Mission trip takes SR graduate to new heights
Brook Schaefers, 17, of Butler certainly reached her peak earlier this summer. Schaefers scaled Mount Kilimanjaro during her mission trip to the East African nation of Tanzania June 4 through June 27.
Schaefers, a 2017 Slippery Rock High School graduate, went to Tanzania through GIVE, an international charity whose mission is providing English education, developing eco-friendly infrastructure and practicing wildlife conservation in its host countries.
“GIVE is a volunteer group that goes to Nepal, Nicaragua, places that need help,” said Schaefers.
“They came to my school for an information session,” said Schaefers, who is attending Youngstown State University as a biology major with a focus on marine biology.
“I wanted to study abroad but I didn't have the time,” she said. “This is like a small study abroad trip and I can do some good and learn about the culture.”
Following a 13½-hour flight to Ethiopia and then another flight to Tanzania, Schaefers arrived in the city of Dar es Salaam, where she met up with the rest of her GIVE group.
“Once we got to the local hotel, we spent a night there,” she said. The next day the group of 26 volunteers took a ferry to Zanzibar where they stayed for the next two weeks.
The Zanzibar Archipelago is a group of islands 16 miles off the African coast in the Indian Ocean. The main island, Unguja, is informally referred to as Zanzibar.
“In the city on the mainland it was industrialized. There were high-rise buildings,” said Schaefers.
“It wasn't the cleanest, but it wasn't bad. People were on the streets all night and all day. It would be like 3 a.m. and you could still hear people yelling outside,” she said.
“The island was a lot more open and a lot more rural,” she said. “We lived on the beach in a tropical environment. It was very hot and humid.”
Schaefers stayed in a concrete house with four other volunteers.
“It was 80 or higher every day and very humid,” said Schaefers. “You didn't notice it once you were there. I was taking cold showers every day.”
“We ate a lot of rice every day, twice a day. They would switch it up with chicken or fish,” she said. “There were vegetables and there was always fruit: The bananas were small; papayas, mangos, pineapple.”
“Every morning we were up at 6:30 a.m. We'd go to the local restaurant on the beach for breakfast and then we would go to school,” said Schaefers.Schaefers and her companions would teach English to students ranging in age from children to adults.“They were fluent in English,” she said of her students. “They could talk to you. We worked with them on their grammar rather than teaching them words.”“People from the mainland would come to the school,” she said. “They wanted to talk about everything. They wanted to learn about us.”“We'd start a conversation on family or fashion,” she said at the start of the 3-hour class, “Then we would focus on grammar.”“At the end they would have to debate one another,” she said.After morning classes, she said the volunteers would spend the rest of the day working to build more classrooms.“They just shoved us right in, ”she said. “ They would give us shovels and sand and we would start mixing cement.”It wasn't all class and construction work.
Schaefers said her group got to take a sailing trip to swim with dolphins in the Indian Ocean.After a four-hour voyage over rough seas, she said, “We found the dolphins and got to swim and play with them.“Obviously, I love marine life, so to see the dolphins out in the wild was incredible,” she said.After two weeks, she said, “on the last day of school the Masai tribesmen danced for us to thank us.”“They were jumping and yelling. It was so amazing they allowed us to come up and dance with them,” she said.“The people were all so welcoming and accepting,” she said. “They wanted to get to know you. We were their access to Western culture.”After two weeks, the group left Zanzibar and traveled to Arusha, a city in northeastern Tanzania.“It was more urban with schools and colleges. We stayed in Christina's House, which was resort-like, and went into the community and helped build chicken coops.”Schaefers said the coops were a way to help Tanzanians start small sustainable businesses.The volunteers also went on safari in Lake Manyara National Park.“We got into these safari vans to go into the park. We saw giraffes, lions, cheetahs, zebras and hippos,” she said. “We had lunch in the park and the baboons came up and stole our food.”
“The guides showed us this large tree with a giant hole in it,” Schaefers said. “Poachers would go into the hole and sleep there until night. They would hide in these trees and come out at night and kill the animals.“I went into the tree and there are these hooks where the poachers hang their guns,” she said.Poachers have rendered the African rhino nearly extinct. Schaefers said authorities are using drones to follow poachable animals in an effort to catch illegal hunters. But she said the best way to discourage poaching is not to buy poachers' products, such as ivory or hides.After the safari, Schaefers said she and seven fellow volunteers climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.At 19,431 feet, it is the highest free-standing mountain in the world, she said.She said it took four days to climb the mountain, walking 7 to 10 hours a day and two days to come back down.Climbers encounter different biomes, including rain forest, heath, moorland, alpine desert and arctic. Temperatures range from 85 degrees Fahrenheit to sub zero.“Everybody in our group got altitude sickness,” she said, adding she didn't. “You have severe headaches, puking.”Of course, she said, she had help on her climb.“We had four porters each. We would carry our day pack and they would carry all the other stuff. They would take down our camp, take us to the next camp and set up.“Our main guide has climbed Kilimanjaro more than 200 times,” she said.Schaefers said on the last day she got up at 6 a.m. and took an hour to reach the summit.“It was -20 degrees. I had on six pairs of pants and a winter jacket. I could not feel my fingers and toes the entire time I was there,” said Schaefers.She said it was the most physically challenging thing she did.“I had no showers for six days. The shower when I got back was amazing. It was probably the best shower I had in my life,” she said.
<br />
