Kilimanjaro Expedition Dispatch
July 8, 2008 – Visiting the Fascinating Linde School for Orphans
Beautiful smiles all around
It’s July 8, 2008 and it’s a big day for this Huffines family team from Dallas. They all have been dreaming for a really long, long time and about attempting to climb Kilimanjaro, training hard. Mary Catherine told me just yesterday on our Mt. Meru foothills hike how helpful Leila’s (at the Berg Adventures Office) training advice has been to get her prepared for this climb.
We are driving from Arusha towards Kilimanjaro today but we made a very important stop first. Right now I’m calling you from the Linde School for Orphans, a place that is known well to BAI climbers and followers of these dispatches from Tanzania for a few years now. There is a beautiful new building and great plot of land that is due largely to the efforts of Tami Madsen and some of her friends from a BAI climb a few years ago. I’m really proud to report to you today that just three days ago the well that provides fresh drinking water to these children and some of the families of this community has begun to operate. It was Doctor Charles Martin and Frank from North Carolina who grew this project up and funded it. The well was dug with local labour and no big machinery came from the outside area. There is a small generator there and I’m watching the fresh, clear water come pouring out.
One happy family
The Huffines family have been mingling with these children for the past hour and a half. Haley has been teaching high five and low five to these beautiful children. The children started singing for us and we began to play games with them and finally just before we are off to that mountain that I’ve talked about that they have been preparing for, Donald and Phillip said, “can’t we go in and see the classrooms?” So the kids filed into their little classrooms and we’ve been inside watching some of the English lessons. I told Angel, who used to teach here years ago and it has been her dream for the schools development has really been with BAI to stay with it over the years. I said Angel, “we need tell these kids that we are off to climb Uhuru Peak at the very top of Kilimanjaro.”
We have a long ways to go yet today before we even start walking but I wanted to give you this update on the morning of July 8, 2008 from Linde School.