Idaho

The idea of traveling to the US in March came to me as early as December. At that point, I figured the chances were slim that I would eventually go. In addition to concerns about our cash flow, remote work for two weeks is not easy to schedule given obligations to attend meetings and participate in work events.

Things changed when the US president announced that he was going to take down USAID, the largest humanitarian and development donor in the world. While our program in Somalia was not heavily impacted directly, indirectly the ripple effects began almost immediately. I won’t go into detail, but one of the impacts on my job was that I would see a dramatic reduction in funds to travel to Mogadishu. From a personal standpoint, the result of spending more time with family is welcome. It also allows me to gain more time in my week without the time-consuming treks to the airport and all that the commute entails, not to mention less exposure to insecurity as the situation in the country becomes more concerning. The downside, of course, is that I get less time with my team, with government counterparts and with other international stakeholders. I am prevented from visiting projects and meeting with people that we serve. It’s frustrating and, I hope, something that will not continue for too long.

In any case, given that I would be unable to travel for work, I returned to the idea of traveling to the US. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan throughout the month of March, was an additional factor. I’ve spent time in Somalia during Ramadan but it’s not ideal given that everyone is fasting and work hours are modified (no lunch break and shorter workdays).

The third motivation for travel was that I recently noticed that my US driver’s license would be expiring within the next couple of months. Having an expired license would be problematic. And there were other reasons as well that I won’t go into.

* * *

Thus, I made the call that I would travel assuming I could find a ticket for a somewhat reasonable price. I went online and, given that it is not a busy travel period, I found a relatively cheap ticket and proceeded to lock in my dates. Though I would continue to work full-time while I was there (waking in the wee hours to overlap with East Africa time), the effort to make the trip was increasingly making sense.

The first week of March, I would be on my way. My flights would take me through Brussels, then Chicago and finally to Boise. During my layover in Brussels, I was reminded of the Belgian culinary delights. It’s possible that there are lots of people who disagree with me, but one thing that stood out during my two years living in the country was the wonderful food, some of which is on offer in the airport.

Kimberly

I landed in Boise late on a Tuesday. The next day, somewhat jet lagged, I would pick up some things at our storage and by late morning my sister and I would be off to spend a few days with my parents.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. When I am there, I try to tackle projects like pruning trees, yardwork, cleaning (ex. like the garage we cleaned last summer). This time of year, there was less to be done. As such, after my 2am-10am workday, I would get a workout in and then spend time with the family. We would participate in on a couple of outings where my parents like to go as a part of their routines. Though not for everyone, I do like these drives. It’s a dose of nostalgia, often taking me back to my youth and to places of significance for our family history. I would probably go crazy if I lived there, but visiting is quite enjoyable.

 

the Hagerman Valley

Boise

By Saturday morning, we would return to Boise. My sister took me straight to the airport where I would pick up a rental car and I could regain some autonomy. I took full advantage, beginning to run errands to take some pressure off the errands I would need to run later. After a couple of quick days in the city, I would head north to New Meadows.

East Boise and the foothills

New Meadows

I went to college in northern Idaho for a couple of years and I barely remember driving through the small town of New Meadows. At the time, it was just another small town along the eight-hour or so drive from my parents’ house to my campus in Lewiston. I probably stopped there on a few occasions to refuel or use the restroom (my car was notorious for breaking down on these trips but I don’t remember breaking down there. But I never would have thought that someday I would be a property owner in Meadows Valley. Though I have wanted property in the mountains since I was a kid, this area wasn’t on my radar.

Since then there has been a gradual migration of family to the area and, when I was finally in a position to consider real estate in the mountains a few years ago, this valley made more sense. It’s less expensive than some mountain areas. It’s beautiful. And when I spotted the property we would eventually buy, it seemed to be a rather logical thing to do. Though the completion of the house was not smooth sailing, in retrospect, it was a good decision.

* * *

I would stay at my sister and brother-in-law’s house in a wooded area a few miles from town only about fifteen minutes from the property that we purchased. It’s a gorgeous log home with a driveway that can be tricky to navigate in the winter. With my relatively small rental car, it wasn’t clear whether up to the task. I will say, I’ve always made it up in previous years driving front-wheel drive rental cars, so I was cautiously optimistic.  In the end, I didn’t have any problem. Admittedly, I was aided by some sand that they had poured towards the top just before I arrived.

My brother arrived not long after I did. We would settle in for the next several days hanging out, watching college basketball, eating yummy food, cutting wood, skiing, etc. I still need to deal with early bedtimes and early wake up but, given the circumstances, I was happy to be able to get it all done. 

the Intersection

Wood

One task that was on my list was to attack several slash piles on my property. The piles of wood were created about a decade ago when the previous owner cut down all the trees across the 16-acres of land and milled the wood. It left a barren landscape and piles of leftover scrap wood that are a bit of an eyesore. When talking to people from the area about where my property is, it’s not uncommon to hear, “Ah, that property with the slash piles.”

The felling of those trees was a tragic event. Some of the remaining trunks are over four feet wide. They must have been massive and majestic. The job left for me as current owner is to clean up what remains.

While I was in Boise, I picked up a new chainsaw. I already had a cordless one, hoping that my environmentally sound alternative would be powerful enough to do the job. But after taking a stab at it last summer, it was clear to me that I needed something far more robust.

After a somewhat failed attempt to attack one of the piles on Wednesday, by Friday I was there again. I was out the door relatively early, braving the sub-freezing temperatures. At first it seemed like a ludicrous thing to be doing. We had made a trail through the deep snow just to access the pile. The south side of the stack was accessible but the north side, exposed to less sun, was still covered with a thick layer of snow. Some of the logs were frozen to each other and impossible to move. But as I fired up the saw and began to have some success, I began to feel good about the decision to push on.

the piles are bigger than they look in the photo

Very quickly, it became apparent to me how massive these slash piles are. After three hours of cutting and amassing an impressive heap of cut timber, I was less than halfway through the first pile. Some have suggested I just torch the piles. Though it would be much easier, it’s environmentally problematic and wasteful. There is so much fuel in these piles that the fires would be massive, burn for a long time, and benefit no one. Having said that, it is inevitable that I will torch some of it, especially the smaller limbs. I assume that over time it will become clearer to me how much. So the plan for now is to extract a few tons of wood that I will stack behind my shed and provide more firewood than the family will ever need.

Skiing

When I set up the trip, it did cross my mind that by mid-March there still may be an opportunity to go skiing. And yes, it is one of my favorite things to do. But at a time when we are trying to save money, the idea seemed a bit self-indulgent, and I did want to get work done on our property. As it worked out, the weather would dictate where I placed my focus. Not only was snow continuing to fall and creating fantastic ski conditions, it was making my wood cutting plans more complicated. On top of that, my brother would be unable to ski due to an injury and he made his equipment available for me to use. The gods were politely encouraging me to spend some time on the powdery slopes. I accepted their invitation.

fresh powder

My sister and brother-in-law are now retired and have spent an enormous amount of time skiing this year. They offered to take me along and I joined them on Thursday and Saturday. On both days, we arrived early and made sure we were among the first to board the chairlift. The reward was untouched fields of powder.

Admittedly, deep powder is a challenging way to start given how seldom I ski. But muscle memory kicked in and before long I was carving my way down the mountain. Though I’m in pretty good shape, I did find that I need to stop from time to time to catch my breath and give my thighs a break. It’s a good workout. But the views were stunning, and it was wonderful just to be on the mountain.

The snow on Saturday was amazing, but the wind picked up by mid-morning and there were blizzard conditions on the top of the mountain. I was planning on returning to Boise in the afternoon, and the lack of visibility was making it easier for me to decide to make my exit. By late morning, we skied to the lodge. I had a quick bite to eat and then headed down the road.

Return to Boise

Once in Boise, it was time to continue running errands and wrapping things up on the trip. Work was less demanding given that it was the weekend which facilitated my ability to spend time with family, squeeze in workouts, do some shopping and make my final trip to the storage.

Overall, I can’t complain. It was a successful trip and a good time with family. Having said that, I was anxious to get back to my wife and daughters, my routines, etc. 

San Francisco on the way back to Kenya (a bit of a detour)

 

Mt. Kenya - Day 5

The plan was to get up by 6:30 and leave camp about an hour later. It didn’t really happen that way but we were on the trail a little after 8am.

The hike to the park gate was uneventful. My legs were tired and my feet were sore. We were not in a huge hurry, but we also knew we had a long drive ahead of us to get back to Nairobi at a decent time.

We took the time to observe the animal tracks on the trail. I’m not good at identifying them. But there were some that appeared to be lion tracks. Some hyena tracks. They were fresh enough to have been either during the night or earlier that morning. There are definitely lions in the area and there were recent sightings. But there isn’t much of a history of them attacking hikers in this area so we didn’t worry about it much.

We arrived at the gate with a sense of accomplishment (and fatigue). It is customary to not only tip the guide and porters, but to do so in a somewhat formalized manner. This happened after the Kili hike where they even had a little ceremony, sang, and gave us certificates. This time the porters lined up and we all had to express our gratitude for their support over the past five days. We had to announce the amount that we were giving them (which was a bit weird) and present the cash to the guide.

swollen and sun burnt hands

After twenty years in East Africa, I’m familiar with the frequent desire for/custom of ceremony. Though I grew up differently, I have learned to accommodate some of these things I’m uncomfortable with.

tips for the porters

We were delayed a bit getting on the road. It wasn’t clear what was going on but Lance said something about a tree blocking the road. Eventually, the four of us, two guides and all of our packs squeezed into a small Toyota and off we went. After about twenty minutes of bouncing down the road towards the town of Chogoria, we found what appeared to be the tree that had been blocking the road. It was cut and moved aside by this point, but the culprit appeared to have been an elephant. They are notorious for knocking down trees and this stretch of the road had tons of fresh elephant dung. Mystery solved.

After another fifteen minutes or so, we came upon the van that we used in our drive from Nairobi to Chogoria. In the interest of time, it had made its way up the hill to collect us. It also allowed the little Toyota to turn around and retrieve the porters. Unlikely that they all would have fit in the little thing but stranger things have happened.

We stopped in Chogoria on the way out and decided to have some lunch. It was fast and cheap and allowed us to avoid traveling on empty stomachs.

I made the mistake of sitting in the front seat. I have a hard time watching the road when a driver has vastly different driving instincts from my own. This guy seemed to be in no hurry and was frequently busy on his phone. Kenyans tend to be pretty aggressive drivers but this guy was everything but. It’s like he was being paid by the hour and was trying to drag this out as long as he could.

craziness in the backseat

An even worse offense was his choice in music. Most of the trip we were subjected to 80s-90s cheesy ballads including Lionel Ritchie, Luther Vandross, Celine Deon, etc. My apologies to anyone who is a fan, but I think it’s the worst era in history of music – like several hours of fingernails scraping a chalkboard. Africa, or at least East Africa, seems to have adopted these songs since you hear them everywhere. When we go to the coast, our hotel always plays this crap. I had previously thought it was because Africans think Westerners like it. I don’t know. It seemed like it was this guy’s playlist. Anyway, it’s an alternative to waterboarding.

We arrived home a little after 5pm. We dragged our dirty selves up to our apartment and began to sort through tons of dusty hiking equipment. It was indeed a successful trip, in spite of the fact that we didn’t all make it to the summit. It’s now a race to see what lasts longer – the soreness in my legs and feet or the crappy songs going through my head.  Hopefully neither last too long.

Mt. Kenya - Day 4

Tea/coffee was in the porters’ tent. Each tea/coffee time they offered popcorn and some biscuits. Kinaya had a hot chocolate and I had two cups of instant coffee. By a little after 3am, we headed out into the night. Our headlamps lit up the trail in front of us. The sky was clear and there were as many stars as I had ever seen in my life. It was mesmerizing to gaze up at such an amazing sight.

There was a group of Brits in front of us. You could see their four headlamps off in the distance, snaking up the mountain in the direction that we would be heading. The pace was slow and we made frequent stops to catch our breath in the thin high-altitude air.

After a flat to relatively gradual incline, the trail became much steeper. It was gravelly and sometimes hard to keep your feet under you. We trudged on in the dark, talking little and grinding out each step.

Eventually we made it to the ridge where we would veer to our left and slowly traverse the front of the mountain. I found this section to be more enjoyable, not only because it wasn’t as steep but because of the increasing glow of the coming sunrise.

Soon our headlamps were off and we could see more clearly, not only where we had come from, but also where we were heading. The summit still looked far away, but I was increasingly optimistic that we were going to make it.

As the sun came up over the horizon, you could slowly begin to feel some warmth. The contribution was countered by the dropping temperature as we continued to gain altitude.

The last push required some bouldering. It wasn’t overly difficult but I could imagine it might pose a challenge for someone who hadn’t done it before. A slip in this section would be costly.

The “trail” then wrapped around the peak to our right and we would reach the actual summit from the back side.

amazing to be at the top

I’ve always been thrilled by summitting mountains, large or small. This was special because I had my daughter with me. Though she looked relieved, I could tell she was cold and didn’t want to stay too long. She had accomplished what she wanted to. I was able to get her to touch the rock outcrop that was the true highest point. She tolerated a few photos and then she started making her way off the summit. Fair enough. It was very cold and there was no point in staying any longer. After she and Lance went over the side, I took one last glance around me, trying to soak it in, headed down as well.

looking for the exit

* * *

The trip down wasn’t overly eventful. Given that most of our trek up was in the dark, it was interesting to see everything in the light of day. I remembered the same phenomenon when we climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. I took lots of photos of the stunning views, all the more beautiful in the low morning sun.

heading down

The legs were fatigued but it’s always an easier task to hike knowing that you’ve tagged the summit.

the long way down - helicopter off in the distance below us (tiny black dot)

still chunks of ice in the streams as we descended

We arrived at Mintos at about 10am. We would have an hour to have a bite to eat, regroup, and then head all the way down to Roadhead where we would meet up with Priya and Kiran.   

I think it was about three and a half hours from Mintos to Roadhead, but it felt like a lot more given the six-hour summit hike we had already done. I could feel the blisters accumulating and one toenail that was in jeopardy. The worst, however, was the exposure. There is absolutely no protection from the sun the entire way. I had slathered on the sunscreen and was wearing a hat and sleeves, but, I would find out later, I missed a few places that I would pay for.

Kinaya beaming as she arrives at Roadhead after the long hike down

As we neared Roadhead, Priya and Kiran could see us coming in the distance. They had received the news that we had reached the peak that morning and they gave us a warm welcome as we entered the camp. As glad as I was to get off my feet and have the family back together, I felt bad that they weren’t able to have summitted as well. It seemed unfair after all the two of them had put into preparing for the trip.

We spent the rest of the afternoon recounting stories and having our early evening tea. We would stay there for the night and begin making our way back to the gate early the next morning.