Klocking up the K's

Dear June,

In just two weeks from now, we start our travels towards Tanzania. We will gather at the School of St Jude for a few days before beginning our ascent of Mt Kilimanjaro. We know how very much you would want to be with us. But you can’t, so we’ll keep in contact via one of your favourite forms of communication – a letter.

In the spirit of your much loved news bulletins which you enjoyed writing from far flung parts of the world to family and friends, we will use our letter to you as a means of keeping all those family and friends up to date on our adventures.

The most important thing first. The people. We are a group of eight. Jo English, Maureen Cummings, Patrick Weinrauch, Emma Snowsill, Craig Walton, Sharelle Griffiths, and Brett Grabbe. Similar in our love and respect for you, varied in age, in gender and in background – just as you would like. We will come together in two weeks to finish off your Klocking up the Ks project. Our aim is threefold – to get to the 5963m summit of the highest freestanding mountain in the world, to deliver a nice big cheque to Gemma at the School of St Jude, and to honour you. For everything you did for us and so many others, June we do this for you.

You’ll hear more about (and most probably from) the other members of our group over the next few weeks, but for the moment, you’ve just got me.

I’ll start by telling you a bit about our arrangements for the trip and then about some of the things I have done in preparation. To be honest, until quite recently, I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about doing this trip without you. We had both looked forward so much to spending the whole of October together having a proper holiday in Tanzania. As I know you know, so much of the enjoyment I experienced in our holiday adventures was just having the time to hang about constantly with you. Well, it’s taken me a while, but I now accept these holidays have finished. The best thing I can do now is to dive in enthusiastically to enjoy the company of others in all of the adventures and life experiences which remain to be had.   So off I go on this first one with an open heart and an uncluttered mind.

We have decided to climb Kilimanjaro with a company called Summits Africa. It was Jo who did all the legwork and negotiation to ensure the trekking part of our trip was as good as it could be. I knew we were onto a good thing when Jo sent through some emails from the General Manager of Summits Africa. He is Ake Lindstrom, a Swede who has a passion for outdoor travel and for Tanzania and it’s people.   He founded and has built Summits Africa on the basis that local people make the best guides and staff on any trip in Tanzania. If you click on his website (www.summits-africa.com) and go to the “about us” section, this is the first paragraph which comes up:

Equal opportunities and a fair deal
If you expect to be the best, then you can never exploit your workforce. Summits Africa tries to keep all of our team constantly involved and well paid. We attempt to create a career path for all of our team to progress through training and sponsorship opportunities. We expect and hope that the best of our teams will one day run their own companies and teams with a similar ethos and commitment to their fellow workers. Summits Africa is an equal opportunities employer and we do have a written series of commitments that make up our code of conduct.

As a former human resources person, this sort of commitment to the people who work for the company warms the cockles of my heart.

Ake also professes to have a “healthy addiction to systems”. As fellow advocates of smooth and efficient systems and processes, I think you and I would both like him. He certainly looks nice:

As I said to Jo when we were considering which group to go with, his Operations Director also looks nice - in a very-non Swedish way. This is Emanuel Motta, the guy who is responsible for “keeping in constant contact with all crew, porters, cooks and sales team as well as checking every zip and peanut that goes on a Summits Africa trip”. I’m sure you would like him too.

We decided to do an 8 day itinerary which takes up the Machame Route to the south west of the peak. We spend night 6 actually in the crater, an experience which many companies are not able to offer. Although the 5000m plus altitude in the Kibo Crater Camp may limit any actual sleep, it will allow us to avoid the midnight summit departure required from lower camps. We think we will enjoy the summit experience more if we haven’t had to spend 6 hours walking to arrive at 6am. We’ll take some photos for you and then head down via the Mweka Route.

We are all looking forward to our time at the School of St Jude. It will be great to meet Gemma, Kim, Richard and some of the teachers and kids whom we all have read about in the book, seen on the DVD or heard about via the website. I know Maureen is planning some new outdoor game experiences for the kids using softcrosse balls. I’m sure you will hear more about that we get closer to the time.

I am flying from Zurich to Nairobi on Saturday 7th November. Maureen and Jo fly in to Nairobi at 6.10am on Sunday morning. We will meet up and then take the bus from Nairobi down to Arusha. The trip takes about 5 hours so it will give us a chance to see some of the country as we go. The whole group will gather at the School and be together for the first time on Sunday afternoon or Monday. Our Kilimanjaro climb starts on Wednesday 11 November.

You will be pleased to know that I finally started making arrangements for visas and vaccinations this week. I went into the Travellers Medical Centre in Lausanne this morning and basically offered up my arm to get the lot – yellow fever, diphtheria, tetanus, polio. And then tablets for malaria and typhoid. The typhoid tablets had to be in the fridge in 2 hours, so no mucking about in the big smoke of Lausanne for me today. You would have liked the doctor – a young female whose English was just a bit better than my French, but together we muddled along fine. She had to ask quite a lot of detailed questions about previous and current medical history, so we both learned a lot of new words as we laughed and charaded our way through a range of medical conditions, dog and mosquito bites, lion scratches and altitude symptoms. Yellow fever seems to be a hot issue at the moment. It’s the only vaccination which you must have in order to be granted entry to some countries. Here’s my yellow fever stamp in case you are interested in how the Swiss do it:

My passport is now happily ensconced in the Tanzanian Embassy in Geneva. I can pick it up on Wednesday and walk it a few blocks further on for it’s next sojourn at the Kenyan Embassy. I’ll have to pay them a bit extra to do it in 2 days as I need my passport to get to a meeting in Paris on Friday. Surprised you may be, but it seems like I will have a whole spare week up my sleeve with all administrative bits and pieces completed. Somewhere in my subconscious must have been the thought that you would be ringing any moment to tell me to get a hurry on…. Well I did, but it won’t be quite the same without a mad dash to pick something up somewhere before closing time on a Friday afternoon.

I think that is enough for today. We’ll be back soon with news about our physical preparation and perhaps a few aches and ailments which are causing some grief. I’ll also talk about a special card which sits on the window sill here - but both of these things can wait until next time.

So June, we’re on our way. We’re sure you don’t need an invitation, but come on, please come with us in spirit.

Lots of Love,

Anne

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