On the last night of their volunteer experience at Pathfinder Academy in Kenya, the girls they had been working with sung personal farewells and had a great candlelight dinner. The Lost Girls, sad and sniffly, surprised the girls at Pathfinder Academy with gifts.
The girls tore open the plastic and were jumping in joy over the notebooks, pens, colored pencils, crayons, candy, ponytail-holders, modeling clay, and silverware they got them. The great gift made a huge impact on the girls but the joyous expressions had a lasting impact on the Lost Girls.
Sister Freda is a native Kenyan, mother of four and registered nurse. She constructed a clinic in Kitale, Kenya to help the masses of displaced tribe members who couldn't afford the 60 cents it costs to take a bus to the hospital in the neighboring town of Kitale-let alone pay for medical care. The Village Volunteer program is closely connected with Sister Freda's Hospital and the Lost Girls have decided to go to the hospital to help. The hospital is packed with people. The Lost Girls meet a small girl, Esther, who has a mother with a mental disability. The girls become attached to this little girl but have to leave her. There are many children like Esther who don't have anyone to take care of them in Kenya. The Lost Girls try to help with the many patients that are at Sister Freda's Hospital but there are just so many people. Eventually they have to head back to the Village Volunteer center. They say good bye to the sad little Esther and head back, hoping that they can come again.
Through the program, Village Volunteers, Holly, Jen, and Amanda, start working with 14 pre-teen girls who sleep and attend school at Pathfinder Academy. The teens board at the school because it's too far away from their village and it's too dangerous for them to walk miles just to go to classes. Sadly, at least four of these girls are victims of rape or attempted sexual violence. So the principal/program director, Joshua built the Pathfinder Academy for safety. There are also three huts that house the volunteers. A funny thing about the houses there are that chickens are always strutting around laying eggs in random rooms, using people's blankets and pillows as a nest.
At the camp, the girls, Jen, Holly, and Amanda join Yale student and fellow volunteer Irene Scher in acting as teacher, counselor and friend to the women. Despite their difficult circumstances (almost every girl has lost one or both parents due to malaria, HIV or insufficient medical care), they are all excited to learn. The volunteers work with them to write and the lost girls bring a new tradition to the Pathfinder Academy, to cast and launch a play about Wangari Maathai, the first women in Africa to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her tree planting efforts throughout Kenya.
Besides the 200 or so students who attend Pathfinder Academy, there are countless other kids who live, play and go to school in this area. It’s impossible to walk 10 feet down the dirt road without encountering pockets of little kids in school uniforms. It’s a scene that repeats itself almost every time Jen, Amanda, and Holly go for a walk or head to the local village to pick up bottled water, candy and, on one occasion a jumbo sized can of bug spray.
The kids out here are cute, but the insects in Kenya are killer.
The Common Ground Program is a non government organization that helps people in poverty. The objectives of the CGP are:
"Increasing the capacity of the hungry, malnourished people to better feed themselves and their families while conserving resources"
"Provide real incentives, return pride, profit and farming profession to the farming community so as to increase production through the establishment of a food bank and crop diversification"
"To conserve the rare and endangered crop varieties"
"Development and promote strategies that improve both the short and long term fertility of the soil"
"Training of dispossessed girls in income generation, food and nutrition"
"To promote early childhood education"
The main things the organization does is:
"It works with people to use and adapt their existing technologies to help them deal with rapidly changing context of their everyday lives"
"It builds on resources the community already has. It does not impose solutions from the outside but it seeks out new uses of local materials that will improve the quality of the local way of life."
"It develops technologies, which will compliment local skills and fit easily into the local culture"
"It works closely with the community to strengthen local institutions"
"It works to widen the choice of technologies for people who lack the resources to explore what could be available to them"
"It exchanges experiences and information with other agencies, groups, and key decision-makers as widely as possible"
"It uses participatory methodologies. People must take the initiative. They must do it themselves, or development is not sustainable"
"It brings expertise from different programs together to focus on the needs of the community"
"It aims to be sensitive to gender issues in all its projects. Although women make up half of the population, they are still marginalized in many ways."
"It explores the potential for income generation in many of its projects. People everywhere need to earn a living"
"It is aware of the need to protect the environment so that the resources available to this generation are on the hand to support the next."
"CGP plays that role to this day, reaching out to people who are struggling each day in poor communities to survive and improve their lives. We seek a nation where everyone sleeps in safety and awakens with hope."
The Common Ground Program is a wonderful program with different ways to help people. You can do this anywhere, from your home or all the way in Kenya. But every dollar helps many people.
The three lost girls, Jennifer, Holly, and Amanda have arrived at Kenya. They love the people there. They say in their book that then kids are welcoming and very excitable. They squeal at looking at a picture of themselves (which is a first for some of them.) They buy from tin shacks that sells a variety of goods; from bicycle tires to ice-cream cones. The three friends go from sleeping in a nice air conditioned hotel room to a small shack with mosquito nets, a small mattress, and a blanket. They do their business in a whole in the ground and shower with buckets of water. It will take a while to get used to their new environment but during their stay they realize they should be grateful for what they have. They love it in Kenya with people yelling karibu, which means welcome and the colorful clothes the people wear there. The finally decide to volunteer in a month long program Common Ground Program.
The three Lost Girls reminisce while packing their bags. They have heavy hearts as they remember the people they met, and the new cultures they discovered. They remember the colorfulness of the towns and markets in South America were. They lastly remember the great times they had together. As they get their last glimpse of South America they get nervous and excited about their next leg of their great journey, Kenya.
In Brazil the currency is called "real." It is subdivided into 100 centavos ("hundredths.") In Portuguese the word real means both "royal" and "real." Coins are in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 centavos and 1 real. The one and five centavo are both in copper. The ten and twenty-five centavos are in brass-plated stainless steel. The fifty centavos coins are in cupronickel or copper-nickel and one real coin is bi-coloured brass and cupronickel coin. The banknotes come in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100 reais.
The Lost Girls travel to Salvador, Brazil. On their first day they are amazed by a group performing capoeira, a cross between martial arts and dancing. Holly meets a group of Portuguese friends and hang out with them though they don't even speak the same language. She watches the sunset with them and take a plunge into the bay of All Saints. The next day the three girls lounge at a table on one of the streets branching off Largo do Pelourinho and try vatapa, a yellow stew made with shrimp. The girls go to a futebol game. The game is loud, crowded, and crazy, with screaming people, stomping their feet and clapping thier hands. The girls end that day with dancing the samba with locals and having a great time.
Jennifer, Holly, and Amanda set out again to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Their days at Rio are very relaxing. They have afternoon jogs on Ipanema Beach and drinking acai berry smoothies. They go to Feira Hippie de Ipanema outdoor market. The market has colorful jewelry and clothes. They also stroll down the streets and listen to bossa nova sidewalk band, browse art galleries, and samle bolinhos de chuva (doughnut balls) and sugared popcorn from vendors. They take pictures of the Christ the Redeemer statue on the peak of Corcovado Mountain and take a gondola up the famous Sugarloaf Mountail. Their last night in Rio they have a great time at a party and finally pack up their stuff for their next great adventure.
The Lost Girls have set out on their next great adventure, a five day journey through the Amazon Jungle. They first ride on a triple-decker boat, Amazon Queen, and look for the rumored piranhas in the water. The Lost Girls start their second day by going through the Canopy Walkway, one of the longest treetop pathways in the world. The narrow wooden boards were suspended more than a hundred feet in the air. the third day the guide, Cliver took them to meat a group of Yagua Indians. The Yagua Indians are best known for their expertise at blowgun hunting and the Lost Girls were going to watch and be taught to shoot tiny darts thirty feet and hit a small target. The Yagua rely solely from rain forest plants for theirwardrobes and create fabrics from the fibers of the aguaje palm and red dye (achiote) from the fruit of the Bixa orellana tree. The darts they used were small sticks with cottony fabric on the other end, when they hunt they dip the darts in curare, a fast-acting natural poison that paralyzes their prey. By the end of the day the girls learn how to shoot the blow-gun and at least hit the post it was on. The Yagua village also sell things because it keeps the locals from cutting down the rain forest for farmland or lumber. The final day the girls go to Monkey Island, home to eight different species of monkeys that are cared for and protected by a wildlife preservation project. By the end of the day they come back to their hostel with new bags of trinkets and knew knowledge. They practically collapse on their beds and contemplate about their great trip to the Amazon Jungle.
We follow the Lost Girls again as they decide to hike the 26 mile, 4 day hike along the Inca Trail. With a large pack, large group, and porters that carry about sixty pounds of tents and supplies for the group, they finally start their journey. 1st Day
The Lost Girls start their journey and go across the Urubumba river that runs through the Sacred Valley of the Incas. On their way they see piles of coca leaves and corn along the sacred path. Why? This is pago, or offerings to Mother Earth and this is supposed to help keep balance with the spirits, nature, neighbors, and yourself. After a long hike and strenuous hike (though the guide, Ruben, says it's an easy day)the group finally gets to their first stop, Wayllabamba, which means "grassy plain." This small village is like farm and has many people selling interesting foods at booths, from snickers to Chicha which is a potent corn-brewed alcohol, fermented with saliva. Finally, the Lost Girls settle for the night snuggled near each other, bundled in warm clothes.
Day 2
The Lost Girls are beginning the next leg of their journey. They are hiking for eight hours, to the highest point of 14000 feet to Warmiwanusca, "Dead Woman's Pass."
Day 3
Today the three Lost Girls and their friends hike 5000 feet below Dead Woman's Pass. They have a tipping ceremony which is when they tip the porters. And the Lost Girls are touched to see the happiness of each porter as they get something as simple as unwashed clothing or antibiotic ointment. They make camp again and get some rest to finish their long journey
Day 4
The last leg of the journey, Machu Pichu. Machu Pichu is framed by a sun gate, or Intipunku. The Incas were great architects and on two days of the year the sun was perfectly aligned to flood the gate's opening with a solid beam of light. The Lost girls have finally finished their long journey and take a last glance at the amazing architecture of Machu Pichu.
Luckily, the lost girl's trip coincided with the Inti Raymi. Inti Raymi is an age-old festival that paid tribute to the sun god. "The Festival of the Sun" was a religous ceremony that honored the Incan Empire god, Inti. The religious ceremony is not practiced anymore but is only theatrically represented. When the Lost girls came to watch the ceremony the main part was in Plaza de Armas, where an array of dance performances, colorful demonstrations, fireworks, and live music was played. The ceremony lasted late into the night and they had a lot of fun eating and watching reenactment of the beautiful ceremony of Inti Raymi.
South America has a variety of currencies in the different countries. In Peru their currency is the Peruvian nuevo sol. It is subdivided into 100 centimos. There are eight different coins. There are 1, 5, 10, 20, and 50 centimos and 1, 2, and 5 nuevo sol coins. All the coins have the coat of arms of peru surrounded by the text Banco Central de Reserva del Perú (Central Reserve Bank of Peru.) The other side of the coin has how much the coin is worth. There are also 5 different banknotes. There are 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 banknotes. All banknotes are the same size and have the face of a significant person in the history of Peru. The nuevo sol is equal to about thirty-six cents in the United States.
The lost girls, Jenneifer Baggett, Holly Corbett, and Amanda Pressner, have finally started their journey around the world. They have quit their job and have started on their long trek around the world. Their first stop Cusco, Peru in South America. They have stopped at a hostel and have decided to explore.
After putting their baggage down they decide to head to a local cafe. While walking there they are overwhelmed by the many street vendors and finally get to the cafe. They say in their book, The Lost Girls, that they have never new that food for twelve soles (or $4) could be so good. They feasted on thick vegetable soup, pollo a la plancha (grilled chicken) with rice and French fries, and frutas tropicales. While eating they also sip from a warm mug of mate de coca,local tea brewed with coca leaves and boiling water. They relax and get in the right mind to have a great time on their year and a half long trip.
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