By Eleanor Braddock, Yr 13
24th July – 30th July
After a long flight we landed in Kilimanjaro Airport, Tanzania at 2AM. We travelled to Moshi and stayed at the Weru Weru Lodge. Our first challenge was to set up our tent and mosquito nets in the dark, but with three people it was effortless. The next morning we woke up to giraffes outside our tent, this wonderful unusual unique experience set the pace for the rest of the trip. Everything was just a little different to what we were used to. Louise was team leader and executed numerous tasks to ensure the proper organisation of our project phase. Communication was tricky, as plans seemed to go back and forth without any true understanding. For example, deciding when we would pick up the concrete. However this has to be one of my favourite days in Tanzania as it was the first time I truly bonded with the team but especially with Yasmine and Emilie. In trying to engage with the local community by teaching ourselves some Swahili we had the greatest time
The next day we went to start our project phase. Cooking dinner when we arrived was such a struggle; the kitchen consisted of two holes on a bench with the possibility to create a fire below. Our first meal was by far the worst, but as with all things we improved. We organised committees down to who would make lunch, dinner, and who would be responsible for the fire. It was fun to work together in cooking, we also noticed how by appointing one leader in charge of the cooking was far better than everyone trying to do everything without communicating with each other.
As for work, we funded the finishing touches to two classrooms built the last year. On the first day we were all extremely engaged in the plastering of the room, but we quickly realised with 2 spades and 4 professionals there wasn’t enough work to be doe for all of us and our work wasn’t necessarily of great use. Tasks like fetching water did however greatly help the workers. It was disappointing as I think we would of liked to take a more active role in the construction as after the first day we realised that our work was more or less redundant. However this in turn highlighted the Tanzanian workers efficiency, it was also nice to think that by funding classroom we were not only providing more kids with the possibility to learn comfortably but also it brought jobs to the community for four days. It also gave us more time to interact with the kids, we taught English for 1 hour in the morning and we organised a sports day. I think it is from playing with the kids we have the best memories.
The village was beautiful in the most quintessentially African way: with dirt roads and banana plantations outlined by orange sunsets that turned into the starriest nights. There was something so pure and unspoilt about it; it served as such a contrast to Europe, whose nature now feels organised and tamed. Whereas Africa was wild and free.
When we arrived back in Moshi it really struck me how much more comfortable I felt walking around. It was fun to talk to the locals and haggle a little, they would tell me the best bits about Tanzania in exchange for recounts of my past week or stories about Switzerland. I had never believed that a week could make such a difference in my confidence level
s.
1st July – 8th July
We woke up early in the morning after a nights sleep (in a bed!) in Moshi to head off for Kilimanjaro. And I can’t tell you if it was the nerves or the early stages of the disease that we would all inevitably developed up there but I have never felt so ill in my whole entire life. When we got out at the Lemosho gate to sign in I was contemplating on signing out. To me in these early stages it seemed as though my dreams of reaching the summit were simply inaccessible. However I made it up to Big Tree Camp, a three hour walk and waited to see what the new day would bring. Still, it felt like such a low blow that I had spent so much time training and organising to go home so soon. Hadn’t I been to higher altitudes? We were barely above 2500m snf there was no way I should be feeling like this. The next day was the hardest day for me. I don’t know if that’s due to the unexpected difficultly or due to my pounding headache and nausea, but the mountain seemed so steep as we trekked out of the jungle and into the alpine landscape to Shira I Camp. When we arrived the heat was stifling on the plane and the only refuge from the sun was in our warm stuffy tent. I remember sitting down to change and wipe myself down with wet wipes before lunch but being simply unable to move, everything took so much effort, I needed a five minute break after undoing my laces and another after taking them off. I was late to lunch and accomplished nothing except wearing myself out from getting in and out of my tent. I felt disheartened, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy but I’d never imagined it could be this hard. In the morning I decided to change my mind-set and regard every step as a personal victory, this was made easier by the relatively flat walk across the plane to Shira II camp on day three. And when arriving there I had felt a new wave of determination, as day 4 is a notoriously difficult day where you walk up to Lava Tower for lunch 4,666m, the same height as Base Camp, all I had to do was make it to the next day then it would be assured I could make it to at least a little way up on summit night: a respectable accomplishment. Day 4 came and the hike up to Lava Tower was far from easy. I had a little breakdown after my back was hurting me. However it was a turning point for me, I was going to be more assertive, if I needed a break I was going to ask for one instead of carrying through pain, and it was likely that other people needed a break too. I wasn’t going to let myself suffer just because I was too proud to let people know I needed help, especially as all that did was aggregate my situation. The walk down to Barranco Camp after lunch was calm and a welcome change from the relentless uphill. Yet I think we were all shocked when we saw the next day’s challenge: Barranco Wall, a practically vertical stretch over 300m. It just seemed so out of our depth, how were amateurs supposed to do this? Yet I think we will all agree (except for maybe Tinkleton?) that it was by far one of the most fun days made better by our jumping pics at the top of the wall. When arriving at Karanga Camp 3,900m I think the reality dawned on us that we were climbing to the top the next day. After dinner they explained that the next day we would wake up at 6am to arrive at Barafu Camp aka base camp at around 12 for lunch before resting to be woken up at 10AM to leave for the summit by 12AM. Physically I felt I was in the best shape of the whole trip, but I was growing more and more tired as I slept less well waking up around 5 times a night and walking more and more each day. However, everyone was together and there was such a sense of unity and since I felt like they were ok, I was ok too. We truly were in this together. And listening to someone’s heavy breathing as we walked up felt like words of support, just because I knew I wasn’t walking (suffering) alone.
The condition of our tent (mine and Lisa’s) deteriorated throughout the trek, on summit night when we were woken up both sides were gaping open attached only by 3 safety pins and a thin layer of ice lay on top of our sleeping bags. By far the most surreal moment. We set off and stormed up the first part taking over groups that had started before us everyone was singing and talking. And it was the first time I believed that maybe I could do it, maybe we all could. However after 3 hours or so our enthusiasm wore off and only the guides could be heard singing (truly the most motivational thing ever). Slowly everyone became more and more tired and cold as we were now exposed to the icy winds. I stopped drinking at each break, I couldn’t take my bag off because if I did the energy taken to do that would mean I couldn’t walk. The only thing that kept going through my mind was Stella Point. When finally the guides relented into giving us an approximated time of arrival: 2 more hours to Stella Point. I kept on going through my head all the things I could do in two hours: a phone call with my best friend, watch a movie, ballet class… Yet the times seemed to stay the same at our next break we were told two hours again, the pitch black seemed to confirm this, so we went back to staring at our shoes. In the last ten minutes (we didn’t know it was the last ten minutes at the time) I could hear someone really struggling behind me and all I wanted to do was to encourage them. However, if I said anything to them I wouldn’t be able to keep on going myself. Everything I had was saved for me and I couldn’t break focus as if I stopped my mind would give up, and I wasn’t ready to let that happen, so I felt guilty, said nothing and went back to mentally drafting the message to my mum to tell her I had made it. When we finally made it to Stella point still in the darkness all of us threw ourselves on the floor more or less on top of each other, some of us slept, I did, but not for long as it was too cold to stay still. So we continued in desperate search for the sign, and we spread out the first time in the entire trip we hadn’t walked one behind the other. The first glimpse of sunlight brought my first sensation of success we were going to make it now it was only a matter of making it. I ended up walking alone in the middle of our group, with one of the porters, an older man. We saw the sign together in the distance it was such an overwhelming moment I started to hyperventilate but realised that the mountain couldn’t cope with my drama as if I didn’t start breathing normally within the next few seconds I would faint, due to lack of oxygen. So I had to have a silent tear. But that moment was so special and even though we didn’t speak the same language there was something between us in sharing that moment nothing was said but when I think of Kilimanjaro I will forever think of that porter to whom I owe the trip. He then took my bag after I finally gave into him offering. And we walked the last bit in the sunrise together.
Even though there is a decent ammount I can’t write/think/remember anything else because nothing can compare to that moment, all the sickness, the sleepless nights, the dizziness, the tingly hands and feet were insignificant after that moment.
