Let the Sun Shine!

Special Note:  We are backfilling videos and photos from the first few days.  There are still more to come so keep looking back there to see what appears.

Special Note #2: We are making final projects that will be short multimedia documentaries.  Each team is making three and we will show one per team at a public event on the Saint Mary's campus on February 20 at 7:00pm in the Soda Center.  Please save the date and join us if you can!

And now on to the beginning of our Saturday:

The night was strangely bright, making several of us think it was near time to get up even when it was only 2:00, 3:00, or 4:00 in the morning.  It was also strangely dry, as we got no rain at all in the night.  Several of us finally gave up on the idea of sleep at about 6:00 and came out to take in the sunrise and the beautiful clear sky.  We realized that it might be one of our only chances to catch a view of Kilimanjaro (which clouds over during the center of the day), so we went out our camp gate and walked in a different direction than we usually walk. We came around a bend in the trail and finally saw Kili in the morning sun.  Our friend Jackson helped us get the best vantage point and we just stood in awe (and, of course, took a million pictures).  We were also in awe of Jackson, who is just really really cool.  He has climbed "the hill" more than 60 times and refers to it as "his office."  Matt asked him if he'd ever been called a "bad**s."  He admitted that he has.

We had a late breakfast of porridge, fruit, and crepes and basked in the glory of the shining sun throughout.  We decided we needed to capitalize on the sunshine to clean some of our waterlogged clothes.  Knowing how terrible we are at doing our own laundry, we decided to hire someone locally to help us manage this stinky pile, to get us back to zero on our clothing supply.

We think the agenda for the day is reforestation.  We're walking somewhere to put some seedlings in the ground.  We'll tell you more later, the next time we get around our wifi.  By the way, we are struggling over the fact that we have some cellphone signal and some access to wifi right here in our camp.  We had prepared ourselves to be totally unplugged so now we are in constant discussion of how to manage our technology access.  Don't be surprised if you don't hear from us, as we are committed to being here -- together -- and sharing this experience as fully as we can.  Thanks for letting us have this opportunity.

More to come.

_____

It's lunchtime now, so we'll catch you up on the rest of our morning.  We kicked into full DIRT mode after breakfast, this time working with actual dirt.  Our friend Henry said that there was a huge pile of compost/soil down by the river that needed to come up the slope to our camp.  Any DIRT vet can fill in the next couple of paragraphs just by seeing the next two words: Bucket Line.  For those who aren't familiar with our ways, we'll fill you in.

Knowing that there is a big pile of material to be moved, most locals would use buckets or bags to carry each unit one by one from the bottom to the top.  For a number of reasons, we do it differently.  We space ourselves out over the area where the materials need to move, arranging ourselves in the straightest possible line.  Then each of us touches every single piece of the load, ideally using about the same amount of effort as every other person.  It's a beautiful sign of symbolic and literal unity that makes huge loads move really fast.

When we really get it down, things just flow effortlessly and we operate like a well-oiled machine.  If someone steps out of the line for some reason, the rest just adjust to fill the gap.  It doesn't take many words to get organized, so we get a chance to have long conversations about things that don't always come up in other contexts. We play games, learn about each other's hometowns, and get exposed to random trivia that different people see as their area of expertise.  We get to learn who hustles and runs even when it's not necessary (Max) and who can't live without their music (Josh).

After the dirt got to the top of the hill, we used it to fill little black plastic tubes as tightly as possible to be the hosts for new seeds that will sprout into seedlings, then into saplings, then into new baby trees in the surrounding forest.  We made a lot of dirt tubes, but we didn't get to the 1000 that they are trying to accumulate.

Lunch was excellent and abundant, with cucumber soup, fried bananas, pasta, pork, and fruit.  Some of us took naps after lunch, including Olivia, who has been nursing a deep cough that she brought with her onto the trip.  We think her nap will bring her right back to normal.  Others of us started up a raucous game that began as something like rugby but turned into something more like U.S. football.  The football players were giggling and laughing and having a blast, sometimes even looking like they really knew what they were doing.

From there will did a little more maintenance work for the camp, as it is a budding ecotourism site.  We have pointed out that they have loose dirt in inconvenient places so we are helping them to lay some blocks to make paths on some of the slopes that we need to walk.  We also added a new set of steps to help us and future visitors get up over one of the retaining walls that shape the terraces of the camp.

Our sunny skies went away but we don't expect pounding rain like yesterday.  We haven't gotten a full clear view of the valley out below us, so we look forward to a full blown clear day to really take in all of our surroundings.  We're going to go to the vista spot to see Kili again in the evening light, so we will write again after that.

_____

Kili was shy tonight so no new pics.  We're going to focus in on videos and photos this evening and get all caught up. Today's video would have already been done if that team's computer hadn't died.  We lost power for the first time today, but it wasn't any problem for us.  It's back tonight, so we hope it stays . . .

Tomorrow we are going to revisit the worksites from the 2012 trip and see how things have gone.  We will also visit Simon's parents' home in Mbahe, where there is a coffee farm and even some waterfalls.  We'll let you know all about it tomorrow night!

Before dinner, we walked about 5 minutes from camp to the top of a hill where we hoped to see Mt. Kilimanjaro.  Sadly, the clouds were covering the mountain, but we were not disappointed by the beautiful sunset over the valley.

One of the ladies started burning wood at our camp.  We asked if we could help but she declined.  We tried to figure out what the purpose was, but never got a real answer.

One of our tasks today was to fill bags full of soil for seedlings.  There were holes at both ends of the bag, so we had to make sure we packed in the soil tightly.  Aidan seemed to be the pro of the group.
 

 Max had a hard day of work today, but at least he washes his hands!

Paul forgot he was Irish when he forgot to put on sunscreen today. 

This collection of tents serves as a kitchen, an office and storage units.

The top of Mount Kilimanjaro and Aidan’s man bun at 6:30 in the morning. The view is unforgettable.

 Matt and Henry were working hard by tampering the soil in order to build a staircase.

 Colleen fitting a stone into the new pathway that leads to the bathroom.

 

Unfortunately, the Dirties were unable to see Mount Kilimanjaro at sunset but regardless the sunset was breathtaking.

We woke up early to see the sunrise on Mount Kilimanjaro from a hill next to our camp.  It’s always exciting to see the mountain since it isn’t always visible.

 While watching the sunset from our campsite some of us decided to take a group selfie.

 

Aidan and Lindsay were laying down bricks for the pathway up to the bathrooms and showers at camp.

One of the locals started a fire at our camp. 

 Here is Lindsay filling up the bags for the solar showers.  We finally had some running hot water for our showers!