Mon 2nd Jan 2012
We woke up in Machame for the last time ever and headed off to chapel. We had come prepared with a Swahili farewell speech we wrote yesterday and were able to give it at the end of the service. We got laughed at slightly less than on our first day, so hopefully our pronunciation has improved. The head doctor then gave a massive speech about us, despite barely meeting us. He seemed very pleased to have such an excellent opportunity to make another lengthy speech, so I feel like we've done our good deed for the day.
The rest of the morning was spent on long goodbyes and taking about a million photos of the hospital and our new rafikis we have made here (plus several of the hospital dog). It will be sad to leave this place! Will definitely not miss the roosters though.
Mr Mushi was also sad to see us go and was kind enough to drive us the full hour to Moshi himself. What a gentleman!
For the interest of everyone who has been kind enough to donate and help us with our fundraising efforts, we have spoken to Mr Mushi about what we all think is the best way to spend the $4000 we raised. We're going to finalise this all when we get back to Australia, so we will keep you posted. We can say firsthand that the money will make a big difference here, so thank you all very much!
Tomorrow we leave for our six-day trek to (hopefully) the top of Kili. Many people have enquired about our dedicated training regimen for this undertaking and the response has always been that we intend to use the first three days of the hike as intensive training for the last three. There's nothing quite like learning on the job!
Arriving in Moshi, we went to the hotel to meet our tour group. It was quite a culture shock getting here, as we are not used to being around foreigners! I'm already sick of looking at white people, speaking in English and paying for things in American dollars. It's so touristy or, as Emmy would say, it's just not the real Africa.
Anyway, we went for our our pre-trek briefing today, where we discovered that the Machame route up Kilimanjaro is actually a really difficult one and recommended for experienced hikers. Whoops. This really doesn't bode well.
We then spent the evening relaxing by the pool, having what would be our last showers for quite some time and enjoying the feel of a soft mattress and unmangled feet.
Goodbye,
Possibly forever,
Michael
The farewell speech to Machame Hospital:
Habari za asubuhi. Heri ya mwaka mpya. Leo tunahondoka Machame. Tumefurahi kuwa nanyi kwa pamoja. Asanteni kwa ushirikiano weru kwetu. Tumefurahi kabisa. Karibuni Australia. Mungu awabariki.
Good morning and happy new year. Today we will leave Machame. We are very pleased to be here with you all. Thank you for all that you have done for us. We have greatly enjoyed being here. We have learnt a lot. You are all welcome to come to Australia. God bless you all.
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