Twas the Night Before

(Arusha, Tanzania: Thursday, June 14)

Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, and all through the house...

[Note: This is an entry with a parental warning attached as per their request. Although there's nothing violent, or sexually explicit, it may be nerve-wracking for them.]

... we were all freaking out basically. Me more so than the 6 others. I came to Africa in great shape and have since become completely out of shape. Having a sinus and tonsil infection for the last week didn't help! I spent nearly all of the time in southern Kenya in bed - after running out of books I wound up reading the Da Vinci Code - not bad. I am feeling much better, but still not 100%.

So what exactly am I afraid of?
1. That I will need to kill this woman on the trip with us who already drives me nuts. If you think I'm a control freak... She actually had the audacity to say to the leader who is taking us up Kili: would you like to explain how it works or should I? YOU? Who are you??
2. That my inability to take high altitude medication (Diamox) due to the fact it's a sulfa drug is going to be a problem for me. Everyone who hears I can't take it gives me the UH OH look before saying 'Oh, I'm sure you'll be fine'. The reality is that over 15,000 feet, our bodies just aren't able to function as well as they normally do, and without Diamox, it's much harder to acclimate.
3. Snow. When our guide was there 2 weeks ago the crater camp (upper most camp over 18,000 feet) was under a lot of snow. Yikes.
4. COLD. It is below 0 (not 32 degrees, zero) at the last camp and for the day or two prior to summit. I can not imagine how I will be able to keep warm, but everyone else seems to be able to do it, so I'm sure it will work out somehow!
5. General illness paranoia. As I have now had one *terrible* stomach bug/illness requiring Cipro, and this sinus thing, I sense my immune system doesn't really like Africa. but I do!

Positive developments:
1. We can summit and then drop to a lower camp for the night, skipping trying to sleep at 18,000+ feet. I have a sneaking suspicion I will do that, if I make it that far. I mean, when I make it that far.
2. There's only one so far, but a list of one isn't really a list.

Well, I'm going to try my hardest, but be completely honest about my physical state and symptoms and hope for the best! They have a very high success rate with Kili summits (this outfitter) so my fingers are crossed.

We spent the last 4 days in the Chyulu Hills in southern Kenya on property which is "co-owned" by an Italian couple and the Maasai. There are approximately 7000 Maasai in that area. They have a doctor now for the first time, who we briefly visited. He has no electricity, no running clean water (they need to boil it), no lab to get tests done, no transportation, and no means of communication (radio, phone). He described how in the month he's been there it's been incredibly hard, especially since the way to transport really critical patients the 60K over the dirt road to the nearest hospital is via motorbike, or a random passing vehicle. If the patient comes in at night, they have to wait until the morning! Talk about a brave man! He is amazing. I can't even imagine. The camp we stayed at was really inspiring - the owner Luca has won a lot of environmental awards for it, recycling water to turn into drinking water for animals, solar power, collecting rainwater and dew on PVC sheets for the camp. They have a lot of great collective programs they are doing with some of the villages too, but the juxtaposition of west over traditional culture is really difficult to process. I'm still not sure if it seems like the right thing to be doing or not. It does seem like they are helping a lot of people, but my Western evaluation may be completely off base. They have an interesting program to save lions. the problem is that the lions kill the Maasai livestock (cows are the valuable ones) and then the Maasai kill the lions in return. Luca has a program to give credits to owners whose livestock has been killed by a lion. If no lions in the area have been killed for 90 days thereafter then the Maasai can trade in the credit for a good amount of money in return. It seems to be working very well. I don't know enough to know how sustainable it is. You can read about what they are doing here: http://www.maasaifoundation.org/

OK, off to bed.