Climb, Climb Up an African Mountain (Monday, May 18th)

Remember the children's song we sing in church? I made my own version for the title!
Monday was an early morning! We had an awesome breakfast. The servers everywhere are so sweet. They bend over backwards to make us happy. They run when we ask them to get us something. We drove for about 2 hours to get to the Gishawti forest. We didn’t know this, but to get to the forest we had to climb over three “hills”. However, their hill here are actually mountains according to us Iowans! It was about an hour and half of following cow paths over and around the mountains, but we made it. We felt like the natives were laughing at us fat Americans! Although the climb was challenging, it was some of the most beautiful scenery. I loved the view! We saw some cows up close. The city folk thought the cows were large, but Norman, Elmer, and Fudd had a couple hundred pounds on them! :)
Once we finally got to the place we were going, we planted trees. The forest used to be very large. It was probably about 3 or 4 times larger back in the day. However, to make room for cattle, the people cut down the trees and used them to create bean poles here. To grow beans here, they have to have poles for the beans to climb up. It’s strange. When they were cutting down the forest, they didn’t think about the endangered apes. There are only about 12 left in the forest now. The people started to re-grow the forest, but they left a big gap between two areas. The Great Ape Trust of Iowa is trying to plant trees to eliminate the gap so the apes can have more forest. Eventually, they want to grow a corridor between Gishwati and another forest that is near by. We felt good helping the cause by planting trees! The climb back was much easier.
When we got back to the truck we saw how sun burnt we got. You can definitely tell the white people have been to Africa! I’ll be rocking some cool tan lines for Jenna’s wedding. However bad the climb was, the drive home was worse.
I’ve started to make a list in my head of things I shouldn’t take for granted when I get home. One of them is paved roads. Others include: “fast” food (not McDonalds, but not waiting an hour for your food), toilets everywhere you go, running water you can drink, hot showers, available health care, and Wal-Mart on every corner (if you run out of something…drive to a Wal-Mart 5 mins away). There are so many more things we take for granted, but as of today those are the ones I wish I had sometimes. On the other hand, you can’t have the beach ten feet away from your room at home. It’s so pretty where we are! You won't believe I'm in Africa when you see the pictures!