This weekend we had a little expedition up Iliniza Norte, to recce it for groups.

Just south of Quito is “The Valley of the Volcanoes”, which is dotted with active, dormant and extinct volcanoes of varying heights.  The most famous, and the highest active volcano in the world, is Cotopaxi, but there are many others and most of them are climbable.  We have it in mind that there maybe great experiences out here that we can offer visitors to Ecuador.  So, I dusted down the boots and got myself out there.

OK, I live at 2,400 meters above sea level, but even with that, a one day ascent of a mountain over 5000 meters has got to be a little tiring.

The walk in was gentle enough, with the mountain sitting at the head of the valley looking increasingly ominous. 

I am not entirely sure why I look so pained – perhaps it was some sort of  premonition into the agony that was to be experienced struggling up the scree slope you can see behind me.

After the walk in, things started getting a little more serious rather abruptly.  The views, between gaps in the hail and fog, were fantastic, and it is from up at height that you really get a sense of truth of the name Valley of the Volcanoes.  However, we also saw a  lot of this:

After the scree slope, there is a fair amount of easy scrambling, first to reach the summit ridge, and then to move along it; with some interesting drop-offs on both sides – most of which we had to imagine rather than see fully.  At this point you get a strange sense of dislocation – you are scrambling along a ridge at 5000 meters above sea level, having woken up in your own bed.  It takes 5 or 6 days to get to these altitudes on Kili’.

Our little band of climbers reached the summit after around 4.5 hours.  We had in the group three Brits, an Argentine and an Ecuadorian guide.

(The man in the middle of this photo is Kevin Irvine, whom Stuey, Rory and I worked with something like 15 years ago.  He is out in Ecuador teaching at my childrens’ school: now that’s a coincidence.)

The result of all this?  Iliniza Norte is a fantastic mountain, the views are incredible, it is achievable in a day, and there is a real sense of being in a place that you can only be through your own efforts and that you are not going to be everyday, month or even year of your life.

I hope that we can get our Gappers up there, once they have had a little time at normal Ecuadorian altitude to prepare, and maybe for some of them that can lead on to Cotopaxi itself.  It is often used as a warm up /acclimatisation to that mountain and that is our plan: I’ll report later this month on the success or failure of that.

We all enjoy being independent and many of you reading this have experienced independence on a deeper level by travelling with us to Africa and Asia. However, it is also an aspect of life that we take for granted. At our community camp in Tanga, Mwambani village, Tanzania. We have been fortunate enough to get to know one of the villagers who is a constant inspiration to all of us and a great help despite him being physically challenged.  ….

Mohammed Bakari aka Raru was a keen footballer and trained everyday with Mwambani FC at the local football ground directly opposite our camp. In 2007, the life of young, strong, loving husband and father took the worst turn whilst playing his beloved game. During an ambitious header, he dived for the ball and as it skimmed above him, his head collided with the up right of the goal post knocking him unconscious. His teammates, all eager to help, picked him up and rushed him in a car to the nearest hospital. There, he lay in a coma for one month. Due to lack of qualified First Aiders around him, Raru was not handled in the correct way when the accident happened. It is unfortunate that he had been left paralyzed. Many of the villagers rallied round to help and contributed towards physiotherapy for him, however, this is a very poor village and funds only stretch so far.

When we set up Camp Tanga in 2010, we consulted with the village chief, Mzee Kapera, as to who would be suitable people to work with us. As it is camps policy to provide employment for the communities that our camps are located, he urged us to take on Raru’s wife, Mwanamgeni, as they were purely living on hand outs from the community.

Throughout the busy times at camp, Mwanamgeni was employed as house keeping staff and at the beginning of 2012 we were able to offer her a full time position. With four children to support in school and daily living costs, a monthly wage completely impacts their daily family life.

Over the years, Raru has received a small amount of physiotherapy and has gradually improved his mobility. He can stand up with a lot of determination and the walls of his house as support and has a parallel pole outside to assist with walking but he cannot walk unaided.

As you know, we are building a Trust House in Mwambani which will host a kindergarten, computers, tailoring school, library and general community education learning centre. When inquiring as to where we could potentially build the Trust House, Raru offered a large part of his land for us to build on, almost as a thank you to his fellow villagers for their support. Bearing in mind that the land is all he has, this is a very generous gesture.

With such a resource in the village we would then get our volunteers to be teaching English in the center as opposed to doing it under a mango tree….

Fast forward just over a year and our volunteers have worked tremendously hard to complete the building. The nursery school play area is being cleared and leveled at the moment and by November we intend for this fantastic project to be completed and for children and adults alike to be utilizing the facilities.

Our volunteers have all been touched by Raru’s story, his generosity and determination and have applied a similar mentality when working on the projects in Mwambani. Recently we gave Raru a wheelchair that he can wheel himself and he is chuffed to bits with it. We hope that he will gain strength in his arms by using the wheelchair each day as his previous wheelchair required someone to push it for him. To restore a small amount of independence for someone who has such a big heart is the least we can do and we know that when the Trust House is open, Raru and his family will be regular users, after all, it is next door to their house!

We at Camps have dedicated this story to Raru the true villager!

Some fervent religion in Quito to celebrate Good Friday.  Heavy crosses, bare feet, intense faith and five hours of procession.

On the 6th of February the three of us arrived in Kilimanjaro in one piece with all our luggage intact! We spent a luxurious day and night sleeping and recovering in Moshi before the six hour drive on to Camp Tanga in Mwambani village. The surroundings are stunning and we don’t think we’ll ever get bored of our beach view – we get the ‘wow’ factor every morning! The only downside is the giant red and black ants who have taken to eating us (and invading our tents!) on occasion…

We’ve been in Tanzania for three weeks now and our main project has been working on the local nursery that has been under construction for the past year. Currently, the 4-5 year old children have to walk six kilometres to the nearest nursery and as a result many of them do not attend. We started with levelling the playground, reinforcing the ground around the toilets before the rainy season floods them. We then concreted the ground outside the school and repaired the cracks in the building and most recently have been plastering the walls – probably getting more plaster on ourselves than the walls (or at least to start with!).

In the afternoons we’ve been teaching an English class in the school building – the students range from about 10-45 years old with varying levels of understanding. We started with “hello” and “how are you” but have progressed to heated class discussions on topics such as corruption, disease and the family. Being a small group has given us the opportunity to integrate with the villagers and their daily lives and we’ve got to know some of them really well! The children are always really excited to see us, and Joe is blossoming in his new role as a human climbing frame, they’re really cute and provide a welcome distraction from work!

On a typical weekend, we take a trip into Tanga on a Saturday morning where we visit the markets do some food shopping and learn about the history of the town. We’ve had trousers tailor made for us after picking out patterns from the material store. It was a shock when we first visited the ATM and discovered we are Tanzanian millionaires! – we’re still getting used to the exchange rate. In the evenings we relax, have a few Kilimanjaro beers and get thrashed in card games by Eliphas and Anderson (our camp leaders/buddies). We introduced Eliphas and Anderson to ‘Ring of Fire’ which turned serious fairly quickly – We drunkenly managed to make it to the local club belting lion king songs along the way. Club Casa was relatively deserted bar a few locals drinking – we enjoyed the Tanzanian hits – and are beginning to sing along with some of them now… We lost Eliphas for the whole night and found him enjoying a nap outside with a new friend (a homeless man). Sundays are usually quiet and relaxing – we’ve been to two of the local resorts – TICC and Tanga Yacht Club which we can only describe as James Bond-esque. Last weekend we treated ourselves to pizza and ice cream on Sunday night as a change from our usual Camps food (which is still delicious!).

Our peace has been disturbed by 40 new volunteers from Camp Kenya and things are different in Camp but still really enjoyable and our work rate has increased massively! We had our first day Seaweed farming today – it was very sunny and we came across many starfish and sea urchins – everyone enjoyed themselves and groups got competitive about how many lines of seaweed they could plant!

We’ve just got back from watching Coastal United (Team Tanga!) play a team from the south at the local football stadium – it was very lively and although the score was 0-0 the atmosphere was fantastic- A heady mix! We’re now going to go and cover ourselves in DEET before settling down to an evening of relaxation and cards!!

Pole pole rafikis, hakuna matata, chakula kitamu!

Alice, Maria and Joe
(sponsored by Simba cement (a coca-cola company))

There are times in the life of Camps that we are either starting or finishing something.  Sometimes that involves a bit of a party, and we have had a few of those lately.

Often at the end of project work the community like to say thank you with singing and dancing.  Of course, some projects last for years so occasionally they do this just because a group is leaving so they are saying good bye to those guys.

Late last year we had two of these events, one at Camp Amazon and one at Camp Costa; below are some photos from those two parties.

At the other end of the process is establishing relationships and projects with communities.  Last weekend I had a meeting with, I thought, a few people from a community with whom we are working this summer with the Teams.  I arrived with my family, telling my children we would be there for an hour.  I was wrong.  This was not a meeting with a few people, this was a meeting with the village, complete with local musicians and dancing.  The fact that my son accused me dancing like Mr Bean tells you all you need to know about what followed.  After the dancing we did have great conversations about the projects and the time the Teams will be with the community in the summer.  Among other things, we are hoping that we can arrange a few poncho making sessions, some Quichua lessons and a little more dancing.

On the 24th of January, the Aussie Gap team moved from Camp Muhaka to Tsavo. When we arrived we were warmly welcomed by the staff here and presented with lunch. We were then given a brief overview of the camp and its projects. These included making elephant dung paper, the tree nursery, sanctuary maintenance, Sasenyi School, wildlife monitoring, the bush adventure and lastly the safari. While listening to all of these I could tell that everyone was excited and looking forward to our time here.

On our first official day here at Camp Tsavo we made elephant dung paper. Although this may sound bizarre and even a bit gross, it was actually quite interesting and fun. We were showed how to make this by some staff members who also explained to us how important this paper was to the local community. We smashed the poo, mixed it with glue and panned it. We then left it to dry and some of us even added some flowers to it. Overall this was a different, yet interesting and worthwhile experience. We also got to spend the afternoon working in the tree nursery, where we filled some plastic bags with soil ready for planting, cementing the bottle well, removing aloe vera plants and chilli picking. Overall these projects were relaxing, yet eventful.

During our stay here we also had the opportunity of working at Sasenyi Primary School. During this time we did demolished an old school building, in preparation for the building of a new one, cementing the walls of a newly built room, and some of us even had the privilege of being inside the classrooms with the children supervising and teaching. Our time here was precious, as we all felt the work here was helpful and it was also amazing being able to talk to the headmaster about the school and also experience some time with the children.

We also got a chance to visit Imani Womens Group and were surprised to see how women have worked together to improve their living standards as well as tackle their daily challenges. We visited the local community and worked in their farms by helping them harvest green grams and cowpeas. In the afternoon we made bracelets and necklaces from locally purchased beads. It was amazing since everyone came back to the camp with a souvenir of a bracelets and necklaces.

One of the projects we also got to take part in was sanctuary maintenance, which involved filling in the pot holes and ditches in a road on this ranch. Although this work was found a bit hard, it was worthwhile. We also got to take part in wildlife monitoring, whereby we had the exciting task of spotting animals and listening to the staff tell us interesting facts about them.

We also got to experience a bush adventure during our last week here at Tsavo. We got to go on a game drive where we left the buses and looked at the many different footprints. We were also taught how to identify the footprints which was very fascinating. In the afternoon we were divided into three groups and had a competition in building huts. We then got to try and use a bow and arrow and shoot the target, which ended up being harder than it looked. Then we were shown how to light a fire without using a lighter or matches.

On our last full day here at Tsavo, we spent on safari. We got to explore Tsavo’s East National Park where we saw giraffes, baboons, different type of antelopes, zebras, buffalos and many elephants. From living in Australia where you can only see these animals on TV or in a zoo, to seeing these beautiful animals in their natural environment was fantastic and presented us with some amazing photo opportunities.

 Our time here at Camp Tsavo and been a brilliant one. We have been able to experience Africa in a way that normal tourists couldn’t. From being able to see beautiful creatures while just driving into Voi, to the amazing staff, our experience here is unforgettable and unlike any other.

And a big congratulations to our Camp Kenya gap year students at Camp Makongeni for completing a new house in less than two weeks!…

What a week!! Reunited together we finished Mama Maimuna’s house, well structure, and had an amazing opening ceremony with balloons and singing. Other smaller projects included making a bin for the community of Makongeni, we collected rubbish and did another day at the wicked.

So, Harlie and Rory on the ball for this week’s blog. Liking it so far? Well, we worked very hard on mama’s house. We did things from mudding walls, and we dug hole the height of Jackson (and that’s deep), completed the mangroves, all contributing to the income of the community.

However, it wasn’t all work and no play! Good old Gladys organized games night (even better than bingo) we had potato slinging, balloon popping, (some of the guys had to get extra close)and water weeing into a cup! Safe to say the boys lost! To finish our awesome week we had a ‘friendly’ match of netball with the local school kids, leaving the campers a tad bruised!

Rory was manager and wasn’t very good at it! Onto the latest goss… Solveig conquered her Essex accent! Nonie got the award for monster eater! And Stephen was crowned Prince of Holland.

Tune in next week! Laters babe!

And the Gap Year in Africa diaries continue on (thank you Chloe and friends)…

It’s safe to say that our experience at Camp Kenya has been anything but ordinary. Over the past two weeks we have come together as a group, working on each of our projects and bonding with the camp staff. The three projects that we worked on include Mama’s mud house, the grey-water system and the bottle house for the polytechnic school.

Working in the heat and humidity was pretty tough, but all our hard work paid off once we saw the progress that we had made on each of the projects. It didn’t matter that we couldn’t finish some of the projects, because we know that we have made a great contribution to each of them. The team that worked on Mama’s house with Sampuli exceeded their personal expectations by shoveling clay into wheelbarrows and pushing them through soft sand; quite a difficult task for a group of girls (excluding Matt). The teams that worked on the grey-water system and bottle house found it very rewarding to contribute to sustainable projects that will help the community in Muhaka.

In the evenings and the weekends we enjoyed spending time with the community, playing soccer, teaching netball and exchanging language tips (although some were better at learning Swahili than others!). I don’t think that any of us will forget witnessing a brawl between the monkeys at camp, especially when one of them took refuge in a room with girls that were sick in bed! Most of us also had the opportunity to spend time at the local schools and dispensary. Those that participated in the optional activities were able to spend a day snorkeling in the marine reserve near the border of Tanzania and Kenya. Here they swam with stingrays, dolphins and a wide variety of tropical fish.

On behalf of everyone, we would like to thank all the staff at Camp Kenya for making our experience so memorable. Eustace was a fantastic father figure while we spent time away from our families, and each team leader was a great mentor and friend. As we leave to continue our journey in Tsavo, we are going to miss everyone that we met in Muhaka, and hopefully one day we can meet again!

Our two month and three month Camp Kenya Gap year volunteers have just finished their first week in Camp Makongeni after spending their first two weeks at Camp Tsavo. Gladys, our Camp Manager at Makongeni, Jackson Reid and others have sent a short blog on what they have been up to in Makongeni and more importantly the story of a mother’s life that’s about to change…

The last four days have been epic. In that time we have started the main structure of a house for a local mother in the community. After a long time of struggle Maimuna Hamadi Redano now has something to smile about. Maimuna is the lady whom we are building a new traditional house for. Maimuna is a single mother after her husband died and left her with 7 children and no were to called home.

She used rent a single room for herself and her children in the village which she could not manage to pay the rent every month and at the same time providing for the children. She doesn’t have any source of income and even she tried to start a business in the village, she didn’t have enough capital to keep it going. After the business was unsuccessful, she moved to her aunt’s house where she stayed for 1 year. It was becoming a big burden to her aunt who told her she could no longer manage. The Makongeni village Chairman choses her as the first priority for the house building program and now the volunteers are doing an amazing job building her house for her. In 2 weeks time Maimuna and her children will have their own place to call home…

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The group have also already immersed themselves into the the Baraka Women’s Mangrove conservation project…

Also we have reinforced the walls of a local pond which the local mothers rely on for an income. This includes planting hundreds of mangroves trees which help increase the local fish population. We can’t stress the amount of fulfillment and joy we have experienced here in Makongeni.

Today being Friday, we have enjoyed the comfort of a fire and the sweet taste of beer to bring our group even closer together. With the addition of simple games such as limbo and musical statues we have truly formed a bond that will last longer than our trip here in Kenya.

Not to mention the food is fantastic!

Lottie went volunteering in Tanzania with Camps International on her Gap Year, and below she has shared her memories. Lottie with a happy helper Leaving my parents at Heathrow airport was potentially the scariest moment of my life as I had never been properly away from home before, but I was finally on my way [...]

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