An Interlude - Videos Taken During Mufindi Children's Project Visit in Mid-September

Before resuming the description and photos of the successful Mufindi Mountaineers Kilimanjaro climb, I would like to share with you some of the videos taken during our visit to the Mufindi Highlands between 15-19 September.  The Mufindi Mountaineers who made the visit included Gary Drobnack, Jennifer Lindwall, David Still, and Rich Wortley.

During the visit we were given a thorough Mufindi Children's Project overview by Geoff Fox, the founder of this project in 2005.  We also went on tours with the Interim Project Director, Amari Alexander, and one of the volunteers, Sasha Bill from Tacoma, WA.

We were shown the operation of the very successful Care & Treatment Center (CTC) where over 3000 people are now tested monthly and/or administered anti-retroviral drugs to combat HIV-AIDS infections. 

We also visited the Mdabulo Clinic which is adjacent to the CTC and which is being built out to accommodate more health services and equipment in order to qualify it as a hospital.  That classification will mean that the government will provide more doctors and health service providers locally and enable many more villagers in this part of Tanzania to have better access to health care.

We visited the Children's Village where orphans are housed, we visited or inspected the Igoda Primary School, the Luhunga Secondary School,  the Community Center, vocational training centers (batiks, sewing, carpentry), infant care and feeding program for babies whose mothers are HIV+, the Children's Village garden, school lunch preparation and distribution center, and we learned about other services provided like the Home Health Care initiative which reaches out to remote villages, sending local doctors and other medical staff, to assist people who haven't the means or health to travel to the local health clinics or dispensaries.

There are other programs underway in addition to these, but more about those later. 

Check out these videos taken during our visit.

 

This video features primary school kids playing a game in which they encourage the  child in the middle of the circle to pick up something on the ground with only their teeth and their legs straight.  During the attempt, everyone chants encouragement.

 

 

 

 This video features Mufindi Mountaineer David Still getting children at the Igoda Primary School all worked up over his "hand jive" demonstration.  It probably took days for them to settle down again!

 

 

 

 

This video features volunteer Sasha Bill and librarian-teacher Justo reading "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" to the kids, first in English and then in Kiswahili.  In secondary school and the business world in Tanzania, English is the preferred language.  Normally, students don't start learning English until high school, but such a late introduction to a "new" language often slows learning down so getting started earlier with English is a positive development.  Adult English classes are also conducted to help people in the community improve their job and career prospects.  All the kids were convinced that blonde Mufindi Mountaineer Jennifer Lindwall who was visiting was really Goldilocks.  The story tellers also had to explain to these students what a bear was.

 

The blog post that follows next will pick-up at the start of the Grand Traverse just as the Mufindi Mountaineers beginning hiking to Shira 1 Camp, their first overnight campsite on the 10-day trek.

 

Day 1 - Passing Through Londorosi Gate and Meeting Our Guides & Porters - 22 Sep 2014

Following the delivery of our rental gear and the weighing of our duffle bags and packs at the Ndarakwai Lodge, the Mufindi Mountaineers climbed aboard several Thomson Safari vehicles and headed toward the Londorosi Gate entrance on the west side of Kilimanjaro National Park.

There we met all our guides and porters.  We had to sign in at the national park office then wait while the loads were distributed among the porters who would go with us on the mountain.

From here we drove 30 minutes to the trailhead.

Porters weighing their individual loads.

Rick Billingham fetching his daypack from the Thomson Safaris vehicle.

L-R Jennifer Lindwall, Chris Branch, & David Still.

Thomson Safaris porters putting their loads on their vehicle.

 

Thomson Safaris has a roster of 700 porters they have vetted that they draw upon for their treks up Kilimanjaro and elsewhere.  They post jobs by name at various locations and their porters then confirm they will be there ahead of time.  Once confirmed, their pay is deposited in their bank accounts and available to their families.  Typically, many other porters show up at the national park gates hoping to be hired for a trek.  This system often leads to abuses involving "middle-men" and some trekking company organizers who may take a cut of the porters' wages.  Thomson Safaris porters arrive at the gate knowing they have a job.  They are also better equipped than many other porters on the mountain.

 

 

These Mufindi Mountaineers are both Idaho Vandals and both started out as foresters.  Tom Miller, on the left, had a career with Weyerhaeuser and has worked a lot in Central and South America as well as Southeast Asia.  Tom Reveley departed the forestry profession early in his career and joined Merrill Lynch where he is one of their most senior financial analysts... still going strong after 50+ years with ML.

Porters and guides waiting for our vehicles to be loaded.

The Mufindi Mountaineers L-R:  Tom Miller, Robert DeWolf, Tom Reveley, Jennifer Lindwall, Rich Wortley, David Still, Alicia Chapman, Alex Branch, Chris Branch, Gary Drobnack, and Rick Billingham.

Waiting for everyone to get their loads and get them weighed.

Three Weyerhaeuser colleagues were part of the 2014 climb to benefit the Mufindi Children's Project.  L-R Tom Miller, David Still, and Gary Drobnack

 

Getting ready to launch for the trailhead.


Our next blog post will revisit some scenes from the Mufindi Children's Project and then pick up with the start of the hike into the Shira Caldera and toward Shira 1 Camp where the Mufindi Mountaineers spent their first night on the mountain.





UPDATING THE MUFINDI MOUNTAINEERS 2014 CHALLENGE BLOG WITH OUR PHOTOS

This blog TO DATE has focused on our visit to the Mufindi Children's Project and our commencement of the climb of Mt Kilimanjaro (19,340 ft.). 

Location of orphan's housing.  Karibu means welcome.

Geoff Fox explaining to Rich Wortley, Jennifer Lindwall, and David Still
why and when the Mufindi Children's Projects was established.

One of the young "helpers" in the community!

Geoff Fox in hat introducing Mufindi Mountaineer visitors to
 local teachers, students, and the interim project director, Amari Alexander.

Local students dress smartly for school all over Tanzania.

These young girls were glad to see us and full of energy and questions.

The purpose of the climb was to help us raise funds for the Mufindi Children's Project, relying on the friends, relatives, and networks of the Mufindi Mountaineers to help us generate donations.

Those portions of the first blog posts relating to the Mufindi Children's Project in the south central highlands of Tanzania included CURRENT PICTURES taken during our site visit 15-19 September.

That 4-person visit team to Mufindi included Rich Wortley, David Still, Jennifer Lindwall, and Gary Drobnack. 

We were hosted there by Geoff and Vicki Fox who started the Mufindi Children's Project in 2005, and by members of the local non-profit organization that manages the project on a day to day basis.  We wish to thank Geoff and Vicky Fox for their hospitality and to volunteers Amari Alexander and Sasha Bill for bringing us up to date with recent developments in the Mufindi Children's Project and for showing us current initiatives underway and explaining future funding priorities.  These programs and priorities have already been described in the earlier blog posts.

Now that the Mufindi Mountaineers are down from the summit of Kilimanjaro, we wish to revisit the climbing portion of the blog, and this time, UTILIZE OUR PHOTOS taken while we were on the mountain.  The climb portion of the initial blog relied heavily on stock photos of the mountain and occasional updates by satellite phone to describe our progress during the trek.  Now we can share the faces and places we actually visited.  It was not possible to transmit these photos while we were on the mountain unfortunately.

The next posting in this series will start at the Ndarakwai Lodge just west of Mt Kilimanjaro where the climbers met the head guide for the trek and received instructions on packing and getting rental equipment issued.  Two nights were spent at Ndarakwai Lodge recovering from jet lag and preparing for the start of the hike which commenced on the morning of 22 September.