Ambroseli Safari 2019

Ambroseli Safari with 2019 Kili Initiative team. The previous evening at the hotel in Marangu I had eaten goat entrails stew, despite our commander Tim Challen's warning. I ignored his advice and paid the price. I was deathly ill and the next day we went on a safari to Ambroseli. We sighted lions, elephants, zebra, baboons, and giraffes, who are not hard to miss. All I wanted to see was a rest room, which was atop a hill in the plains. Safe from the wild beast, but not goat entrails stew.

On the climb my puking earned the nickname '000-aak'. Never again goat entrails stew.

Snow Beer, Benny Hill, Lhasa 1995

In 1995 Tim Challen a 20 year old Briton wandered the world bound for Tibet. Chengdu, China was the airport of departure to Lhasa. Arranging visas et al he explored the Szechuan capitol arriving at a riverside cafe with two young female Dutch travelers for an afternoon tea. Surrounded by hibiscus flowers calm reigned along the Jin River, until loud moans broke from an older man receiving a shoulder massage from an even older Chinese woman.

"Bloody Yank," he remarked to his companions. "Let's go see the pandas."

The next morning a minibus took his group to the airport. Tim boarded the plane and sat at a starboard window. The flight flew over the Himalayas and as the last passengers filled the plane, he became increasingly pleased with the prospect of his seating arrangement. Take-off was due and then the American from yesterday staggered down to aisle seeking his seat

"Please not here, please not here."

The American stopped and lookeda at Tim.

"I think you're in my seat "

Tim got up and politely exchanged places. The American said nothing. A small blessing and fell asleep before takeoff.

An hour later he woke and looked out the window

"Damn, the Himalayas. Take a look " The American rose from his seat and went to the restroom. Indeed damn. The mountain range to all horizons. After fifteen minutes, the American returned with two beers and sat by the window.

"I miss anything?" He asked handing Tim a can of Snow Beer.

"A hundred miles of Himalayas."

"Plenty more to come."

He turned on the in-flight TV.

"It's Benny Hill. You like him?"

Tim did indeed and like that

Beer, Benny Hill, and soon Lhasa they became friends forever. Chai yo.

Tashi delek.

Back From Africa 2020

Once more Tim Challen, director of the Kili Initiative, invited me to participate in the 2020 Kilimanjaro Climb with youths from Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam. I left New York mid-February for a 13 hour flight to Africa and a short connecting leg to Mochi Aeroport in Tanzania followed by a two-hour taxi ride to the Marangu Hotel on the slopes of Kilimanjaro.

I brought along my computer, hoping to enter posts before and after the climb, however the Internet connection was weak, except in Pete's Bar.

Somehow I was diverted from that task, but I'm back in New York.

Brooklyn to be exact.

Missing Africa and all my new and old friends, especially Ma'we.

Bahati njema from the Mzee of the Kino Hut.

Kili Intiative 2020 - TOP OF AFRICA - Go Fund Me

I will be leaving New York on Monday February 17 to meet the 2020 Kili Initiative team in Marangu Tanzania. Originally, the first Mt Kilimanjaro climb was just going to be a one-off ascent, with the singular aim of raising a few US dollars for community projects and to offer 10 young Africans the opportunity to reach the highest point in Africa. Since its inception, KI has lead more than 500 climbers to the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro, including 220 youth from Africa and beyond, and raised hundreds of thousands of US dollars for youth-based activities in Kenya and Tanzania. Mt Kilimanjaro has inspired, saved and transformed.

I will be joining the team for my second climb as well as fill in sections for my film about the 2019 climb and team members to promote the project.

I thank you for your past help and hope you can help me achieve the summit and complete my filming.

Asante

Peter Nolan Smith

https://www.gofundme.com/f/top-of-africa/donate

Kili Initiative 2019 # 3 - Kibera

Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Authorities estimated the population of the 'Forest' to be 500,000 to a million residents, who live on less than $1 a day. Crime and disease ravage the vast shantytown lacking schools, electricity, running water, and medical care.

On my second day in Africa the Red Hook contingent; Natalia, Larry, and Laikyn, accompanied five Kibera natives to Soweto. Our guide Fast Steve warned we had to be careful. He helped run the local boxing club.

"Kiberans are good fighters. Hard hands and harder heads."

"People don't like photos. They think you're taking them to think you are better than that. Bring no money and only your phone."

"I've been to ghettos before."

The Lower East Side.

Bangkok's Klong Toey.

Paris' Bidonville.

Larry and Laikyn hailed from Red Hook, Brooklyn's notorious crack capital. Back in the day bullets flew between gangs night and day. Some hit some of their intended targets. More often they struck 'mushrooms' or innocent citizens far from the action.

The NYPD treated everyone like a criminal. It was part of the 76th Precinct's training for the 'slave patrol' mentality.

None of these ghettoes rivaled Kibera.

'The Forest' had revolted after the last election and while the poor hated the rich, even more they despised politicians who stole everything, even the future.

Kibera was peaceful on this Saturday. The main street was crowded with thugs, families, young men and women, most with a smile on their faces despite the constant threat of economic chaos.

The New Yorkers were used to this. Red Hook had suffered the hell of Crack in the 80s. Gunfire echoed from the front to the back of the low buildings. The twenty year-old were cousins.

I was simply an old white man, but I wasn't scared, because I came from the South Shore of Boston. Jackman called me M'zee. He saw something in me. M'zee was better than being a 'mzungu'.

Young boys played football on a dusty soccer pitch.

Below the bluff reeds stretched across a valley and Fast Steve explained, "Once water filled a basin at the edge of Kibera. They had a yacht club, but the lake is gone."

"So I see."

"The streams are filled with plastic. The water is gone. Maybe one day it will come back.

"I hope so." I doubted any recovery from plastic, but Fast Steve was young. He pointed to the left.

My eight charges posed for a shot.

I tried to remember everyone's names.

I failed with the girls. They were shy. Their eyes held stories. All our eyes did the same. Young and old.

We walked by the football field and Steve explained, "This was a rough field controlled by the gangs, but we found money to level it. My team is Arsenal."

Everyone all around the world loves the English Premiership.

And boxing.

The old boxing club was in rough shape.

The young fighters had hope.

Kili Initiative 2019 # 1- JFK to NAIROBI

In early February this year I met Natalia Rios, Larry Fishbourne, and Laityn Graham at JFK Airport for a flight Nairobi, Kenya. The young New Yorkers were the members of the Kili Initiative's 2019 team.

The Initiative's goal was to broaden their horizons by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa.

The trio knew nothing about me other than I was old and Larry from Red Hook asked why I had been chosen as their 'chaperone'.

"Firstly I'm not your chaperone, but neither am I a teacher and mountaineering isn't my expertise, however the director thought I could provide guidance." I couldn't tell them the real reason.

"How so?" demanded his sister Laityn.

"I don't know, but I've traveled everywhere in the world."

"Meaning?" Natalia narrowed her eyes. I was several generation down stream from hers.

"That I will always be there for you."

"How do you and the director know each other?" Larry looked at the travel board. Our flight was boarding for departure.

"Tim and I met in Tibet. It's a long story."

"We have a fifteen-hour flight ahead of us. Do tell," asked Natalia.

I showed them a Polaroid from Lhasa.

"In 1995 my baby brother had died of AIDS and I set out on a pilgrimage to the holiest places in the world to speed his soul across time. Tim and I met in Chengdu China." I had told the story hundreds of times over the years.

"I'll give you five hundred words or less version version on the way to the gate."

The story ran from Bangkok-Chiang Mai-Kumming-Chengdu-Lhasa-Kathmandu to Varanasi.

They laughed at the right places and I cried thinking about swimming in the Ganges to expiate my brother's sins. Mine were indelible.

"I'll tell the longer version around a campfire in Africa."

"We can hardly wait," yawned Natalia.

Once on the plane I called my family in Thailand.

"Be careful," warned my wife.

She was scared a lion might eat me. My younger sister shared the same fear and thought I was foolish to climb Kilimanjaro, then again there is no fool like an old fool.

People did die on Kilimanjaro and lions are man-killers, however ever since I had been chosen to go to Africa, I had been dreaming about hyenas gnawing on my bones.

The carnivores were everywhere in Kenya, especially at night.

My nightmares had included a high-pitched laugh from the killers and they were hah-hah laughs either.

Forty minutes later the 777 rose from the runway and the airplane veered east over Long Island. The flight was not full and we stretched across the 3-seat economy section. Natalia and Laityn slept like queens, while Larry and I watched movies during the long flight. Neither of us shut an eye.

We arrived in Nairobi at dawn.

No one was waiting outside the terminal. Thousands of miles from the USA. I called Tim in Geneva. No answer. The three young people looked at me. I stepped closer with a smile.

"Where are we?"

"Nairobi," answered Laityn.

"Exactly and we are in Africa. The mother continent."

"Africa."

"The word sounded different here.

I called Sadique from Kili Initiative.

"Traffic is bad, but I will be there soon."

I told my young friends all was good.

They smiled with the trust of an old man.

Fifteen minutes Sadique showed up with an apology.

"No worries", said Larry.

We piled into a van. Our destination was the Nairobi YMCA.

The rundown hostel had a swimming pool. I swam in the cool water. Nairobi was equatorial, but high on the plains like Denver. I toweled dry and dressed for lunch, at which we met the Kenyan crew.

Juba, Jackman, Vanessa, Ubah, and Maureen.

They were young, although none of them said anything about my age and after the meal our group walked through the parks to the city centre.

"I don't see anyone smoking," I commented crossing a bridge over a pond.

"No one smokes in Kenya. It's too expensive," said Vanessa, a Kibera native. "Plus you can not smoke most everywhere and there are no ads. Do you smoke?"

"Rarely. Like maybe a cigarette once a month."

That is a good thing. Only White people can afford cigarettes."

I was the only M'zoongoo in sight. My friend and Kili Initiative founder, Tim Challen, had warned of this phenomena, but it felt good to be a minority.

Fast Steve was a trek guide for the Kili Initiative, but also belonged the rescue crew of Nairobi.

"I work for Kili Initiative, because if I do I am safe. If I do not then I have two options. Working or not working. If I work I am safe, If I do not, then I have two options."

He believed in safe after saving lives at January's DusitD2 compound attack. He was a true hero even if he was an Arsenal fan.

He took us the the site of the old US Embassy. The 1998 bombing destroyed the building and killed hundreds, mostly Kenyans. Another car bomb hit the US embassy in Tanzania. A memorial honored the dead.

"Where were you on 9/11?" asked Larry.

"I watched the second plane hit from my rooftop in the East Village." I had been 49. I looked at the names of the Nairobi dead from 1998. "So many people.

"I was three years old. The only way to end terror was through peace."

"I believe that too, but sometimes a gun cures violence." Larry came from Red Hook. He was telling the truth.

The projects had suffered dramatically during the Crack Epidemic. Things were better now.

Is there anything you want to see?" asked Old Steve.

"Yes, the old train station. I have a thing for them."

"We can go there tomorrow."

The rail terminal was in the near distance. I thought about going alone, but we were a group and I was a member of that group. I said nothing, as we wandered back through the city.

We ate a meal at a Turkish restaurant.

When I went to the bathroom, the waitress handed me one sheet of toilet paper. She did the same for all of us. We laughed about this through park.

Families were enjoying the day.

Juba related his hanging in the park as a child.

"This was our paradise. We walked from Kibera. Two hours. Africans like to walk."

Our team talked about themselves with caution. They were unsure of everyone, but we had a month to find who we were. Both for the others as well as ourselves. I wondered who I would be to not only them, but myself. Truthfully I really didn't care about who I was, since old men are invisible to the young and that is not necessarily a bad thing in 2019.