Climbing Kilimanjaro [p.3]

In search of souvenirs and eager to take in the local scene, we took a shuttle to Moshi. It’s a dusty town. A local boy of about 9 approached us asking for money. He was shooed away by a young man who introduced himself as Christian and extended his hand to us. Tanzanians are big on shaking hands. Everyone comes up to you and offers their hand in greeting. I can’t decide if this has more to do with Dutch and British colonization or how much Tanzanians embrace American culture. Our Tanzanian guides acknowledged the impact of outside influences on their country, but also stressed a deep national pride and love of their culture and values. On account of their economy, much of Africa is dependent on foreign aid. A lot of this aid in the past has come from the United States. There is a convention center in Arusha, Tanzania that President Clinton helped fund and visited a few years ago. They LOVE Clinton. They LOVE any president we have. We saw buses painted with images of President Bush and the Pope. Their reasoning is that these are powerful people. The buses are privately owned. The message is that the bus companies are strong and powerful. To date, President Bush hasn’t really taken much notice of Africa. I’m not sure what kind of impact the Pope can make; but it’s obvious that there are many places left in the world where the American dollar can still have a substantial impact. Tanzania and most of Africa can surely be counted in those ranks.

Christian tells us in his “Tanzanglish” (a mix of Tanzanian inflections and English words) that he is an artist. He invites us to his shop at the Moshi marketplace. We’re happy to oblige. The marketplace is packed with vendors selling leather goods, fruits and vegetables, meats and fish, dry goods, and Tanzanian handiwork. I steal some pictures with my camera. Often times, people ask you to pay to take their picture.

Christian leads us to a corner where we’re accosted by a band of his friends. About a dozen guys swarm around us and proceed to give us the Moshi Hustle. It’s me, Tai, Jason, and Charis. They double-triple team us in proffering all sorts of fabric patches, drawings, and stickers at ridiculously high prices. Now, we realize that we’re in a third-world country and these people are completely less fortunate than Americans; but when’s the last time you paid $25 for an iron-on patch? Jason gets antsy and I’m honing in on the yellows of the eyes of our vendors. I remembered the health warnings we’d sat through at our vaccinations consultation. We’d each spent over $300 on shots and medication to ward off Hepatitis, Yellow Fever, Dengue Fever, Malaria, and Typhoid. Hepatitis is often known to cause the whites of your eyes to turn yellow. I was ashamed of myself for having these thoughts. At the same time, it made me sad to think that life expectancy for men in Tanzania is 42.5 years. In the United States, the life expectancy is 77.5 years. I think we all felt the guilt as we loaded up on T-shirts and patches. We walked around town. The images are much like that of the movie The Constant Gardener, which I believe was filmed in Nairobi, Kenya.

Back at the hotel, at dinner that night, a woman collapsed. She was an American traveling with her family. They had attempted Kili and turned back after 12,000 feet when the woman started exhibiting signs of altitude sickness. They had gotten back to the hotel the day before and she seemed to be recovering. It was a bit surreal. She was leaving dinner and just went down. Silently. We don’t know what happened to her afterwards. The hotel does their best to keep such occurrences hushed. I saw her husband a bit later trying to get in touch with a hospital in Nairobi. Another reality we faced was the fact that Tanzania does not have a modern hospital. The closest hospital to Kilimanjaro was an entire country away, in Nairobi, Kenya. Should anything happen to you on the mountain, you are instructed to duct-tape it and ask them to lift you out of there. You are to refuse medical service as there’s no way to be certain what could be on their surgical equipment and needles. Any of these things could transmit HIV, another disease that runs rampant in Africa. We each had brought duct-tape. We joked about it, but hoped we wouldn’t have to use it.

On the way up to bed, I talked to a girl who had come off the mountain. Her father made it all the way, but she turned back mid-summit because she lost feeling in her fingers. They had a windchill factor of -46 degrees Fahrenheit. I’d never heard of anything so extreme. The guys were starting to get concerned about me. Seems all the women were biting it. It’s a well-known fact that I am eternally cold. I wear sweaters in the summer in Texas.

Saturday morning, we woke up and packed our gear. We would have to carry everything we needed for our day hikes. Things we’d need at night would be allocated to sacks to be carried by porters. The sacks are weighed and limited to 40 lbs. Each porter carries two of these sacks, hence the weight limit. I was fascinated by their ability to balance the weight on their heads. Yes, they carried 80 lbs. on their HEADS up the mountain for six days! Amazing! Outside of what we would tip them (this was discretionary), they make $5 a day.

I had made friends with Odilia, the gift shop attendant. She came to see us off and issued a “God bless” to watch over us. Odilia is 19. She’s from a small village and has six brothers and sisters. She’s the second oldest and the only one to have gone to college. She’s shy, but can understand and speak enough English for us to chat. She works for Zainab, the owner of Zara Travel and a Tanzanian herself, in the gift shop and around the hotel. Odilia’s workday starts at 7 a.m. and ends at midnight. She is given a “free” room at the hotel in the employees’ quarters. She has a roommate and they are fed in the kitchen.

I am surprised that the employees aren’t allowed to partake of the leftover food from the buffet spread served to hotel guests. They are instead fed a cornmeal mush and occasionally vegetables. All the employees seem to operate in fear of Zainab. There is a list of rules they live by. Zainab is sweet as pie to guests, but it’s obvious she rules with an iron thumb. At meal times, she has a reserved table in the dining room. It’s almost comical to watch the employees kowtow and cater to her. I was a bit perturbed by it. The hotel employees revere Zainab. Hotel jobs are coveted. Even if they demand 17-hour workdays, 7-day workweeks, and pay $40 a month. The hierarchy of jobs seems to be Kili climbing guide (they make the most money due to tipping standards), climbing assistants, porters, and then hotel staff (no tipping).