Relax Chez Kibo Huts - 2019 Kili Initiative # 16

The 2019 Kili Initiative team was happy to be at the Kibo Slopes Guest House in Loitikikok. I hadn't been eaten by hyenas, no one had gotten sick, and we had conquered the birthplace of all thorns, Lolapange. Larry's ankle was a little tweaked from the morning run, otherwise we were in one piece.

"How far we walk," asked Laikyn.

"About 180 kilometres," answered JM, the head guide. "About 120 miles in six days. I think we are in good shape for Kilimanjaro, but the rest of the day is yours. Wash up and then we'll meet for breakfast. Just remember we will be staying in tents tonight."

"So we will have to hear Mzee snoring again?" asked Jackman.

"I talk in my sleep. Ma'we snores."

We laughed and emptied our bags.

"Funny, after all that walking I don't feel dirty."

"Feeling is one thing. Smelling is another." JM had already showered in the common bath.

"Okay, I'll shower."

I stripped off my clothes and soaped myself in hot water.

A true luxury.

Clean clothes.

Heaven.

"

Breakfast was served in the dining room.

Food prepared by someone else.

The team was joking about their cooking.

"Who was the best?"

They exchanged glances. Their eyes settled on Jackman and Maureen said, "Jackman makes the best ugali."

Jubbah or Young Steve argued that his was the best. "Jackman tastes like dust."

I left them dining room. Ubah was on her phone. She was speaking with her mother. I modded to her and went to the garden.

A fringe of snow hung onto the rim of Kilimanjaro.

Tim said that in twenty years the glacier will be gone.

I called him in Geneva. No one answered and I texted that everyone was safe and happy to be off the trail.

I found my tent and went to sleep.

I love a morning snooze.

The team was chilling around a table.

They were back in their trekking gear.

Mine was dry and I got back into my outfit.

An outsider only by age.

No one had money and I asked, "Who wants a soda?"

They all did and I ordered drinks from David at the restaurant. He served them on the patio.

JM came over and said, "Enjoy yourselves, because tomorrow we're starting the 'solo'."

I had heard about the 'solo' in New York Tim had said that I didn't need to go with the team.

"Are you going?" asked Ubah.

"Tim said I didn't." Staying forty-eight hours alone in a makeshift shelter without any lights wasn't too appealing, but I answered, "We are a team and a team stays together."

"Mzee."

"

We slap high-fives and I wandered off to my tent.

Ma'we followed and asked, "Are you really going on the solo?"

"Why not?"

"Because if I didn't have to, I wouldn't."

"Me too, but you're going, so is JM and Steve and I'm here to watch over you all, but not now. Let's go to town."

"The usual?"

""Yes, the usual."

It was a short walk.

Through fields.

To a friendly place for old men.

And the Konyagi was a happy sight for Mzee and Ma'we.

Kunywa.

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.

Kili Initiative 2019 - A Path Into The Plains - # 8

Loitokitok's Preacher Man launched the morning program right at dawn. I recognized his rant and climbed out of the tent growling off its best lines.

The church across the valley glowed with light. I couldn't make out a single person on the veranda. The young people at the table shook their heads hearing my speaking in tongues and Jackman said, "Now we have a preacher man stereo."

"Listen to me, we have a busy morning." JM scowled at my blasphemy. "Pack your bags, put everything you don't need in storage and Give in all your phones. Not, you M'zoongoo. Old men have families. Commander Tim said, "Many families everywhere," joked Ma'we, "Maybe even here in Africa."

We ate a last meal at the Kibo Lodge prepared by the young team. The food was very good and filling.

Stewed chicken, eggs, bacon, rice, boiled beans, veggies, and the ever-present Ugali.

The Kenyans cut the cornstarch and dipped slabs into the sauce bowls. We ate with our left hands.

The savory bean gravy gave the bland Kenyan favorite some taste. Jubah pointed at my partially eaten meal. I nodded and Jubah pulled the plate across the table. He shared the left-overs with Jackmaan. That was his name. Not western Jackman.

Jackman.

"I come from a big family. Six of us," I said mentioning my baby brother's death. AIDS had scythed millions across the continent and the scourge ran wild in the streets of Nairobi and New York. I tried to change the subject, however the team were young. They had friends get sick. None of them had money for the medicines.

"It's like they want to kill us."

"Corruption," chorused the Africans.

Free Speech was dangerous in the modern world and Ma'we exhorted the team.

" "Eat, eat, eat. We will be walking twenty-miles or thirty kilometers a day. We need food in our stomach, because out on the plains there is nothing, but dust. No beer too."

"No Kingali too," laughed the young members of the team. After four days they knew some of my strengths as well as my weaknesses.

"You just jealous, because I'm the designated drinker for you all, but I promise I will beat every one everywhere on the trail from point A to point B."

"Enough talk. It's time to go," said JM.

We were taking our first steps away from civilizations; cars, baths, sheets, beer, TV, and all other global merchandise.

We were free from any conspicuous consumption other than the three liters of H2O in our packs.

Life was impossible without water.

Water in Loitokitok came from Kilimanjaro.

The snowmelt quenched the thirst of millions.

The equatorial sun vanquished the thin ice cap by 9 o'Clock

The team pulled on their backpacks. I estimated the weight of mine as twenty-five pounds. The straps bit into my shoulders. I carried steel in New York. This was a difference weight, because it wasn't going away until the end of the day's trek and they would weigh more than twenty pounds very soon.

The main road provided good time. We passed the police checkpoint and continued a mile down the paved asphalt. JM pointed to the right and said, "Now we go to the airport."

"Airport?"

"Yes, if someone on safari wants to fly above Kilimanjaro, they come here for plane. Very safe, but not 100%. Only God is 100%. But tourists arrive at 9am. Still too early." JM was only speaking to me. He must have thought my redemption was only a few words away from salvation.

"God and the love of a mother for their children. Eternity. In the meanwhile let's catch up with the team."

We were twelve. I counted that number twice and said to JM, "Twelve."

"But not the apostles."

"Just Kili Initiative Team 2019."

We slapped high-fives and JM stepped up the pace. I looked into the cloudless sky. It wasn't hot, but it would be by midday. We caught up with the team. The young people were chatting to each other unlike when they were armed with cell-phones.

I tightened my bootlaces and said, "Let's go."

The corn was about eight feet tall. The cobs looked healthy. Goats scavenged the fallen stalks.

"Goat eat everything. Kill everything. Not good." JM shook his head. We were the same age. The two of us had witnessed the change in the world and I said, It's bad everywhere."

The path was known to the guides.

I lagged behind and JM said, "I can't leave you alone. There are dangerous animals and dangerous people."

"I understand, but sometimes I want to be alone. Not to hear anyone else."

"Young people talk a lot," nodded JM.

"We were young once."

"Hah. The God in which you do not believe mocks you. We will never be young again, but we can feel young with these people. You will see."

Sunflowers rose over the path.

I was more concerned about my backpack's increasing weight and said, "Maybe it weights more because we're on the equator."

The team's face revealed a vote in favor of my theory.

"Only going to get heavier until you get where you want to go."

I was ready to be planted with the sunflowers.

I drank a half-liter of water.

"The more you carry in your body, the less you carry on your back," smiled JM, then wagged his finger. "Always have water."

We strayed across a scrubby slope onto grassy savannah. JM pointed to the distance.

A giraffe."

"Before many. Good animal. Not same lions or elephants."

"What about hyenas?"

"Are you scared of 'fisi' or hyena?"

"That and a few other things."

"Damnation?"

"Sorry, not really. Only hyenas." Comic books had taught me how to conquer those varmints.

"I haven't see a sign of a hyena all day. Zebras and elephants. Look up ahead. There a crossing."

Elephant patty looked the same everywhere.

Big.

The few houses in the bush were surrounded by thorns walls.

"The barbed fences might hold off a lion, but nothing stops an elephant."

We were on our own.

Rock, scrubs, dust.

JM, Ma'we, and I drank hot sweet tea at a military checkpoint. We listened to Kenyan pop. They wondered about the team.

"They should be here soon." JM pointed up the road.

Safari jeeps appeared from a dust storm to stop at the police roadblock. The locals offered their Chinese-made artifacts to the tourists. The whites remained in their SUVs. I was the only m'zoongoo standing on African dust.

The safari trekkers sat within the AC comfort.

Loners like me scared white people.

We weren't scared of anything.

Except for the blade of a lawn mower coming loose.

Exploding lawn mowers.

And of course hyenas and those long fanged omnivores weren't getting hold of me. I conjured up the old comic cover. Killing them a second time was even better than the first.