Righteous Journeys (cont.)

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Outside Magazine January 2002

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Righteous Journeys (cont.)

KENYA
Global Citizens Network
800-644-9292
www.globalcitizens.org
Dates: June 13-July 5, August 1-23; December 26-January 17, 2003
Cost: $1,650
At the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, surrounded by vast savanna and game parks, is the Masai ranch community of Rombo—a village that has no electricity and no running water, and is some 20 miles by foot from the nearest health-care facility. In January 2000, villagers drew up plans to build a six-room clinic. Since then, Global Citizens Network volunteers have carried rock, dug ditches, and completed the structure's foundation. "Building the health clinic became secondary to building a relationship of trust with the people," says volunteer Bill Johnson of Austin, Texas, whose best memories include chasing elephants away from crops at night and teaching games to local schoolchildren.

FIJI
Habitat for Humanity Global Village
800-422-4828
www.habitat.org/gv
Dates: February 17-March 2
Cost: $1,300
Not everyone in Fiji lives the Blue Lagoon fantasy. In fact, many residents are not allowed to own income-producing agricultural lands, thanks to reforms instituted by former president Mahendra Chaudhry. On 4,010-square-mile Viti Levu, the largest isle in the 300-island chain, volunteers help a local Habitat for Humanity affiliate group build simple, affordable, one-room concrete houses. "Volunteers come away with a renewed appreciation of what they have and how they live in relation to the indigenous Fijian people," says program coordinator Amy Johnson. Before you return stateside, you'll have time to hang out, Fiji-style—diving, and surfing along Vanua Levu, the second-largest barrier reef in the world. Groups stay with local families or camp on cots in a one-room community center.

SLOVAKIA
British Trust for Conservation Volunteers
011-44-1491-821600
www.btcv.org
Dates: April, September
Cost: $938Ð$1,010
European gray wolves have been hunted nearly to extinction by sheep farmers in the Low Tatry Mountains. Researchers with the Slovakian organization Large Carnivore Conservation and Livestock Protection Project are hoping to prove to the hunters that domestic animals form only a minor part of the wolves' diet and that, if livestock are protected more effectively, wolves, people, and sheep can coexist. You'll join scientists in Tatra National Park in the Carpathian Mountains to track wolves, collect scat, and assist with training livestock-guarding dogs, with time to hike 6,500-foot peaks, explore caves, and visit traditional villages. Accommodations are in a stone lodge in the national park.

MONGOLIA
Cultural Restoration Tourism Project
415-563-7221
www.crtp.net
Dates: Two- or three-week trips, late May-September
Cost: $155 per day
In the sunny Khenti province of northeastern Mongolia, the Baldan Baraivan monastery lies in ruins. Built in the 1600s and once one of the country's most important Buddhist centers, the temple was destroyed by the Communists in the 1930s. Since 1999, the San Francisco-based Cultural Restoration Tourism Project has been dispatching volunteers to work alongside local craftsmen, engineers, and architects to rebuild the monastery, stone by stone. Participants live on-site in yurts and are welcome to join monks in Buddhist ceremonies. Guido Verboom of the Netherlands, who was part of a volunteer team in 2000, recalls an elderly Mongolian man who cried in gratitude at the work being done. "I felt embarrassed to be thanked for enjoying myself—but I realized I was helping to give these people a part of their history back."

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