Hike UP Mt. Kilimanjaro

We hiked part of Mt. Kilimanjaro with the kids before saying our final goodbye. We accomplished the 7-hour hike along with 15 kids from TunaHAKI and 15 adults plus our two guides. We began our hike at 11 AM through the lush tropical jungle landscape at the very base of the massive "Kili", the largest free standing mountain in the world. The air was thick with cool moisture and smells of damp green plants. Being such a large group, we split into separate sections throughout the hike. After having ants crawl up our pants and spotting a few different monkey species galavanting through the tree branches, we arrived at the first base camp at 9,000 ft elevation by 3 o'clock. Then we had lunch and made a further trek up to a small crater where we could see views of Kenya. The children giggled as they ran wildly down the slope into the midst of the crater, where the soft grass reminded me of pillows and fluffy blankets. We all rolled around and laughed together. Our dessent into the crater seemed like a scene from "The Sound of Music". The children ran down a steep dirt path all in a row until they reached the bottom and then they began singing the Tanzania welcome song that we have grown to love. They then began to do handstands and flips. They were so happy there surrounded by so much love and beauty. What a great day.
It's been difficult to get much access to internet so these are our final entries on how the travels in Africa have been.

Meeting lots of wonderful people in Tanzania

Today is very humid and overcast in Moshi, Tanzania. We just returned from traveling to an area near Ngorongoro crater where we were able to see some amazing animals such as elephants, giraffes, ostriches, monkeys, lions, hippos and more! It was an amazing feeling being so close to these beautiful animals. At the end of the day, our friends compared Dorrie to a lioness and me to a monkey. Seems like a good match, don't ya think?

We also spent some time at TunaHAKI with Nico Calabria, a 13-year old who was born wth one leg, raised $80,000 for 2000 wheelchairs for disabled people in Africa, by hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro! How incredible! Nico is a loving enthusiastic youth who helped Maggie demonstrating tumbling skills to the children. To read more on Nico:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t60svcYRak
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/articles/2007/10/08/kilimanjaro_one_of_teens_many_heights/

On Sunday night, we spent the night with one of the Maasai tribe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai "It was probably the biggest culture shock I've ever experienced," says Maggie. One of our guides was Adam Nuru, an art teacher for orphanages in Tanzania, who is now interested in working with the children in TunaHAKI. He's soon coming to the US to teach children African woodcarving. Maybe he'll soon come to AcroSports too!
Check his website: www.mtakujaartgroup.com
Today we are on our way to TunaHAKI for another day of volunteering and Maggie will teach the kids dance and tumbling. Dorrie hopes to have some quite time with David "Teacher" and assist with a poetry art project with two other wonderful volunteers, Doria and Val, from Los Angeles. We're visiting the property that was purchased thru the efforts of Scott Fifer and the TunaHAKI foundation. This is the site that will be the new orphanage and an outdoor theater/training space. I, Dorrie, had the opportunity to review the plans with David and had some valuable suggestions for him. The architects designed a living space for visiting artists! . . . . to be continued . . . .

Another day in Moshi

Today was a day spent volunteering at the TunaHAKI center and it was tons of fun but also hard work. Maggie was teaching them tumbling skills, like forward rolls, handstands, backwards rolls, cartwheels and more! Dorrie loves to meet and so she had an in depth meeting with the director of the facility, David Ryatula. He told her all his ideas about what he sees going forward as TunaHAKI grows and Dorrie took detailed notes. We also got to work with the children on a penpal project which is challenging since none of us volunteers speak Swahilli! We are taking some great photos though and seeing some beautiful sights of this incredibly warm culture! The people smile and wave when we pass by. . . "makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over," Maggie says. Tonight the TunaHAKI kids will perform for us at the hotel. I'm sure it will be a great show. We'll try to post again on Wednesday when we're back in town.

Our first day with TunaHAKI

We visited the orphanage, TunaHAKI, with Scott for the first time yesterday to see the children in person for first time since last year. It's difficult to put into words how emotional and moving the whole experience was. All of the children remembered us and gave us huge hugs and patted our backs. We were introduced to the new younger children too. They all said in English, "Hello my name is . . . ."

The children were delighted with our gifts. The spinning plates were a real hit..also the books and shoes. They were forever greatful. Their smiles were so touching.


Dorrie spent time with David reviewing the architectural plans for the new dormitories and theatre and training space.
There is space planned for visiting atists which would make things easier for visitors. Maggie had a great time dancing and drumming with a big group of very rhythmic and excited kids. Those kids are awesome drummers!

We are on our way to visit the children the with entire group on the retreat 15 in all. We plan to do some writing, yoga and some gymnastics. We will try to write again soon but internet use is VERY limited around here.

Arrival to Tanzania

Checking baggage in Amsterdam was quite an ordeal. The weight restrictions for check-in luggage was 23 kilos and for carry-on was a 1 bag limit that was not to weigh over 12 kilos. We were just under the absolute maximum for all our check-in. 3 bags were 22kilos and 1 was 21.5. The cost for additional bags was 105 pounds. The ticket agent was not impressed that these bags were full of donations for AID orphans and street children.

YIKES!!!!
Well lets do the math.
2 extra bags would cost 210 pounds or $450.00
What were we going to do? First of all we moved our 300 pounds of luggage to the side so the anxious people waiting in line at 5 o’clock in the morning can check-in…..then we consolidated 4.5 kilos of the luggage in the underweight luggage, packed Maggie’s extra carry on into my larger extra piece of carry on which left us standing in line with lots of disgruntled people paying over $200.00 for our black bag of donations for TunaHAKI

After all is said and done we are feeling positive about what we are doing and looking forward to our arrival in Kilimanjaro which is just about 30 minutes from know.

We are in London

We arrived in london at 1pm where we will be spending the night before our last 2 legs of our trip to TunaHAKI. We will be up at 4am in order to make our flight to Amsterdam at 6:30. Then, we'll meet up with a lot of folks who we'll be spending the next couple weeks with, and they will be continuing on with us on our journey, a 10 hour flight to Tanzania!!! Maggie thinks "I can't believe it's actually happening. . ." We are both very jetlagged and exhausted from lugging around 300 lbs of luggage. It will feel good to get it off our shoulders and into the hands of the TunaHAKI center (both physically and emotionally)! We'll be writing next time in Africa and we may not have much internet access there. . . so stay tuned.

November 26 - Departure date!

Today is the day Dorrie and I embark on our adventure to Tanzania, Africa! The flight we are flying standby on looks great, according the expert, Jack Huntington. He said "you guys are for sure getting on." Dorrie and I are both very excited and anticipating our trip. The packing has been tricky to load 50 lbs in each of our luggage we have to donate to the TunaHAKI orphanage. THe Huntingtons have set up a bag scale on the dinningroom table to accurately pack as much as we can!