Your Most Memorable SUMMER Trip
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SUMMERTIME!
There are vacations, and then there are trips
TANZANIA was a TRIP
Elephants, Lions, Baboons, and . . .
the Pregnant Mother
The year, June 2011
WE SPENT the first 3 night in Arusha, Tanzania. On the 2nd morning, my husband and his 11-man climbing team took off to conquer Kilimanjaro.
With our men gone, my 17-year-old daughter and I, along with three other American women, traveled four hours into remote East Africa. (even the East Africans considered this place remote)
THUS BEGAN our 2 week adventure living in a Maasai village. That first night, we sat across a dark table from 15 armed, tribal elders who spoke no English. With the help of two translators, we discussed the opening of the clinic we’d built them. We’d been planning this adventure for 9 months.
OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, we sorted through medical supplies and worked with the newly arrived Dr. Ruth (yes, that’s her real name) educating the sleepy, undernourished, knowing-no-other-way-of-life Maasai teenagers about germs, nutrition, and exercise. These teaching topics were requested.
BY THE TIME the climbing team returned—including the 5 doctors who volunteered to work the clinic—we women had settled into our boma-shaped “luxury” huts, fallen asleep to baboon and hyena howls, and made good friends with our all-muscle, HULKING BODYGUARD, Rasuly.
Yep, Rasuly is the big guy
PRECIOUS are the Maasai children . . . and their children. (These were not siblings taking care of younger siblings)
Maasai Chef
WE WEREN’T ALWAYS SURE what was for dinner. But it was very fresh. And goats did keep disappearing.
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FINALLY, the climbing team returned. We opened the Open Arms Clinic. Villagers flooded in, and the first patient was a pregnant mother in labor who hadn’t felt her baby move in a day-and-a-half. Born alive or dead, this baby would set the tone of this new clinic. Grab a tissue, listen to the entire story, and learn out the outcome here: 8 minute video
After three safaris and one week of clinic we headed home. Our bodies were saturate with volcanic dust and our hearts were forever transformed.
Horse in PJs
Close enough to touch. But we weren’t stupid.
This TEDxKids 10-minute video tells about this trip from the point of view of 17-year-old Talitha Marx “My Summer Among Wildebeests and Warriors”
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TELL US!
As an adult or a kid,
what was your most memorable summer?
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