Why blog, you ask?

I, Skarbs, HIKED the 3 highest peaks in Africa in January of 2012, all to raise money for the 3 "peak issues" in East Africa: Education, Health, and Environment. East Africa is a place close to my heart. I know the difference that love, belief, and understanding can make in this beautiful part of the world. Join with me as I REFLECT back on this amazing journey!

Friday, April 29, 2011

Dusting off an old video

Hey Everyone!  My mom just reminded me that my brother and I (read: my brother with minimal help from me) made a sweet video about the School of St. Jude when we visited back in 2008.  All the video footage was shot while we were there, and nearly all the pictures are from our trip as well.


It gives a pretty good picture of what a school day is like at the School of St. Jude.  It's hard to believe that their first Secondary School (High School) graduating class will graduate in 2014!  That grade of students started out the school as first graders in 2001, when the school had only 3 students.  You can see from the video how much the school has grown and prospered!

Cheers!

Katherine

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Motivation...or lack thereof.

Training to climb 3 mountains isn't easy.  It's even harder if you have trouble motivating yourself to kick your own butt (me!).  A few days ago, I got to attend a soccer practice session run by Wake Forest Men's Soccer coach Jay Vidovich.
Coach Vidovich
He's amazing at what he does, the intensity and effort he demands from his players is so high.  He has so much energy while coaching, and so much knowledge about the game.  At the end of the session during our Q & A, he gave us a quote that is so simple, but makes a ton of sense.

"The only discipline that lasts is self-discipline." -Bum Phillips 

Makes loads of sense.  In my profession as a soccer coach, I can have players motivated at practice and at games, but if they aren't putting in their best effort all the time, even when working with the ball at home, they'll never reach their full potential.  The discipline to work hard and push yourself is something you have to practice to be good at it.  You gotta want it!

Now that I have outgrown the "team" environment for workouts (I never thought I would miss having a coach yell at me), my own self-discipline is now more important than ever.  This has become glaringly apparent in my 3 Peaks training.  I'll have a great week of running, spin class, and some lifting, then the next week do next to nothing.  I'm going to try and break that terrible cycle by holding myself more accountable, and actually WRITING DOWN a schedule, instead of just moving things around, or pushing workouts back, and back, and back....

Discipline. Let's do this. 

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Buffalo!

Hey there little guy!
I just learned that there will be a guy with a machine gun on our Mt. Meru climb...because of the Buffalo!  Apparently you REALLY don't want to run into one of them.

Keeping Buffalo at bay, apparently.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Africa! Did you know....

  • 15% of the world's population lives in Africa...over 1 billion people call it home.
  • There are 54 sovereign states, and 52 of those 54 states have national soccer teams!
  • The borders of African states today are nearly the same as they were during European colonialism.
That last point is disheartening, and I think it's a lot of the reason why we're now seeing so many struggles for power in these countries. Egypt, Tunisia, Lybia, Sudan, Congo....all of these countries have seen struggles because of extreme ethnic and religious differences between the peoples that live within the borders of their own countries.


I think Wikipedia puts it nicely with this section on Post-Colonial Africa:

Post-colonial Africa

Today, Africa contains 54 sovereign countries, most of which still have the borders drawn during the era of European colonialism. Since colonialism, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. The vast majority of African states are republics that operate under some form of the presidential system of rule. However, few of them have been able to sustain democratic governments on a permanent basis, and many have instead cycled through a series of coups, producing military dictatorships.
Great instability was mainly the result of marginalization of ethnic groups, and graft under these leaders. For political gain, many leaders fanned ethnic conflicts that had been exacerbated, or even created, by colonial rule. In many countries, the military was perceived as being the only group that could effectively maintain order, and it ruled many nations in Africa during the 1970s and early 1980s. During the period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, Africa had more than 70 coups and 13 presidential assassinations. Border and territorial disputes were also common, with the European-imposed borders of many nations being widely contested through armed conflicts.
Cold War conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as the policies of the International Monetary Fund, also played a role in instability. When a country became independent for the first time, it was often expected to align with one of the two superpowers. Many countries in Northern Africa received Soviet military aid, while many in Central and Southern Africa were supported by the United States, France or both. The 1970s saw an escalation, as newly independent Angola and Mozambique aligned themselves with the Soviet Union, and the West and South Africa sought to contain Soviet influence by funding insurgency movements. There was a major famine in Ethiopia, when hundreds of thousands of people starved. Some claimed that Marxist/Soviet policies made the situation worse.[48][49][50]
The most devastating military conflict in modern independent Africa has been the Second Congo War. By 2008, this conflict and its aftermath had killed 5.4 million people. Since 2003 there has been an ongoing conflict in Darfur which has become a humanitarian disaster. AIDS has also been a prevalent issue in post-colonial Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The best way to see positive change in Africa is to first become educated about what is going on, and why it is happening.  I'm no expert, but I'm trying to learn.

 Thanks Wikipedia!

Monday, April 4, 2011

Peaks Foundation intro Video


Check this video out.  It won't let me post it right here, which is stinky, but the link works.  Take 2 minutes and watch it.  The kids singing in the video are from St. Jude's School in Tanzania.  At the end they're singing the Tanzanian national anthem, which I am currently learning.  "Ibariki, Africa..."

Sunday, April 3, 2011

The Grandest Canyon of All

View up the Colorado river
I just spend 4 days backpacking in the Grand Canyon, and all I can say is WOW!  What a place.  The hike we did was one of the hardest in the park, and we covered 36 or 38 miles, depending on what map you look at.  Some of the highlights and interesting facts:
  • The elevation change from the South Rim to the Colorado was about 5,000 ft.
  • The stars were amazing!  The clearest sky I've ever seen
  • The temperature change from the rim to the river was about 15-20 degrees (f).  It was so much warmer at the bottom.  I was actually hot sleeping on several nights.
  • It's 10 miles across from the South Rim to the North Rim
  • We refilled on water at the river several times...I drank 4 liters on the 8 mile hike out.
  • GREAT training for Kilimanjaro I think.  I've got to keep doing some hikes as I train, I'm going to try and do an intense day hike once every two weeks or so, and do some longer trips when I can.  
More pictures of the canyon to come!


A little cactus growing out of the rocks
Dinner! Smoked salmon, cucumber, creme cheese, all on a pita. Yum.

1st night campsite, halfway between the South Rim and the Colorado river.

Cool rocks

Stargazing on a blustery evening