YAY! I made my goal of reaching the summit of Kilimanjaro and my fundraising goals for VSO!!

This site willl close sometime in September but up until that date you may still lodge donations to VSO.

Karibu!

Now that I am back in the UK settling into normal life again this is a quick retrospective on everything that transpired on the way to Uhuru, the highest point in Africa. Still sorting through the photos etc so stay tuned for more..

Overall it was an intense and demanding 2 weeks, both emotionally and physically, but I loved every minute of it! Some of the highlights were:
 - Visiting local AIDS-related projects with VSO and Human Development Trust (HDT)
 - Learning some basic (and silly) Swahili with the local guides
 - Watching the sunrise from Gilman's Point on the crater rim and making it all the way to Uhuru, the highest point in Africa at 5895m!
 - As a group knowing we raised over 100,000 GBP for VSO!


1) HIV/AIDS projects in Dar es Salaam

We spent a day in Dar es Salaam visting projects of an NGO called Human Development Trust (HDT) and kindly hosted by Sandra, an Accenture employee from the Netherlands who has spent a year as a VSO volunteer working for HDT.

The two projects I visited were aimed at increasing the self-sufficiency of populations and neighbourhoods that have been devastated by HIV/AIDS. HDT follows a model designed to minimise direct aid (ie. handouts) and work to develop small sustainable businesses even in conditions of extreme poverty.

One neighbourhood we visited has several grandmothers who, due to the tragic loss of most of the working age population have been thrust back into the role of primary caregiver to many children, either their own orphaned grandchildren, or other orphans in the neighbourhood. These strong women are assisted by HDT through a process of assessment, income idea development, small grants to start a simple business and ongoing monitoring and education. These are the simplest of enterprises, consisting of preparing simple foods (ciapatti and potato chips) or washing powder for the neighbourhood. This is designed to be enough to provide some income as well as allow the women to look after the children in the area. The children here do not have much exposure to western people so our digital cameras caused quite an excitement!

Another project was a group of women known as AWITA, which translates to the Association of Widows with AIDS. These amazing women have not only been left widowed by AIDS but also suffer themselves from the disease as well as still being a primary caregiver to typically several children. Again HDT's work focusses on support, education and monitoring to increase their level of self-sufficiency. HDT assists them to obtain vegetable oil from the south of Tanzania to make soap (using caustic soda and some colouring). They gave us a demonstration of how they make these milky-blue bars of soap (a very manual production process!) which they sell to the local neighbourhood. One issue facing them which has no easy solution is that many Tanzanians simply will not buy this soap precisely because they know it is made by people with HIV - and this isn't because they are afraid of catching the disease - just pure stigma and prejudice.

For me these visits brought a level of helplessness that I struggle to describe. As these brave people refuse to give into despair I certainly cannot, but it is hard for me to identify how my skills, education and work experience can even be relevant to their predicament, let alone what long-term hope there may be for these families. There are currently an estimated 1.8 million children in Tanzania that have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS, about 5% of the overall population. For an already impoverished country this is a tragedy unfolding on a mind-boggling scale..

2) Some Swahili

One of the highlights of the trek was the time to converse and joke around with the Tanzanian guides, many local to the area around Kilimanjaro. So of course we picked up the Swahili essential for any tourist in Tanzania:

"Hakuna Matata" - "No worries" - of course made famous by Lion King
"Poa kchizi kamandizi" - "Cool like a Banana" - in response to the greeting "Mambo!"
"Nepu Tano" - "High Five" or "Peace and Love" - accompanied with the touching of closed fists and a salute to the chest.. - spelling here is wrong but I couldn't find the right translation..

We were also treated to a few rousing renditions of a traditional (not!) Swahili favourite called "Jambo!", although after you realise the damn thing is flogged to tourists on CD at every street corner the novelty rapidly wears off!

3) Kilimanjaro: the climb..

Kilimanjaro is an pretty special place and each day of this trek was completely different from the one before. Physically things started off very easy as we followed a slow, easy pace up through the rainforest, scrub and alpine regions.  Acclimatisation is all about going slow and steady!

As we left the clouds, the trees and eventually even the grasses behind the conditions became steadily colder and dustier! Mawenzi Tarn, a beautiful camp at around 4200m was definitely a highlight for me, with a small mountain tarn and the brown, craggy peak of Mawenzi right above our heads. However the dust from the place is still in my fingernails! The subsequent trek over the Saddle to the bottom of Kibo (the main peak) was like trekking across Mars, an unbelievably dry and lifeless place.

Summit night was an indescribable experience. My only attempt is in the form of a Haiku I came up with at about 4:30am, to the incredulity of my trekking buddy!

The shuffling of boots
Headlamps light the stony path
Summit night toils on

After about 6 hours of exhausting effort, we were treated to a beautiful sunrise behind Mawenzi over the African plains, mostly still covered in cloud in the tail end of the rainy season. But there was no time to rest! For those with enough energy (or craziness!) still left in the tank there was a further 2 hours of slow, slow walking up to Uhuru. My memory here is strong, but also a bit vague, like a vivid, powerful dream. I distinctly remember Umani, our guide, pointing out the last two snow covered rises to go, and me thinking that if there was a third I was going to throttle him! (as if I had the energy!)

The top was not a resting place, as stopping at this altitude was an uncomfortable experience to say the least. But elation and adrenalin are powerful drugs! And for the 14 of us who made it, it was a wonderful moment to savour.

For most of us the physical exhaustion didn't actually get bad until we were on the way down, as despite already walking for 8 hours straight there was still up to 8 hours to go to get down to Horombo at 3500m.

However, I think it was a day or so after that when it really hit me, but thankfully I was in Zanzibar and could let my body recover in peace on one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen (although I couldn't keep my eyes open!)

A quick word on the effects of altitude. I count myself very lucky in that I never experienced anything more than a mild headache from the altitude, although I did struggle to make myself eat, especially at the summit. Three of our group however, did not attempt the summit, one of whom collapsed, briefly unconscious, near Kibo camp and another had to be hospitalised with pulmonary edema.  I think the thoughts of everyone in the group was with these people on summit night, and certainly our group on the whole were much more responsible in regard to their personal limits than some other groups I witnessed on the mountain.

4) Fundraising results

Finally, a big, big thank you to everyone who contributed to VSO through this endeavour. We were  one of three treks up Kilimanjaro this year and our group alone raised over 107,000 GBP!! I am sure that the money will be well spent as the volunteers I met were all amazing, dedicated people doing some wonderful work in challenging and quite literally terrifying conditions. I will send further information for those that are interested in where you can learn more about what VSO and NGOs like HDT are doing combating the effects, culture and attitudes surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic in East Africa.

Next will hopefully be some links to some photos (from myself and others on the trip) as I set about putting together a book of it all.

Again, my heartfelt thanks ("Asante Sana!!") in supporting me on my journey. It has been quite literally the trip of a lifetime! Next stop? Hmm, need to think about that one a bit more..

Nepu Tano,
Simon