Climbing Camp
Monday, August 22, 2011 at 09:36AM During my recent trip to East Africa, I traveled to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and to Kenya to see various parts of the country. My great friend, Grant Griebenow and myself joined forces in Nairobi, late on a Sunday with our friend, Porter Nellans, who is currently living in Kenya as a Peace Corps Volunteer. We arrived at the hotel for about one hour of packing and two hours of sleep. From there, we were picked up in the middle of the night to depart on a six hour drive to Arusha, Tanzania. Outside a small bed and breakfast, I was greeted with a welcoming handshake and an outstanding smile.
The handshake and smile belonged to a man named Baraka. Along with Phillip, Baraka would be our guide to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. These introductions marked the start of a journey that reminded me a lot about what we do at Homegrown Lacrosse. Yes, one of our main goals is to develop individuals’ lacrosse ability, but we also provide experiences. That is what this adventure was, an experience. My time with our fearless leaders and my time on the mountain seemed similar to our camps, but I also came away with ideas on how to make our camps a greater experience for the kids that we work with.
Just like our camps, from day one on the expedition, our leaders started with ground rules and started speaking to us with specific terms that we weren’t sure we knew the definition for.
