Thursday, March 24, 2011
Africa
Click here to all my Africa photos and slideshow.
Holy Cornopolis! I feel like I have done more in two weeks then I have in two years. I just spent two weeks in Tanzania Africa with a San Diego based organization called the FFCC. This trip definitely did not have long walks on the beach, g-strings, relaxing hammocks, or Dog the Bounty Hunter, but it was forever changing on the way I think and how I will do things.
I can't even begin to tell you how many people we helped or how many lives we changed. We had many missions that occupied this entire trip. One of our objectives was to lay the foundation for a playground that was a part of the children's center that the FFCC built four years ago. The children's center provides food, water, school uniforms, education, and a place off the sandy streets for thousands of homeless children. And when I say thousands, I mean thousands due to the lack of contraception. Between 800 - 1000 children ages 4-17 are fed rice everyday. The FFCC provides the facility and food if the government provides the school uniforms (which is their tuition) and teachers. Each child must attend school in the mornings in order for them to receive food in the afternoon.
We also installed water filters that will kill ANY water-borne bacteria and lasts up to 150 years. Different families around Tanzania received these small filters that will put an end to their cholera, typhoid, diarrhea, fever, and even death. Clean drinking water is nowhere to be found in Tanzania unless you are privileged enough to buy it in a bottle. This country is truly desperate for a clean glass of water.
I also had the extreme and rare chance to visit one of the world's last tribes and the founding land where modern humans first emerged over two million years ago. After a four-hour, ditch ridden ride in the back of a truck, we finally arrived to the most isolate place in Africa. "The land of the Hadzabe tribe." There they were, carrying their bows and arrows, the Hadzabe tribe waited for our arrival. Unfortunately, our time with the Hadzabe tribe was spent very briefly. We had two goats slaughtered to feed them and spoke with them about building a medical dispensary on their land. With no medicines existing in the area and once numbering over 10,000 members, the Hadza people are slowing dying off into the low hundreds. They are also some of the last hunter-gatherers on the African continent and have even recently stopped wearing animal skins as their form of clothing.
Have you ever been to a leper colony where people are completely deformed and blind?
Have you ever hugged and shook hands with a leper/person that just wants to be touched and looked at like a human being?
Have you ever been to a HIV orphanage where children have no parents and will not live past their teens? These are just a few other incredible places that I had the rare privileged to see, and the experiences that I shared with these people will always stay with me.
To top this mission trip off, we concluded with a two-day safari to the famous Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara. Ngorongoro Crater is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. It was like a natural zoo that kept all the wildlife into a trapped ecosystem. Let me just say this place is pretty "majestic."
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Malaysia/Singapore
Friday, January 2, 2009
Indonesia Part II
As we left Lake Toba by ferry, I was "feeling a little vaklempt" and "I promised myself I wouldn't cry" (Coffee Talk, SNL). I shed a few tears as the locals waved us goodbye.
I didn't want to leave this beautiful place.
Click here to all my Indonesia photos and slideshow.
Indonesia Part I
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Thailand
While in Thailand, I spent most of my time Island hopping and meeting up with people that I had met in Vietnam and Cambodia. We took motorbikes and explored the Islands for the best beaches and snorkeling spots. Taylor and I split up for a few weeks, but we seemed to follow each others foot steps by falling in love with two Swedish girls. Vise/Versa...I hope.lol After we parted ways with our women, Taylor met me and some friends on the Island of Ko Phi Phi for a two hour Frisbee session while watching the Thail sunset.
I was really fascinated being on Ko Phi Phi because that was the hardest area hit in Thailand from the 2004 Tsunami. I often sat on the beach and envisioned what had happened. I even read a book about the Tsunami and I've decided to extend my trip to volunteer my time for one month in Sumatra, Indonesia to help out with the victims.
One morning on Ko Phi Phi, Taylor, Mike, and I decided to wake up at 6:30am, rent a long tail boat, and to be the first people on the Island of Maya Bay. Maya Bay is one of the most beautiful places in the word and its where the movie "The Beach" was filmed with Leonardo DiCaprio.
While snorkeling in the clearest water, we found ourselves swimming with three baby reef tip sharks. Completely harmless to humans, we watched them feed on a school of fish two feet away. As we continued our swim, I came across a five foot reef shark three feet from my face. I had never been in the water with sharks before, and seeing one up close and personal freaked me out. I didn't know if it was the mother and I was about to be legless, armless, footless, ...the list goes on, and you know where I'm going with this.
Off to Malaysia
Click here to see all my Thailand photos and slideshow.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Cambodia
Click here to see all my Cambodia photos and slideshow.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Vietnam
After a few nights in, we attending a German Oktoberfest. That was definitely an experience. We partied pretty hard with Vietnamese corporate locals while standing on tables and chanting the night away. Any chant you started would end with about 30 chanting men slamming mugs and doing it all over again. Good night Vietnam!!!
Taylor and I then decided to embark on a 5 day motorbike trip through the mountains with our local tour guide "River." This action would probably be the coolest thing that I've ever done besides traveling for four months. I was riding a motorbike through many small villages, waving at all the minority children, honking at women with the weakest horn imaginable, and trying to hit little baby chickens while watching the clouds peak over the tallest mountain tops.....just kidding about the chickens. During our 5 day moto trek, we spent the night in a rice field surrounded village and woke up to a Vietnamese elephant ride. Let me get this straight, I was in Vietnam... surrounded by little women wearing coned straw hats working in rice fields... riding an elephant through a lake...watching solo fishermen drift in their little wooden boats... all while listening to Incubus's song "Aqueous Transmission." Please don't hate me. (go to youtube.com and type in Aqueous Transmission to hear the song. You can listen to it while looking at the blog photos)
As I was getting my scuba dive certifications in Nha Trang, I got the rare chance to see a large octopus. It was amazing, I had only been in the water for two minutes with my guide Gab (who looked identical to Chris Martin the lead singer of Coldplay) and I was about two feet from this "majestic and jositile creature."lol The octopus changed two different colors in about 5 seconds. "Awesome!!, Totally awesome!!" (Sean Penn, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.) I spent 5 days scuba diving and made some really cool friends that week. I was sick to my stomach and didn't want to leave them, but I must go on... must go on. I'm' pretty sure that they were sick to their stomach's to see me go as well.
Click here to see all my Vietnam photos and slideshow.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Australia
The next few days were spent out on the Great Barrier Reef. The reef is about 20 miles from the coast so it was an awesome boat ride out there. I snorkeled with some of the most beautiful fish in the world and even touched a sea turtle and a few clown fish. I felt like a young Jacques Cousteau and a Steve Irwin. I remember watching Jacques Cousteau constantly on TV as a kid and, it was surreal to be in the same places where he dove.
After spending quality time on the reef, I decided to do a little sky diving. I jumped from 14,000 feet and had a free fall of a 60 seconds. The feeling was crazy, and at times I felt my brain moving towards my feet. We fell through a cloud where there was a tiny rainbow from the sun being behind you. You could see your own shadow in the small rainbow until you passed the clouds. Pretty psychedelic!