A day hike up Kilis base - a taste of what is yet to come

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After a rather hectic week at the day care center, the weekend came just in time! Hectic, you wonder, well, part of the hectic part on Friday was that our head teacher Vicky (the one that speaks a little english, had her day off, so I was by myself, well the lady that cooks the porridge for the kids was also there... ) so anyway if you can picture 90 little boys and girls on a Friday, and then try to picture to control them from hitting, biting, chasing, ... eachother, let alone try to have them enage in creatice activity... you can picture my day. ... I was able to get them fired up to draw different types of fruit for about an hour.. well it takes that long because they all share the crayones i brought... no crayones no drawing... then a couple of the kids thought they really couldl not part with the crayons, so we had to go through all their bags to get the "stolen" ones back... anyhow a day like i have not had before, and when 12 o'clock rolled around, i was ready for the weekend..... The big problem here is really not the kids , they are cute and starving for attention and love, but the system has these public facilities so terribly understaffed, that i am afraid that so many of these kids who are really very bright will fall throught the cracks... so much work to be done. Anyhow, since it is Saturday today i will no longer talk about "work" but rather what a fun friday afternoon and saturday i had.

So Friday after lunch , i took a taxi in to Moshi with a few other volunteers who had to run errands and met with Erasmus, who is my swahili teacher's friend and who is helping me sort out the Kili hike and the following safari to the Serengeti... so anyhow, Erasmus and i took "public transport" which here is a daladala, or mini van where the people are just absolutly piled in. Now i had been in a daladala before, but yesterday we broke the record of 25 people in the van!!!! yeah, picture that! There were litterally people hanging out the window! Onw cannot have been to Africa and leave without this experience! Not my prefered mode of travel, but it is such an experience to sit as an mzungu in the middle of the locals. Anyay, we took the daladala to Zara travel headquarters, which is the tour company i will attempt my Kili climb with and everything is set for the start next Monday! Cannot wait. So to get a little taste of it, myself and 4 other volunteers went on a day hike to the Mnambe Waterfalls which are the largest (about 50 m ) on Kilimanjaro. We took a car up to about 1,800m, and then hiked the rest until we were about 1/2 waY up the mountain at 2,800m. It was great training to get used to the altitude and get a feel for what a day of hiking in the lower elevations will be like! Banana and Coffee trees all around!
To top the day off, we enjoyed our picnic lunch at a lodge, and danced with the Chagga People who live up here in the mountains!
So another brilliant day is slowly coming to an end. Dinner awaits, and then sleeping in tomorrow!
cheers take care SL

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Photos

Vicky at work!
well, actually posing!

some of my kids
impossible to get them all in a picture, plus they are so excited to have their picture taken!!

kids at recess
the playground!

The Mnambe Waterfall
The day hike crew enjoying the cool spray of the falls

Dancing with the Chagga People
Tons of fun!