No Hurry in Africa (23 page)

Anyone, that is, except Kiragu. Typically, he was already diligently planning the activities of the day ahead when I knocked on the door of his tin office. He jumped up enthusiastically from behind his wooden desk to embrace me.

‘Brendan, it’s very good to see you,
karibu sana!
’ (you’re very welcome).

I was to receive the same warm welcome from everyone else I encountered throughout the day. Kimanze saw me and saluted me with, ‘You were lost,
bwana,’
as if I had taken a wrong turn on the bicycle weeks before and was only managing to find my way back now.

I was genuinely pleased to be back. It was only now, after being away from them, that I fully realised how I loved living in Kitui among the Akamba people. I quickly settled back into all the work that needed to be accomplished. Kiragu asked me to compile some progress reports on the computer, as well as to help with a proposal he was firming up. I was thrilled to see that Nancy and Nzoki had improved their computer capabilities even further during my absence. They were equally delighted to show me all that they were able to do, taking it all really seriously.

They were so keen to learn. I taught them some more advanced aspects. They picked them up fast.

I let it be known that I would be volunteering again at least until Easter, when Phase II of construction was due to be completed. I would want a short break for myself in-between. I would review my intentions again around Easter time. However, before the day was out, I sensed that things were still not as they should be. There were still covert power-struggles at play within the management and with the board of directors. I was also disappointed at another level. While the issue of fraud within Nyumbani was now being acknowledged openly, the politics of the ongoing situation allowed for the possibility of it being prolonged indefinitely. However, the central cast involved in the racket—whoever they were—were now clearly on the back-foot.

The American volunteer that Kiragu had told me about on the phone turned out to be a long-haired engineer named Aldo. He was another addition to the basic house where ten of us were living. An aging hippie, Aldo was a serial volunteer with a wealth of experience. On my first night back, we were having a deep conversation that was taking a philosophical turn—inspired, perhaps, by the infinite array of stars visible in the African sky— when he suddenly went off on a tangent.

‘This sky reminds me of when I lived up in the Hindu Kush Mountains.’

‘In Afghanistan? What were you up to there?’ I asked, intrigued.

‘I was building a water system for two years at a small village, straight after the fall of the Taliban.’

Immediately he was off on another tangent,

‘Brendan, how is it that everyone seems to have a good word for you even with all these games being played out in the running of this place?’

This was the first inkling I had that the whole situation was causing him concern. He had been there such a short time. As for his question, however, I do not think he expected an answer.

A week later, the bombshell dropped. Kiragu was leaving. There was no question of him being involved in anything untoward, but perhaps he had not acted strongly enough to deal with the situation. I was still finding out things about him. Kiragu walked home one afternoon during his first year of school to find his father had been taken away. British soldiers countering the
Mau Mau
rebellion had burned down his thatched mud-hut. This was a dreadful period in Kenya’s history, with estimates that up to fifty thousand people died in the insurgency, the vast majority of them Kikuyu. I could not help wonder whether this early experience had made him the driven character that he was. I was very sorry to see him depart.

I heard a number of reasons as to why Kiragu left; rumours that he was battling a drink problem; that he was being paid too much to be affordable; or that he did not see eye-to-eye on the way forward with Nyumbani’s board of directors in Nairobi—which was headed by a Dublin-born Loreto nun named Sr. Mary, who, before she moved to Kenya, at one time lived in the convent-school where my mother taught in Letterkenny. Sr. Mary and Kiragu were two big personalities, and I think the project was just not big enough for both of them.

Progress had slowed dramatically since the New Year. The heady atmosphere of the ground-breaking development had vanished. I was hoping it would pick up again. Aldo was appointed to replace Kiragu. He was a very capable man, but I was not at all impressed by the idea of a
mzungu
being parachuted in to take charge of 500 Africans on-site. The principal directors in Nairobi were mainly white as well, missionaries who had been decades living in Kenya. There must have been, I felt, an Akamba or another Kenyan who was suitable for the role. The new appointment was utterly contrary to the spirit of the project as originally conceived. Nonetheless, there was no question but that I would give my all to Nyumbani and to Aldo.

The famine situation in Kitui District was still acute around this time, mid-to-late February. But the Akamba people, even after five years of failed rains, still possessed the positive attitude of ‘sure they’ll come sometime.’ The build-up of heat was absolutely suffocating at times. The old people were saying they never witnessed it this hot in Kitui since the 1930s.

‘A sure sign of rain,’ one
mzee
told me—but sure was not everything in that parched land?

Anyway, sure enough and just as the elder had predicted, the heavens opened one day at the very end of February, and the place erupted in a carnival atmosphere of euphoric relief. Men were whooping and women, in their bare feet, were dancing joyously together in the mud. Children raced around excitedly, splashing in the speedily forming streams and puddles. I loitered around basking in their exuberance. I was in my bare feet as well; my sandals kept getting stuck in the muck.

But not everyone was rejoicing. The same old
mzee
warned me, and anyone else who would listen,

‘The rains are too early. That’s a sign of a short rainy season to come.’

The day the rains broke, I became stranded between two separate torrents that had been created with frightening suddenness. There was no way to cross either one of them safely until they subsided somewhat, perhaps hours later. Linking arms with other people who were caught out in a similar predicament, I waded to safety through water up to my waist.

Very early the morning after another night of heavy rain, with every last drop of moisture evaporated from the atmosphere, Mwangangi pointed over from the gate at Nyumbani to a most majestic sight in the far, crystal-clear distance. It was a rare glimpse of Mount Kilimanjaro, crowned in white, looming regally over the vast savannah beneath it.

V
ERY MANY
A
FRICANS,
including many who live within sight of the mighty Kilimanjaro, have never experienced snow close up. Mwangangi was one of them.

‘Brendan, you know when your house is covered in snow in Ireland… well, how do you breathe?’ he asked, when I told him that I would be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro soon.

I assured him it was not a problem. It might be more of a problem near the top of Kilimanjaro however, at nearly 20,000 feet.

In the ancient world, the Greek geographer Ptolemy included a mountain of snow in one of his maps roughly coinciding to Mount Kilimanjaro’s location. The ancient Greeks were known to trade along the East African coast, and may have heard stories of its existence. The Romans even surmised a mountain such as Mount Kilimanjaro would have to exist as the source of the Nile, though of course this theory was proved to be inaccurate in the nineteenth century. It was not until the 1840s that a missionary named Johannes Rebmann was the first white person to set eyes on Mount Kilimanjaro, back in 1848. The Royal Geographical Society in London refused to believe his tale of snow so near the equator.

It was not until 1897 that Mount Kilimanjaro was finally conquered for the first time, by the German explorer, Hans Meyer, and his local Chagga tribe guide, John Lauwo. Germans played a large part in exploring this area. The map of Kenya had to be redrawn when the mountain was ceded to the then German colony of Tanganyika by the British at the behest of Queen Victoria; she had made a present of it to her grandson the
Kaiser.
With its permanent icing of snow, it did look a bit like a birthday cake, I suppose. A celebration was held in 1997 marking the centenary of the first ascent. The guest of honour was none other than John Lauwo, who was by then 118 years old.

Around the beginning of March, I joined a group of ten Irish people on a climb of Africa’s highest mountain, hoping to emulate the feat of Meyer and Lauwo. I met up with the ten in Nairobi, a motley crew of all ages from north and south of the Border. An Irish Army officer named Dermot would be leading the group on the climb. He was a veteran of UN peacekeeping assignments. Among our group of ten was a gentleman named Pat Close, an engaging character in his sixtieth year who had been a teacher alongside an uncle of mine at a school in the Glens of Antrim before they both retired, yet another person whom I encountered in Africa that was known to a member of my family.

They were raising money on behalf of a Cork-based charity called Childaid, who were supporting a variety of health and education projects in Kenya and Tanzania. For the first couple of days, we were taken to see Childaid’s activities on the ground. In the sub-dickensian smelly slum of Mukuru, they were amazed by the resilience and good humour of the children in school. As a teacher, Pat was greatly impressed by the children’s willingness to learn and by the good discipline evident in classes of fifty or sixty pupils.

‘These kids know the value of education. If only we could export these levels of motivation and discipline back to Ireland!’ he said wistfully.

At a nearby school for the disabled we called into, Pat was even more impressed by the children. The disabled, both physical and mental, in many African communities are shunned by the able-bodied; the children often neglected by their parents. Dermot was reduced to tears at one point. A tiny girl in a wheelchair— she was about ten—suddenly burst into song. Little Catherine had a sweet voice and a huge personality to match it, expressing such joy through song despite her broken body.

We met up with Sr. Mary, the Dublin-born Mercy nun who had informed me before Christmas about the climb, at a street refuge for alcoholics and drug addicts that she runs. A remarkable octogenarian named Sr. Anne, who lives with Sr. Mary, was busy teaching recovering addicts to produce drawings and sculpted figures, which are later sold in their gallery. A teenager high on some exotic substance was roaming around, shouting and roaring. Sr. Anne carried on with her coaching, oblivious to any danger.

‘She’s retired, you know,’ Sr. Mary reminded me.

Sr. Mary herself is a pretty gutsy character. She told us about a recent run-in she had with the authorities.

‘It was the usual sort of thing,’ she started casually. ‘Last week, we were protesting against a government official who was trying to grab a piece of land unlawfully beside one of our training centres on the edge of Mukuru slum. They sent in the riot police who fired tear gas at us. I stood my ground, unlike the big burly guy from Northern Ireland beside me who bolted for cover. You’d have thought he would have been used to that sort of thing,’ she said, taking a gentle dig at the six Ulstermen in the contingent, but even the three from west Belfast took it in good heart.

My anticipation was growing of the climb ahead of us during those couple of days. Being in Kenya at the time did not make for ideal preparation. For instance, I had trouble obtaining the necessary equipment. You have to allow for all conditions on the ascent—from the hot African sun to tropical rainforest to arctic blizzards. I had brought a small amount of gear with me from Ireland, I purchased whatever I could find in Nairobi, and I borrowed some things from Fr. Paul who had climbed Mount Kenya. I picked up a few items including a spare head-torch that some of the Childaid group had brought, and hired a couple of items at the base of the mountain. None of it was top of the range. I hoped it would prove to be adequate.

My fitness preparation was not ideal either. Unlike the others, I had no gym or swimming pool to train in. Though of course I cycled everywhere—this, I hoped, would stand me in good stead. I had talked to a few people who had scaled Mount Kenya, as well as a friend in Ireland who had attempted Mount Kilimanjaro itself. They were very helpful in giving advice on the preparations required, advising me to avoid common mistakes.

‘The biggest mistake is to rush it,’ Fr. Paul explained. ‘Lack of oxygen is the greatest problem, no matter how fit you are. You have to try to avoid altitude sickness—nausea, extreme fatigue, nose-bleeds, physical collapse—so be sure to take it slowly, to keep the heart rate down.’

‘Drink plenty of water. And keep a bit of chocolate for the very top,’ added Fr. Jimmy, helpfully. ‘Remember, you need the energy to get back down again!’