10 Futbols to Zambia..and Peru, Morocco and Hanoi

Hello, Uncle Wilson.
Wherever you are, it's probably cold. In fact, even though you were probably blown clear off the summit of Mount Adams, you still may be the coldest One World Futbol in the whole world. Most are a lot warmer.

For example, some place in Zambia, there are some kids running around in the hot sunshine, kicking One World Futbols. It's running in the 80s in Lusaka, the capital city, where there are few, if any, clouds, and  zero chance of precipitation for the next few days.

The balls reached Zambia courtesy of the Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences, which is located on Seattle's Capitol Hill. Students travel from there to Zambia each year during the summer, and this is the second year in a row that they have put One World Futbols in the hands of kids who might have been kicking rag balls around. You can see from the photos they aren't playing in a soccer field. But they are playing; and with balls that they'll never have to repair.

Game On! The grass isn't cut, and there's no soccer field, but they do have a One World Futbol!

Seattle Academy received 10 balls this year which were purchased by supporters of your Wilson campaign in 2015. Here's what Gabriel Cronin, a faculty member and lead adult for the group, reported via e-mail:

"We dropped off the soccer balls in Zambia... we spread them out amongst four schools, a vulnerable child's family, and one found its way to the "village" in the care of a worker at the camp we stay at.  I've attached a few pictures...."

At the entry to a school, an adult discusses the ball with children.

Children get acquainted with the ball in the school yard.

The garments suggest that these kids are not in a hot part of Zambia.

"We really appreciate the gift and we hope that the balls will make students and children very happy," said Gabriel

In a couple of weeks, more futbols will be headed to Morocco, Vietnam and Peru. Some of those locations will have temperatures similar to Zambia's. Here's the weather at some major cities:

• Cuzco, Peru, elevation 11,152 feet: high 60s low 70s and 10 percent precipitation
• Hanoi, Vietnam, elevation 69 feet: high 80s low 90s with precipitation ranging from 10-60 percent over the next several days
• Rabat, Morocco, elevation 259 feet: low 80s to low 90s with 10 percent chance of rain

The balls are reaching Peru, Morocco and Vietnam via medical teams that are part of the Global Impact program operated by three Seattle community colleges that send teams to underdeveloped countries to work on health issues. In 2011, one of the teams focused on building  cook stoves that carried the smoke outside the home; promoting effective water filters for the home; and conducting medical clinics that included the flouriding of children's teeth. This year is the first time the Global Impact program has been involved in distributing One World Futbols in its field projects.

Kazoos will accompany the futbols to Peru and Vietnam.

Also going along for the ride:  Kazoos! Teams heading for Vietnam and Peru will be packing kazoos. In 2011, Peruvian school children were somewhat intrigued to hear a harmonica being played, but there was only one. Kazoos are very inexpensive, so this time many will have a chance to play, as well as listen.

The Global Impact teams will be on the ground in Vietnam no later than Aug. 21, and I'm going to be there with them. I'll be writing before then to tell you a little bit about what's going to happen, and I hope to be able to blog when I'm there. Until then,

Love,

Jean Baptiste (And Robert)

Do my eyes deceive me?

Left photo: Anna Elz and (background) the left behinds.
Right: Wilson atop Adams, July 2015

You could have knocked me over with a feather. In the foreground of the photo on the left is Anna Elz, atop Mount Adams. And in the background, amidst a bundle of paraphernalia left by other climbers, there is a small . . .  almost hidden . . . blue . . . round . . . object . . . right where . . .

Well, right where Wilson was left last July. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it is NOT the unbreakable. The winds of time, or better stated, the howling winds of Mount Adams, have borne Wilson farther afield into the mists of legend.

Anna writes,

Robert..sad to report we did not retrieve Wilson at the summit.  I looked for signs of it.  The snow was frozen and gusting wind of 40 + knots made for a brief encounter since I felt like I was going to be blown off.  Only a few items were visible..a pineapple head seemed promising..as though it might be its hat.   So it seems though I finally made the summit, Wilson is not coming home yet.  You need to find a summer expedition.  Thanks for sharing this with me it made the summit bid way more enjoyable.  Best regards to you and Junior and exciting news of your trip.

She added in a later message:

Here's what I had to work with.  No roof.  frozen solid. The guy with the shovel was the last guy up and the gale force winds made hanging out up there -- let alone chipping ice -- impossible... not to mention lack of oxygen.. note purple lips.  I'm sorry..just glad I made it.  Happy 4th.  Good to be home.  I'd love to meet up sometime and talk about the trip and your Wilson Junior plans!

In a follow-up phone call, Anna added that this was not a cakewalk up a snow field, which I had anticipated last year. The Mountaineers camped overnight at Sunrise Camp, at the 8,600 foot level, The night winds flipped Anna's tent over. Team Wilson rose at 3:30 a.m. to climb over a five-hour period across the Mazama Glacier and up to the summit. Part of the way they were roped up. The team of 11 hikers were enthusiastic about finding Wilson. And when Anna reached the summit and saw that round blue object, she thought she had hit paydirt, but it only turned out to be a fabric.

Afterward, there was no quick, convenient glissade down a snowy slope; the slope was frozen hard and any glissade would have gone much too fast.

Well, OK, so Wilson has probably gone out of my -- (should I say our?) life forever. But that's no reason to write them off. Look at the photo in the picture below of me with Lisa Tarver, chief innovation officer of the One World Play Project, and convince me that Wilson doesn't have a future somewhere. If that ball with the hole in it can still bounce, Wilson can too. And we'll keep on sending them e-mails. For all we know, they might just be in a Starbucks somewhere on wi-fi.

Considering the resilience of this ball, no reason yet to count Wilson out.

My new traveling companion, Jean Baptiste.

But now it's time to pass the baton to a new goodwill ambassador for the One World Play project, and that one is Junior. That's Junior, snagged to my backpack. Does the image strike a familiar chord? Would It help if I explained that "Junior" has a new name? It's Jean Baptiste.  They is named after the world's most famous papoose, who made it onto the American dollar coin. If that still doesn't ring a bell, check out the image immediately below.

Love,

Robert

(And Jean Baptiste)

Peru, Zambia, Morocco and Vietnam: The Summer of love, 2016

An update for Wilson

By Junior.

Hey, Uncle Wilson, guess what!
There’s another team on its way up Mount Adams to look for you! We just got word yesterday that they hope to be there Sunday morning, and Anna has her little shovel to dig you out of the snow.
Meanwhile, this summer we have as many as four Teams Wilson delivering our kinfolk to four different continents and I’m on the team heading to Vietnam!

And the biggest news of all – I got a piercing!

First of all, remember Anna Elz? I haven’t met her yet, but she was the one who organized the search for you in May, when a group of intrepid Mountaineers braved cold weather to reach the top of Mount Adams, where you were last seen in July 2015, tethered to a post on an abandoned building. Here’s a photo of the group, with Anna in the baseball cap:

Team Wilson Selfie: In foreground, Jeremy, the trip organizer. Anna Elz is on the right with the baseball cap. The others, from the left, are Sean, Cory, Sara and Steve.

And here’s what it looked like when they realized the weather was a little too rough to summit Adams and they had to turn back: (The white streaks are snowflakes.)

Second search and retrieve mission

Well, on Friday afternoon, we got this e-mail:

Hi Robert hope this finds you well..We are headed to Adams.  Different team.. Hope to find Wilson senior at the top!!  11 mountaineers going up tomorrow..should summit Sunday am.  I'll have my shovel to dig it out....
Cheers Anna

So, Uncle Wilson, don’t be surprised if a group of Mountaineers shows up with shovel in hand tomorrow morning – if you’re still there!

All this happened a week after a meeting at Seattle Central Community College June 25 for the Global Impact teams that will be heading out to conduct community health programs in Vietnam, Peru, and Morocco. These are doctors, med students and lay people who conduct clinics, promote really cool water filters and build stoves that improve the lungs of women who normally cook for their families using open hearths that fill their homes with smoke.

All three teams are excited about taking One World Futbols from the Wilson Campaign with them when they go. There's also a separate fourth independent Team Wilson contingent from Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences (a private high school) that will be taking One World Futbols to Zambia.

Because the slogan of the Wilson Campaign is "Somebody Loved a Stranger," I guess this sort of qualifies as the Summer of Love.

Here are some photos from Robert’s 2011 Global Impact trip to Peru that show what Global Impact was doing there:

Showing kids how to wash their hands

Flouriding teeth in hundreds of little mouths

Saving lungs by replacing open indoor hearths with cook stoves that had chimneys

Building water filters that looked like big flower pots but captured 99 percent of pathogens

Now, about that piercing...

Oh, about my piercing. It's not like a tongue stud or one of those eyebrow or nose rings. I don't have a tongue, nose or eyebrows, anyway. But Robert attached a screw to me and then hung a connector on it:

No Wilson-styled tether for Junior. My stud loop will connect to Robert's backpack.

While I'm in Vietnam, I'm going to be tagging along on his backpack like a papoose. Oh, about that sticker in the photo--that's from the Gay Pride events that were going on in the park near our workshop. I was curious. Being non-gendered, I haven't figured out what this sex thing is all about. What's the big deal?

Well, I hope the Mountaineers find you. Then we could have a big Wilson homecoming party!

Love,

Junior
(And Robert)

Five years ago, these kids were waiting for a Global Impact health clinic in Peru.