MILTON, GA :: Allie Ware (2010 - Richmond - GA) had a HUGE summer. She started off the summer as the Assistant Director of the ATL, a BOUNCE club team in Georgia and ended at the top of Mount Kilamanjaro in Africa. The picture shows her flashing her XTEAM shirt at the summit! Here, in a letter written to Crista after her trip, Allie take us through her trip - in the only way she knows how to be: stone cold honest, crazy funny + remarkably poigant.
To view a picture album of her trip: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/65973580@N04/)
Words will never describe how incredible it was. Here we go....
JAMBO MAMBO!!!! (That’s hello in Swahili - the language in Tanzania)
Deciding to go to Africa this summer was a no-brainer for me. As great as freshman year was, I needed something different. Something out of my comfort zone. Something where each day was different rather than the usual wake up, go to class, practice, study hall schedule. That killed me. I was running on “E” by the end of the year.
Not going to lie...the flight sucked. I flew from ATL to DC to Ethiopia, to Tanzania. It took about 28 hours. We were greeted by the YL Africa group who I am now obsessed with. (Young Life Africa is currently in 8 different countries in Africa). There are about 6 of them who are in charge of running Young Life in Tanzania. Alexis is the main dude in charge. His life story is something from a book. He’s the Crista Samaras of YL Africa. We went straight from the airport to Arusha- the 2nd largest city in Tanzania. We helped lead club that night and got to see how YL things work in Africa. The kids were AWESOME!!!
The next 5 days were spent in a Masi Village. This will go down as the coolest experience of my life. The Masi people are a traditional tribe in Africa. Each tribe (there are 100’s in Africa) has a head chief who has about 5 wives. Each wive has about 10-12 kids. The first wife he marries is in charge of all the live stock- cows, goats, etc. Their homes are made from sticks and mud. The chief has his own hut and each wife has her own hut that the kids live in. The chief is allowed to have any wife live with him at any given time. It could be for a day... it could be for a couple years. He runs the show!
We lived in tents right in the village. I loved it!!! We had no bathrooms, showers, running water, etc. While living here we worked at the school and worked on a medical facility what was built 5 years ago but never finished. The kids were absolutely amazing. I played with them for hours every day. The LOVED to play tag. Playing tag with African boys is the best sprint workout I’ve ever done! There were OBSESSED with my hair since all males and females shave their heads. A majority have never seen hair so they loved to play with it! The Masi Villages are VERY remote- it took us 5 hours to get there from the city, so people usually never travel that far to help them. They were SO grateful to have us there. They had other chief come in at night to surround our camp sites to make sure we were safe from wildlife during the night. Its very common for lions and elephants to roam the area since it's so remote. On the final night, we ate a very traditional dinner...goat, which we slaughtered earlier that morning by cutting of its head. One person holds the bottom legs, another holds the top legs, and a third person cuts off the head. It was traumatic...my dinner was a cliff bar that night.
Our next stop was Kilimanjaro! We hiked an average of 12 miles a day- all being up hill. We would always climb to a higher altitude to eat lunch and allow our bodies to try and adapt to the altitude, then climb back down about 1,000 ft to sleep at night. Day 3 was the worst. We hiked about 10 miles all through constant rain and snow. The highest we ever slept was at 15,500 feet which was the night before we summited. Summit night is CRAZY and the most epic all-nighter of my life...yes, even after my first year of college.
We arrived to our base camp around 3pm, ate dinner at 6 then had from 7-11 to rest. Our wake up call was at 11pm. You have to summit in the middle of the night, because during the day there is a large chance of thunderstorm and you don't want to be almost 20,000ft up in the air when a storm hits. We got a midnight snack which consisted of a Mars bar, packaged cookies, and tea. We left base camp at midnight and climbed for 7 hours. The temperature was estimated to be around 0-5 degrees Fahrenheit. We had to carry our nalgenes close to our core to keep them from freezing. We also had to keep them flipped upside down since water begins to freeze from the top first, so when you flip it to drink out of it, you have access to more water that has not already frozen.
A couple of teams who were also summiting left earlier than us. A majority of people do not make it to the top on summit night. It’s estimated that 40% make it to the top. The worst part was seeing the people who left earlier than us coming back down who were not able to make it to the top. Some were coming down on stretchers, others with oxygen masks, many of them were also throwing up. One man was being carried on a guides back who looked to be fading in and out of consciousness. It was difficult to remain mentally tough at this point, especially since we were only about 2-3 hours into the hike. This is when I had to concentrate on the little things, putting one foot in front of another. I was very lucky to have no headache and no dizziness, but I did feel nausea from about 2 hours in until we made it back down to a base camp. At around 6:30am I was with about 5 others from my group who were also feeling pretty well, while about 10 others from our group were getting assistance from guides.
We had a guide with us who took us to the very top. When the sign telling us we were at the peak was in sight, I was hit with a huge wall of emotions. I began to cry, along with the rest of my group. We soon realized we had to stop crying since our tears began to freeze to our face. I had Philippians 4:13 written on my wrist which says, “I can do all the things through Christ who strengthens me”. Seeing that on my wrist while being on top one of the highest mountains of the world was a moment I’ll never forget and a true testimony of His greatness.
Being an athlete, there are so many times I tried to rely on my own power and strength rather than God’s, but this part of the trip made me break away from trying to do everything on my own. There is a point during every day where you become broken and have to rely on God’s help.
Another experience that was good for me to encounter was going on this trip not knowing a single person. A majority of the people came with a few friends, so it forced me to put myself out there in a new way. I went into the trip with 18 strangers and came out with 18 best friends.
I can’t even begin to describe how much I loved the people and the culture. Everything is Pamoja, pamoja - it's Swahili for together together. This county has absolutely NOTHING but family and faith, so they believe in sticking together and having each others' back. Another thing we had to become used to was what the American YL leaders call T.I.A- this is Africa. If we were planing to leave at 6am, we wont leave till 7am. There is no rush to get things done. If your having a conversation with someone but are suppose to be picking someone up, you finish the conversation first and get to the next person when you can... T.I.A! I also LOVED learning the language!!!
There were two kids who are volunteer leaders for YL Tanzania - Chris who is 22 and Stuart who is 20. Their dream is to come to America one day, so my goal is to raise money within the next 2 years for both of them to come to America to do Summer Staff at a Young Life camp not too far from my house. I could also really see myself partnering up with YL Africa after college and starting a donations branch. The only donations the people receive through YL are the donations people bring with them on the trip. Packing for 2 weeks takes up a lot of room, so its hard to bring a lot of donations. Africa is in desperate need of help as we all know and donations make a huge impact on a lot of the people there. Anything from clothes to peanut butter are highly needed. It’s crazy. Tanzania is currently facing the worst drought in the history of Africa, yet they are so full of spirit and love. They showed me what living life to the fullest is all about. A gift that's free, but one that many are not able to receive. I'm truly blessed for having the opportunity to go on this trip.
PS- I’ve got something coming to you in the mail shortly...get excited!!!
Peace, love, and Africa,
Al
