June 18, 2007 – Visiting the School and Starting the Climb

We woke up at the Arusha hotel today knowing that we were bound for Kilimanjaro, at the beginning of our climb. We had one order of business that we wanted to take care of it first, just outside of Arusha, in the village of Arusha,   there is a school called the Linde Nursery school for orphans that Berg Adventures and Berg Adventures climbers have been involved with and supporting for years;  Cami Mattson especially, Boulder Community School of Integrated Studies, and  other good Berg Adventures team members know well what I am talking about and recently Abbott Elementary school back home with me in Alberta and Ben Calf Robe elementary school also in Edmonton, Alberta  sent us a message that they wanted to be involved with the school as well. So we stopped by for a visit.

You know I couldn’t begin to tell you how pleased I was with the progress. The last time I was there, there were 54 students. Today there were 99; they all had really great uniforms which was a dream of ours. We had a wonderful time visiting with the kids. I saw one young man with a new pair of glasses and I asked Angel where did those glasses come from? And she just smiled and said Berg Adventures. So there are a lot of great things going on there and we went out and look at some new land where we have already began to build a new extension for the school in a beautiful place. Just seeing the kids today was great, the whole team enjoyed.

Then we continued on and we had a special treat today, we actually saw the full glory of Kilimanjaro from the drive approaching the Lemosho gate, it was really a rare treat, it was really awesome and beautiful above us. Frank couldn’t believe it when he saw how big it was and that we were going to climb it. Actually none of us couldn’t believe it that we were going all the way up there in this trip.

When we got to Lemosho it was great to see the team members, the Berg Adventures team.  We had a lunch and began to pack things up.  Frank was looking like he wasn’t sure about his pack and one of the Berg Adventures guides came over and offered to help and give him a hand. And then Frank asked what is your name? and the Berg Adventures guide said, his name was Frank. And I could tell those two will be a team on this trip, Frank with Frank have already buddy up. 

So we are all off up the trail and we are going to have some great adventures and we will report to you as we can. As we traverse Kilimanjaro and we hope to climb all the way up to Uhuru peak.

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