Mt. Kenya - Day 2

 Chogoria Gate to Ellis Lake, via Nithi Falls

 

The plan for day two would be to carry on up the road for about three hours, across a valley, and begin ascending to a campsite called, appropriately, Roadhead - the highest point you are able to go with a vehicle. From here we would continue on trails.

Though it's possible to camp at Roadhead, for us it was a resting point and place to fill our water bottles. It's rare nowadays to find a place where you can drink straight out of a river but Lance assured us that it was safe. I've been in East Africa for 20 years and I felt that should be okay. It's a risk given that you don't want to jeopardize your hike, but the combination of being hot and sweaty and trust in Lance's previous 150+ hikes on this mountain, I figured it would be okay. It was particularly good water, I might add.

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Nithi Falls

At Roadhead, we would also make a detour of about one kilometer to see Nithi Falls. As we made our way along the somewhat gnarly, mostly downhill trail, I began to hope it was worth it given that we would need to make our way back to Roadhead and then continue on with our hike for another couple hours to our next campsite.

In the end, it was well worth it. It was gorgeous and the spray of mist dampening us in the midday sun was welcomed. After a short break, we hiked back up to Roadhead where we stopped again to fill our bottles and proceed on up the trail.

As we made our way along the treeless, exposed path, I was frequently checking with the family to see how we were all doing. My wife and daughters have a tendency to get headaches when doing physical activities, particularly when doing an uphill in the midday sun. The fact that we were now at altitude made me all the more wary of their hydration and fatigue levels. But all were well and moving along at a decent pace.

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Lake Ellis

We finally arrived at Lake Ellis, a small body of water in a completely treeless area of the mountain. Though it was only the end of day two, I was beginning to feel more confident that we all might make it to the summit. Kiran had had a bit of a headache on day one, not long after we started, and Kinaya had had a small one was well, but all of us seemed to be in good shape at this point as we settled into our new campsite. 

I was still trying to get my bearings on the mountain but it was slowing dawning on me that this was a slight detour in the overall ascent designed to slow progress in gaining altitude and allow for acclimatization. It also provides a nice place to camp.

We arrived early enough that we had some time to read and put up our feet. We took a walk around the lake, closely watching ominous clouds on the horizon. It’s apparently not uncommon for rainstorms to hit without much warning. If you get wet as the early evening temperature begins to drop, you can find yourself in a real bind. You need all your layers to be dry as night sets in since you use most of your clothes to stay warm during the cold nights.

It took me a while to fall asleep. The porters, stellar as they are, have a tendency to stay up late and talk loudly. I understand. They are away from their families and probably enjoy loosening up after their very hard days. But it’s not great for the hikers who, in some cases, invested a lot of time and money to fly to Kenya for this once in a lifetime experience. Indeed, it would prove to be their evening routine. Only on the last night would they be far enough away to avoid disturbance.

And Then There Were Two

After another chilly night, we awoke and began to prepare for day three. As I sipped my instant coffee, it became apparent that Kiran wasn’t doing very well. She had been doing well during the first two days. She also had done considerable preparation, including a couple of hikes, one of which was a four-night/five-day hike in the Aberdare Mountains (which included a 30-kilometer day) a few weeks prior to this trip. To be honest, I thought she had the second-best chance of making it to the summit. And now, unexpectedly, she was teetering on the edge of not continuing.

Lance is a paramedic, so he came over and checked her out. He was leaning towards altitude sickness in his diagnosis, but I wasn’t convinced. We were only at 3,200 m./10,500 ft. and she hasn’t had issues at this altitude previously. Either way, she was not doing well, and the clock was ticking. If a team were to continue, they needed to get moving.

We gave her some pain meds and decided to wait a bit before making a call as to what we were going to do. I know the thought of messing up the hike for herself and others was making her feel worse.

After about 45 minutes, and her condition not improving, we had to make a call. In the end, we agreed that the logical thing to do was to have Priya stay behind with her and they would either stay at Lake Ellis a second night and then head down. Or try to head down the same day if her condition deteriorated and she need to get to some help. Kinaya and I would soldier on. She resisted any attempt I made to have her continue and me stay or have all four of us stay together.

I also felt horrible for Priya. She has had so many concerns about her ability to fend off migraines during hikes. Now, midway through this trek she was feeling fantastic and had no issues. She was well on her way to pulling off a successful summit attempt. I thought back to Tanzania several years ago when she came down with a migraine midway through the Kilimanjaro hike and needed to descend, missing out on summitting then. This seemed so unfair.

The three of us heading out

Alas, Kinaya and I put on our daypacks, said our goodbyes, and followed Lance out of camp, leaving a sick and disappointed child and a disappointed and concerned wife. Needless to say, it was a bit deflated heading into this third day of the hike. The focus now was on keeping Kinaya in good health, making sure she was in good spirits, and, yes, getting her to the top.

Mt. Kenya - Day 1

Climbing Mt. Kenya, Africa's second highest mountain, has been on my list for some time. After summitting Mt. Kilimanjaro back in 2007, Africa's highest mountain at 5,895 m./19,341 ft., I entertained the idea particularly because it’s in the neighborhood. The tricky thing about Mt. Kenya  (5,199m/17,057 ft.), however, is that the real summit requires equipment and a certain skill set that you don’t need for Kilimanjaro. Kili is a long hike with the challenge of altitude sickness which apparently ends the trek prematurely for about 50% of those who attempt it.

Most who climb Mt. Kenya don’t actually summit the highest peak. Rather, they target what is called Lenana Peak (4,985 m./16,355 ft.) – the highest point that doesn’t require ropes and harnesses and clocks in as Africa's sixth highest peak. As we would be going as a family, we obviously opted on Lenana. 

The hike plan was five days and four nights, including the 3-hour drive back and forth to the base of the mountain. As with most people who climb in Kenya, and as we did for Kilimanjaro, we hired a hiking company to facilitate the logistics and transportation.

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Nairobi to Chogoria Gate

A small van would pick us up on Saturday morning at 7am. It was a more reasonable start time than I initially anticipated. Our guide, Lance (admittedly not a common Kenyan name), arrived on time with a driver. We loaded up and made the four-hour drive to the town of Chogoria which sits near the base of Mt. Kenya. While I’ve been on the west side of the mountain a few times, this was my first time on the east side. According to Lance, the east side is by far more interesting. That would prove to be the case.

In Chogoria, we met with our porters who would assist us with the hike. We would also change vehicles and squeeze into a small Toyota for the drive from Chogoria into the park where we would begin the hike. But first we needed to grab a bite to eat at the restaurant where we had our rendezvous. A couple bucks for chicken and chips (fries).

By about 1pm, we were heading towards the park. When you arrive at the park entrance, you need to check in. It’s an extremely tedious process that, for some reason, is to be expected when doing this sort of thing. The people that arrived before us were there for probably twenty minutes to a half hour. We were as well. It made me think about the border crossing between Burundi and Tanzania. In these semi-remote locations, they don’t seem worried that the process is archaic and slow since they have all day with not many people flowing through. There’s no real motivation to make the slow, handwritten entries in a logbook more efficient.

Homemade weight room with concrete weights. Gives you something to do when you're not delaying climbers.

We then drove into the park another half hour or so and we were dropped off. It wasn’t the end of the road, rather, it was for us to start hiking and begin acclimatizing. We would walk for a couple hours to where we would camp near the Chogoria Gate.

Road hike for a bit and then it becomes trail.

It was here that the real hike would begin the following morning. We officially met our porters and received our briefing for the hike. It was a nice setting, located at around 3,000 meters/9,800 feet. There is supposedly a lot of wildlife in the area (and lots of scat around our tent to testify to it) but all we saw were about four waterbucks and some Sykes’ monkeys.

We had time to get settled in and relax a bit before the sun began to set and the temperature began to drop sharply. We bundled up, had a basic dinner in one of the nearby cabins, and before long made our way to our tents.

As is the norm, I was the first one up. I was able to watch the morning sun just as it was beginning to catch the top of the mountain. The temperature had dipped well below freezing during the night and there was ice shimmering on the tent. It made me a bit nervous. If it was this cold at our current location, we were in for some cold weather the next couple of nights as we incrementally gained significant altitude.

It was wonderful to be on our way. Take a break from work. No cell reception for four days. Just us and this mountain.

Mogadishu

TCK

I’m back in Mogadishu. As always, I have mixed feelings about being here. I love being with my team and I, for some reason, just enjoy being in Mogadishu. I often describe Somalia as an acquired taste. Some have a real disdain for the heat, insecurity, chaos, etc. (things I generally don’t like either), but after you’ve been here a few years, you tend to look past these things. You are able to see what is behind those things, probably a bit more like Somalis see their own country. Though those characteristics are very real and certainly not pleasant, it’s not the whole picture.

I met a Somali woman yesterday who is a midwife at one of the hospitals we support. She was raised in Finland and only arrived in Mogadishu about three weeks ago. It was interesting to hear her perspective. By appearance, she would seem to be similar to the other dozens of midwives and nurses we work with. It was interesting to hear her observations given that I, though not Somali, have spent probably 30 times longer in the country than she has. She was just as curious to hear my observations as I was to hear hers.

Though she feels very much Finnish, she did say that her whole life she has felt a bit like an outsider, largely due to her faith and appearance, including her hijab/abaya. She told me that she has always felt that she would finally feel at home once she was in Somalia. Unfortunately, it’s been difficult. She said she’s often at odds with her colleagues. She can’t understand why they don’t move faster, keep things cleaner, etc. She’s frustrated and is even talking about returning to Finland. I feel bad for her, but her experience is not uncommon. I’ve met several Somalis from the diaspora who have had similar experiences, many who have already left the country. It’s a massive adjustment.

I do think that the deep reverence that Somali diaspora have for their homeland contributes to this. The land, and notably pastoralism, is lauded through their poetry, music, literature, etc. There’s an emphasis on maintaining the language and preserving their identity in spite of their second and/or third generation existence in a dramatically different context.

The reality of modern Somalia has a hard time competing with the mythical Somalia that is preserved overseas. I know this plays out in similar ways for other nationalities and cultures. It’s just one manifestation of the “third culture kid” (TCK) experience playing out around the world, including, to some degree, with my own children. 

the old; the new; half of the road blocked off for security reasons

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Funding Cuts

I likely will spend less time in Somalia this year due to the impact of the funding cuts. In addition to the flights, just my presence incurs costs for food, transportation and certainly security. This visit was particularly important, however, to meet with donors, peer organizations and government officials. I have been able to squeeze in a lot in a very short period of time.

My first day was spent mostly in internal meetings and mostly dealing with our budget deficit. It’s been a grueling time as we make painful decisions around cutting staff positions and scaling back infrastructure. We’ve cut about 40% of our workforce and we’re not done yet. Hopefully, we’re getting close to balancing the books and we can get back to focusing on other things. Cuts have come not only from USG sources, but also European donors as governments continue to turn their focus towards domestic issues.

Contrary to what many think, USAID wasn’t created for altruistic purposes. JFK launched the agency in 1961 in the heart of the Cold War. Countries around the world were choosing sides and there was a need for soft power – a tool to sway developing countries away from communism. Certainly, there were those in the administration who were passionate about helping the world’s marginalized populations, but it appears that wasn’t the biggest concern of the White House at the time.

It proved to be successful then and has continued to be up to now. It will be interesting to see how political alliances are impacted going forward as the US administration has removed a tool from their foreign policy toolbox. Beyond that, I’m not at liberty to comment. Only to say that it will make supporting the marginalized populations much more difficult.

* * *

FGM

On day two, I had an all-day workshop focused on female genital mutilation (FGM). FGM is a practice that is carried out on young girls which involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The practice has no health benefits for girls and women and can result in severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later cysts, menstrual difficulties, infections, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.

FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women, though it’s currently being practiced in about 30 countries. In Somalia, it’s estimated that 99% of girls are cut.

The motivation behind the practice is generally religious (predominantly, but not exclusively, Muslim). However, the workshop confirmed that, according to most Muslim scholars, there is nothing in Islam that backs this. There are also many who believe it should be adhered to because it is cultural. Whether or not this is true of any given culture, there are practices in all cultures that should be abandoned because of the harm they cause.  

Probably the most significant benefit of the workshop was simply that it happened. It’s unlikely that an event like this would have taken place outside the protected confines of the “green zone”. There are many in Somalia who are violently opposed to such discussions and write them off as a troubling Western influence on their culture and/or religion. This sentiment is eroding somewhat, but at a glacial pace. I’ve been engaged in these conversations for many years and, as I mentioned, the data shows adherence to the practice remaining at 99%. The Somali women at my table expressed caution in interpreting the data. They felt that the statistics are jaded by the fact that many families who are against the practice are reluctant to reveal it to their neighbors for fear of backlash. When polled, according to them, many state that they have cut their daughters when it was, in fact, not the case.

Either way, it’s an uphill battle. Men dominate Somali society, and men are not being cut.