Wilson mystery resolved, revealed

It's time to come clean about Wilson. Yes, all you faithful readers know that a search at his last known location -- the top of Mount Adams, Washington, revealed that he was no longer tethered to  the building constructed than a lifetime ago by a mining company. So, where was the unbreakable ball that had inspired so many to bring the power of play to children everywhere?

Well, the naked truth is that someone snatched Wilson, and that futbolknapping took place only days after Wilson was planted atop the mountain on July 4, 2015, by Julia Davis, a prosecuting attorney with Yakima County, Washington, who climbed Mount Adams with Chad Janis, a detective with the Yakima Police Department.

Do you know this man?

An unidentified member of the team that plucked Wilson from atop Mount Adams.

Wilson enjoyed less than four weeks overlooking the mountains and valleys surrounding Mount Adams before a group of hikers plucked The Unbreakable from its perch on July 29, 2018. We have attempted to track the individuals involved, but the photo of the hiker, above, is the closest we can come to be able to identify the persons who, we hope, ended Wilson's isolation and brought it back into the company of children of all ages.

And how did we discover this? Because my hiking trainer, Roger Matthews, scoured the internet and came across videos that hikers had recorded when they successfully climbed Adams after our abortive ascent. And here are some images from those videos.

Video reveals hiker beholding Wilson atop Mount Adams.

THE SMOKING GUN: Proof that Wilson was stripped of its tether and removed from its perch.

This presented a problem for Roger and me. Readers loved Wilson, just like kids love Santa Claus. When was it going to be the appropriate time to spill the beans that Wilson has been packed off? And did you really want to know that? And how do we know that the e-mails we were directing to Wilson at the summit of Mount Adams weren't somehow forwarded, or that Wilson was receiving them anyway through The Unbreakable's almost magical powers? And didn't Wilson's spirit live on regardless of where Wilson is?

As the cold truth sank in -- that Wilson wasn't atop Adams, we realized there is a broader message here, and this is best exemplified by the photo below, taken at the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Lilongwe barely two weeks ago. Dzaleka has between 30,000 and 40,000 refugees from several African nations, and that means lots of kids. I had Jean Baptiste hanging from my backpack when I spotted a number of those children kicking around a ball made of plastic bags, just as we were told they did.

Art of the deal: Jean Baptiste swapped for a plastic bag ball at Dzaleka refugee camp.

So now you know what became of my little backpacking hiking friend, Jean Baptiste, as well. -- I practiced the Art of the Deal, and traded off my little friend for that rag ball pictured above, which I brought home, by the way. None of those kids argued with me. They wanted Jean Baptiste. The last time I saw the tiniest One World Futbol I ever packed, a passel of kids were having a great time chasing after it across hard-packed ground at the camp.

Does Wilson still "exist?"

So this confronts us with a nagging question: Does Wilson exist any more?

You'll have to ask the New York Sun. . .

Just as, 120 years ago, the New York Sun told a little girl that "Yes Virginia. There is a Santa Claus", I'm here to tell you that yes, Readers, there is a Wilson. In the words of the New York Sun, 

. . . He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Wilsons... There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Wilson! You might as well not believe in the man who saw images of children chasing rags for their entertainment and thinking there must be a better way! You might as well not believe in a famous vocalist whose inner voice called him to provide the funds to create the prototype that would lead to more than 2 million Wilsons finding their way around the world to 60 million children of all ages. 

You may as well not believe in the donors who paid for all those Wilsons, not because they were asked, but because they wanted others to discover the power of play. You may have friends who cannot see the love that this ball represents, but  even if they do not see it, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.  Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, readers, in all this world there is nothing else more real and abiding.

No Wilson? Wilson lives. He lives in the sound of  a thousand children smiling and the tromp of their feet as they race across hard-packed earth, lost in play, building friendships, and forgetting for the moment the stress of poverty and displacement . . .

OK, so maybe that adaptation is not as well crafted as the original editorial. But it's just as true. The Spirit of Wilson lives in all of us.

There's lots more to tell about what happened in Lilongwe, and there's a tale coming up about developments for Cambodia. Please stay tuned. And I'm not asking for more donations. But if you want to, the link to my donations page is in the top right margin of this page, and I've almost depleted my stock of Wilsons.

Love,
Robert

and Shu

Ras, me and Shu vs the trash

One of the last things I expected to be doing when I returned to Lilongwe was picking up the trash on a 300-meter stretch on Youth Drive just above the Lilongwe River. However, Ras Maziko Dunken exudes an enthusiasm that won me over, so here we were, Shu and me, stuffing garbage bags with broken glass, flattened plastic bottles, scraps of decomposing plastic bags and all manner of other items while the locals walked by pushing their bicycles or carrying massive loads on their heads and wondering what that mzungu (the white guy) in the big hat was doing. But how could I say no to a Rastafarian?

The neighborhood

I met Ras on my first walkabout from the Klaus Guest House, where I took up lodging after abandoning the safari. Now you have to understand that the Klaus Guest House is not the Grand Budapest Hotel, although you meet some very interesting characters there -- and I'll be telling you about them. The nameless dirt road off of Youth Drive that Duncan, my driver, navigated to find The Klaus is anything but flat and smooth.

The view of the Klaus Guest House compound from the gated driveway

The back courtyard at The Klaus

The Klaus is situated in a pretty scrappy neighborhood (you'll see photos later), which is why I love the place. This was the right place to be. The people living outside the locked wall-gate that only allows a view if you peek between the massive driveway doors confront their poverty with determination, and the beautiful children display a mouth full of smiling white teeth as they run up to say hello and I struggle to remember how to say "muli bwanji!" It was Ras that taught me that phrase.

These boys were too excited and happy to talk to the tall mzungu with the great big hat (Micah).

A 3-month old peers at me 

as her mother sits next to me

on a cement bench at the 

entrance of The Klaus

Finding my way

During my first few days at The Klaus I was trying to get my bearings. My room locked with a skeleton key which I used even when I went to the common bathroom, because I didn't know the other roomers. I had already lost my beloved Flip camcorder on my taxi drive back to Lilongwe from Zambia, and I didn't want to lose my computer or cash or passport as well. But over time I've learned that you don't have to worry a lot about the other guests. These two Nigerian men in the photo below, for example. You'll notice that one of them is wearing my Madison Street Marathon shirt, the one I wore when I was performing my publicity stunt a couple years ago to raise awareness of the One World Futbol.

Soccer player Osborn models my Madison Street Marathon shirt next to his compatriot, Oladimeji.

The shirt was one of the garments I had brought along after the African Hat Dance at First Class Ballroom in Everett WA to gather clothing to bring to this impoverished nation. It seemed right to give the shirt to a soccer player, who had never seen a One World Futbol. It was a great opportunity to get back into the practice of proselytizing. I got to talking to these guys (English is prevalent in Africa) while they were washing their duds in a plastic basin in The Klaus' courtyard. Those are their shoes in the photo below, drying on the tin roof of one of the buildings on the site.

Meanwhile, their just-washed shoes dry on a roof under the sun of a warm winter Lilongwian day.

That was just the first of the interesting guests I would meet at The Klause, but after a day or so I wanted to venture out on foot and see whether I could navigate the town alone. So I began my walkabout.

Ras Maziko Dunken

The Road Without A Name took me as far as Youth Drive, which I crossed and then paused to look at a square tent with a row of some tall vessels on display in front, and some plants. It was there that Ras snagged me.

Have some sweet potatoes, my friend!

Now Ras is a character, no doubts about that. He is a Rastafarian, with all the dreads that come with the territory, gathered up and behind his head in a loose knit Rasta cap. He also has a row of the whitest teeth in the Eastern Hemisphere, and they are always smiling and never holding still, because Ras is a hustler, and he was engaging me. For four hours he engaged me.

Ras painting pottery. On left, Edvard Jackson; center, William Mapulango. Bottom: the meal.

He talked me into sitting on a rock in his cramped tent, eating sweet potatoes and  later a mixed plate of beans, maize and greens, including pumpkin leaves. (You didn't know that pumpkin leaves can be delicious, did you? They actually are. Here's how to prepare them ) So, after the men in the tent rinsed their hands in a common water bowl, we ate the food as I calculated the odds of needing my diarrhea meds later on. (I didn't.)

I listened to Ras talk about any number of subjects, including brotherhood (he wants all people to live in peace together) to Trump (he thinks he's a good leader because he's strong, and that the corruption in Malawi's government could be cured with a benign dictator). But the passion that eventually led to my taking up arms with him against the trash was his vision for what he was doing along Youth Drive.

Ras is a former farmer turned nurseryman, and he shared with me the papers showing that the city's grant for his use of land beside the highway included the provision that he clean up the trash.  So now we literally were taking trash.

An example of the many piles of trash along Youth Drive

Now stay with me, because this story is going someplace. There's a future here, and if it turns out as hoped, it will be something I can tell my grandchildren about, if my son would only produce some for me. (Are you reading this, kiddo?)

A brief glimpse of poverty

A tree brutalized by poverty.

A woman makes gravel

Ras has dreams. He wants to beautify the area where he's set up shop. He wants the people to stop chopping down public trees and chopping down the limbs of those trees for firewood. And that's an important notion, because Malawi is being denuded of its forests because people need firewood.

What is a minor chill for me at this point of their winter is quite uncomfortable for them, and firewood is the source of cooking fuel for many as well as for heating. And if you want a quick image of how desperately poor these people are, take a look at the photo at the left. That woman is making gravel with a sledge hammer. That's her job, and she's proud to have it. She sauntered past us with her sledge hammer resting atop her head at a jaunty angle like a baseball cap turned sideways.

And she let me take her photo for 1,000 kwacha. That's about $1.40. Five co-workers gathered around to watch, and out of guilt I gave each a MK200 note -- so about 48 cents each. And they were glad to get it.

Ras' nursery. He has cleared the brush and debris and shaped the land by hand.

Ras would like to see the land behind his business turned into organic farming so that people are eating healthy food and making better use of the land. He took me on a brief walking tour that included a peek at the place along a path where people had dug up sand to use in mortar. He told me he had dug one man out of a cave-in, possibly saving his life.

Ras shows that, when people need sand for cement, they may mine it at great personal risk.

The photo below shows how the railing of the bridge over the Lilongwe River has been patched, Thieves cut off the railing, probably to use for axles, and the city welded a new railing over the remnant left against the post. Ras believes the presence of his business will discourage this kind of theft.

A new railing, welded against this post, replaces the one taken by thieves, possibly to use for axles.

Drainage canal; Lilongwe River

At right, you can see where Ras has to continue his cleanup of a drainage canal and, the Lilongwe River, from which he hopes to pump water  for his nursery. He needs capital for a pump, and bank loans come with a 10 percent interest rate-- expensive for a start-up business operator with a tent for collateral.


But Ras' enthusiasm is infectious, and so, for reasons I will explain later, I promised him a day of my time to help clean up the mess. It was a great opportunity to give Shu a field test, and Shu, The Shoe That Grows, is what I wore when I walked out into the tall grass, trash and brambles. Shu provided a surprising degree of protection and comfort, but by the end of the day, with dirt stuck between foot and sandal, I was glad to give my feet a break.

My cleanup footwear -- Shu

I had showed up with two pair of work gloves--who knows what you're going to find when you start rooting around? I could only use one pair at a time, so the other pair was divided between Ras and William. Both had blistered hands from working the problem the day earlier, and they were grateful for the gloves.



I coughed up a couple thousand kwacha for Matthew, a passer-by who is building a home nearby, to bicycle to a nearby shop for garbage bags. He returned with the bags and no change. I apparently had given him precisely the correct amount for his services and the bags. Right.

William's blistered hands were grateful for the bright red gloves.

Ras generated a cloud of dust and debris with a tool that was a blend of machete and scythe. 

At day's end, the tall grass is beat down and the trash is bagged.

Ras is a player in a serendipitous outcome that I'm going to share with you in a few days, but now it's time to sign off. Sorry but I have to go back to my old end-of-posting graphic. Micah, Jean Baptiste and Carlita are no longer traveling with me. Yes, three of my companions are gone -- at least two of them to a better place. I'll tell you more about that in a few days, but tomorrow I begin the long Odessey home, and I'm heading for bed.

Goodnight,

Love,
Robert

And Shu

A sign bordering All Race Nursery

Safari interruptus

On a sandbar at Croc Valley Camp, elephant tracks lead to the bank on the far side.
It was there where a tourist recently erred in getting within six feet of the water.
Properly motivated, crocs can move quickly.

All right, I get it. At least some of you are wondering why this blog hasn't been updated since I sent my first dispatch from Lilongwe on June 28. What happened with distributing the One World Futbols? What's going on with the shoes? Are you going to share the story of Nicole, the Chinese volunteer who was undocumented as a child because she was supposed to be aborted? And why no safari photos?

There is an explanation. Two, really.

Currently, the radio silence has been due to the ungodly slow and unreliable Internet service I'm experiencing in my current digs. In my first residence here in Lilongwe, the service allowed me to blog rather effortlessly. But at this time, in the wee hours of July 12, I couldn't even make a donation to my The Shoe That Grows fund page because of the loading speed.

(The donation, by the way, was based on a purchase from Walter Mugove Nyika, a fascinating gentleman I met at Klaus Guest House, where I'm staying. I'll be telling you more about him later.

Walter wanted to purchase a pair of these shoes for his daughter so I pocketed the 11,000 Kwacha that he paid for them and attempted the online deposit in vain. I'll just have to trust my honesty that I will put the money in my account when I get home, or whatever.)

Croc Valley Camp

The first night of the Safari took place at Croc Valley Camp in Zambia, operated along a river by a Rhodesian gentleman. The photo below is of our cottage, which we could walk to during the day, but under escort at night, when the hippos might come up from the river and root around for food. I was assured that if I stayed on the porch at night the lions wouldn't come up and eat me, but I never found  the opportunity to test that claim. Like, I would?

Home, sweet home, where the giraffe saunter by whenever they feel like it.

Baboons

"Oooh, almost, but down and to the right. No, to the right!"

One of the first things I noticed about the Croc Valley Camp was the abundance of babboons. When they weren't checking out ways to swipe food, they were picking nits. And when they weren't picking nits, they were copulating, which helps explain their abundance. I can't say as I blame the males; some of the females were kinda cute -- the one in the photo at the right, for example. Look at those eyes; doesn't she have nice eyes? Uh, maybe I've been alone too long, but I still think she's kinda cute. What do you male readers think?

Elephants

OK, so here's a riddle or you. What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence? (Answer: time to get a new fence.)

Elephants are tough on trees, too. Check out the next two photos. Those trees have been banged up elephants. They basically head butt trees to knock them down so it's easier to get to the food. And from the looks of the photo at the left, elephants aren't finicky eaters. That grass that's heading for its mouth looks pretty dry and scraggly. How do they survive on that, anyway?

For trees, the survival strategy might depend on three factors: Location, location, location. The wise tree grows out of a termite mound, like the one in the third photo. Elephants don't seem to bother them. I noticed several trees that employed that strategy. Smart trees!

The tree that got away -- from the elephants

Hippos

Hippos look like they could spend a little less time floating in the river and a little more time at a spa, but they actually aren't fat, and I wouldn't suggest depending on your ability to outrun them, no matter how motivated. I didn't have much opportunity to get any good close-ups of them, so  you have to settle for these images.

The Madonna and Child image of the calf floating next to Mom, below, is a little pixelated due to distance, but you can still note the reddish hue on the old lady. Hippos tend to come out of the river only at night because they sunburn easily.

I was told this problem with the sun makes it tough for the old guys, when the young hippos decide its time for them to retire from the mainstream; figuratively speaking. They may get stuck off in a small waterhole someplace. I saw one of those old guys; he didn't have a lot of elbow room in his mud hole.

Water buffalo

If there's one thing water bufflo demonstrate, it's this: the bigger they are, the harder they fall, when they fall. (So maybe there's yet hope for America.) Check out the skull in the photo below. It made me realize that, in Africa, the chance of fading quietly into the sunset is probably not going to happen.

While the boss rests, the ladies dine on a buffalo who no longer worries himself about  them.

The buffalo turns up its tasty nose, long gone, at dinner.

At the end of the day, we returned to the Croc Vallry Camp, where I discovered a pool table (!) and decided to engage in one of my preferred pastimes. It was not a great experience. The balls were undersized and beat up. The felt on the pool table was three generations behind replacement; The sole pool stick had some sort of threads coming out of it like a kind if intestinal mold sending out tendrils. (Some exotic African malady we weren't warned about?) And the tip was not felt, but a rather uneven loose plastic cap. And there must have been a gravity well somewhere on that table, because even if you could hit  ball correctly with that awful stick, the balls declined to travel a straight path.

The carver

However, the gentleman at the right joined me in a game, and I think he prevailed by whatever rules we seemed to agree to in our haphazard contest on that miserable table. Afterward, I learned that he was selling carvings at the camp.

These two carvings in the photo at left  weren't particularly well made, but I purchased a pair for $10 each. After all, I need some sort of souvenir from Africa, don't I? It didn't hurt that he told me $20 for the two pieces will get two of his four children into school for a term.

His name is Whitson Banda, and he's 37 years old. The two girls my purchase sponsored are Alice, born 2003, and Lidiya, born 2006. I will never see them; I will never be able to confirm that his story is true. But from what I learned when I asked around, it's probably true. For the price of a restaurant meal and a glass of wine I may have put two little girls into school for a term. Or not.

Whitson displays a crocodile-themed ashtray.

You say pot-A-to, and I say pot AH-to . . .

The next morning, the moment of truth arrived. My hostess is the person responsible for my coming to Malawi for safari. She is a very bright, capable person, who made it possible for me to ship 30-40 One World Futbols and nine The-Shoe-That-Grows to Malawi for free. She made it possible for me to bring 85 hats and lots of garmets, and 25 kazoos and other minor goodies in two duffels because I wasn't toting futbols. At this writing, much of the booty is destined for the Dzaleka refugee center, a community of 27,000 from several African countries which she told me about. She has been a wonderful co-consirator and she opened an opportunity for me I could only dream of. However, after collaborating for months arriving at a plan, we found out that we should have spent a little more time together before she took off for Africa last fall. It's one of those issues about one person squeezing the toothpaste tube in the middle while the other prefers to squeeze the end. We just didn't belong in the same pot together. It happens to the best of us.


So after a heartfelt exchange, we mutually  decided that I should return to Lilongwe and, she, having taken vacation time, should travel on to Zimbabwe. When she returned I could pick up the materials she was storing for me. It appeared to be a bit of a setback, but something amazing seems to be resulting from this change in plans.

It started as a serendipitous notion and has evolved into a development. And there's the distinct possibility that it will become a reality. Maybe even an accomplishment.  This trip is taking some amazing twists and turns. I hope you stay with me. (And I hope I can get better internet service. If not, I'm home in a week, and I'll share the rest of the story then.

Forgive the typos! Love you all!

Robert
and Jean Baptiste

And Micah

and Shu

And Carlita!