Lanoche Children's Camp

It's been a while since our last blog, but we've finally managed to get to the internet. As the end of June 29th approached, we weren't really sure what our plans for the next two weeks would be. We had tried to call the listed number for the next orphanage, and we'd also emailed, but no response. All the hotels in Dar es Salaam were booked (or so it seemed, since we called about 7 or 8, and none had vacancies), and we had nowhere else to go. Fortunately, Johnson, the director of Camp Lanoche Children's Camp, responded. The next morning, bright and early, we woke up and walked a mile in the equatorial sun with our giant backpacks to the docks. We boarded a ferry, and motored on back to the mainland. It was pretty windy that day, and the waves were choppy, which led to a large amount of vomit for the passengers on the ferry. Johnson picked us up from the docks and took us about an hour and a half out of the city. Johson is quite a fellow. He's one of those people who's always laughing, and he dresses as if he's on safari. Also, he has climbed Kilimanjaro 6 times, and hunts every two or three nights with his pals, and comes home all bloody. Today he arrived after a two day excursion where he managed to kill 22 impala. He sells them for meat, and they usually get a pretty good price, and thats how he runs the childrens camp. He also sometimes kills elephant and lions for rich westerners who want the heads as trophies. He also drinks lots of beer early in the morning. So he's somewhat of an enigma. He often wanders off to do his own thing without really telling us whats happening, and leaves us with the kids.
The camp has much fewer kids than the home in Kenya. There are only about 8 of them here, and they're all really cheerful and touchy. The little kids always want to be carried everywhere. There are two other volunteers staying with us. Ones's a girl from the UK whos staying for the next three months, and the other is a psychology PHD who goes to University of Rochester.
Apparently, the camp used to have a cobra problem. Kids and dogs would get bitten, and they've had neighbors who've died. Now, its mostly cleared up. There are also extremely poisonous giant millipedes. Luckily we haven't been attacked yet. We've spent most of our time creating the skeleton of a porch with lots and lots and lots of dirt.

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Part of trip: Kenya/Tanzania

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