The colorful handmade giraffes, elephants and warthogs made in a Nairobi workshop were once only dirty pieces of rubber cruising the Indian Ocean’s currents.

Kenya’s Ocean Sole, a sandal recycling company, is cleaning the East African country’s beaches of used, washed-up flip-flops and other sandals.

About 45 workers in Nairobi make 100 different products from the discarded flip-flops. In 2008, the company shipped an 18-foot giraffe to Rome for display during a fashion week.

Company founder Julie Church says the goal of her company is to create products that people want to buy, then make them interested in the back-story.

Workers wash the flip-flops, many of which show signs of multiple repairs. Artisans then glue together the various colors, carve the products, sand and rewash them.

Church said she first noticed Kenyan children turning flip-flops into toy boats around 1999, when she worked as a marine scientist for WWF and the Kenya Wildlife Service on Kenya’s coast near the border with Somalia.

Turtles hatching on the beach had to fight their way through the debris on beaches to get to the ocean, Church said, and a plan to clean up the debris and create artistic and useful items gained momentum. WWF ordered 15,000 key rings, and her eco-friendly project took off.

The company aims to sell 70 percent of its products outside Kenya. It has distributors in the United States, Europe and new inquiries from Japan. Its biggest purchasers are zoos and aquariums.

One of Church’s employees is Dan Wambui, who said he enjoys interacting with visitors who come to the Nairobi workshop.

“They come from far … when they see what we are doing we see them really happy and they are appreciating. We feel internationally recognized and we feel happy about it,” Wambui said.

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On the Internet:

Ocean Sole: http://www.ocean-sole.com

Reported by JOE MWIHIA of the Associated Press from NAIROBI, Kenya.

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Anyone lose a giant head made of Styrofoam and fiberglass?

That’s what officials at an upstate New York college are asking after the men’s rowing team found the unusual object floating in the Hudson River.

Officials at Marist College in Poughkeepsie say the team was practicing last week when the coach spotted a large object floating near the river’s west bank. He hooked a rope to it and towed it to the team’s dock on the east bank.

The object turned out to be a 7-foot-tall replica of a man’s head made with Styrofoam and fiberglass. The head has the appearance of a Greek or Roman-style statue.

College officials believe it’s a theater prop, but so far no one has come forward to claim the giant head.

Reported by the Associated Press from POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y.

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Every Wednesday night at a gym in Warrenton, Va., 23 kids, ages 9 to 16, gather to practice. But they don’t have a basketball. They’re not making layups or running sprints. They’re doing something a lot more unusual than that.

They’re riding unicycles, which are bikes with one wheel and no handlebars. (“Uni” means one.)

“Ride in a line and then split off,” shouted Linda McLaughlin, who coaches the group, called the UniStars Unicycle Showtroupe, at a recent practice as the kids made two lines and then rode the length of the gym.

The group performs at about a dozen events a year, including parades and charity events.

— — —

Riding a unicycle, like riding a two-wheel bike, is all about “balance, confidence and determination,” said Michelle Carrico, who helps coach the UniStars. New riders use the gym wall for balance. First they face the wall and sit on the unicycle with the palms of their hands on the wall. Then they ride alongside the wall, using it to help them stay on the cycle. Once they master that, the riders start pushing away from the wall and learning how to turn by using their hips to steer.

“I wasn’t that good at first,” said Virginia Lawrence, 12, who has been cycling for about six years. “But then I just got better.”

Carrico’s three rules for the unicyclists are eyes forward, back straight and keep your bottom on the seat.

“It was frustrating at first because everyone else made it look so easy,” said Gabby Macari, 13, has been riding for four years.

Matt McLaughlin, 9, is the youngest rider in the group. He started riding a couple of years ago. His older sister, Abby, helped start the UniStars with Linda, her mom and coach, in 2005 when she was 11 years old. “I thought it was cool, so I wanted to ride,” said Matt. He mounts — or gets on the cycle — by putting the seat between his legs and then stepping on one of the pedals. “I caught on quicker than a lot of people,” he said. “I never got frustrated.” It took him only a couple days to learn, he said. (Wow!)

— — —

When the group rides makes appearances, they ride in circles, in lines, in figure eights and even in what they call a pinwheel, which is when two groups of cyclists form “X” shapes and the rest of the team makes a big circle around them.

“I don’t really get nervous,” said Matt, who will ride in his second Cherry Blossom parade this weekend. “It’s an awesome feeling. I just like being in front of crowds.”

This is Gabby Macari’s first time in the Cherry Blossom Parade. “I’m really excited to be able to do something so big and known,” she said. “I’m always nervous, but you kind of get over it when you’re having so much fun.”

Reported by MOIRA E. McLAUGHLIN of the The Washington Post.

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In a city of boundless bling, Dubai police also are in hot pursuit after adding a nearly $550,000 Lamborghini to its fleet.

The sports car, painted in green-and-white colors of the Dubai force, will not likely be roaring after law breakers. Instead, it will be mostly dispatched to tourist areas to show — in the words of deputy police director, Gen. Khamis Matter al-Muzaina — “how classy Dubai is.”

Local media reports Thursday say the Italian-made Lamborghini Aventador is the crown jewel of a wider upgrade in Dubai police wheels. The force also is adding some American muscle car Camaros.

Dubai seeks to show it has rebounded from its debt crisis with brash plans that include the world’s largest Ferris wheel and a satellite city named after the city-state’s ruler.

Reported by the Associated Press from DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

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Just 2-and-a-half years old, Joey Duffy was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a blood and bone marrow disorder, in September.

To save his life, Joey needed a bone marrow transplant.

His parents, Tom and Maura Duffy, were not matches. Neither were his brothers, Tommy, 6, and Mick, 4.

While the Springettsbury Township family waited for a match to be found for Joey, they organized a Be the Match bone marrow drive. Be the Match is a national registry for bone marrow donations.

Then, the day after Thanksgiving, the Duffy family received the call they had waited for — a match had been found for Joey.

“We were getting ready to see family over the holiday weekend, and it was just a really happy moment,” said Maura Duffy. “It was a perfect match.”

The preparation: Joey had four rounds of outpatient chemotherapy and three days of inpatient chemotherapy.

He will go to Johns Hopkins Hospital Wednesday for more chemotherapy. The bone marrow transplant is set for March 28.

The family will stay at St. Casimir’s, the outpatient housing Johns Hopkins provides for bone marrow recipients and their families.

Recovery can be anywhere from four to eight weeks, and Joey’s mom will stay with him during the week while his dad will travel down for the weekends.

“He has been in the hospital literally his whole life, so this is nothing new,” Maura Duffy said.

Joey was born premature and stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit, and had been working with a doctor at Johns Hopkins since he was 6 months old, she said.

“Joey is a trouper,” she said. “He was a preemie and has been in the neonatal intensive care unit and he rolls with the punches. He does really, really well.”

Support: Juggling family life and trips to the hospital is the biggest challenge, she said, particularly when it means missing things like their older son’s birthday to be in the hospital.

“But we’ve got great friends and great family and lots of people out there supporting us,” Maura Duffy said. “Lots of people want to help, and it is amazing how good people can be.”

The Duffys and their friends have organized a 5K run and walk in Joey’s honor at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 20 at the new 5K course at John Rudy Park, 400 Mundis Race Road.

The fee to participate is $20, which includes a T-shirt for anyone who registers before Saturday. Anyone who registers after that will pay $20, but will not receive a shirt.

The cost to register the day of the race is $25, and all proceeds will go toward HelpHOPELive, an organization that distributes funds to families to help cover uninsured medical expenses.

Race packets can be picked up the night before the race from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. near the park at 5 Olde Hickory Road in Mount Wolf, or from 7 to 8 a.m. the day of the race at the park.

Anyone can visit www.helphopelive.com and type in a patient’s name to donate toward covering a family’s expenses.

For more information on the race, email kleinsc55@yahoo.com. To follow Joey’s progress, visit www.teamjoey.net.

Reported by CHELSEA SHANK of The York Dispatch from YORK, Pa.

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A New York City dog has undergone emergency surgery to remove more than 100 pennies from his stomach.

The New York Daily News reports that a Jack Russell terrier named Jack swallowed 111 pennies last week and quickly became ill.

The 13-year-old pooch’s owner rushed him to a Manhattan veterinarian for emergency surgery.

That’s when dog doctors put Jack under anesthesia and methodically removed all 111 coins. The zinc from the coins could be lethal.

The dog’s owner told the newspaper his best friend is back to his normal self, driving him crazy.

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Reported by the Associated Press with information from the Daily News.

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Virgil Hovden’s interest in winter perhaps goes a bit deeper than most.
He’s a fan of the famous Iditarod Trail sled dog race, and he and his wife, Tracie, spent a month in Alaska in 2004. They visited Nome a year later to see the race’s conclusion.

“Maybe the greatest sporting experience of my life. I am still amazed at the bond and teamwork that each musher must have with their dogs — just unbelievable,” he said.

When conditions are right, Hovden runs a dog team of his own across the rural Buchanan County countryside.

But he is also a physical education teacher in the Dunkerton School District, and a good portion of the school year plays out during Iowa’s coldest months.

With a $1,000 grant from the McElroy Foundation and AEA 267, Hovden found a way to combine his passion and his job. Hovden used the money to buy 20 pairs of snowshoes.

He had a couple of reasons. First, snowshoeing, as the kids discovered, demands a physical investment from participants, beginning with getting the footwear in place.

“Snowshoeing is a way to keep kids moving. Just getting the bindings on takes some effort,” Hovden said.

Figuring out the motion needed to walk strains other muscles.

“They’ve got to spend time doing it,” Hovden said.

According to Snowshoe Magazine, the gear can indeed be part of a workout. Stride for stride, snowshoeing in powder on level terrain typically burns at least 45 percent more calories than walking at the same pace.

The added benefit comes from the weight on the feet, greater resistance in the snow and cold temperature, which requires a person’s metabolic rate to increase.

But it’s still considered a low-impact exercise, according to the magazine, putting less strain on joints.

Beyond exercise, snowshoeing represented a unique topic for Hovden’s PE classes.

“I haven’t offered that before,” he said.

Deep snow, the kind that make snowshoes helpful, hasn’t been a problem recently. Monday, cleats meant to grip ice were more useful. But even so, Joy Keller’s fifth-grade class found a few lingering drifts along fences to test the technology.

MaKenna Miller-Verduyn, one of those students, enjoyed the brief outing. But she does not anticipate buying snowshoes any time soon.

“They wouldn’t stay on my feet,” she said.

She’s also not as big a fan of winter as Hovden.

“I wish it was over,” Miller-Verduyn said.

As of Monday all the students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades at Dunkerton have tried what is likely a new experience for most.

“This week we’ll start over — if Mother Nature allows,” Hovden said.
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Reported by DENNIS MAGEE of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier from DUNKERTON, Iowa (MCT)
(c)2013 Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Waterloo, Iowa)
Visit Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Waterloo, Iowa) at www.wcfcourier.com
Distributed by MCT Information Services

 

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Iditarod rookie Christine Roalofs ladled beef scraps into a steaming bucket of high-priced kibble on a recent weekday. A dozen pairs of brown eyes watched.

“Don’t spill it!” Roalofs told a five-year-old husky named Seven. “Watch,” she said to a visitor. “He’s going to pick up his bowl and spill it all over.”

Other dogs waited outside the dog barn, breath clouding in the early morning chill and darkness. It’s a scene that replays every day in every Iditarod musher’s dog yard across Alaska.

For Roalofs, a pediatric dentist hoping to finish her first Iditarod this year, there’s one big difference. Her 22 sled dogs sleep two blocks away from a a well-used thoroughfare in the middle of Anchorage.

It didn’t take long for Roalofs’ neighbors to meet the city-centerd musher and her city-kenneled sled dogs.

“That first night we woke up at 2 O’clock in the morning and it sounded like a pack of coyotes outside of the window,” neighbor David Nanne said of his arrival to the Russian Jack neighborhood two years ago. He can sometimes hear Roalofs’ dogs at feeding time, above the muffled rush-hour traffic of East Anchorage.

Alaska’s largest city is awash in sled dogs this lately. Last weekend, it was sprint teams running in the Fur Rendezvous world championships. Iditarod dogs are now arriving for the Saturday ceremonial start through the city. Teams will idle in McDonald’s drive-throughs and pace the snow in slushy hotel parking lots.

Three of the 66 mushers expected to begin the race next weekend live in Anchorage. “Mushin’ Mortician” Scott Janssen keeps a few puppies at his home, but races with a Kasilof-based team.

Veteran Robert Bundtzen, a doctor who specializes in infectious diseases, keeps his kennel of 24 dogs at the edge of town.

Only Roalofs’ dogs live all year round in the middle of the city.  (See a 2011 interview with Roalofs here: http://youtu.be/bixWqT2N3Cw)

Unlike many mushers who can step on the runners from their backyard, Roalofs must load the dogs in her truck and drive to out-of-town trails to train.

“DIVINE INTERVENTION”
City law requires anyone with four or more dogs or cats to apply for a $100 to $150 kennel license.

No one has complained to animal control about Roalofs’ kennel, a constant worry for the 46-year-old musher.

The yard is a fenced circle of dog houses surrounding a “barn” that the huskies freely enter to warm up or eat meals — Picture a shed with six doggie doors. A collection of security cameras could be used to defend against noise complaints, she said.

One neighbor is a member of the National Guard and gone much of the year. “The other house you can actually see,” she said, looking down the hill, “He has a bunch of dogs that make way more noise than mine.”

Raised in Kentucky, Roalofs moved to Alaska in 1999. She never planned to balance a growing dental practice with her commutes to the Chugiak and Willow for training runs, she said. She first encountered the Iditarod when a friend invited her to watch the ceremonial start.

“That looks like fun,” Roalofs remembers saying.

Her friend: Do you have any idea how much work that is?

Two years later, Roalofs opened a dental practice and one day found herself treating the son of  musher Gary McKellar. Shortly after, he  invited her to visit the family dog yard.  She was impressed and soon she was learning how to harness sled dogs.

Not long after, in 2007,  she ran her first 200-mile race.

“I want to call it divine intervention, how it all came together,” Roalofs said.

X-MEN PUPPIES

Roalofs attempted the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest in 2011. She was mushing at the back of the pack when a snowstorm slowed her progress. She pushed the help button on her GPS tracker, which disqualified her from the race. She said she had run out of food for her dogs.

A watershed moment came last month during the Copper Basin 300, when one of Roalofs dogs led four teams into the wind on the summit between Chistochina and Paxson, she said. She finished 26th of 31 finishers.

In January, she placed 14th of 25 finishers in the Northern Lights 300, which travels from Big Lake to Finger Lake and back. “That was the race where I realized I’ve been doing this long enough to not be a true rookie anymore. I might be an Iditarod rookie, but when it comes to 200 and 300-mile races, I’ve been around long enough to be kind of figuring this stuff out.”

One potential leader in her pack of dogs is  Inca, who ran the Iditarod with Wasilla musher Ryan Redington. Other strong racers came from a litter of 10 puppies, all named after X-Men comic book characters.

Although her dogs live in the city, finishing the Iditarod would be a homecoming of sorts for Roalofs since spends several weeks a year working in communities on the Iditarod trail.

In addition to her Muldoon dentist office hours, Roalofs sees patients in Nome, the Iditarod endpoint, and the village of Shaktoolik, one of the race’s checkpoints. She even has packed her drop bags with toothbrushes and stickers to hand out to her young patients and other school kids.

The ceremonial start begins at 10 a.m. Saturday.

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Reported by KYLE HOPKINS of the Anchorage Daily News in ANCHORAGE, Alaska. (MCT)
Twitter updates: twitter.com/iditarodlive. Call Kyle Hopkins at 257-4334 or email him at khopkins@adn.com.
(c)2013 the Anchorage Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska)
Visit the Anchorage Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska) at www.adn.com
Distributed by MCT Information Services

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Nepalese mountaineer Chhurim entered the record book by scaling Mount Everest twice in the same climbing season. In fact, she did so a week apart.

Guinness World Records said she is the first woman to climb the world’s highest mountain twice in the same season — the brief window of good weather each year that allows climbers to reach the summit.

Nepal’s Tourism Minister Posta Bahadur Bogati handed over the Guinness World Records certificate issued to 29-year-old Chhurim on Monday.

She scaled the 29,035-foot summit on May 12, 2012, descended to the base camp for a couple of days’ rest and then scaled the peak again a week later on May 19.

Chhurim, who uses only one name like most Sherpas, said she is not ready to quit.

“Everest is the first of the highest mountains that I have climbed, but I will continue mountaineering and hope to scale more peaks,” she said.

Chhurim said there are not many women mountaineers and only a few of them have records.

“The male mountaineers have set many records but women have fallen behind. It can be difficult for women because they are considered not as strong as men and face many problems like finding toilets,” she said.

The Nepal Mountaineering Association said Everest has been climbed by nearly 4,000 people since New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal did so in 1953. Women are a small number of them.

The extremely harsh weather conditions that batter the highest Himalayan peaks limit the climbing season to just a few weeks every year. Spring is the most popular season on Everest when hundreds of mountaineers attempt every year. The climbers generally reach the mountain in March or April, acclimatize to the higher elevation and low oxygen and train for climbing the snowy trail to the peak. The weather usually improves for a few days in May when they line up to the summit.

Reported by BINAJ GURUBACHARYA of the Associated Press from KATMANDU, Nepal.

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In 11 years of teaching, ditching students’ desk chairs in favor of yoga balls is one of the best decisions Robbi Giuliano thinks she ever made.

Replacing regular seats with inflatable bouncers has raised productivity in her fifth-graders at Westtown-Thornbury Elementary School, making students better able to focus on lessons while improving their balance and core strength, she said.

“I have more attentive children,” Giuliano said. “I’m able to get a lot done with them because they’re sitting on yoga balls.”

Ball options: The giant rubber spheres, also called stability balls, come in different sizes, colors and degrees of firmness. By making the sitter work to stay balanced, the balls force muscle engagement and increased blood flow, leading to more alertness.

Traditional classroom setups are being challenged as teachers nationwide experiment with yoga balls, footrests and standing desks, which give children outlets to fidget without disrupting class.

Stability balls, frequently used in yoga, Pilates and physical therapy, have even begun appearing in offices in the wake of recent studies stressing the dangers of sedentary work environments.

Giuliano began using the balls in her class in West Chester, a Philadelphia suburb, about three years ago after her husband mentioned how they increased productivity at the holistic wellness company where he worked.

Kids react: Student Ashley Hasson conceded that adjusting to her dark pink ball was tough at first.

“But once you get used to it, it’s not that hard because basically you’re just sitting down,” she said.

Another student, Kevin Kent, said the ball makes it easier for him to concentrate and keeps his back from getting stiff. Now, he said, sitting in a chair is “weird, because you’re all bent up.”

Ball rules: Some health experts cautioned against the possibility of student horseplay and falling off the balls. But Giuliano’s 24 students know they must keep their bottoms on the balls and feet on the floor at all times, though they can bounce and bob as much as they like.

The same goes for Dannielle Doran’s fourth-graders at Merion Elementary School in a nearby district, where misbehavior risks loss of the ball and a return to a four-legged seat.

“They like sitting on them so much, and they don’t want to lose that privilege,” Doran said. “It seems to almost … motivate better behavior.”

The balls are not mandatory in Doran’s or Giuliano’s classes, but Giuliano noted only one student in three years has opted to continue using a chair.

Parents have been supportive as well, voluntarily purchasing the $5 balls for their kids. Some even ended up buying balls for themselves to use at home and work, said Giuliano, who wants to spread the word to other teachers.

“I don’t like sitting on a chair all day … so I started sitting on a yoga ball, and I find I’m more alert,” Giuliano said. “And my message is to try it with your class and see if it works for you.”

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Reported by KATHY MATHESON of the Associated Press from WEST CHESTER, Pa. Follow Matheson at http://www.twitter.com/kmatheson

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