Superman Digital Movement

Every man dies, but not every man truly lives.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The Djembe

I love music. Sometimes I wish I was more musical, but all I can do is hit things and make rhythm. haha! Well it's fun anyway.The first type of drum I played was a whole drum set. It was pretty fun, and I learned the basics, but it just wasn't coming naturally to me. I'm not saying I gave that up, because I still have the set and do want to practice more, but it wasn't flowing. I dunno if that has to do with the way I was taught or not. But when we bought a djembe from Jesse Borden, I found an instrument that I wanted to practice for fun not because I had to. Jesse taught me the basics and I just went from there. And I never though of playing it as a task but as fun. That's how I like to learn things, naturally. It makes you feel like you had it in you and you were meant to do it. In other words, it's a God-given gift.

So, anyway, I have gotten much much better with out even realizing the drastic change in my play. Now it is sooooooo much a part of me. I play twice every Sunday, once for church and once for a worship meeting. I also play, anytime in the week when asked to or if I just want to. I've found that I've become so used to playing it for worship that it is harder to enter worship without it. Everyone one loves to hear me play and they say it adds a lot to the music, but I don't think anyone loves to hear it as much as I love to play it!

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Engedi




Some people reading my blogs, might wonder about where I live, more specifically than in Arusha, Tanzania. Sometimes i might mention "on the campus" or something like that. Well, this campus that we live on is called the Joshua Foundation or Engedi (after the oasis in the Bible called Engedi). It is a christian leadership training college, and a christian teacher's college for Tanzanians. Although we are officially seperate from the Joshua Foundation, we are closely linked to them spiritually. My dad sometimes teaches at the college and stuff, so we're not iscolated from them. Engedi has been a perfect, God provided, place to land on in Arusha because it has a safe environment, spiritualy and physically, and a great community of people. Engedi has people from New Zealand, Australia, England, American, and Tanzanian; that's not counting the students themselves who are all Tanzanians, but the residents and staff of Engedi.

The campus itself is very beautiful. The founders, Alan and Lynda Stephenson have worked hard for a number of years to make Engedi a colorfull, flowery, and lush place. There is also a river at the bottom of the campus. This river is nice, but, sadly, since it runs through town before it reaches us, it is full of garbage that has been thrown in it. That brings me to another point: Engedi is not actually in Arusha town. We are on the outskirts. It is about 20 minutes from our house to real Arusha town. But we are still in a place that has decent shops preaty near by. So it's not everyday that us kids go into town, though my parents go almost every day.

Engedi has truly been a God given gift to our family. It's an amazing miracle that we are even on the campus when we aren't really part of there same ministry, but that's another story. God has been working so much in our new journey in Tanzania and it's so exciting to look back at what he's done, and to look ahead at what he is doing. Engedi is so much a part of this journey. It is an oasis to come home to after a long day visiting the poor in Arusha.

The Waterfalls





Don't you hate being miserably hot with nothing to do about it?! Here in Africa it's probably more of a reality than a lot of other places like the States. The Lake Natron area is on of the hottest most desolate areas I know of. But in this area, you're not without ways to cool off. There is a river called Ngare Sero that comes flowing out through a canyon in the rift valley wall. This beautiful crystal-clear river is natures perfect refreshment for a place like this.

Despite how wonderful it is to find that lovely river to plop your feet into, it gets much better. With a fairly easy thirty to forty-five minute walk up that river, you come to two astounding waterfalls, one a few minutes farther than the first. I mentioned these waterfalls in the last blog about Oldonyo LeNgai. These waterfalls are the perfect solution to restoring and refreshing your mind and reviving your body from the shriveled up and dehydrated feeling it gets from the heat.

Now, the waterfall does not come from the river itself. It trickles into the river from a spring. It comes down a bank, covered in moss and topped with lush palm trees, and gently trickles, from a number of places, into the river. When I say gently trickles, I mean that that's the look it has and the impression it gives. It really is fairly powerful and it stings you to stand under it.

The second waterfall, in my opinion, is much better than the first. The first one only wets your appetite. It has a deeper pool to swim in (though still shallow), more falls, and another waterfall that IS made by the river itself. I love this one because, even though it's smaller. It's a lot more powerful. So you can push yourself towards it as far as possible (not very far) and then let it push you away down the river.
So if you're ever in that area and you're sweating buckets in the shade, check out the waterfalls!

Sometime I would also like to hike to the source of the spring that creates the waterfalls. I know some people who have done it and they all say that it's way better than the waterfalls.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

The Mountain of God















Since I just started this blog thing but there are a lot of cool things that I've done a while ago, I want to share some stuff that I might not have done so recently. This blog is about climbing the mountain called Oldonyo LeNgai.

Oldonyo LeNgai (Massai for Mountain of God) is an amazing mountain. First of all it is an active and very live volcano. Its lava is geologically unique to its kind. It has a mud-like look to it. That has something to do with what the lava is primarily made up of, but I can't fill you in on all those details. All I know is that this volcano is so completely unique and awesome. I've never seen anything like it. Furthermore, LeNgai is very steep. It is practically a forty-five degree angle climb almost the whole way. What amazed me is that this was a mountain you could fall off of!

We (me, my brother, two friends, Dave Doland, who was taking us on the trip) started our climb at around midnight. It is really nice to do a night-climb up this mountain because, if you are fast enough, you can make it to the top before the sun rises, and watch a spectacular sunrise. Also, you get to stop turn off you lights and gaze at the wonderful night sky. Now, the night sky in a place where there are no city lights for miles around is something totally different then seeing a couple tiny stars from the city. The black blanket of the heavens just abounds with trillions of stars, with different colors, sizes, and brightness. With the occasional shooting star, the still sky somehow seems to be teeming with life.

With a little while to go still, we realized that we probably weren't going to make it at the pace we were moving at. So we told the Dave that we would like to go ahead. So we did. Practically running up the last, steepest, hardest part was an adventure in itself. However we did make it to the top before sunrise.

Nothing could have prepared me for the crater on the top. I could have sworn I was on another planet. With crusty lava at your feet, smoke swirling around your ankles from vents in the ground, and pinnacles of lava from previous eruptions, this place didn't look of this world! The sunrise was another breathtaking spectacle to our already speechless selves. Jeremy, our friend who had been up there five times, said that he had never seen it so clear. In the early suns rays, we could see Kilimanjaro, Meru, and a number of other mountains. I remember that the suddenness of all these awesome sights was hard to take in. I felt over saturated. It was weird. With every step, we wanted to take another picture or video just because the next part the crater kept revealing itself to be better than the last. It was truly AWEsome. So we walked around the crater, seeing different views at every point until we got to the highest point, up on the rim. The view, by the way, is something else. First of all, the steepness of LeNgai gives you the feeling that you can actually look DOWN to your sides to see the land below. It's like you're standing on a needlepoint. Secondly, the land that you are looking at isn't quite of this world either. Lake Natron, teaming with flamingoes; the rift valley wall; the simply desolate, wild land; and more mountains all around creates a breathtaking atmosphere.

So after going around the crater and marveling at its features, we ate lunch we headed back down the mountain. This part was by far the hardest part of the whole trip. At an angle like that of LeNgai, walking down the mountain is not an option. You jog or you tumble. And with shoes that were already hurting my toes, I couldn't stand the pounding against the end of the shoes that the steep jog had created. In fact, me and my friend James periodically walked backwards to give our toes a break. It was insane! I was soooooo happy to find the car loaded with sodas at the bottom. So we piled up and headed back to camp to sleep for a couple of hours. In that area, you go to sleep on a bed but wake up floating in a pool of sweat. Its sooooo hot! Well that concludes the LenGai climb. We did, the next day, go to a cool waterfall. This waterfall is very amazing but I'll get into that in another blog.

The Little Stars



This is a team here in Arusha called Nyota Ndogo, which Skyler is playing on. Nyota Ndogo means little stars, and I don't know why they call themselves that, they're not so small and they're really good. For their age, they're one of the best, if not the best, in Arusha. The picture of them in the jerseys is at a tournament in Arusha. Wild Hope International is like sponsoring this team so we got those jerseys from some guys that donated from America, bought the team cleats and stuff like that. They're really cool guys and really fun to hang out with. The coolest part is how the language barrier is getting smaller and smaller, especially for Skyler since he spends more time with them.

Anyway, My family has been telling me that I should go with Skyler to play with them. I wasn't big enough when I came, but I've done some growing. So yesterday I finally went to the practice. It was great, as I knew it would be. It was weird; I just didn't want to go even though I knew it would be fun. It was a lot easier to say I had bunch of homework and stay home. But I decided to go for it and I'm glad I did. I felt really good about the way I played. So hopefully I'll play with them on a regular basis now.

The Snake Park






Yesterday we went with another family to the snake park right outside of Arusha. I've been there a couple times. It's really cool. They have all kinds of snakes and they also have some birds, crocodiles (adults and babies), and a monitor lizard. My favorite snake was the black mamba. The black mamba is on of the most poisonous, most aggressive, and fastest snakes in the world. You could tell how active it was because instead of lying all curled up in a corner, like the other snakes, the black mamba was going back and forth along the glass. I even got to see the jet black inside of his mouth when he opened it, the trait from which the snake gets its name.

We also got to see the monitor lizard get fed a bunch of eggs. He wasn't a very careful, or clean eater. He had bad eyesight, so it took him awhile to find and egg. Then, once he had found it, he bobbled it into the right position in his mouth, cracked it, and then swallowed it. The funny thing is that most of the time the inside of the egg would plop out the side of the eggs when he cracked it and he would basically just swallow the egg shell. He was also inconsistent on whether or not he swallowed the egg and the shell or just got the insides out.

The crocodiles were also really cool. They look so docile and lazy. But I know that they can move rapidly when they want. At one point, when Skyler and me were watching them, they all became alert and were looking at us. A couple that were on the other side of the cage melted into the water and then their heads popped up on our side of the cage. We think that maybe they mistook Sky and me as some of the staff coming to feed them.

One of the most fun parts of that day was riding the camel. There is a guy right outside the Snake Park who has two camels that you can ride if you pay. Camels are very interesting things to ride. They are the ugliest, grossest, weirdest animals alive. When the camel is getting up and you're on him, he goes up on hind legs first so are hanging forward, almost vertically, clutching tightly onto the handlebars on the seat. Then he comes up on his front legs and your ready to ride. The ride is nice. There is a lot of sway in the walk. When you come back, you have to go through the same vertical hang on the way down. Riding a camel is an experience I highly recommend.

(I know I'm not in the pictures but I really DID ride the camels.)

Monday, October 23, 2006

My Birthday


So, I turned 14 on October 7th. It was a good birthday. Nice and simple but fun. We ate at this really nice Indian restaurant, ate a bunch of food, and then went to a swimming pool. I celebrated it with a friend named James whose birthday was also in October, his family, my family, and a couple other friends. I also had another celebration with the whole team on our campus called Engedi. From my parents I got two shirts. One was a BigDog shirt and one was a Tusker shirt. I've always wanted a Tusker shirt! Tusker is an African beer. I also got some bracelets from a market in town. So yah, it was a good birthday.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Snow Bubbles


This is our cat Snow or Bubbles or SnowBubbles. She is the coolest cat! I didn't thinks we would ever have a cat, but this cat is so awesome. She's not afraid of anything. She's about 4 inches off the ground and she chases dogs and attacks people when they're not ready. The problem is that you can't discipline her because if you do she gets super mad and attacks you. HAHA!
Well the other day we finally found a mouse that we knew we had and had been looking for. So after somebody had bashed the mouse and it was still squirming a bit, we brought Snow in and she took care of business. She ate the whole thing in like and hour, and it was almost half as big as she was! Anyway, we were really excited because that really helped her get used to catching mice. Also the next morning she caught 2 huge crickets and ate them both. I love SnowBubbles!

Tanzi



This is my dog Tanzi (short for Tanzania). I've always wanted a German shepherd and when we came here there was a litter of puppies, of which we took one. She's kind of timid but she's still a German shepherd. They're always active and chasing things. I trained her how to sit, stay, and heel. Sadly, just the other day she killed a chicken, something we thought we had taught her not to do. I think we're going to have to put some hot sauce on a dead chicken so that she wont like it. I don’t know. But we'll do something.

BigFoot

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Rain


So, it started to rain. I forgot we are coming into a short rainy season and I thought we were entering the dry season, which I love. So we can't jump on the trampoline very much now. And everything’s muddy and cold, so we have to wear our big boots everywhere. But it's also really fun, cuz we get to hang out inside, drinking hot cocoa, and listen to the rain on the roof. It's also very nice to have power. While I'm writing this post I'm listening to the rained drip of the roof outside.
Rain in Africa is totally different than rain anywhere I've been. When it rains it pours. The pounding on the roof while you're dry inside is sooooooooooo cozy! Also, you can smell rain coming here in Africa. There is a sweet fragrance of the coming wash of water. I love that smell because I grew up with it and it reminds me of the awesome wonder of Africa. So these rains are kind of annoying but on the other hand they're awesome!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

The Spike-Heeled Lark




The other day our family, besides mom, went out on some plains about an hour from our house to look for a specific bird that had just been declared it's own species. On becoming its own species, this bird became one of the rarest birds of the world. It is said that there are only about 50 of them! Thanks to God, we ended up seeing three of these rare birds near the beginning of our adventure. It is an amazing bird. Its camouflage blows me away. We have some pictures that reveal this camouflage. If I can figure out how to post pictures on my blogs you can have a look at those pictures.
Since we found the bird so fast, we got to have a little fun. We went cruising across the plains looking for some animals. Surprisingly we say a ton of jackals, 5! We also got to chase some giraffes. The speed that they can reach with their awkward run always amazes me! We chased and Ostrich too. It was a great adventure. It's always great to get out of the city and enjoy some of Africa’s wild life.

Flips

There is this visitor visiting our campus from New Zealand called Josh, who is doing electricity work around the campus we live on. He's really a cool guy. He's 22 and is in to a bunch of really cool stuff. One of the things he loves to do flips on the trampoline. Now, I know that a bunch of people can do flips on a trampoline, but he does them so sweetly! Haha! He does front flips, back flips, mistys, and all these other things like 360 back flips. It's amazing, and it's something I want to learn. I just started working on my front flip, and it's easy now. But I can't get my body to do a back flip. I'm still working on it, and Josh is showing me how to do it. Man, he makes it look sooooooo easy! Like he does four graceful back flips in a row. And the way he does them, slow and stretched out, it looks fun and peaceful, like he's relaxedly flying. And he says it feels that way too. I want to learn so bad! Skyler is learning all these things too. Josh can also do that thing where you run up a tree or a wall and do a flip. Wow!
What I've learned is how flips aren't as dangerous as some people make them sound. I mean on a trampoline. Like there is one dangerous point on a flip to land on (your head) and it’s really hard to do that. And even if you do land on your neck or head, you probably wont get really heart. Like today, while I was trying to learn the back flip, I hesitated too much, and landed like on my neck/head and was still fine. I just kind of rolled over (I hope mom doesn't read this). So ya, I'm still learning my flips, but its fun. I want to get into cool things like that more. I don't know why, but I've always kind of neglected cool thing like bow hunting, surfing, and other stuff that my family was kind of into and I wish I didn't. So I want to learn stuff like that while I'm still young. Someone once told me that you have to learn everything you want to know by the age of like 20 because at that age you just can't learn any more cool things. So no more neglecting cool hobbies!

Piki-Pikis



Wow! Man, piki pikis (motorcycles) are awesome! I've always wanted to learn how to ride one, and I new it would be fun, but I had know idea how fun it could and would be. My first experience on riding a kind of motorcycle was in Oregon on a little four-wheeler. Well basically what happened...I hit a mailbox! I couldn't believe it! My first time driving a motorcycle and it ended by me hitting a mailbox, after everyone told me, "Oh, its easy! You'll do fine." The crash (if that's what you would call it) also broke something, I don't remember what, on the bike. Anyway, this first experience didn't really encourage me. I wondered if riding pikis would just be another thing that I decided wasn't my thing. But my desire to ride pikis didn't go away. This move to Tanzania re-umphed it. But after several months of waiting for the right bike to buy, that desire started becoming more of a dream that kept eluding me. However, when we finally got the bike, it was worth every second of the wait. And I had no unusual awkwardness on the bike. In fact, I learned very fast. I've only been out riding it about a dozen times, over a couple of months, and I'm already learning how to jump! I know, I shocked me too, but I can't be half way about it. The most dangerous thing is to be hesitant. If you're hesitant and don't give it enough gas, you'll land on the front wheel; not very comfortable, and not very good for the bike. So I'm still practicing and getting better, but I think I get the basic idea.
My point is, I've become addicted to this gift of a motorcycle God has given me and my brother, and I can't wait to learn more on about it, and also how to do more on it.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Me


Hey!
My name is Chase Russell. For anyone who doesn't know me, I live in Arusha, Tanzania (Africa). I'm 14 and our family is part of a mission called Wild Hope International. I’m new to this blog thing, but I think I like it. Now that I’ve created it, all I have to do is tell people about it. Haha!