Climbing to the Roof of Africa - Day 3

Friday, January 23, 2009

This is the first day we climb above the tree line and we will really begin to feel the altitude and the lack of oxygen that comes with it.

I began the climb at the back of the pack of 30 of us, walking with the mamas, the last group to leave camp with the exception of the porters. We quickly caught up to Mama Minde whose legs and back were aching. She missed yoga yesterday, arriving at camp after dusk again after walking for 11 hours, so Melissa and I stopped on the mountain to give her legs and back a massage with Sandy’s homeopathic cream for aches and pains. Pole pole (slow) walking gets us to the top and she is practicing that. Her spirit will get her to the top.This whole climb is reminding me of the story of the tortoise and the hare – slow and steady wins the race. We were climbing with Abbas and whenever we experienced shortness of breath he suggested we stop and catch our breath, returning our breathing to normal before continuing to ascend.
We continued on past Mama Minde and attempted some meditative silent walking, but we are a chatty group of women and we could not go for any more than 10 minutes without talking. The meditative walking will come at higher altitudes when, with less oxygen, talking while walking will become impossible.

There has been a lot going on since the first day we arrived in Moshi – each day and night being different and not knowing what is going on which can be a challenge for those of us that lead very predictable lives. I am finding the predictable routine on the mountain and being cared for by the men (our guides and porters) very comforting.

All the Tanzanians have a strong sense of where they are from, they can tell you which village and tribe they are from and the name of their chief. A porter asked me one day how many tribes we have in Canada – two I suppose french and English!

This morning Agnes Mtambo, who is Chagga, from Kenya, tripped on her bootlace and broke her wrist. It could have been much worse. But, her inner strength which is attributed to her Chagga heritage has her persevering through the discomfort and inconvenience and continuing to attempt to push to the summit. The equipment and clothing seem elaborate and complicated for all of us to deal with, but I can only begin to imagine what it much be like if you have lived in a warm climate all your life and never really had to wear shoes or a jacket. Fortunately for Agnes she is surrounded by no less than 7 female doctors all of whom have checked out her wrist and decided it is mostly like broken. It is nicely wrapped and her guides can assist her with packing and climbing while she rests the wrist and takes some mild pain killers. Agnes has faced bigger challenges in her life than a broken wrist on Mount Kilimanjaro.

Originally the climb up Rongai was to be female only and we would meet the men at the top, but who are we kidding, in Africa mountain guiding is men’s work and we are surrounded my men, so we have embraced the two men from Canada, Jason and Gary, who have been working with us at the clinic and they are climbing with us up the Rongai Route.
Most of us have decided to take Diamox for prevention of altitude sickness. It makes our fingers and toes tingle. Tanya is also experiencing tingling and numbness of her lips and over the next couple of days it spreads to the rest of her face. We did not realize at the time that she was experiencing early symptoms of cerebral edema.

Our bodies are already working to make more red blood cells to provide much needed oxygen to our tissues as we climb.

Dorothea, Penina and Secunda are pictured on the mountain with the Kibo peak in the background.

Agnes, Dorothea, Anna and Secunda are all HIV+ and doing will on ARVs. Secunda has a 12 year old son who is HIV + and nearing the end of his life, he may only live for another year. Secunda was diagnosed with HIV when she gave birth to him. The women are from a village in Moshi called Rau and they are having fun speaking their native tongue with Alfred.

Secunda is an HIV counsellor at Pamoja Tunaweza. She has been through the HIV counselling training program and counsels all the patients that come in for an HIV test before and after. Precounselling involves telling people that if they are negative they need to come back for another test in 3 months since the test measures antibodies and it takes time for the antibodies to appear after exposure so the initial test can be negative with a positive three months later. If the patients are HIV positive they go to CTC for more testing and to the Mawenzi Government Hospital for ARV meds. Patients line up for three or four hours to receive their medicine. The HIV+ women are doing well, but they are anxious. Most of us have never been on a mountain before, let alone a mountain at high altitude. My own experience on the mountain helps me keep me calm as I experience the sensations of breathing less oxygen. I use my climbing poles to press into the mountain and imagine I’m climbing or skiing on a mountain in B.C.

As I write this is it is 1 p.m. and the porters are putting our delicious lunch together. We can hear the busy shouting of their voices.

We are at 3rd cave tonight. We are at 3800 meters (12,000 feet). We have about 7000 feet or 2000 meters to climb to get to the top. We will sleep at this camp for two nights and spend tomorrow climbing up to about 5000 meters and back down to camp to stress our bodies and tell our bodies to make more red blood cells. This is our acclimatization camp.

Again I taught another yoga class. Many people are feeling anxious as our bodies produce hormones that help with the altitude and make us anxious. I once again taught a very spiritual class that helped us ground into the power of the mountain, take our fear away and open our chests and shoulders to open the door of our hearts to let the spirit that is all around us on the mountain fill us. We also practiced the universal breath connection. “As you breathe in imagine the universe is exhaling and as you breathe out imagine the universe is inhaling and share in that which connects us, our breathe, our life force, our universal energetic connection”.
We also ended the class with a rule from Karen’s book of RULES FOR LIFE that was very applicable to the challenges ahead of us and a blessing for us all: "Thank you God for this incredible opportunity to climb this mountain. May joy, love, peace and compassion be part of the lives of all of us, all of Tanzania and all of Africa. May we all be healing and may be all be healed."

Mama Minde made it into camp around 3 p.m. today and the porters sang beautiful a Capella to welcome her. We got a few welcome drops of rain this afternoon (it is so dry), but the sun is shining again as it does each day.

There are many strong women on the mountain, Hillary Tenenhouse, is one of them, she has had a rough few years in her life with sickness and now she is healthy and she celebrated her birthday today on the mountain, very much alive and well and enjoying the moment.