it's that uncertainty that makes you feel alive - afraid - hopeful - dreamy. negotiating who you become when you make that decision, agreement, committment, losing a little bit of yourself in that process and decision. worrying about which way you'll go and how it'll change your life.

Kilimanjaro

I climbed Kilimanjaro two weeks ago and the memory of it is already slipping away. As if, every time I tell its story, it is cheapened somehow, diminished to an anecdote.

I wrote a story about it that'll be published in January. My first draft was probably my truest version. Every subsequent draft and the version that you will find in print will be much less of me and much more of an identity this new magazine is trying to build. Or whatever the editor's taste is.

So let me tell you the truth of it here; that it made me feel invincible, that it made me feel the proudest I've ever felt in a long time. But that it's like happiness, in the way that happiness is not an end-goal but a continuous journey. It is through the moments of pain and fatigue that I felt the most proud. It is the ability to continue when the body says no but the mind convinces it of just one step more, at the end of every last step.

I think it a blessing that we made the summit ascent in the dark. I think the ignorance of the climb ahead allowed us to trudge along like blinkered horses. Though even this blinkered horse needed chocolates, extra water (I realised I could function on a litre a day, whilst hiking for 6 or 7 hours), dance music and the self-conjured mantra of being a bad-ass.

Then of course there was the ex-military man who gave me the best tip I'd give to anyone who wants to climb a steep mountain; pace. Match the length of your strides and just keep on going. Keep a measured and steady pace and you will get a lot less tired a lot less soon and feel a lot more persevering. He was also very stingy with the amount of time he let me rest for. Which at first was difficult but after I learned how to pace myself, I didn't need to stop so much anyway. And I thanked him in the end for it.

The goal is to reach the crater rim if not the summit by sunrise. I made it to the rim. And though the summit was less than 300m away, I felt the fatigue of the climb and the thinness of the air tax my body as I leaned on my guide before speeding up to the wooden post that attests to Uhuru peak as being the highest peak in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain in the world :)

I cried there. Even as they dragged me back down because they said the altitude would tire me, I felt I needed to witness this achievement with more than a photograph. And so I cried! Tears of pure and honest joy not only because of surmounting the physical challenge but also because of the beauty of it, because I was able to see the ice-caps they say will be gone in a few years. Because of the desert crater within and the gentle slopes that you realise are so vast, you wonder how you even climbed them through the night.

This is what makes you happy; this little knowledge that you have done one thing more incredible than the next man. This is what makes you feel that you can do even more, high on the possibility of the possible.

Kilimanjaro - conquered.

mundan for my nephew

we shaved his head the other day, the poor thing squealing under hands that clamped him down and held him still until all his hair was gone. and then all of a sudden he was less of a baby. like the anguish and the loss of his locks made him that little bit older. or that little bit free from traits of his past lives, as one might have interpreted.

and this is what i wanted to hear about whilst they chanted their mantras and threw herbs into the fire. what were their reasons beyond what they professed them to be (ie. being good for hair growth)?

i like the idea - of shedding worldly attachment, renouncing vanity for spirituality, hair for... growth/freedom/truth?

Josephat

I collected a lot of things. Stamps, money, stones, bones, different coloured toilet paper... One day my askari caught for me a bird. And I named him Josephat, just like the askari. And I was so fond of him I wouldn't let him alone. I kept him under the bread basket which I kept lifting so I could continue to hold him, feel his heart pump and pump in panicked frenzy until it pumped no more.

And so I collected him too. I wrapped him tight in cling film and preserved him for posterity. Or at least until medical science advanced enough to bring him back to life.

And then my mother came home and screamed when she found him in the freezer. At once yelling and throwing him out as I entreated her to have more faith in science.

Leaving Loita

We stay a day extra in Loita because the rains threaten the viability of the roads. We are only too happy however to keep Dr. Maria company.

We meet the Chief and the DC in the hope that their influence will promote the rights of women. But both seem rather removed or indifferent about it. Some staff at the hospital however are even bigger hypocrites. They participate in the women's rights campaigns and yet circumcise their girls at home.

One of the men in the workshop, trained in health care and a key personnel in our work will (a few months later) get a fifteen year old pregnant and run away both from the girl and from work...

I guess that's the benefit of writing in hindsight. Things can be put in greater perspective.

The women are sad to see us go. They shower us with hugs and beaded jewellery. And I am emotional myself; emotional about their situation, emotional that we allowed them to talk, if even just to each other. About what women mean in their societies...

Mannfred had left two days earlier so Dr. Maria drives us to Narok and from Narok we take a mat back.

[one of the women whose necklaces I now wear and Sylvester, one of our health care workers/translators]

In Loita

The next day, we begin our work, asking the women a series of questions that will give us a picture of their state and awareness of their human and legal rights.

It's interesting what they say, the non-educated ones especially - as they don't give us answers they think we want.

Most of them tend to the cattle, waking up at six, milking the cows, cleaning the homesteads. Only a few work as teachers or in any kind of formal employment. The highest position they aspire to is councillor. But perhaps this is only because it is the closest within their reach. Most of them are married. And so they have all been circumcised.

We take exceedingly sweet milk tea during our breaks that has this burnt taste in it. We watch the women interact with one another, sipping the same sugar tea and yapping away in Maa.

The organisation had arranged to conduct human and legal rights workshops and medical trainings (the dangers of circumcision) and so these carry on while we continue our questionnaires.

We interview a few men and they are decidedly more arrogant in comparison. But their testimonies are of equal note; they bring up the conflict of new and old worlds, the question of land and registration, that they prefer women uncircumcised because they feel warmer. I decide I want to write a story about it. But months later this blog entry is the closest I have to doing it.

We stay a total of three days doing the questionnaires. And every night Dr. Maria tells us the saddest stories of events at the hospital. A thirteen year old, leaving her baby to die of neglect because she is both depressed and not prepared to take care of it. Pregnant women dying because their husbands won't allow them to come to hospital sooner. The way the leathery feel of the clitoris (healing after circumcision) rips every time a woman gives birth... It is enough to break anyone's heart. And Dr. Maria's heart is clearly broken. She consoles herself she says by writing journals. But this is not enough I think, a good support system and periodical breaks are in order.

To Loita

My programme officer was perhaps my only cheerleader in that organisation and I really believe that she tried her best to keep me on and to do the best she could by me. One of these gestures was taking me to Loita.

Loita is about 2 hours from Narok and Narok is about 2 hours from Nairobi. We ride with Mannfred who V describes as being too much of a gentleman to allow us to mat it.

The drive to Narok is smooth-going. we only stop briefly at 'The World Trade Centre' and other shops to take pictures of the Rift Valley and to haggle with the sheep skin vendors about buying some. I loooooove me some sheep skin. I used to swim in it as a child :)

But no, they won't bring their prices low enough so we head on out - sheepskin less :(

When we get to Narok, we are met by Dr. Maria at some green petrol station. We snack on samosas and tea at the restaurant nearby and then split ourselves up between Mannfred's and Dr Maria's cars.

The second leg of the journey is very bushy and for the most part, devoid of roads so I really wonder how Dr. Maria navigates her way around, turning left at this rock over here and right at that hill over there?

We finally arrive at Entasekera where Dr. Maria has her house and hospital. And you realise for the first time how close you are to nature with no services whatsoever. No network even. Unless of course you climb the next hill, and then if you hold your phone high enough and position yourself strategically enough, you might just catch one of the Tanzanian networks.

The water to the hospital and to the staff houses comes from a stream uphill and the electricity is from the solar panels (which Mannfred's company provides).

The solar is not enough for a refrigerator or television. So any fresh foods we bring with us, we have to consume within the next few days. Her pantry however is stocked with canned goods and dried foods...

We set our bags down and Dr. Maria goes to the hospital to check on things. Mannfred offers to drive us to the (real!) Maasai market for some vegetable shopping and the sight on arrival is one to behold!! in all its profuse of red!


I buy myself three lessos with the inscriptions;

Radhi ya mama nibora kuliko mali (a mother's blessing is better than wealth)

Mtabakia mnajihadaa mume ni kifaa (they continue to deceive themselves that a husband is useful)

Jirani mwema ni asiye kusengenya (a good neighbour is one who does not backbite)