It turned out that Abdul had never been tested for HIV or brought to the doctor. He was tested and was also given things in order to check for TB and upper respiratory problems.

It ended up that he is positive for HIV and needed to return to the clinic the next day with spit samples for the lab to assess. Although I knew he was positive before, to hear the results while this tiny little boy was sitting next to me holding my hand was overwhelming. I cried when we heard, and we also heard the doctor yell at the uncle about Abdul’s distended tummy and lack of proper care. She told him that Abdul is very malnourished, he is sick continually and he is losing a chance at living a healthy life despite his HIV/AIDS diagnosis.

It is amazing how fragile life is, how things change and move so quickly and while we can walk around having lives that are relatively calm, there are so many people who are living fragile, inconsistent lives. The fact that my student has to live with an incurable illness and worries about food and warmth at night is heartbreaking. Anyway, it was a sad day. It was interesting to be face to face with AIDS in Africa. I hope that we can continue to instill hope and light into his life while we are here. Remember that beauty and love feed off of each other and live a life full of love. 

.iliyopita.

Some experiences in life lend themselves to life reflection and reassessment. I have had quite a few of these experiences since I arrived in Africa on May 5^th, but this one is markedly different.

         Becca had told me a little about the Upendo house and Sibo’s hope to provide both shelter and loving care in addition to education for children in need in the community. So when I went to the celebration for the finished Upendo house I thought I knew what I was heading to. Once we arrived, however, I quickly realized how unprepared I really was. We walked into the house and I saw a painting I had watched Oko paint a mere day before (when we went with Ramsey to Upendo), and I saw the chairs and table, the computer and the different rooms. I was awestruck, to say the least. I sat in the house the entire night with tears threatening to create salt trails down my cheeks.

         When we arrived Sibo showed us around while Madam Salma and Bibi placed candles around and began to prepare our dinner. Chelsea, Becca and I walked around in awe and with our hearts full of love. I wish I could accurately portray what an unbelievable experience this was, but I just can’t find the words that really portray what it felt like to be there, to be part of something so much bigger than myself and to see firsthand a movement that will tangibly change children’s’ lives. The seven children that were formerly living with bibi and the three Uru kids now had a home in which they could be shown copious amounts of love, be fed and taken care of and still be close to school so that they can learn and grow! I sat and contemplated what it would be like for the kids to live there, and tried to imagine the faces of the Uru kids as they entered their new home. Going from a mud and stick shack to a house with beds, a computer, food and other children is going to be a huge shift – but an amazing one!! This was a time I wish I could capture on film, as though my head was a video camera so that everyone could experience even just a piece of what I was feeling.

         Sibo showed us some of his older paintings and mixed media as well. They contained so many messages of hope and conveyed his deep passion for change. One was based around the Kilimanjaro marathon and it showed the different people and organizations that came together to help people and children in need. It was so beautiful to see the both a desire to assess the needs of the people and the ways that the needs were being addressed. I was very inspired by his recognition of the reality of broken homes and children in need that were living on the streets. It also made me reflect on my desire to help children and my love of art. I hope and plan to use my art to change lives and influence children in need. I would love to be a part of a Performing Arts school here in Moshi and to help orphans realize their talents and their dreams.

         Dinner was delicious, we had amazing company and beautiful times together. It was one of the moments that I felt completely overflowing with love. I have had life-changing moments that have affected my heart – surviving cancer, having my sister as a guide through growing up, talks with my mom and best friends, camps, living through so many things with Danielle, living a life full of music, dancing experiences, losing Paul, living despite feeling like I couldn’t, meeting Becca and others in Africa, and loving children and being able to work with them in many different capacities. This moment immediately made the list (even compared to other things I have experienced in Africa). I remember reflecting on other moments (such as the ones above) and thinking about what a beautiful life I have. I never wanted that evening to end, and it solidified my knowledge that I will never be able to fully leave Africa. I have been changed forever.

upendo kila siku. 

[kuwa mabadiliko unataka kuona katika ulimwengu]- Ghandi Africa status!