2019 Kili Initiative # 9 - Another Night Walk - Illasit

As the sun dropped to the west of Illasit. I stood on a hill to contact Tim Challen, the Kili Initiative director, in Geneva. Somehow a signal connected us and my friend asked, "How is everyone?"

"Better than good. They made it here on their own. It's not easy for anyone to read a map."

"That's why we bring them out there. To find their own way. I'll call you tomorrow."

I hung up, wondering what were the charges for a long-distance call from Kenya to Switzerland, as I descended the rocky slope to our campsite on the Illasit middle school grounds.

Dinner wasn't ready and Ma'we suggested a walk into town.

JM said, "Don't be too long."

"Just taking my brother to see our world."

We strolled away from the middle school down a narrow defile. Young girls and women stood behind a wired fence preparing the evening meal. Two guards in their forties stood at the gate. Ma'we explained, "That is a shelter for women fleeing Female Genital Mutilation or sexual violence. The guards take them back and forth to school. They are safe here from 'emorata'."

The guards shouted out his name and Ma'we waved to them, as we continued down the path.

"You seem to know everyone."

"I taught school here. A long time ago. I had a small room. I slept on the sleeping bag and stored it in the rafters. All the students said I slept on the floor. I never told them different and these people thought I was one of them, but they are Maasai."

"Warriors." I was familiar with the spearmen from Tarzan's BROTHERHOOD OF THE SPEAR.

Proud warriors too."

"This town grew when other tribes opened shops. Commerce gave everyone money. The Maasai were jealous and called for a meeting atop that hill."

"They told the other tribespeople they had twenty-four hours to leave and gave them a beating to show they were serious. The pother people left and within a year the town was only friends with the wind. The Maasai want people to come back, but everyone went somewhere else. Still they do have beer here."

"Sounds good to me."

I wasn't scared of anything.

Especially with Ma'we at my side."

Few trees had survived over-pasturization.

Dust was the main crop aside from cattle.

Everyone greeted Ma'we by name.

Some houses were closed for good and I imagined the ghost of the old occupants had also been exiled to other lands.

"Here we are."

"This is a bar."

"With Guinness."

I am Irish and entered the bar with eagerness.

We entered the bar.

A few young men chewed ghat in the corner. The stimulant was popular throughout East Africa.

"Ghat has been in Africa since the Pharaohs and it is legal in Kenya," explained Ma'we with disapproval.

The table offered me some of the leaf. I shook my head and Ma'we signaled for beer.

The Guinness was not cold. Electricity was saved for the overhead fan. Guinness was still good for you.

And even better with my new friends.

After an hour the mayor and his brother wished us good luck.

"Tumunyana."

It was night and after the gas station the stars guided us through the shadows back to the school.

No one could ever calculate their number. I lost track after a billion.

Drinking three Guinness didn't help my math and neither did my fingers, but I needed them to count us.

We were two.

Ma'we and me.

And up ahead I spotted a fire.

Our campsite.

Our friends.

Food.

Tents.

Sleep.

In Africa.

I was happy, but looked behind me.

I was happier to not see glowing eyes, because the night belongs to the hyenas on the Maasai Plains.

2019 Kili Initiative - Arrival in Illasit # 9

After crossing ten miles of the arid savannah Ma'we and I reached the road to Illasit, an isolated Masai town in the late afternoon. The equatorial sun was dropping to the west. My backpack weighed a ton. JM the guide had warned about carrying any extra weight and I thought about throwing away my toothbrush.

The dirt track led to the local middle school.

The 2019 Kili Initiative team had yet to arrive.

Ma'we pointed to eight figures atop a hill. It was our crew.

"They'll be here soon enough."

At the school gate JM and Fast Steve were speaking to the headmaster, whose right hand grasped a long stick. The students were arranged by boys and girls for release from education. Ma'we whispered, "When I taught in this town, the headmaster beat any troublemakers at the end of the day."

"I went to a school with nuns. They beat us all day long." The 1950s had been a time of penal education.

"Same as when I was a boy. Now they don't do it so much as threaten to beat them."

JM introduced the headmaster, who requested that I speak to his charges.

"Sure." I approached the students.

"Education is important. Knowledge is more important. Running fast is most important for Linet Masai and Eliud Kipchoge." I lifted my right hand. "On your marks, get set, GO."

They ran from the school yard with the wind, puffs of dust exploding beneath their feet.

Within ten seconds they were a hundred meters from me.

Even as a teenager I had never been that fast.

The headmaster smiled and left to attend to those students scheduled for detention.

None of them looked happy.

"Let's go to the tents."

Our camp had been set up by the tuk-tuk driver.

Female detainees stared out from the classrooms.

They looked hungry and I handed over my remaining lunch as well as my supply of chocolate.

Smiles gathered on their faces and I returned mine, thinking that was a good pound off my back.

Sitting with Ma'we and JM I asked how long they had known each other.

"We met in the late 80s teaching the Kenyan Army how to survive in the bush. We didn't think that we would be friends, but here thirty years later two old men working every year for this Kili Initiative trek."

"Not as old as me." I had a a good ten years on both of them.

"I was 18 the first time I climbed Kilimanjaro. I had never been so cold, but I made it to the top. The problem was that my water had frozen and I was dying of thirst. I thought I was going to die, but by the time I got back to Kibo Hut, I was fine. I've been up to the top maybe a hundred times same as Ma'we."

"Not everyone makes it the first time," added Ma'we.

"You think I'll make it?"

"Tomorrow if you can make it to the top of Lolapange, then you can make it to the top of Kili."

I looked around me. Nothing was as high as Kili in the distance.

Snow tipped the rim.

It was over a million years old.

I felt older, but not as old as the team walking into the campsite.

They set up a table for cooking dinner.

"How was it?"

"We found our way together," said Jackman and JM nodded, appreciating the backpacks were on the ground, instead of their backs. I felt the same way and tested the uglai.

The Kenyan staple tasted better on an empty stomach.

"Good," asked Maureen.

"Very good."

Everything was always better when you weren't alone.

Ma'We and JM - Illasit, Kenya

Ma'we and JM have been hiking through the Tsaavo Plains since 1989.

Both were teachers training the Kenyan army through the auspices of Outward Bound.

The two men have been accompanying the Kili Initiative teams for over a decade.

Neither thought they would be friends at first, but friends they are.

To hear their tale, please go to the following URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezC_rpULKvU&feature=youtu.be