OLD ELDER TUTTLE CLIMBS MT KENYA

OK "Tuttle" boys listen up, competition is still alive an well even while I am in Kenya.   Yes old Elder Tuttle climbed Mt. Kenya.  I know I know but it's not the highest mountain in Kenya but at least I did it? I figure I am at least one up on you guys now.  I know it won't be for long cause your minds are working to see how you can top that. 
Well let me tell the story.  This

picture is the back side of Mt. Kenya for a little preview of what is to come - not the route we took.  The hike and climb was as beautiful and challenging as the picture looks.  This was a 6-day adventure, I was picked up at our flat by Kyolo (Cholo) the guide and the two other hikers from France, a mother (Leann) and son ( Taubo).  They spoke a little English and I spoke exactly NO French. WE WE Monsueor .   "See what I mean"  The ride to the park was eventful to say the least.  Four and one-half hrs. to get to a town where we tried to exchange vehicles from a van to a range rover.  Well not so, the range rover didn't show up...so, up the dirt road we went in the van. In case your wondering this road is the road from H---.  The van was struggling to say the least.  We only had 32 kilometers to go.  About 23 klicks up the road the range rover met us so the two vehicles both did 15 point turns to about face.  Now 9 Kenyan porters and 2 French hikers and one Farmington boy jumped into the 1945 vintage rangerover, held together with, I was going to say held together with duct tape and tie wire but they don't have either one here so I don't know what it was held together with.  So up the road we go trying to hold on, by this time it is 9:30 PM ( in the jungle).  The driver was pushing the rover pretty hard and I can tell its too old to treat that way so my fingers are crossed and I guess I did say a little prayer.  By now we are about a hour from our first base camp. (10:00) PM.  Now have you ever seen a bull elephant in the middle of the road  in the jungle with his ears flared coming full steam for a head on? And have you ever heard 9 Kenyans yaking in Swahili, two Frenchmen yelling French and one Farmington white

boy talking to the man above?  It was not a pretty sight.  Well at least someone heard my voice because the Monster stopped short and held his ground, as we backed up he would advance - all of this happening at night. This was the case for 50 minutes after which Big Daddy decided to hightail it to the bushes.  The big boy in the picture is a little smaller than the one we had the stand off with, and that's not a fish story! 

     To continue, we bounced up the road toward camp only to hear the sound I didn't want to hear.  Do you know what the sound of the drive line spinning the gear teeth of the rear differential sounds like?  I do, ( not good)  Sooo we got out to watch the Kenya team extract the crackerjack box size toolbox from under the seat and say "No Problem", Yes you heard it right No Problem.  I explained to the two French people to get there packs and bags cause we are going to walk the rest of the way to camp at 11:00 o'clock in the middle of the jungle. The Kenya team placed rocks under the wheels and away we went to the base camp arriving about 11:45 pm.  We had hot soup and a roll then went to bed only to freeze to death because we were soaked with sweat. 

The next day was a nice sunny day as we packed for our first 7 to 8 hour hike to another camp.  The hike passed through jungle then to sparce trees to beautiful tall grass and boulder fields. We also crossed many fresh water springs that looked like they had fish in.  We were pretty tired when we arrived at the next camp.

The porters were no bigger than a cub scout but don't let that full you, they could carry way more than I could and track twice as fast as I could.  Maybe it was the worn out running shoes and the church pants they wore that made them faster.  No it must be the small bowl of ugali they ate every day. Never the less they were awesome!

Well this camp was at about 14,000 feet and this is where you don't sleep at night, something to do with the altitude, you rest but don't get into a deep sleep. I guess your brain doesn't want to go night night if it doesn't have enough oxygen. And the other reason you don't sleep is you're freezing to death.  This is the macho guy stuff I love.   I keep waiting to grow hair on my chest...   maybe on the next climb.  The springs we crossed were clear and clean, everyone filled up there water bottles and washed face and hands ( thank goodness).   

The flora and fauna was very different  but very beautiful, I kept picking some kind of sage, rubbing it in my fingers and smelling it. I think it is addicting.  I did it for three days.  It sure had a good smell.  I will bring some home on the next hike and sell it, for cooking of course.  Notice the big nobby plants, they sure were an addition to the landscape.  They looked like green lollypops at a distance. 

One thing I liked was the fresh mountain air.  Nothing like that to clear a man's head after six months of smog in Nairobi.  I didn't have to hack or blow my nose once while in the clean air. 





The picture below is a mountain troll I found. I never could see the whites of her eyes  because of the long hair .... but she said some nice things in troll talk!!!!!

 

Have you ever seen shag carpet on a stick? Well that is what I found growing in this mountain in Africa.  Yes lime green shag carpet, and just as soft too.  I wished I knew the name of the plants but I don't.  So I would appreciate any help in the Horticulture Dept. ( Donna Minch) Help.  
There was always plenty to look at and take pictures of on these nine hour hikes. 

The guide and porters worked hard to fix our meals and serve it hot which was nice because it was so cold when the wind was blowing.

We always had a red table cloth for dinning.  With hot water for tea or hot chocolate.  Sometimes the birds got the biscuit before we did. 

The Shipton Peak is in the background. To be conquered the next morning.  (No Problem)!

 

 Up at 2:00 am  and on the trail to Shipton by 3:00 am to make it before sunrise.  This is a (I want to use the word extremely) hard and challenging hike/ climb.  At the 16,000 foot level, my lungs were expanding but no air was going in.  This wasen't very comforting because we still had more than a 1,000 feet to go. We passed a few people on the trail that didn't make it.  I wanted to stop and help but I was worried a little about myself.  The key to forward movement is to put the right foot in front of the left foot and so on, this leads you to the summit.(eventually).

SEE I told you so!  Me at the top.

( Piece of Cake) but a frozen piece of cake!!!  I was totally not geared up for the challenge, but I made due with what I had, Sunday School shoes and all.








Kenya flag... me above the clouds and the sunrise!  Great Morning.  Glad I had the opportunity to do this great adventure. The only thing that could of made it better is my four boys standing on the top with me. 

Not a problem just a little bouldering to get to the top.

Back side of Mt. Kenya.  Took three hours to get down to this point where it was a little easier to breath and a lot warmer.


The mountain is alot more majestic from this side than the acsent side.  You can see places where old glaciers have scraped the sides of the mountain and left it smooth.  Wonder who lived here at that time.

It is amazing the beauty you find above 15,000 feet it was all over, you just had to open your eyes.  Alot of my 150 pictures were of the beauty and creation we are all blessed with.  I did feel privledge to see this part of the world. 

This is a lodge on the decending side we just had some breakfest there and move on down the mountain cause we had another 6 hrs. to go and we had been up since 2 am .

Hiking down hill makes a whole new set of muscles wake up and wonder what in the  .... is going on.  I was digging in my pack for the Ibuprofin 800's. 

 Hiking in a wonderland isn't very hard to do.  We went from one end of the spectrum to the other...scenery doesn't get much better than this.

 Now let me tell you about this little bad boy.  Lets call him Ruffis.  This little teenager decided to enter my cabin while I was recovering on my bunk in never never land.  I heard some commotion next to me and Ruffis is on the table throwing my noodle soup in the air with one of my bread rolls in his mouth and one hand in the butter container. I will repent later for the outbust... some of my construction language slipped out.  Ruffis now has a #10EE boot print some where

on his teenage body.  Well the night was finally a good one  and I slept because we're down to 10,000 feet again.  Now just one more get up and another 4 1/2 hr. hike down hill and will be to the park entrance.  I feel this was a good challange for me at my age and abilities.  I would do it again only if  my boys were able to be here to kid and have fun.  That makes it all worth it!  Well that's my story of the Mt Kenya hike. Hope you liked it?  Old Elder Tuttle.

Part II - LDS Charities' Projects in Kenya



Kisumu Branch - We just got out of church

 The pictures below are from the NRT Training.  The neo-natal resusitation couple from SLC came over for the training on May 14-25.  We assisted them in training 127 mid-wives, nurses in a 2-day course in two separate locations.  There were also seven pediatric physicians from Nairobi that helped with the basic training - at the end of the training we distributed the resusitation equipment to each participant who agreed to go back and then they become the trainers to other staff.  One in 10 babies have breathing difficulties when born, this training and equipment will help save many babies.
This is the Kisumu LDS Branch, the sr. couple also lives on the bottom floor, the chapel is on top - open air in the trees with a view of the city.  Kind of different to hear the city noise during sacrament!!!!

 Before we left, Dick is stuffing envelopes with Kenya shillings to pay 120 participants this stipend for travel, lodging and meals.  (Its like playing monopoly - only I didn't pass Park Place.  We were packing alot of cash - kind of scary!

 This is the specialist, Steve and Deb Whipple who have been to Kenya for 4-5 years doing the training of the physicians just days before the training. 

We were the ones who did all the arrangement of hotels, meals, conferences, training materials, importing the equiptment, travel. etc.

Check out the little dark baby manequins the participants work on as they practice their "Help Babies Breath" skills.  This 2-day class was held in a small, cramped hotel rooftop with no restrooms - but in the rural areas there was not much to pick from.  It was a difficult course and we couldn't stop until everyone passed.  Our days were long, we worked very hard, but the class worked even harder to learn the skills.  It was so worth it!!!





Check us out on the roof, we had computers, printers
to manage the training course

 The entire course (registration, facility, pre-post tests), had to be documented for the files and the church.  It was pretty intensive and first class.  We will be doing another course in the fall so we were glad to get the training and understand how it all works.  Steve and Deb are very capable and I think we all made a good team!  It will be fun to work with them in the fall and in 2012.

 This is the second class in Homa Bay, at a District Hospital on Lake Victoria.  The classroom was much better and the course went smoother.   Just to keep things challenging, the hotel we stayed at lost their power in the night and the class was to start prompt at 7:30 am - try getting ready in the dark!!!!! Nothing is easy in Kenya! 




The caterer making capaties - look closely!
She and her husband are Members

 There is no way for me to describe how the caterers pulled off meals for 65 people for two days - it was all made outdoors, by hand, in the dirt with no available water, electricity,  refridgeration or stoves, they would just fill buckets of water and carry them to the area on the grass and prepare all the food.  They cooked with charcoals and big pots - we were amazed.  It was all traditional african food!





We were sure surprised to see how nice the caterers set everything up.  So much hard work for the caterers, but there were no hotels or services so we had to contract the meals out.

 Dick was loving doing all the medical stuff - like he was back being a paramedic!   Next time he will be certified to actually train the trainers - he can't wait!   He got along with the physicians really well and they asked him to pass out the graduation certificates to the participants.  This is a project that we both believe in and enjoyed doing, anything but being in the office!!!!

 Like I said.... this is a rural area.  Check out the road ahead of us.  This is more the norm once you are in the bush.  Realize we are 8-9 hours from Nairobi on the Kenya/Uganda border, once in awhile we do have asphalt but most of the time its dirt roads.  Everything takes longer here and is harder to accomplish!!! But whose complaining - not me.

Well finally we had a little R&R.  This is over looking a game preserve at Lake Nakuru.    The Whipples were more than fun to be with as well as very hard workers.  The second week they were here we made site visits to set up two more locations for trainings in 2012.  It was a very busy two weeks but a nice change of pace.  Now back to Nairobi and the office and to get Whipple's on the plane to SLC.

May, 2011 - Our Humanitarian Projects Finally Start

 We hope you all enjoy this version of our blog - most of it will dedicated to finally starting our projects.  The first couple of months in Kenya were spent getting comfortable with missionary life, then it was a month of office work, and now, in May, we have had many visitors, water short term specialist (17-day stay to resolve a large water project that had contractor problems, then our bosses from Johannesburg visited, and the  NRT (neo-natal resusitation couple) came for 14 days, we assisted them in the Help Babies Breath Training.  The following pictures will help you see what we've been up to. 

You'll note that when I left my hair was somewhat longer, then with Dick's persuasion I went for a cut from the locals, what a disaster....then in an effort to fix that mistake I tried to cut it again myself - didn't do too bad but thought I'd try the local hairstylist again - now I have the shortest haircut ever!!!!!  HELP - Where's Romela!!!!!  Oh well, no worries - we have more important things to do.

The Richardson's are our bosses from Jo-burg they are originally from Louisana.  They visited us for five days giving us training and looking at our proposed projects.  We enjoyed spending time with them. 



The Richardson's From Johannesburg



Jericho High - All boys school   



 We were invited to a presentation from the community, parents and headmaster of this 780 all boys school.  The boys  live here full time while in school. The only have water 2 days of the week.  They want LDS Charities to drill a borehole, some showers and latrines.  What's different about this project is that its right here in the suburbs of Nairobi.  It will be a small project but good because its close and we can montior the work as needed.

The school went all out to present the proposal - it was a 4+ hour tour and presentation.  The needs are so great and we need to stay objective in choosing the right projects that meet the most needs.  We felt this school will be good to partner with because the community, parents and school have accomplished so much with so little. We liked this school because they want to help themselves, and they are not afraid to work for it. The head school master truly has a vision.  

These pictures with us sitting around with the dignataries are too much. They make us look like we are important and know something and we don't. Very formal presentation!  

 May 4th...we headed 8 hours west of Nariobi to the Butere area - quite rural.  We are doing site visits to the schools where we'll start a big water and sanitation project.  These are typical latrines out in the bush at the schools.  I know there is a better way, and we will find it.  Maybe we will be known for way cool latrines.  Can you tell Elder Tuttle took over the blog for now. Like I told you before I have other talents. 

This is a spring in the Butere area.  90 percent of the women fetch the water. I guess they are stronger than the men or else the men are just too busy.(WORKING?...not!)  I carried they-re 5 gal water cans to the top of the hill to show them that men really can carry water.  They thanked me several times.  This is the area we are going to capture 66 of these springs which means, dig out the head of the spring, lay pipe cover with gravel and cement.  This makes a good safe spring.

This is an example of a rain water catchment off the roof into the tank, which is a good system - the area receives alot of rain.  The only thing is they don't know about PVC cement for the fittings and most seem to come undone. 

The person to the left is Rita, Janet's new best friend.  She is the superintendent over 39 schools.  She and Janet hit it off like two pees in a pod.  They have big plans to put all the men to work.  When Rita talks everyone listens.  She is one cool lady who broke out of the typical water-fetching mold.  We will be spending a lot of time with her.

 How good is your aim?  We didn't try this one.  Besides as you can see...No Door.  We can't wait to build them new latrines, we might even surprise them with a "special sit-down style" toilet along with the traditional "squat-type".  Oh Joy!

This is Rita's first grandbaby, You would think this baby was dressed for the north pole. Not so, this is normal attire for in the house.  3-layers, plus the hat.  Can you say suffocate?  That's how I felt just looking at the cute little thing. 

OK - now this was cool!!! Eating with your fingers at Rita's house.  Ugali (Kenya's main staple), rice, meat with some juce on it and some mashed up green stuff and no seasoning. Here's how it works, take a chunk of ugali and mix it up with rest with your fingers.  Then lick your fingers. What a great time we had! 

 Rita put on her African attire and we danced, then listened to her loud Christian music videos.  She is one cool lady. She will be our friend for life.

Here's our good buddy Justis Suchi,  He works for an NGO (Reach the Children).  We will be partnering with him on the 46 springs, 15 latrines, 2 boreholes and 12 rain capture on the school roofs. Suchi is one honest, transparent, happy, friendly, educated, spiritual guy, and he is also our friend.  He is the only Kenyan that talks loud so I can at least hear one African out of 39 million.

We'll publish this post for today and will continue tomorrow with part two.  Good evening to all - we love you all and thank you for your prayers and support.  Take care of each other and stay healthy, safe and happy.

Love, E/S Tuttle, Mom/Dad, G&G, Dick/Janet

Part II - Maasai Mara Safari

 Sorry, I had to start again.....this was one of the first animals we saw, he was just sleeping under a tree, a wonderful, mature lion (Simba), altogether we saw 8, some cubs and a female mother.  During the day the sleep and hunt at night.

A face only ....a mother could love, our guide said warthogs are made from..."a bunch of spare parts", we saw way more than we wanted to see, besides no one wants to eat a WARTHOG.Pretty typical vista, don't you love the sky?

 Our favorite animal...the cheetah!
Very graceful, day hunter, most elegant of the cats.   We saw quite a few, took many different pictures, saw a mother and two cubs, stalking their prey.

This female lion was very hungrey, she was digging in a warthog hole, but no lunch for her that day!  Her cubs weren't too far away.  Wisih we could help.

 We came upon a den of spotted hyaena's -- a pack of 14-16, with many cubs.  They weren't too shy and we observed them for quite a while, kind of ugly and vicious, but the cubs were cute.

 Quite often we were able to get multiple animals in the same picture.  Check out the Lion along with a family of elephants.  It was amazing they were not spooked by the jeeps as we rolled up and watched them.

 This mother elephant didn't want us to close to her baby.  Cute guy huh?

Here is one of the more elusive of the cats....full grown Cheetah.  There hard to find and we were lucky to see 6-8 of them over the 3 days.  So, the goal was to see the Big Five - they are the Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Cape Buffalo and the Rhino....we looked and looked, but we never did see a Rhino, there was a sighting but he was too elusive and went into the bushes.

We love this shot of the Cape Buffalo, he was whallowing in the mud and lovin' every minute. 

Just as a final note, Kenya has many wonderful animals to see, but the numbers are dwindling, too many poachers, too many people occupying the land and eliminating these amazing animals.  Its not like what you see on National Geographic and Disney's Nature....there are 1/4th of the animal numbers that used to be in Kenya.  So now you can see why we treasure this experience.  Kenya has so many resources but they just don't have the expertise to preserve the natural wonders when there is so many people/poverty and so little money.  I worry about the future of both!  

Wish we could have included more pictures, but I'm limited on this blog.

We'll talk soon,  Love to All

Sr. Couple's Safari to Maasai Mara, April 2011

 A little change of pace from our mission life, we're off to the Serengeti located in Western Africa, close to the Tanzania border.  Its referred to as the Maasai Mara because its on the Mara river right in the middle of the Maasai tribal land, also it's where the amazing migration crosses the Mara River.  We (nine senior couples) were only there 2 nights 3 days, spent most of the time on game drives in open topped safarai jeeps.  It was amazing - of course, you know how much we both love animals, Dad has never had so much fun, he was always trying to "call" the animals closer.  As you can see from the pictures, the animals were everywhere, completely out in the open.  Its not like hunting deer/elk in the Utah mountians.  The Serengeti is a large, wide open grassy savannaha, with a few trees here and there. 

Sit back and enjoy mostly pictures this time, I will try to name them if its not obvious what they are.  To put it in perspective, Dick took 250 pictures and I took 205, we deleted about 50 percent, tried to only keep what was focused.  What I wouldn't give for a good zoom - but as you can see we were so close most of the time - it was unbelievable.



We stayed in these tented rooms - it was just like "Out of Africa", all the night sounds, monkey's running on our roof at night.  Our beds had the nets around them, and yet we had hot running water, electricity and the food was gourmet.   Now you can see why we could have stayed longer.                          

We flew in and landed on a dirt air strip, with giraffes and zebras right next to the runway.  Our game driver/guide was a native Maasai named Rueben (his Christen name) he was very knowledgable, he seem to know all the floral and fauna, recognized especially the pride of cats, cubs, who was the mother/father etc.  There was never a dull moment, the service, the weather, the animals, the beautiful skys, landscape, trees - everything was out of the world.

Thompson Gazelle

Sorry, I just realized that I have to post all the pictures at once so I need to start another post.  Please log back on because there are many more wonderful animals to see.

Love you all,

G & G Tuttle, Dick & Janet, E/S Tuttle

Big Shooter is Finally on the Blog

Well my honey ( sister Tuttle )  finally got me on the Blog. This is'nt my one of my strong points, but I'll give it a try.  When it comes to office work I am as sharp as a bowling ball.  Get it?  Don't expect much and then you won't be disappointed.  But I'll give you the straight scoop.  Office work is the pits at least for me but Janet loves it because she is the best when it comes to that. Another thing that is'nt very fun is answering the cell phone cause I can't understand any of these people. So the best thing to do is to play dumb then hang up.  But the bad thing is they just call back.  I have a real big offfice with air conditioning, big window and computer and printer.  This makes me feel real important.  But I don't feel like I have any body fooled yet.  But I'll keep trying. 

Now I'll tell you what I am good at ( this won't take long ).  I am real good at combat driving,  I can run any matatu off the road just like they do to me.  I mastered this very unusual way of driving in only 4 days.  Now that made me feel pretty cool.  I like to go out in the bush and meet the villagers look at sand dams, boreholes, latrines, shambas, the little kids and animals.  That's what I am good at.  I will go into more detail at a future blog.  This is how you keep everyone tuning in for more blog talk.  When I figure out how to attach a picture I will start that also.  Well how am I doing so far?  It is way past my bed time so this is all for now.  I'll do better next time. At least everyone is happy for now.  This is Elder Tuttle signing off for now.  See you soon.

Pictures From Mt Elgon National Preserve near Kitale, Kenya

 So far this is our favorite Kenya animal, Dick was looking out over the valley with his binoculars and sure enough spotted these giraffes about a mile away in the acacia trees.  We jumped in the truck to get a closer view.  E/S Beecher, were with us and with Dick doing his magic, he called them in closer to us - they were quite curious who was making all the "barking" noises.  It was thrilling to say the least!   There were 3 adults and one teenager-type, beautiful patterned skin.  If you look close in the picture below you will see one in the bushes right behind us - we were only 20 yards from all five.  During our visit to Mt Elgon we saw (12) collubus(sp) monkeys, (30) waterbuck, 15 common blue monkeys and some type of pronghorn and lots of baboons.  Of course we love animals - on our return to Nairobi we also saw small herds of zeebra, several pronghorns in the Nukuru area.  The most memorable experiences we had we seeing the very  modest LDS buildings that the branches are held in and visiting the possible springs and well sites where the local villages go 3-4 times a day to fill up their gerry cans of water.  The majority of the mud homes with grass roofs have no electricity, refridgeration, no plumbing.   

 We visited 4 branches, 2 district hospitals that will be used for neo-natal training of nurses/drs/mid-wives and several well sites that LDS Charities have completed + we were able to see the "famous" collapased latrines that will be one of our first projects.  The school has 1,500 students and only one working latrine.  The students are required to be at school for nine hours six days per week.  Unbelievable .... they have no electricity and just benches and tables, the well isn't working and so they have to bring bottled water from home.  After we were out amoug the rural villages - we really had our "eye's" opened to the living conditions and yet the kids seem so happy - it tears at one's heart.  We feel this was a life-changing type of experience.  It is so hard to put into perspective the lifestyle we all are so fortunate and blessed to have - its hard to explain unless you experience the stark differences as we have this week.



The Branch in Nitiri - See our truck!!!

Its getting late so I better close this post, our mission is
starting to change drastically - no more are we just the new kids on the block, its time to get to work and start our own projects.  The workload is very demanding, because the needs are so great.  We do have to work within a budget, manage several types of projects, 1. clean water, 2. food and nutrition, 3. wheelchairs, 4. neo-natal training, 5. Area initiatives projects that we can pick, plus finish up some ongoing projects that were left from other couples.  But it all good - because I promised Dick I wouldn't complain too much. 





Dick with Pres. Odero at a spring in Busia

Yes, we are homesick and miss all of you....we are working hard to become good servants and try to make good decisions as we develop the humanitarian projects.  There are two things we haven't told you about and that's the roads/driving issues and the amount of corruption/fraud/deception issues we face as we try to implement the projects - I'll let Elder Tuttle talk on the next blog.   Bye for now.