Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro

July 6, 2002

Happy belated 4th of July! Mine was uneventful. The Ambassador had a party at his residence but my invite must have gotten lost :o). The sale that took place on the 29th was very successful for the women’s group. We sold over $200 worth of bags and baskets. I also received an order from another NGO for several hundred bags. It was a confirmed order on the 29th but now I think I'm bidding against others. The people that gave me the order weren't in fact the decision-makers. Got a down payment already so keep your fingers crossed.

If we end up not getting the order (right now for 500 bags - due Oct. of 2003) then I was told we can keep the down-payment as a gift. I'd rather have the order. It's going to mean so much to the women. I travel back to Nunguni tomorrow and will present the group with their proceeds from the sale. Hope I can finalize the order today so I can make that announcement too. Would appreciate your prayers on this one.

On to domestic matters. I painted the other week and now the inside walls look much improved. Gonna buy some African masks to put on the walls and some plants to put in the corner(s). It'll help to make it homey. The last time I returned to Nunguni from Nairobi I found that my bat problem and mouse (rat actually) situation was solved. Someone put concrete on the outside of my house - in the gap between the roof and wall, so no new ones can come in. I still actually hear one or more trying to get in but at least they're not inside the gap mating anymore! I stopped the rat from entering my place so the whole rat family went to my neighbor's house. They eventually killed them. As I was painting I used spackle to plug the biggest cracks on the floor, against the walls, where most of my ants were entering. We'll see tomorrow how that worked.

The other day I went to a market researcher's focus group. They were looking for rich locals or foreigners living here. Me, two of my JCI colleagues, and Elizabeth, attended. Elizabeth and I pretended to work at the American Embassy as they wouldn't have taken us as PCVs. For our opinions on new product launches (rice, peanut butter and jam) they gave each of us a voucher worth 2000 shillings at one of the big supermarkets in town. Woohoo! Got some free drinks during the meeting too so it felt like Christmas! Got a tight schedule today so I'm going to cut this short. Hope everyone is doing well. Take care! Oh, before I forget again, I still haven't heard anything back from the E.U. on that proposal I submitted in March. No news is not necessarily good news here...they might have lost it!

August 3, 2002

I'm leaving tomorrow for Arusha, Tanzania to meet up with Karin, Becky, Tracy, Peter, Rick, Doug and Jeff. We start our climb up Kilimanjaro on the 6th and will finish our climb on the 12th. I'm really hoping that living at altitude (6200 ft in Nunguni) for the past 9 months will replace the need for any serious training - cause I haven't done any :o) I kept meaning to get out and ride my bike but never got around to it. Jogging would just cause a mob scene in Nunguni. I can just imagine being chased by dozens of school children shouting "Mzungu!" (meaning European or white person).

Funny enough, even black-Americans get called "Mzungu". No one believes they are really American, they think they're just being arrogant and trying to pretend they're not African. Have I already written about this? I get so confused on my stories cause I write them in letters, this update and my journal. I always feel like I'm repeating myself over and over...well, I guess I am. Anyway, I'm very excited to be going on vacation and seeing familiar faces from home. We're not sure what we're doing after the climb but it WILL involve being comatose on a beach somewhere with a drink in hand.

I can't wait to show Karin et al my house and town (not everyone will come back to Nunguni for a visit but I think Karin, Becky and Peter will). Hopefully it will warm up in the next couple of weeks. It's been so cold at the house lately. How cold is it? So cold that my liquid vegetable oil is now a solid. And I thought my biggest issue with living in rural Africa would be not having a fridge....little did I know I'd be living in one! Seeing as most bugs don't like the cold, they've been seeking refuge in my house as it's warmer than outside. I do still hear a bat, or bats, trying to enter through my roof but I'm hoping they're going on vacation too.

Bad news for my group. We lost the order for 500 bags. I'm so disappointed and I know the women are too. It seems that the people that placed the order with me had no right to make such a decision. Their HQ in the U.S. pulled the plug. I'm going to tell them to give me the down-payment as a gift. It will lessen the blow a bit. The upside is that we will now have ample time to prepare for upcoming exhibitions. I arranged for JCI and my group to have a stand at the Karen Blixen Museum last weekend. A travel agent was taking 700 tourists to the museum and wanted some craftspeople there to talk about Kenya and promote their products. It was very successful for us. Mrs. Meka, the group's chair lady attended (I didn't) and it was great for her to hear what customers were saying about our products. We got both positive and negative feedback but you learn from both so it was worthwhile.

Isabel and Mr. Gikonyo just moved houses in Nairobi. Seeing as I stay with them when I'm in town, I moved too! The apartment is right behind a huge supermarket and very near some fast food places that I love. I'm going to be spending way too much money in the near future - the temptation to have yummy pizza is too overpowering. The only problem with the place is that there is no water. The landlord deceived them on this point and they've already paid for 2 months. They're looking for another place as water is not something a large family can do without. There go my nice hot showers. Oh well, it's not like I'm used to them anyway. In fact I don't bathe nearly as often as you might think...I'm not going to tell you how often. It's such a pain to carry water to your house, warm it up on the stove (using expensive gas), and then stand freezing in your unheated fridge of a house and pour the warm water over yourself using a cup. I don't think it's an issue, me not bathing often, at least I haven't heard anyone complain. It's not like a cloud of files follow me around or anything.

My women came by my house on Thursday to give me a send-off party. They brought milk and chai (tea) with them and loaves of bread. Each person got their own loaf (unsliced) and you just rip off a hunk and eat it while drinking your tea. I passed on the bread. They were all very sweet to come by (15 or so members came) and wish me a good vacation. They got the biggest kick out of my house and the decorations. They about killed themselves laughing when they saw the small tree (live) that I put in the corner near the couch. They couldn't believe I was growing a tree in my house! That's about all I can think of to update you all on for now. I'll let you know how the climb went and the beach bumming. Until next time...

August 23, 2002

Well, just said goodbye to Karin, Becky and Peter last night. My vacation is now officially over - so sad. The other 3 in the group, Rick, Tracy and Jeff (Doug, whom I mentioned in my last update was never planning on coming) left on Saturday. Karin, Peter and Becky were able to spend some time in Nunguni which was such a treat for me.

The climb went great. We hiked through such varied terrain, from rainforest, to meadowlands, to lunar-type conditions. We hiked up for 6 days and descended for 1 1/2. The last day was horrible, in my opinion. Not the summit part, but the 8-hour slog through ankle-deep mud...mostly downhill. I think I would prefer to summit again rather than make that walk again. No one in our group suffered too badly from altitude sickness. Peter wasn't feeling well for the first couple of days but thankfully acclimated fully by day 4. We never hiked in snow but it was always quite cold and windy, especially at night. We slept in 2-man tents (the 3 guys in a tent) on thin sleeping pads and in thin sleeping bags. No bathing for 7 days, except for the occasional splash of water on the face in the morning. I never thought the dirt would come off my hands and thought for sure the gunk under my nails was going to sprout roots. The hot shower we got back at our hotel in Arusha after the climb was quite possibly the best feeling I've experienced in a long while.

Many in our group have hiked up Mt. Rainier before and said that Kili was easier than the Rainier climb. Mostly because you pack all your climbing, from sea-level to 14,000 ft., in a 24-hour period. Kili however was much more gradual. Longer, yes, but no one day was over taxing. Except for that last muddy day! Also, we didn't have to rope up or cross crevasses, etc. Our next leg of the vacation started way too early. After getting to our hotel quite late, we showered, ate and caught a few hours of sleep before our bus to Dar es Salaam left at the crack of dawn. It was a beautiful 9-hour ride through Tanzania. We got to Dar just in time to catch the last ferry out to Zanzibar. It was pouring down rain when we arrived but thankfully had our hotel booked and a van to pick us up at the port. We stayed on the East side of the island - very sparsely populated. The hotel was a series of bungalows right on the beach. They weren't prepared for bad weather so we froze the first night - no blankets - but had sun the rest of the time.

Karin and I stayed until the 18th and then made our way back to Dar. Thought we could take a night bus back to Arusha but we got some misinformation on that so ended up sleeping in Dar and taking a 14-hour bus ride to Nairobi the next morning. We were booked onto a "local" bus vs. the "luxury" bus we came into Dar on. We were the only tourists on the bus. It was a grand adventure and not as bad as you'd think a 14-hour bus ride would be. Arrived in Nairobi at night but I had arranged for a taxi to be waiting for us in a good part of town (using my un-Peace Corps-like mobile phone).

We stayed in Nairobi 2 nights to recover before getting on another bus (only a 2-hour ride) to Nunguni. Becky and Peter met us in Nunguni later that day. They had flown from Zanzibar to Arusha and took a 2-day safari in Tanzania before coming into Nairobi. They were all able to see Nunguni on market day. The following day we walked down to where I lived when I first came to Nunguni. The climb back up gave us some not-too-pleasant flashbacks to Kili! I came in to Nairobi with them on the 22nd to say goodbye and they generously paid for my stay in a hotel for that night. I'm off to Nunguni later today to resume my pre-vacation existence. I thoroughly enjoyed the last 3 weeks and can't wait for more visitors.....any takers?