another long need post (without photos im afaid)

Boys big day out...

As my time here is soon coming to an end. It was time to take my “faviourts” out for a treat, what could be better than the water park??

Only problem was that it was outside of Dar, so me plus 12 lads travelled up in style on the dala dala (local mini buses, always an adventure) then we swapped into a taxi for the final leg, typically enough the driver said he knew where he was going, we agreed on a price 5000TZS (2quid) and then typically enough he didn’t know where he was going- this is why i really hate these taxi drivers.

We ended up at the hotel with the water park, the drivers got out demanding their money, i was (and kids too) pretty angry with the drivers at this point, my driver kept asking me what time i wanted him to pick us up, i said no then he asked again and again till the point i shouted some English swear words in anger- it did the trick. But no we were having another argument about the bill in the hotel lobby! They wanted a ridicous 40,000 each, the kids were shouting thief in Swahili at them and i was arguing millions of reasons why im not paying them at all, gave them 10,000 each (i have payed less for longer journeys) and walked away. But the hotel manager came to find me as they had not left the premisis of the hotel and were demanding more money, after yet more arguing and the odd shove (i didn’t start it) the boys came back and started shoving abusing the drivers on my behalf, not that i encourage this behaviour but i would have been very happy to see more! The manager got my message that i wasn’t paying any extra and sense the drivers anger, she decided to pay the drivers much to my protest , guess she had to confort the clients.

We then went swimming, within a minute of the first boy jumping in, we had one lad choking in the water and another who had dived head first into the shallow end. Time for lunch which was chicken and chips, beats ugali everyday and the smile on their faces was great to see. After explaining a few things such as keeping your mouth shut underwater and the no diving sign we went back in. This is something these kids only get to do once in their lifetime (apart from john who has been spolit by Hamish!) so they really do make the most of it.

The only injury suffered was Kelvin who had dived head first into the shallow end and ended up with a rather big dash on his forehead, he received the his faviout punishment of 10 press ups by the pool side and some kids plasters. Looks like a trip to the local hospital, from previous expierence i reckon the stiching job will only be 3000 (just over a quid).

As i haven’t done a blog for a very long time, i should fill you in on some other stuffs...

General juju (mother Hamish, calls herself after her son- kinda tells you how proud she is!) has come and gone, and during that time it has been peddle to the metal. No rest for the wicked or something like that.

One of the jobs was the de-worming program, yes its the same as de-worming your dog at home. The water here isn’t great and many kids are falling ill thanks to worms developing in their lungs etc. So each kid received a tablet, some of them even prayed before we gave them their tablets, did they really think we were going to kill them>!

Bags for Buguruni mission is almost done, everyone in the school apart from the many teachers who had a day off! Received a nice little drawstring bag with several items including loveheart sweets imported from the UK. The kids have nothing or very little so the bags were godsend for them, even today nearly all the kids and many teachers are wearing the bags to school J. look on the Tanzanear page on facebook for photos.

Child sponsorship, we have like 50ish kids that are in need of sponsoring, and i tell you there is no better run charity on the planet than tanzanear, they are a small charity indeed but the money is well spent and really does go towards the pupils benefit. So £10 a month can go along way esp with general juju in charge. So i decided to sponsour ally, at first he was a really shy kid who didn’t really talk to me unless i approached him. He occasionally fights with teachers when he really struggles to follow the lesson, now he has a special friend me! (dad i may need some extra pocket money!!) and mama Hamish was saying that simply the fact they have a special friend their work and confidence improves so much. Its great to say that this is the case with Ally, as he is a day pupil he had invited me home for lunch. So we caught a dala dala to his place where himself, mother and father share one single room, he has a matteress on the floor and im not sure if he had a mossie net. But one thing was quite clear and that is his parents hardly know any sign language- which kinda backs up why he finds lessons hard to understand. Im really keen for his parents to know some more sign, imagine been at home and not been able to talk to your parents? I guess this is the case with many of these kids, a teacher at the school does classes for this thing- so hopefully il get Ally’s parents to tag along.

I cannae waffle on too much, but hope this will fill you in. There is ofc many more stories of this place but your have to wait till im back in april!

simonx

kili

Kilimanjuro!

yes i did make it to the top of the worlds most under estimated mountain! It’s certainly harder than it sounds

a long (10hr) bus journey from Dar to Arusha proved uneventful despite hearing many stories. Although the bus had some scary under/over taking manoeuvre’s, it becomes obversous the driviers were playing a game of chicken during their head on moments, not to worry only 55 lives per bus were at risk!

The team met at the macheme gate, there was 14 of us, 9porters 2guides and 3 “climbers”. The other two climbers were guys from South Africa, Jean (aka grandma jean from Blackpool!) and Wayne. They were great company during the trip they explained in great depth the fundermentals of a SA brai (its serious bussienes!) and tiger was the mascot..

Despite being so disorganised and last minute i somehow managed to find everything needed for the climb. The last 2 nights in dar we had powercuts (48hrs yes) so packing was done in the dark, much needed water purification tablets, water bottle, suncream, snackts etc had to borrowed at the last min. And yet on the journey up my bag was on the roof which expierneced a little bit of rainfall so everything was mildely damp, a beautiful start!

The porters and guides were all really great company, typically we started to get to know each other with the usual English preimer league football club conversation. I apparitly looked very much like ronney! is that offensive?!!! Am i losing lots of hair and acting like a typical man u idiot??!! (i’d much prefere people thinking i look more like prince harry, beating bolt in the 100m i can’t be so bad)

It took us 6 days to get up the mountain and only 2 to get down again. But the altitude is a killer, the oxygen in the air gets so thin, eventually half the amount of oxygen compared to the sea floor level. So you have to take it so slowly to get up. So many days were actually half day of climbing with detours to explore other “secrects” of the mountain.

One day we were trecking up to the lava tower roughly 4800m, so this day i took one of the altitude sickness pills. Wow, it created the biggest- i mean THE biggest ever headache i have ever had, also felt so sleeply, in our mess tent where we stopped for lunch bang just feel asleep. I really felt horrible, that night i checked the bottle with the pills. It wasn’t the diamox(thingy) i asked for but something else (probably dads “academic” recommendation) but worse the name of the prescribed person was Mr S Thurely, now thats a pretty bad attempt of the family name or someone else’s pills, eveidence of having parents as doctors has more disadvantages then advantages!

The summit night (we got rid of the summit attempt as it was physiological disadvantage) we all got up at 11pm, got on enough clothing to make us look like zombies and climbed the finale 1200 vertical meters to the top. The first bit was a cool scramble in the dark, with only a head tourch and a little sunshine from our full moon we climbed the hill in the dark. 8hours of climbing uphill, we went pole-pole= slow slow (Swahili) literlay half a foot at a time all the way. I had my ipod for company but zinc air operated implant batteries died- with little oxygen the impland didn’t have the power to hear a thing. The future lets you down eh?

We got to the summit at about sunrise, a what a beautiful sight, some people belive that you could see all of Africa from the “roof of Africa!” nope, but you could see allot of the mountain, sunslight bounching of the glacier etc it was all so beautiful. We posed for our photo next to the infamous new sign. I was angry that the old cool battered sign had being replaced by a modern plastic ugly thing.

Now the decent, i was still wearing all my clothes from the cold weather (6ish layers) coming down a scree run, not much fun. The sun had come out and i was boiling up getting reidicoulsy hot and yet the water was still frozen from the summit so a heatstroke started. I wasn’t the only one, but at  least me and wayne managed to get escorted (unfortuantly we still had to walk!) down the mountain. A total of 14 hours climbing in one day- splendid.

3 weeks today before i fly back- unfortunately after mums big birthday!

Happy birthday sis#!

Simonx