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.