David left this morning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. This expedition came up rather suddenly. We went to Hell’s Gate National Park with a fellow Fulbrighter, Jim, and his wife, Mia, on Saturday. When Mia called and said she was eager to get out of Nairobi, I suggested this destination. I was the only one of the four who had been there before. David was eager to go because he had missed the hike in the gorge that our students took in January. It was a good day, despite more unseasonable rain. The rain did not cause a flash flood and wash the hikers out of the gorge; Mia and I, who only did the first part of the gorge, got to see lots of zebra, wart hog families, multitudes of antelope, and a giraffe; and we ended the day with a lovely tea on the veranda at Elsamere, overlooking Lake Naivasha, the home of Joy Adamson, author of Born Free, which is now a museum and B&B.
In the course of the day, we learned that Jim was departing on Monday for Kilimanjaro and Mia urged David to consider going along. I encouraged David to consider it, too, because I wasn’t sure he’d ever get another chance. We returned to Nairobi at about 7pm. Jim called his guide and determined that David could still be added to the trek. He then emailed David the itinerary, cost information, and packing list. It turned out that the cost is a lot lower than the guidebooks and internet sites suggested it would be. The guide, Wilson, said he could obtain a pack and sleeping bag for David, and we went about assembling the remaining items on the packing list. We had most of what he needed and knew we could get much of the rest at the supermarket, but the shopping list included long underwear, wool socks, and a balaclava hat, items we were not sure we could find in Nairobi.
Sunday morning we were picked up for church by a pastor, Rev. William, who was, in his first career, an airline pilot, flight instructor, balloon pilot instructor, and air traffic controller. He told us many amazing things. The most horrifying were his experiences as a air traffic controller in Uganda when the Israelis raided the airport to rescue passengers on a hijacked plane. The air traffic controllers working at the time were murdered by Idi Amin’s soldiers and William was asked to take over as chief air traffic controller and had to deal with Amin’s soldiers deployed at the airport. After he and his family left Uganda, he attended Daystar. Now he pastors and his wife serves as worship leader in a church in a slum a few kilometers up Ngong road, near Dagoretti Corner. The modest church, which was filed with a wonderful spirit while we worshiped with them, shares a courtyard with a school and there are other projects we expect to learn about the next time we see them. More on this in a later posting, I hope.
Sunday afternoon we shopped for Kilimanjaro supplies. We checked several places for cold weather gear and were almost too late to shop at our last resort, an outfitters’ store in the YaYa Center, which is quite close to Daystar. Fortunately, we arrived just as they were closing their doors and found what David needed. We had to pay a premium: wool socks were $21 a pair and the fleece tights he bought as a substitute for long johns cost a small fortune. But David got lots of good advice from the Swiss proprietor. And it was worth it to me because my biggest worry for David is hypothermia. We’re hoping he does not encounter falling snow, but there’s a chance of it, given the early arrival of the rains. Funny that David is on an expedition to snow when our friends and relatives on the east coast are battling way too much of it.
We took a taxi early this morning to a hotel in the center that is the departure point for buses heading for Tanzania. I started feeling bad about being left behind when I saw other couples, outfitted for hiking, get on the bus together. I had not considered going along mainly because I tend to have a hard time with altitude. For example, altitude sickness felled me at Purgatory in Colorado, which tops out at 10,000 feet. Kilimanjaro’s summit is 19,341 feet. David has never had a problem with altitude. He is also in better shape than me and more likely to take on something like this at the drop of a hat. I would want time to prepare.
In any case, David took off this morning and I stayed behind. Mia and I had a lovely breakfast and then shopped for cloth. Because of the rain, the shops were almost empty of customers and I got some bargains. David called at noon to say they had just reached the Tanzanian border and that he would not be able to call again until he returned to Kenya. He’ll be back on Sunday. Until then, I figure, no news is good news.
P.S. Heavy rain last night gave our roof its post-repair test. The good news is that no water came into the bathroom. The bad news is that stains grew bigger and darker in the front bedroom and the hallway, along the wall we share with the neighboring town house.
