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19th July 2010 G'day everyone, finally at a place where internet actually works so just wanted to send a quick message about the trip. It was a great experience with the words "this is my favorite day so far" being said on a daily basis by at least one of us. Every Island and stop was different. The people were ridiculously friendly (other then the guy who stole Rolo's boat on the first day, oh and the town drunk who asked if Dan wanted to fight on the fourth day). Pic's will come online soon, we got some absolute beauties until my dry bag turned into a wet sack and drowned my camera, I-pod, head torch and phone. After that we had to rely on Rolo's pic's. (Which are actually much better then mine but don't tell him that because he's cocky enough as it is) |
3 Young Men Kayak Lake Victoria for 3 African Charities In July 2010 Dan Berger, Danny Blackwell and Roland Prianto leave the Sydney Shores to take on Africa’s largest lake, Lake Victoria… in a Kayak. <<<--- Mission COMPLETE!!! The Expedition: Kayak unsupported 250km across Lake Victoria from Kenya to Uganda In The Media: Daily Telegraph 27th March | Dannys Commute
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15th July 2010
After 9 days on the Lake, we arrived in Jinja via beer truck... very sore and tired, but the trip was a complete success, Thanks to everyone for supporting us and donating to a good cause! Looking forward to sharing stories and posting photos as soon as we reach some good internet...
Talk to you all soon!!!
Thanks Again Danny, Dan and Roland
Awesome trip!! no trampled or missing limbs and 2 out of 3 stomachs in working order :). Off the lake yest and resting in Jinja, Uganda.
Thanks again to everyone for hitting the parties and donating to the charities. The MIA orphanage in Kenya is really doing awsome stuff. We'll get some trip pics up soon..
Cheers again.
Dan
6 days and counting....
Labourer
We’re due to leave to the lake in 6 days and we’re building the foundations for a new orphanage.
Pretty simple, get aggregate, sand, cement and water, grab a shovel mix it up, put it in a wheel barrow, take it over to a big hole and pour it in. One problem, I haven’t done any labouring or constant bending over for years. Yeah you know where this is going. Back tweaked, little spasm and now I’m cooked. It’ll be good by Sunday but that was a bad idea.
It was pretty cool though, walking up to a group of blokes slaving their guts out for $3 a day and helping out. I think they were just expecting me to tell them to work harder as when I showed up they all put their backs into it a bit more. Then everyone just stops and stares as the Mzungu walks around to the middle of the group and picks up a shovel. Lots of looks of surprises and a few giggles and then they’re back into it. After an hour or so they ask my name, I can’t speak Swahili so the chat is pretty limited but I can see the boys are pretty happy to have an extra pair of hands in the heap. I now have two words in my Swahili bag of trick tosha which means full, and Ngini which means more, didn’t make for great small talk. But at least I knew if they wanted more concrete in their wheelbarrow. These will obviously come in really handy anytime someone offers me a beer on an island on Lake Victoria to which I can say Ngini (more) or tosha (full) if I’m already well on my way.
Unfortunately Bryce Courtney was a massive liar and African’s don’t sing while they work at all, that’d be sick, but I didn’t get a single bit of African gospel out of ‘em. They just work and talk shit like everyone else. I’m pretty sure some of this shit talking was about my lack of an ass and therefore my boardies hanging way low, pfft bloody labouring Kenyan’s wouldn’t know style if it fell down around a blokes knees right in front of them. Not a single pair of tight black skinnies, v- neck T’s, black beanie’s covering floppy fringes or unusually low hanging waistcoats amongst them.
Teacher
Today I’m a teacher. More accurately I’m a colouring in expert and can keep with-in the lines better than almost all of the kids. Three of them are extremely good at it. The class only has 9 students so it’s a pretty cruisey morning, we read a book that teaches the difference between a circle and a square and also different colours. This is where I lost my first fight in the schoolyard. Anthony is about 8, he’s a good kid but has trouble hearing and has lost his hearing aid. He’s wearing Navy shorts. He’s not here right now to argue but I’m writing the story and in my story I’m right and they were navy.
I point to the shorts and ask what colour they are, “Black”, “No mate they’re blue” “BLACK”. “No Anthony, they’re Navy Blue”. “BLAAAAAAAAAAAACCKK!!!”, “OK, fine, bugger it, they’re black, well done”. And so I lost my first fight, but just quietly they were definitely Navy.
P.E is next which basically involved us running around in circles, skipping, dancing, playing cat and mouse, pretending to be aeroplanes or motorbikes. “zoom” is the same in Swahili and English by the way. It was awesome.
Danny & Millie coming back from school. (Note from Sarah: your favourite from day 1 right danny??)
Photo below of Laura, Danny and Millie from Danny's first fundraising trip to Nakuru.
First day at the orphanage and it’s all about being swamped by kids, almost 50 of them and I am introduced as Uncle Danny. The kids are asked if they remember me from 3 and a half years ago and Isaac says yes, he’s lying to me but I’ll take it. He is the poster boy on one of the Africate T’s, yeah he’s pretty famous, a pretty big deal and he remembers Uncle Danny.
After the daily throwing kids in the air, trying not to drop them and dragging three around on each foot for a half an hour or so Uncle Danny does what any Uncle does when a little one grows a little tail in its nappy and gives the kids back to their parents. Then it’s off to town. First we stop at the prison and I sneak a pic of a few inmates, young fella’s all of ‘em and you don’t want to know what they’ve done. I’ve asked before and not really enjoyed listening to the answer.
We’re in town to shop for soccer balls, the plan is to blow one up on each Island and use it to make friends with the locals. Well that’s for the kids anyway, for the adults we’ve got durries. Soccer balls and cigarette’s, it’s the way to get accepted into any African village.
The guy who wants to sell us the balls is an old Indian trader, he’s got eyebrow’s like John Howard but he’s a little balder and speaks with a lisp. He’s pretty much a cartoon talking owl come to life and I’ve got the feeling he only knows one saying in English. “you put the sugar in tea to make it sweeter, yes” ah, wise words. Come on old, owl-looking man what are you talking about? Basically a plastic soccer ball is a cup of tea, but if its leather then it’s like tea with sugar. This is the reason why I should pay prices equivalent to prices in Australia. When I tried a little bartering he retorted with “a leather ball is like a cup of tea with sugar my friend, it tastes sweeter”. After another go at bargaining he just said “sugar” with a smile that showed me why he liked this analogy so much. The man would easy go a couple of teaspoons of the good stuff per cup of tea. This is the point where I gave up. You can’t talk sense to a man whose only thinking of where his next sugar hit is coming from.
Then its home, throw the kids around some more, cause a couple of tears because one wants to be thrown in the air but I threw her brother in the air instead. Try to make up for it by throwing her even higher, “oh no, thrown her too high”, she’s hit her head on the ceiling, make her cry more, realise uncle Danny is a pretty crappy uncle and then try to sneak off to my mud hut without the carer’s realising why Laura is crying. Day one over.
2 days in Kenya.
8 hours to Hong Kong, 3 hour wait in Hong Kong, 8 hours to Dubai, 6 hour layover in airport then 5 hours to Nairobi. 30 hours give or take a couple of minutes here or there. Now finally I’m in Nairobi, and I’m stoked, I’m tired, I’ve got the flu from the recirculated air in the plane and now sound like Darren Lokyer after he’s had a night on the durries. But for the first time since I can remember I was being picked up at the airport in a foreign country. So rare and so good, takes all the haggling and mild panic out of the arriving in a country which by the Australian traveller advisory has said its necessary to use a “high degree of caution” and in some places to “reconsider your need to travel”. When you don’t know the address of your hostel or how far away it is or how much it will cost to get there being picked up is all the better. But then I thought about it and although it’d be pretty cool to see some bloke standing there with my name on a sign waiting to take me straight to a bed and a good feed I realised how much I love a good haggle. It’s a great way to enter a country because straight away from that first taxi/bus ride you know what your trip is going to be like.
Is everyone aggressive in trying to take you to their cab? Are they trying to take your bags off you and run to their cab beating out all their daily rivals? Or just trying to make a tip for shuffling your bags the twenty metre’s to the cab rank? If you try to haggle and get a bit of banter going do they respond in kind or look at you like you’re a dickhead? Quite often I just get looked at like a dickhead. Accurate look.
But in Nairobi, I practically had to yell at a cabbie from directly in front of him to get his attention. Pole-Pole people, slowly slowly, everything is relaxed and if nothing gets done, it’ll get done tomorrow. But they’ll still try to rip you off.
Luckily for me then, there was no-one there to pick me up, no sign with “Danny Blackwell” written on it, no big African smile and warm handshake. The lady that was organising it was asleep I think, or at least a little tired and she kind of forgot. So the haggling began and I loved it, the ride I got was cheap the driver was awesome and friendly and didn’t complain too much about the rate or tell me how she needed extra fair for her kids or anything. Instead of that we talked shit for a half hour, playful banter with your first cabbie means you know this trip will be good. The people will be full of life, friendly and maybe only a couple will try to rob us instead of talk to us.
This friendliness has been emulated again with our first night at a local bar. Beers, pool and football. Ghana won and we danced our asses off. And you know what? We danced to Shakira! Sure she’s a terrible sounding tool of her label but when everyone in a pub goes nuts to “Shaka, Shaka (time for Africa)” you do too. And I loved it, I might even download it onto my I-pod. OK too far, shouldn’t ruin the memories of the night by listening to that sober, by myself on an 8 hour bus ride to Mombasa.
Thursday 23rd June. Note from Sarah@MIA: The boys have left the country! They are on their way to Nairobi...
Their tally is currently ar $12,848 after their fundraising efforts last night and also thanks to those of you who have
been making donations online.
A huge thank you to everyone for their support.. not long to go until they reach their goal.
Show them your support today! Get the tally up higher before they reach Kenya...
Hopefully more blogs to come soon!
Weekend training update. 18th June.
No wind, no swell, sunny and a little chilly, in other words a beautiful day for a paddle, unless of course you break your paddle.
Trying to get into my boat I got rocked by a small, no tiny, little bump of a wave, as I have the balance of a bourbon drinking bogan with a burst ear-drum I fell in the water, putting 90kg of weight onto the blade of my paddle with my right foot and crack, broken blade. Well done Danny, 4 days before you fly to Africa to paddle 250km across a lake you stand ON your paddle. What an idiot. There goes another $300. Haha, ah well, let’s hope we don’t do that on the middle Island when we’re a long way from home.
Weekend training update. 12th June.
5 knots of wind from the South with a 2 metre swell, warm water and blue sky. All in all a beautiful day on the harbour. After an hour or so of paddling around in circles around middle head we headed once again out the heads. The weather was definitely on our side this time though with low winds and reasonabley manageable swells. That is provided you had a skirt (cover to keep water out of the cockpit type area), without a skirt you were going to take water into your boat. And thats where our mate Duggo comes in. Duggo did the 110km Hawkesbury classic with Dan and myself last year. Paddled it faster than the pair of us in his racing style kayak, but he wasn’t feeling quite so cocky out the heads without a skirt taking on water and in a tippy racing boat. When we tried to have a casual chat whilst paddling we got the sharp reply “mate, let’s talk later, I’m concentrating” and was he concentrating. The poor bloke almost went in a couple of times and was pretty happy to see Shelly Beach after a total of about 13km of Buddhist monk type concentration.
Dan decided to show us his skills in landing by getting sideways on a small wave and tipping his boat over while almost crashing into a mate of ours (Matt Bezzina) who’d come to give us an electrical charger kit. Matt is a good bloke though and didn’t seem to mind too much and still gave us the kit to keep our Sat. phone and GPS charged for the length of the trip. Cheers Matt, you’re a life saver mate.
After a quick coffee at Shelly we jumped back into the boats and started the paddle back to Middle Head. Duggo decided he’d rolled the dice enough times on the way here and let us go back without him. This was a mistake. Not for safety reasons but because of what he missed out on. As we paddled back into the heads we looked out and saw a group of whale watching boats and thought why not go see what they’re upto. As we meet up with them, a group of 3 main vessels and a couple of smaller tinnies rocking around like bobble head dolls on the choppy 2m swell, we saw the spray of what was causing all the commotion. A humpback whale. This was a massive highlight of the last two years training as its the first humpback whale we’ve been anywhere near, and we got near allright. Being in a kayak sitting in between two whale watching boats and twenty five metres from a spouting humpback is a pretty unbelieveable experience. You feel small next to one of those in a whale watching cruiser so imagine being at sea level in a 14ft plastic red bubble with only a metre long stick in your hand to ward it off if it decides to breach next to you. Luckily it didn’t breach on us but at one stage after disappearing for over a minute and us left thinking “he’s gone, dived deep and had enough of playing Paris Hilton for the Paparazzi” He flies out of the water, the full length of his body out of the water and does a surprisingly graceful looking twist midair to land on his back. He was as thick and wide as VW combi van but the length of a train carriage, in short it was spectacular. But when you’re close enough to see the barnacles doing a balancing act on his belly it’s probably time to take a step back. So step back we did, but its still right there in the memory bank and it looked a little like this...
This is a Pic taken by Matt Bezzina on another paddle, it’s not of the day we went out but Matt has had some pretty good paddles including crossing Bass Straight to Tasmania. If you want to read his blog just go to http://mattbezzina.blogspot.com for more stories and pic’s.
Weekend training update. 10th June.
Roland is back in Bali training after being stranded on Lombok Island for a week after a ferry sank on its way across. Luckily Rolo wasn't due to leave until the day after and so he's safe and well and paddling in Bali.
Weekend training update. 5th June.
After getting almost no-where on a 2 and a half hour paddle out through the heads and up to Dover heights near Bondi into 15 knot head winds Dan capsized his boat when we got back into the harbour. Luckily he didn’t capsize outside the heads as he hasn’t quite mastered rolling the red penguin back up the right way and the cliff’s around the Gap aren’t known for being the best landing spot.
Unluckily for him though, I had left and paddled back towards Manly leaving him with no-one to help him roll upright. Also unfortunately for him he capsized about 2 hundred metres from shore near the ferry lane and just to make things a little worse the shore that he was closest to happened to be Lady Jane nudist beach. But after 20minutes of side swim and drag of his capsized boat (and I-pod) Dan was never more happy to see a 50 year old Nude German bloke (still in his socks and sandals) standing there ready to give him a hand. So after a few minutes of recovery time on the beach Dan and Tangles emptied the boat of water and then Dan dragged himself and his drowned trance playing i-pod back into the water and into the 15 knot wind. The final paddle home apparently took an hour and a half, twice the normal amount, shivering all the way. While I was already home, with the tail wind behind me, having spent 20 minutes in a hot shower and headed to the pub for a beer. Good training session that one, for one of us anyway.
Nestled in between Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake and the second largest freshwater lake in the world. The lake is centered in a region known for its natural beauty, cultural diversity and amazing wildlife. Unfortunately, the region also has a long history of poverty and and humanitarian issues. Life for many is a constant struggle but charities such as the Nakuru Baby Orphanage , Hands of Help and Global Alliance Africa lend a helping hand and give hope to the communities. The Risks Boys Contacts Roland Prianto: rprianto@hotmail.com |
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Options on how you can make your donation: When making your donation make a reference to 3 for 3, Danny Blackwell, Dan Berger or Roland Prianto(** If you do not make a reference we will not know the money is for this project**) any of those words will do. This is so Sarah at Mission in Action can keep you all up to date on the funds raised. Credit Card: Direct Deposit: Cheques: MIA - Australia is registered as a project under Rotary (RAWCS) No. 34/2009-10 and we are able to issue tax reciepts for Australian Residents for donations over $2. |
Contact the Boys
Asante Sana (Thank You)
to our Sponsors!!
Savage Wilderness Safaris
www.whitewaterkenya.com
4 Pines Brewing Company | Manly
www.4pinesbeer.com.au
four ate five cafe
www.fouratefive.com
