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Oct 5, 6 & 7: Journey to the Moon and Back

OK, backtrack with me a bit here, to the 2 days leading up to our final ascent...

We left the Horombo camp on the morning of the 5th (feels like 17 days ago, but it was Monday), with a sunny sky and a perfect view of the "snow" on Kilimanjaro's peak to climb towards (more about that "snow" a little further on...)

We were still hiking through the Moorlands on the mountain, which are crazy beautiful -- the valleys are filled with these Dr. Seuss-ish trees that I couldn't get enough of.

There are 5 climate zones on Kilimanjaro, and as you ascend, it's literally as if someone has drawn a line across the landscape and the trees that grow on one side of that line no longer grow on the other side. So when we reached the end of the Moorlands and encountered the Alpine Desert, it was truly a sight to behold. It feels like you're about to step onto another planet (or a Star Wars set). The path leading to the final climb stretches before you until it meets the horizon. There is no sound except your own steps, your own breath, and the odd greeting of "Jambo" to the porters who pass with their loads on their heads.

Walking was pretty slow at this point, and breathing was much more laboured. It's a unique sensation to feel the effects of high altitude.

We arrived at Kibo Hut at the afternoon's end, and our only goal was to have a quick light meal, and get into bed by 6pm for a brief rest.

At 10pm, we are woken up for our final cup of hot tea, and a plate of crappy broken cookies with pink icing (the food situation, as you might imagine, is not so luxurious the further you get from the bottom!)... and then we dress for our Big Night.

11pm -- we are standing outside Kibo Hut under a clear night sky full of stars, and a bright, full moon. We don't need our headlamps. We have moon shadows to keep us company on our final climb. It is cold. (Very.)

We're ready.

The first part of the climb is on a steep incline of scree that we traverse in switchbacks (walking on scree is like walking on 3 inches deep of kitty litter). We are in single file, and have to hang closely together for the entire night. The porters call out "Pole Pole" repeatedly and sing little cheerleading songs in Swahili to keep our spirits up. The first bit seems pretty manageable, but after a while, the intensity grows, and there is the teensiest hint of the fatigue that will set in later. It really looks like we are on the moon.

We stop once every hour for a short 5 minute rest and water break -- no one's really interested in eating their power snacks, because it's so cold and because the altitude makes you feel a bit sick to your stomach.

The scree lasts for quite a while and is very tiring. When we first started out, I thought optimistically (or maybe it was cockiness) "Well, this isn't SO bad" about the steepness, but walk in that stuff uphill for 2 or 3 hours in increasingly thinning air and it's pretty darn tough... Then we hit rockier turf -- which turns into boulders, and at times, we have to climb with our hands and feet across and up. It's very steep at this point, and becoming very intense. It's 2am, 3am, 4am -- the hours are going by and it feels like both a million years and a minute. Everything is warped -- your head is wonky, your heart is beating hard, you're working hard to breathe. We're looking up, and can see the top of the mountain, but it seems to take SO long to make any headway.

We have to coax a couple of girls to keep going... exhaustion and dizziness is setting in, and the mental game is definitely on, much more so than the physical. This climb is absolutely about conquering your mind, not the mountain.

We use the tool of envisioning each of you, our loved ones and biggest supporters at home, cheering us on at each turn, encouraging us to keep going, to do our best. (Thank you for being there. We needed you.)

At last we reach the final boulder to climb over, and we are at the top of the mountain -- Gilman's Point. There are 3 different points at the top of Kilimanjaro on this route -- Gilman's Point is the first, then Stella Point a little further on, and finally Uhuru Peak at the ultimate summit.

We collapse onto rocks, some weeping with exhaustion. But we're not done here, there is one final stretch... except for one of us. Chombo, our lead guide, has been keeping a careful eye on Kavielle, who is suffering from altitude sickness -- she can go no further. He sends her back down to safety with a guide.

(I would like to say here that Kavielle was a total trooper getting as far as she did -- she'd been struggling for quite some time with the symptoms of altitude sickness but pushed her way with help and encouragement from her fellow climbers. And she made it to the top. She is now sporting a lovely certificate marked with Gilman's Point. Congrats Kavielle.)

The rest of us have another 200 ft of vertical to get through -- the walk from Gilman's Point to Uhuru Peak. The guides tell us that it gets easier from here, but honestly, it feels like the longest part of the journey, and the girls look like they are about to start dropping off like flies. We are all so, SO exhausted (and dizzy and nauseous), but we are determined to get there. We've come so far, and we are so close.

We round a corner from the back of the mountain and are greeted by a sky on fire -- sunrise on Kilimanjaro. Gasps. It is breathtaking. It gives us that tiny boost of energy we need to continue on.

Many of the girls now need a buddy to hang on to for this final stretch... someone to talk to them, encourage them, convince them, DRAG them -- delirium is setting in and it's so easy to sit down on a rock and not get up again. We are now at Stella's Point, and that is the end of the climb for Maedy. She is done. Again, a guide escorts her to a safe place, and the rest of us plod on. Not much further...

We are now climbing beside the glacier that caps Kilimanjaro -- the "snow" that I referred to earlier looks, from the bottom, like a nice patch of tobogganing snow, but in fact, it is this monumental Arctic construction of ice. It is so, so spectacular, and luckily Catherine was there to capture its beauty in photographs because it was pretty hard to appreciate it in the state of mind you're in at the top. I, for one, feel extraordinarily lucky to have seen the Snows of Kilimanjaro in person, as they predict the ice cap will be completely gone by the year 2030 due to global warming.

At long last, we turn a corner, the sky is now morning blue, and the Uhuru Peak sign is visible -- funny how having your photo taken hanging on to a wooden pole is enough to get you to push yourself past a limit that otherwise feels insurmountable. We trickle in and collect ourselves for our victory group shot. We have lost 2 more girls -- Danica and Taleisa are not with us.

Chombo is encouraging us to get it together and head back down -- it's not safe to stay up at the top too long, 10 minutes is really all you should hang out there for. So we're dispersing and taking our final snaps, when to our absolute delight, Taleisa and Danica appear, trudging those final steps to the peak. Awesome awesome awesome.

This is what a girl can do.

I would like to say that going back down was easy, and I guess in a way it was... there was just that minor group puke incident that I mentioned before, and then we re-traced our steps back down the mountain -- along the crater, down through the boulders, and finally skiing on our heels down the scree to Kibo Hut. It took us 7 1/2 hours to get up that mountain, and 3 hours to come back down.

Rest at Kibo.

* * * * *

It felt great to get our normal strides back on the way down the mountain. "Pole Pole" turned into "Haraka Haraka" (faster faster). We welcomed back our breath.

We had warm sunshine with us on our way down, and we stopped in the Alpine Desert to have a little check-in. The girls were feeling great -- so proud that they made it, so amazed at the challenges and the hurdles they had to overcome, so happy that they pushed through and didn't give up, so much more confident in what they felt capable of doing. It was such a huge accomplishment.

The evening before we made the final ascent, we had asked the girls to bring a piece of paper and a pen with them to dinner. We reminded them of the story of the eagle ascending Kilimanjaro and shedding its feathers, and then put a twist on it, likening the process of transformation to the butterfly, and its metamorphosis from caterpillar to cocoon to a completely new creature -- a relevant analogy for Girl Impact as we use the butterfly as our symbol of change and the butterfly effect as our reference for feminine impact.

We asked them to reflect for a moment on all the things they had learned on this journey (including their time at the Limuru School), and then on one side of the page, each girl wrote down a few things that they felt they were shedding or letting go of, and on the other side, a few things that they wanted to manifest for themselves as part of their transformation. No one else was to see their piece of paper. They folded them up into little squares and tucked them in their pockets for the climb.

And now that we were back in the desert, it was time for the Transformation Machine. We gathered in a close circle and built a tiny fire -- just enough to let each girl place their little folded square of paper into the middle of the circle and watch it light and burn away into ash.

The butterflies are released.

* * * * *

Our goal on the way back down was to get to a hot shower as quickly as possible (honestly, we looked like coal miners at the bottom). The weather was on our side, and the landscape that we had hiked through in cloud and icy rain 2 days ago was now bright and warm and sunny. An excellent way to leave.

We stayed one last night back in the Horombo Hut on the way down, and our final day of hiking back through the Moorlands, back through the rainforest, ended in a celebration march back through the gate. We all signed our names in the official register and noted which peak we had made it to (for which we later received certificates of our climb), and piled back on the bus.

* * * * *

We left Tanzania on the night of Oct 8, 2009, with a huge orange African sun burning its way into the horizon as it set over the silhouettes of distant Acacia trees.

We are on our way home.

P.S. I've updated a couple of the previous posts that had only a couple of iPhone photos due to the poor internet connection -- you can now see Catherine's lovely photos for those days. Read on!

Oct 5 & 6: Twende (Let's Go)... to the Rooftop of Africa

Apologies to the loyal followers who have been waiting anxiously for the blog to show up again... as luck would have it, we couldn't connect to the internet the last couple of days on the mountain.

So I will backtrack and fill in the gaps tomorrow (it's very late here now), but let me first tell you what I know you are all dying to hear...

WE MADE IT TO THE TOP!!

Above: The Girl Impact team at Uhuru Peak, the highest point of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Missing from this summit photo are Taleisa & Danica... we thought they weren't going to make it, but sure enough, as soon as we dispersed from this photo, they came crawling around the corner to make their victory walk to the summit.

19 out of 19 of us made it to the top of the mountain, to Gilman's Point. 17 out of 19 of us made it to the summit, Uhuru Peak, at 19,334 ft. We lost one along the way to altitude sickness, and one to exhaustion (everyone's fine). There was a LOT of barfing on the way down.

It was hard hard hard.

It was another world.

It was incredible.

We are now back in Moshi at the Springlands Hotel where we each had The Best Shower Ever (you would not believe how dirty we were!)... and everyone is tucked in bed now, sleeping off their hard work.

Please check in tomorrow for the rest of the details from the last couple of days, and thank you again for keeping us in your thoughts and for sending us your messages and encouragement. It made all the difference in the world.

* * * * *

Our first P.S. goes out to Cal (Jane Shaw's son), who turned 10 years old while we were on our climb -- happy birthday Cal!!

And for our second P.S. We would like to send out some very special thank yous:

Nike Canada outfitted each of us with all of our technical clothes for this journey, so we were dry, comfortable, efficient (not to mention lookin' GOOD!) Seriously. Thank you Nike.

Kraft Canada believed in the vision of Girl Impact from the very beginning, and donated the seed money for this project, for which we are eternally grateful. We could not have done it without your faith in us. Thank you.

We're extremely thankful for all the physical training we went through as a team at our summer boot camps -- the effort on this climb was INTENSE, and we were SO well prepared by our trainers back at home, Daryl Devonish and Gillian Frechette.

And we would like to give a big shout-out to our guides on this trip, who kept us safe and took care of our every need for the last 6 days: Chombo, Mzui, Deo, Lucas, Benjamin, and Chef.

Asanti Sana... Thank You.

Oct 3 & 4: Pole Pole (Slowly slowly)

There is an African myth about Kilimanjaro.

The story goes: as you climb the mountain, you are like an eagle—as you ascend, you begin to shed your feathers—first the top layer, then the middle feathers, then the bottom layer, and finally you shed your beak. So by the time you reach the top, you are reborn. You grow new feathers, and your beak becomes re-formed—you are a new, stronger eagle, ready to soar.

Day 2 of our climb took us out of the rainforest and into the moorlands, so our view opened up to see the climb ahead of us. The landscape is spectacular—grassy hills, short , gnarly black trees, electric yellow flowers. We reached a point where we were above the first level of clouds, so we also looked out on a blanket of cotton candy.

We're definitely feeling the increased difficulty due to altitude, but our guides have been great about keeping the pace—"Pole pole" (pol-ay pol-ay) they say to remind us... "Slowly, slowly."

We arrived at our second camp at around 5pm, and the place was just abuzz. There were a lot of people, and guides scurrying all over the place... The dinner building was chaos.

We went to bed at around 8:30 under a clear sky and a nearly full moon, and we could see the snow on the peak of Kilimanjaro shining far above us. Magical.

Sunday morning. Today is a rest day—in part to let us acclimatize but mainly because we have a pretty gruelling 2 days ahead of us.

Tomorrow we will climb for 6 hours to Kibo, our next camp, and it is getting steeper and harder to breathe. We will sleep briefly and then get up at midnight to depart for our summit climb.

So how are the girls faring? We are definitely seeing some nerves...and some challenges. The climb is more gruelling than some were anticipating, but larger than that is the mental challenge. They're homesick, they're feeling like "I'm 17, what am I doing on this mountain?"... And they're feeling afraid that they won't make it.

Today we've seen lots of long faces and quite a few tears.

Marnie gave the team a great motivating talk at breakfast about how we now need to see the team as a cable, and not a chain. A chain will always break at the weakest link, but a cable is made up of many small strands that wind around each other -- so each of us now has to wrap our strengths around another's weakness, and together we will become an unbreakable source of strength.

This is what a girl can do...

Oct 2: Mambo Poa (all is cool)

We are climbing the Marangu Route up Kilimanjaro and today's hike was through the rainforest—great big trees dripping with green moss, a beautiful light mist descending, waterfalls, monkeys...

Turns out the Internet connection is fleeting so I can only post a short note and not so many photos.

When we arrived at our camp (we are staying in the mandara hut), we got settled in with our bunk beds and sleeping bags and then our porters brought us hot tea and the best popcorn on earth. Mmmm.

We went for another short walk to see a very beautiful crater and then it was time for dinner. Now I'll admit, I was not expecting much in the way of food on this trip (although perhaps seeing the porters who walked by us carrying a thousand pounds of groceries on their HEADS might have tipped me off...) so it was a very pleasant surprise to be served an AMAZING meal of rice, vegetable stew, cooked cabbage and beef stew (or fish for the non-meat eaters). Full-on YUM.

And we're all getting used to the idea of the ladies tree...

We'd like to give a very big thank you to myescapades.ca, who so generously donated the girls' Kilimanjaro treks—thank you Firdosh for believing in the vision, and Glenn for making it happen.

We are sleeping tonight at 9,000 ft.

All is cool.

Oct 1: Diggety Diggety

I have to start out by saying it's a very satisfying thing to see a giraffe hanging out by the side of a road.

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Secondly, I would like to thank all of you who are reading this blog daily and writing comments. It means so much to all of us that you are watching and following our journey, and the girls are so happy when I deliver a message to them from a loved one.

Now back to our story...

* * * * *

Road trip today from Nairobi to Moshi, which is the town at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Along the way, we also sighted zebras and gazelles and ginormous termite mounds that are as big as a person -- it was all quite thrilling actually.

But let me backtrack a little...

This morning we left the Limuru Girls School -- it was a very emotional goodbye for all involved -- the Kenyan girls, the Toronto girls, the teachers and staff at Limuru, and our team of Girl Impact women. The girls have traded pages and pages worth of email addresses and penpal addresses, and have penned countless more pages of journal entries for memories. The Girl Impact that was generated by this visit was bigger than we ever imagined, on both sides. We will miss our new friends... until next time.

Above: co-founders Jane Shaw and Leanne Nicolle with Margaret, principal of Limuru Girls' School.

Above: the tea field I keep talking about.

So imagine a pretty somber crowd on the bus ride starting out. The drive (we thought) was supposed to take about 5 1/2 hours, and we crossed the border from Kenya into Tanzania at about hour 3. This gave everyone the chance to have a much-needed nap and to start thinking about the prospects of a nice HOT shower -- our first in a week!

As we drove out of Nairobi, the landscape started to rapidly change and we saw the lush green fields fade away into scruffy, dusty, barren, grey plains. It was easy to understand the devastation of the drought when we saw it -- you could see where there used to be grass for the animals to graze on -- now just scraggly, twiggy plants. You could see the few remaining leaves on the trees drooping with thirst. The few cows that we saw being led by Masai men were bony and slow (not that I think cows are normally speedy, but you get the point).

Despite the bleak reality, it was fascinating to see the classic African landscape with the huge flat-topped trees and the mountains in the distance -- (and I believe I've already mentioned the wildlife!)

We drove past Masai people and dwellings -- the electric colours of their clothing is such a beautiful sight in this landscape and it was pretty cool to see the circle of 8-10 small circular mud huts that would comprise a village.

About 9 1/2 hours later on our 5 1/2 hour drive, our bus driver slowed the bus and pulled over to the side of the road... and pointed out the window.

And we saw her. Kilimanjaro.

It is a spectacular sight and unfortunately I don't have a picture that does it justice. You look at the horizon line and you can see a dark grey shape hulking there near the land, so you know there's a mountain there... but then you look up, and you hit clouds, and then you keep looking up, and poking out way up above the clouds is the top of the mountain -- the snow all lit up by the sun, and the first word that comes to your mind is majestic. OK, or maybe WHOA.

And all of sudden it seemed real.

Tomorrow, we start our climb.

* * * * *

Today's P.S. -- while we've done everything we can to try to ensure we'll be connected to you during our climb, it's impossible to know at this point how successful we'll be with an internet connection and our power situation. I intend to blog everyday as long as I can get a data connection on my iPhone, so I hope you'll bear with me and understand if I don't show up one day. Wish us luck!

* * * * *

And finally -- P.S. number 2-- many of you have sent lovely comments about how much you're enjoying the stories and the amazing photos, so I just want to introduce the new media team behind the scenes.

There's Catherine Farquharson, our photographer, who joined us on Tuesday and has been snapping photos like crazy ever since she got here. Catherine's very stealthy and slight and so you hardly notice her as she's doing her work -- but it allows her to get right in there and her own warm smile contributes to how lovely her portraits end up. If you don't already know about it, the gi Promise Photo Project is one of Girl Impact's fundraising projects, featuring Catherine's photos from this trip -- get details about how to be a part of it here.

Above: Catherine Farquharson in the dorms at Limuru Girls' School.

Roz Allen is our videographer and resident "geek" -- Roz has done an unbelievable amount of legwork in getting us all kitted out with the most cutting-edge solar power options available to ensure that we can film this experience from start to finish -- even to the top of one of the world's biggest mountains. Roz has already shot hours and hours of incredible footage this week that we intend to put into some kind of documentary form to chronicle this adventure. You'll have to stay tuned for more details about this. Like Catherine, Roz is totally immersed with her camera in every situation in a most unobtrusive way -- in fact, on Sunday, the soccer game played AROUND Roz, as she was right in the action, oblivious to the fact that her shins were in great peril most of the time.

Above: Roz Allen

And then there's me, Laura, your faithful blogger, picking out the moments of each day that I want to highlight in words and pictures to chronicle our story. I've been the creative director for Girl Impact since the beginning, and it's been a big treat and a real pleasure to work with this incredible all-female crew.

Above: Laura Wills with Toronto gi Kavielle

Sept 30: Moozungu! Moozungu! Jambo!

Amazing things are happening.

We’ve been collecting stories from women and girls that we have met here that will blow your mind… women who have risen out of extreme hardship growing up, who have fought and worked SO hard to get their education, who have gone on to do great things with their lives and careers… and most importantly how that has empowered them and empassioned them to look out for and HELP girls growing up in similarly tough situations. It’s both heartbreaking and inspiring… and makes the Girl Impact mission so much more real to us.

This morning Girl Impact was introduced to the entire Limuru school at morning assembly in the chapel courtyard. It was their Devotion assembly, and we were so privileged to see these 800 girls gathered together, and they danced and sang the most moving songs. I was standing at the front taking some pictures and video, and it was one of those magic moments of such intense beauty… well, I’ll admit it, I lost it. Tears streaming down my face, and I didn’t even understand the words to some of the songs.

Principal Margaret invited Marnie to the stage to give a short talk to the school audience, and she did us proud. She told her own personal story of how hard she had worked to become an Olympian and the obstacles she had to overcome to get there, and she used her story to introduce the Girl Impact mantra to the assembly…”This is what a girl can do.” And she encouraged and challenged every girl standing there to keep TRYING and embrace the little things that lead to success -- and by the end, every girl standing in that field was calling out “This is what a girl can do!” My heart was full to bursting. (Funny moment: the school chaplain followed Marnie’s talk with a short sermon and at one point he said “And this…” expecting, as per usual Anglican custom, for his congregation to answer back “is the word of the Lord”… but to my extreme delight , instead, he said “And this…” and the girls answered back “is what a girl can do!” Rock on girls.) Marnie’s speech incited a 2-hour autographing session later in the day.

The Girl Impact girls then piled on a bus and we drove into Nairobi to Kibera, which is Nairobi’s (and one of Africa’s) largest slum areas. We were there to visit a Unicef sanctioned public school to see how they are implementing water hygiene programs, and HIV/AIDS education into schools – both critically important programs here for these children. We were a bit apprehensive before going, because we didn’t know how it was going to be – these children come from extreme poverty in many cases and we half-expected that many of us would be overwrought with emotions of pity or despair.

We opened the door to the first classroom that we were invited into, and were greeted by 87 little kindergarten faces, singing us a welcome song in English. They were SO happy and excited to see us and they clapped and did a little dance routine and then proudly showed us what they were learning in class – it was SO cute and joyful, and immediately opened us up again to the African warmth and happiness that we encountered at the Limuru school. Can I just say again? -- we all LOVE it here.

Then we were given a tour of the rest of the school and a few of the older kids (boys and girls) gave really great presentations to us about what they had learned about HIV/AIDS, and water hygiene – they have murals all around the exterior of the school that they designed and painted themselves that show all the different points they are learning to live by with respect to these issues and how to manage them in their own lives.

Just before we left, the girls of a music class did a spoken word performance of some poems that were written by African women for girls, and it was another spine-tingling experience in this day that now feels like 3 days. The words were all about maintaining their pride and integrity as girls, about becoming strong and powerful African women, about holding strong against male oppression, abuse and violence, about the importance of education. These girls were about 12 years old, and they were so refined and elegant in their postures, proud and confident in their voices, and united in their passion… it was a beautiful performance, but such a sharp reminder about the horrible situations African girls too often face… being pulled from school to look after their siblings and never making it past grade 8 in their education, rape and domestic violence, being married off to an older man at a very young age, disease, the burden of caring for a family in poverty… and as much as I heard hope and power in the words that they recited, there is an undercurrent of fear. It still happens. They want so badly for it to NOT happen to them. They want to be strong enough to get out of that path. They need support from their families, their schools, from African communities and greater global networks for this to change.

The rest of the day was devoted to class and hanging out with friends for their last day at Limuru. Here are a couple of Catherine's beautiful portraits from today.

I wanted to just give a shout-out to our 2 fabulous TDSB faculty members who are with us on this trip, Wendy and Felicia, because they too have integrated into life at Limuru in an unbelievable way. Wendy, with her gregarious way and an infectious laugh always at the ready, has made her way into the hearts of students and staff alike here, so much so that they invited her to help make lunch for the students yesterday, and everywhere she goes, someone is inevitably hugging her.

Every time I have seen Felicia the last 2 days, she has said “I just had the most amazing and interesting conversation with…” She is soaking everything in like a sponge and putting her calm and thoughtful presence out into the school community here. Yesterday she led the most amazing yoga class I have ever witnessed – 125 students in the soccer field, and she did it in SWAHILI. It was brilliant. The students LOVED it.

And most importantly, the two of them have been an incredible source of care and safety for our Toronto girls, and a huge source of support for the Girl Impact mission. Thank you ladies.

And a final p.s. from your faithful blogger… the title of this post was inspired by a fun moment I had this afternoon, as I had the opportunity (on an errand to get flash cards to our videographer) to run through the tea fields I described the other day. As I was running down this big hill on a red dirt path past the row of little shacks where the workers live, I could hear a little kid hollering, but in an abstract-noise-kind-of-way – when I finally tuned in, I heard her yelling “Moozungu, Moozungu!” – which I now know means “White foreigner, White foreigner!”. When I stopped and turned to look, she threw me a big wave from across that stunning field and hollered “Jambo!” Hello. I waved and hollered back. I love it here.

Sept 29: The Day of Letters

The other night when I was writing the post for this blog, I wanted to tell you all about some of the insights that our girls were sharing with us and with each other. Their observations about the Limuru girls, their school, their routines, the way they live, the differences between them and the similarities. But as I was trying to write a few of them down, I started to feel a bit self-conscious about translating their thoughts -- I didn't want it to come out with my "spin" on it.

So instead, we gave the girls a little assignment. We asked them to write about what their preconceptions were about the girls and this experience, and how that's changed since they arrived.

We also asked a few of the Limuru girls to do the same assignment... about OUR girls.

At the end of the day, we gathered in circle under a big beautiful tree and let them read the letters from the Limuru girls, and got them to share their reactions.

So here, in their own words, are some of the insights. The rest -- you'll have to wait to see the documentary footage... let me just say it was a day of breakthroughs. Also, the lovely and talented Catherine Farquharson arrived today, so please enjoy her beautiful photographs.

"I was not sure what to expect of the girls here, all I knew is that they would be welcoming and most likely different from Canadian teens. Little did I know how different it would be. These girls are amazing. They strive for excellence in cleanliness, academics and dedication. Along with that these girls have hearts of gold and are so incredibly sweet. They give a new meaning to selflessness here, one that I've never truly seen in Canada. Their constant joy and friendliness has made this incredible adjustment to the other side of the world seamless and unforgettable. I love them all, nawapenda."
-Diana (Toronto)

"Before I arrived here I thought that I would be surrounded by a group of sad, poor lost souls. However upon my arrival I noticed the excitement, energy and smiles on their faces. None of them feel sad or very distressed. In fact, they are more loving and accepting to me than my own Canadian peers. I don't think they should feel honoured to have us, we should be honoured to be here."
-Danica (Toronto)

"Before I came I thought the girls would be shy, and in a way not include us, especially when speaking Swahili. Now I have realized that I was wrong in a lot of ways. They are always smiling and willing to lend a hand. These girls are so eager and ready to get involved."

-Tori (Toronto)

"I associated Kenyan girls with how Canadian teenagers are on the first day of high school: introverted, afraid to connect and skeptical of anyone who makes eye contact or gives them a smile. The girls at Limuru are nothing like this. They are the most welcoming, friendly and special people I have, and probably will ever, meet."
-Cara (Toronto)

"Personally, I must say that I really am overwhelmed by the way they just fit into our systems right from the word go. They were so friendly from the very first day as they exchanged warm greetings with us, allowed us to help them carry their bags, spread their beds as well as show them around the school...
What shocked me the most is how they accepted us the way we are. They ate the same food we ate, showered in the same showers we use, wore almost the same uniform as we do, sat with us in class where they didn't even understand what was going on...
They have actually impacted on us, how they love each other and work together as sisters irrespective of their different skin colours, it's so amazing."
-Faith (Limuru)

"I'm sure you know that the stereotype that foreigners who come to Africa are filled with pity, some dislike for the people still stands. But you girls fit right in. You ate our food, slept in our beds, befriended us, walked with us, admired us, encouraged us and genuinely liked us. For that you make me proud to be African and I have respect and love abounding for each one of you... Thank you 'Asante Sana' for embracing our culture, and for visiting Kenya and in particular Limuru Girls High School. Thank you for loving our motherland so much and for every smile you gave, every "Jambo" you hailed us with and for everyone you can now call friend."
-Brenda or "Bri" (Limuru)

Sept 28: A Day in the Life

Monday. The Toronto girls get the full experience of going to school at Limuru. It is a LITTLE BIT different than at home... here's what their day looked like:

5am: Wakeup (but in fact, most of the girls wake up earlier) and wash up (showers are buckets of cold water...)

5:30am: Preps. All girls have to be in their assigned classrooms by 5:30 to study and do their homework. The dorms get locked at 5:30, so if you get locked in, you get punished by being assigned extra duties (like scrubbing something with a toothbrush), or if you're late, you get duties too, and then you have to make up for your missed schoolwork time on your own time.

6:30am: Breakfast. Bread and a sausage and tea.

7:00am: Chores. Each girl has assigned duties (like sweeping or mopping or washing toilets, etc) and they have to make their beds and keep their rooms tidy.

7:30am: Assembly. The whole school meets in the chapel courtyard.

8:00am: Classes start. Each class is 40 min. long, and in total, there are 10 classes a day.

10:50am: Tea Break

1:15pm: Lunch (Lunch is the big meal of the day, which consists of some variation of rice with beans, potatoes and cabbage. I had some today, it was very tasty.)

2:15pm: Back to Classes

4:30pm: Activities (Games, Choir, Clubs, etc)

5:30pm: Supper (something simple like bread and sausage again)

6:45pm: Preps. More studying and homework in classrooms. This is very disciplined quiet time, and there are student monitors who have the authority to either rat you out or assign you some kind of punishing duty if you get out of line.

9:30pm: Back in the dorm to get ready for bed and socialize a bit (it's VERY animated & noisy)

10:30pm: Lights out.

So here's the thing. The Toronto girls did ALL of this with the Limuru girls. They wore matching uniforms. Their classes for the day consisted of Swahili lessons, English, Math, Biology, Phys Ed, Chemistry, and Geography. The school is surrounded by tea fields, and the phys ed teacher announced to the class that he thought it would be nice to show the visitors a bit of Africa... so instead of playing soccer, they went for a run in the tea fields, which are VERY beautiful. So imagine a big long line of girls (like we're talking 125 girls!) in very colourful gym costumes running through a rolling patchwork landscape of bright green... gorgeous.

And all the while, the girls traded back and forth about a million questions and became friends. Our girls commented often about how hard these girls work, and how respectful and proud they are of being in a school such as Limuru.

P.S. While this was all going on, Leanne & Jane and Roz (our amazing videographer) went on a Unicef reporting mission. A mere 2 hours away from here, with our lush surroundings, they were greeted by an entirely different landscape... dusty and bleak, devastated by drought. They visited a health care center for women and children who are in acute stages of starvation, and also visited a Masai village where the men had all left with the few remaining animals to try to find food and water. The women and children were left alone, to fend for themselves with little hope of success. It was a shocking and emotional day for them, and they were speechless when they returned, but all the more determined to find a way to help build programs and support networks to assist girls and women in marginalized situations.

Sept 27: Karibu! (That means "welcome" in Swahili)

OK, I'll admit it (on behalf of all the adults on this trip) -- we were nervous when we woke up this morning about how the girls fared on their first night... we basically dumped them in a new country, at a strange school, in the dark, with a piece of bread and a sausage before they went to bed, in dorm rooms that were decidedly more rustic than they probably expected.

So when we saw Taleisa, Diana and Tori walking up the path after the worship services this morning, in their school uniforms... not only did we breathe a hugh sigh of relief at seeing smiles, but upon closer look, their faces were utterly transformed. I mean, these girls were BEAMING. And as we caught up with the rest of the gi's, their stories were all the same. They LOVE it here.

Above: Tori, Taleisa & Diana...elated.

The Limuru girls have so completely embraced the Toronto girls... they're open, friendly, curious and caring, making sure they have everything they need and know where to go, but also making fast friends and talking with ease. Our girls have been blown away by their kindness and hospitality, and their conversations have ranged from school, to boys, to whether they can facebook each other (!), to sharing stories about their families and their roots, and to their future ambitions. Many of the Limuru girls they've talked to want to be lawyers, professors, doctors, scientists... they dream of going to Harvard. After attending a prep class this morning, Kodee made the comment that their classes are much harder than ours at home!

Above: the front gates to the Limuru Girls School

Above: entrance to one of the large dormitories at the school.

Above: Cara and new friend.

Above: the lunch line-up.

Above: lunch on our first day was rice and beans and potatoes -- all declared it delicious.

Above: Each girl is responsible for her own cleanup after meals.

At lunch, while the girls were all lined up to fill their plates, a Limuru student named Fatima came over to introduce herself to us. She said "I heard that there were 11 girls coming from Canada... I've been waiting for you!" And then she told us that she is one of the recipients of a Unicef Scholarship from the program that our girls have been fundraising for, and that she is so grateful for it. We'll get the chance in a couple of days to talk more with her and the other recipients to find out how this has impacted their lives.

Above: Fatima, a recipient of a Unicef Kenya Girls' Scholarship, now in her final year.

After lunch clean-up, we got our sports clothes on and piled on the bus to go to the soccer tournament. Turns out that verrry bumpy road takes a long time to get anywhere on, so we were late again... but we loved the opportunity to see our settings and a bit of Nairobi on our drive. We passed by bright green tea fields, and vividly dressed locals on their way to or from their Sunday services. We saw skinny cows, and crazy ramshackle lean-to's built all along the sides of the roads with merchants selling bananas or furniture or shirts (merchandised by hanging from tree branches)... juxtaposed against giant slick billboards for Free Pizza Delivery and competing mobile phone companies.

Finally, we arrived at our destination, a soccer tournament held by a youth organization that gathers young people together through sports as an opportunity to educate them about HIV/AIDS. After a couple of fun ice-breaker games, all of the kids were split up into two teams for a lively soccer match.

Above: Wendy Blain makes friends everywhere she goes.

Above: Danica stands ready in the warm-up games.

Above: Jane from Kenya's Unicef office, with our own fearless Jane Shaw.

Some interesting tidbits came out on the bus ride home... the girls shared how some of their preconceived notions about Africa now seemed misguided after their conversations with the Kenyan girls, and the wide eyes that we witnessed last night coming from a place of uncertainty and fear, have changed to wide eyes that are curious and want to learn more from these girls and from this whole experience...

Overnight, their worlds really did get a whole lot bigger.

P.S. (A final note from the adults -- we've said on many an occasion to the girls that the Girl Impact experience has been designed to make them uncomfortable at times... so they can learn to push through their fears, and build their confidence by tackling situations that they didn't think they could handle. The training they've been through the last few months and the supportive bonds that they've created as a team have really shone through the last couple of days, and we're extremely proud of them.)

Sept 25 & 26: The Journey & The Arrival

We've made it to Nairobi, safe and sound! It was a long day of travel, and the first time in an airplane for some of our girls.

(Above: Felicia (faculty chaperone), Maedy, Wendy (faculty chaperone), and Taleisa get ready to say goodbye to the parents.)

(Above: the gi's get their final briefing from Leanne & Jane prior to take-off)

It was dark when we arrived, and we were greeted by Jane from the Unicef office here. She told us that the school girls were awaiting us with great excitement and anticipation. The bus ride to the school was longer than we expected, but after our final haul down a verrry bumpy dirt road, we arrived at the Limuru Girls School, and sure enough, a group of about 15 or 20 girls was there to welcome us with big friendly smiles and handshakes.

As we walked down the driveway to unload our bags near the dormitory where our girls would be introduced to their sleeping quarters for the next few nights, we passed by the other school buildings and pressed up against the windows, backlit by the light inside, we could see dozens and dozens of girls watching our arrival, waving to us when we looked up, the chattering of their voices reaching down to us below.

The yards all around the dorms were spread out with hundreds of pieces of drying laundry which was quite a beautiful sight with the dim light...

The Toronto girls are spread out among the dorms, completely integrated with the Limuru girls. The dorms are very rustic, humble dwellings -- each sleeping quarter has about 4 to 8 sets of bunk beds with very simple mattresses, and each girl has a trunk above her bed to hold her few belongings. Many of the girls were already sleeping, so we'll try to post some photos up tomorrow when we can get some good shots in the daylight. I think it was a bit of a jolt for the Toronto girls to see the dorms for the first time -- they looked pretty wide-eyed as they were being shown around and some got a bit shy... I'm looking forward to hearing their thoughts and first impressions tomorrow.

Margaret and Ann, the principal and head of boarding of the school, gave us a little introduction to how things go at the school on a Sunday, and as they were describing what our meals would be like the next day, our bus driver was pressing Ann to serve chicken for dinner, for the "guests". But Ann very practically pointed out that this is a public school, and there are certain things, like chicken and pork, that they simply cannot afford, and she reinforced that the school is not fancy, but it is very decent.

The rundown on what's happening tomorrow -- Sundays are for rest, worship and study here. The girls will wake up at about 5am, and have breakfast and clean and mop the dorms. Then there are worship services, 3 different ones for Catholic, Protestant and Muslim girls. Tomorrow afternoon we are playing in a soccer tournament in the city. And we shall see our surroundings for the first time in daylight.

Welcome to Africa...

2 more sleeps...

Nairobi and Kilimanjaro, here we come...

We've trained hard all summer. We've got all our shots -- yellow fever, typhoid, etc... we're armed with Malaria and altitude sickness pills. We wrapped up our most recent fundraiser on Saturday, the Gourmet Bake Sale. We've done some reflecting and writing on what this trip means to us. Tomorrow we pack our bags, check our lists, go to school for one more day, and then we begin our journey.

11 girls.
2 founders (Leanne & Jane).
2 TDSB faculty members (Wendy & Felicia).
1 Olympic Champ (Marnie).
1 mentor / blogger (Laura).
2 documentary crew (Roz on video, Catherine on photos).

We hope you'll follow us for the next 2 weeks on this blog. We're going by the motto "TIA (This is Africa)"... so while we THINK we're all prepared to surf on the zebras' WiFi, you just never know, so bear with us! We're going to attempt to post a little journal entry and some photos everyday...

Keep us in your thoughts. Spread the word.

THIS is what a girl can do...