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Published: March 24th 2009
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Welcome to the Summit!
Off in the distance you can almost see the sun rising next to Mt.Kilimanjaro. Amazing. Hey all - Tim here. Not physically, more like in a "I wuz here" yearbook type fashion. Right.
So, two blogs in one week. It's almost unheard of. You must be so impressed by my new blogging skills. If you're thinking that I really put my big boy boots on and committed to this blogging thing...well, you'd be WRONG! Something else brought me back to blogging. Something very else. That's right friends, boredom! Don't get me wrong, I still have more stories to share and I love to share them, but when you're unemployed you tend to notice a little more free time in your schedule, and free time can (in today's case) lead to boredom, and boredom will lead to blogging, and blogging will lead typing rediculous things like this.
Side note - that last sentence may be the longest one ever written. In English. By me. This week.
Moving on.
My last day working at Tuleeni Orphanage started out like any other. The kids ran out to greet us, we played, sang songs, did magic tricks, and shoveled dirt onto buring piles of garbage. Just a typical days work...ok maybe not the last
Tuleeni
Having fun on my last day at Tuleeni! thing. But yes, we did shovel dirt onto old burnt piles of garbage. I guess its a good fertilizer? Who knows? But, after that we went back into the main courtyard to play. I was sitting with one of the little ones when all of the sudden all the other kids went over to the door and lined up from smallest to tallest. I didn't really think anything of it. Then, they stared to walk towards me humming a tune. Once they got in front of me they lined up like a choir (still smallest to tallest) and broke into song about how I was their brother, that they'd miss me, that they were thankful for me teaching them, and that I should never forget them or their stories. They sang for a good 15 minutes (in harmony) and then gave me a hand made thank you card. The whole thing was hands down the best gift I've ever received. It was incredibly thoughtful of them and I can assure you that I will never forget them. They have so many amazing stories. Some are orphans because their parents died of HIV/AIDS, some were abandond on a church doorstep watching
Shaurimoyo
Hanging with the kids on my last day at school. their mothers run away, and some stories are unknown. How could I forget something like that. They are all gifted kids with amazing potential and I'm already trying to figure out ways to continue to help them now that I'm back home.
My last day at Shaurimoyo was just as great. The teacher got the kids to go around and say thank-you for whatever they wanted to say thank-you for. My favourite was one of the kids thanked me for helping them learn to read. Something I never actually worked on with that particular student. awkwarrddd. But I could tell it was from the heart nonetheless. It doesn't seem as funny as I type the story. Maybe it was one of those 'you had to be there' type moments. haha
So with two days before Sadie and I had to depart CCS we were undecided about where to travel to next. I mean, we were known for making a plan and sticking to it at CCS so this was highly unlike us. ppffff Ok maybe the exact opposite is true. This was completely part of our co-traveling character. So at the last minute, and I'm talking last minute,
Strong like a pipe
Sadie and I trying to be strong before we take off on our 4566m journey to the top of Mt.Meru we decided to climb a mountain. With no training. Sure, no biggie.
Two days later we started our 4566m (14 980ft) climb to the summit of Mt. Meru, the second highest mountain in Tanzania next to Mt.Kilimanjaro.
Question: Why didn't we climb Kili you ask?
Answer: Because we didn't want to dish out the $1200 bucks that didn't exist in our wallets.
Fair enough.
The climb was unreal. Well actually it was real. And it was real damn hard. But worth it. It took 4 days in total and we had to walk through jungle, wild animals, volcanic ash, rocks and freezing cold winds. On summit day we woke up at 1am, ate breakfast, started climbing by 2am and got to the summit for sunrise. Then we climbed back down - at this point I figured that collapsing would be a good option, but I thought better of it and kept on truckin'. It was a total of 11 hours of climbing that day. Do you think I hit the pillow hard that night? Yes sir! Actually, part of me (a big part) just wanted to plop down on the mountain side to take a little nap
The green path
Follow the green rocks with your eyes. I, on the other hand, had to follow them with my feet. on the volcanic ash, but if I did that I would have rolled down to the tree line. I guess I figued out how to pick my battles.
After the mountain we toured around the island of Zanzibar a bit. Here are some of the pictures...enjoy!
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