Walking to Kenya - Guest post by Rosemary Widenor

Our glorious morning began bright and early, just before 6:30, awoken by 14 energetic teenagers. After breakfast, we took a nice hike overcoming treacherous acacia trees to reach a pretty view point of Lake Chala and the savannah.  This trip turned into a brief visit to Kenya, seeing as the Tanzania/Kenya boarder went right through the top of the hill we had climbed.  Now we have all been to two countries in Africa!

We said goodbye the the Make a Difference kids after leaving Lake Chala and thanked them for all the fun times we shared with them over the past few days! We got to have some down time back at the MAD guest house, which was much needed.  Back to Moshi for a couple days before safari! Wahoo!

Our guide leading a morning hike

Some of the group strutting their stuff in Kenya!

A baboon just hanging

Goodbye Kilimanjaro Care Kids!

Captain Tim, sailing the sea of struggles with his beloved crew of students!

Camping at Lake Chala-Guest post by Brad Brew

Today the group went camping with the kids. We spotted elephants at the watering hole. There was a whole family of elephants complete with four little elephants calves. 

They were at the watering hole all day and the group got some great practice photographing. 

Then everyone went down to lake Chala, a volcanic caldera. A few of us even jumped in for a swim.

All in all it was a great day. Tata for now.

Tanzania street photos--Guest post by Ariane Stough

Hi family and friends! I am having an awesome time in Tanzania. I can't believe it has already been a week! We go on Safari in just a few days and I am really excited. Anyway, here are a few of my own pictures:

A little girl on the street

Dinner we had while camping at the Chagga coffee farm

Fresh coffee beans

A sign at a private school that the kids from the orphanage go to

A lot of people bike on hand-me-down bikes 

The market in downtown Moshi. It was very interesting walking through here. A lot of people didn't want us there because we were taking pictures and not buying their stuff.

Kilimanjaro Kids - Guest Blog by Sierra Dawson

Emmanuel is the reserved program director of the Make a Difference organization who kept mostly quiet until the minute he saw the kids. He immediately opened up and showed his obvious infatuation for the children. This morning, before heading to the orphanage, Emmanuel gave us an informal Swahili lesson where us foreigners asked him to translate certain phrases we thought were important to know. For example, Brad asked how to say 'shut up' (nyamaza), Rosemary asked how to say her favorite animal, a giraffe (twiga), and Allison asked how to say dance (cheza). 

Then we made the 45 minute drive to the orphanage in Himo where we helped the children with their studies, taught them how to slackline, and gave them helpful hints on taking quality photographs. 

As the night draws to a close, we plan on watching Out of Africa on the tiny iPad in which I am currently writing this on. 

Kwaheri sasa!

(goodbye for now!)

-Sierra 

In the living room of the MAD house.

Christina and Rosemary, posing for a photo that Exuper took - practicing his portrait photography.

Me (Sierra), struggling to teach advanced geometry to Upendo.

Tim and Exuper.

Rosemary and Elionda doing math on the chalkboard. 

Making a Difference Now at Kilimanjaro

We had a slow start to the day but by afternoon were on the way to Himo, home of the Kilimanjaro Kids Care house. 

After visiting the school a number of the students attend (but currently on break)

we did some formal introductions 

And then broke into small groups to work on math problems with the students, which they were skilled at and we found ourselves to be a little rusty on in some areas! 

Kilimanjaro foggy, Kilimanjaro clear

Today we visited the Machame Gate on Kilimanjaro, where a lot of climbers start their trek up the mountain. 

It was a foggy, drizzly and cold today at the gate-atypical for the season but not completely unusual given that the first part of the climb is in a rainforest. 

We visited the offices of Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project to learn about porter welfare on the mountain. Here are a few shots from the gate: 

After a delicious lunch (milkshakes!) we walked to the local mitumba (second-hand) market, where bales of used clothing donated to thrift shops is shipped from the US and sold for a profit:

We passed through the cemetery on the way back to Moshi center

before continuing on to the Make a Difference Now guesthouse just outside of Moshi in an area known as Rau. 

Once settled in to the gueshouse, the skies finally cleared enough for us to have a view of Mt. Kilimanjaro, which we had not seen yet. It was a beautiful sunset!

Another day in Moshi

After returning from our overnight at the coffee farm where we learned about how coffee is grown & sold in the context of some issues facing farmers on Kilimanjaro, we returned to town and took an exploratory walk a little farther off the "tourist trail." We visited the disused train station and walked down the tracks quite a ways to get some views of the outskirts of town. 

We made some friends along the way:

I don't have any photos of the last part of our walk as we went through busy streets crowded with vendors and things were a little too chaotic!