Every Journey Begins with One Step

Dinner Time!
Noel, Christina, Joann, Neal, Mike, Ken, Licia and me.

Wake-up call at 6:30, breakfast at 7:00: French toasts, yoghurt (mango, banana and guava, passion fruit), fruit salad and bacon. We leave camp and drive through forest, then through the valley for three hours with the trailhead as our destination. It's hard to describe the beautiful scenes, the forests, the red dirt roads leading through villages with cement block houses and fields of corn, potatoes and tomatoes. Sisal grows as natural fences between yards and looks like giant Aloe plants. Children squeal with delight when we pass by, waving. All of this with Kilimanjaro rising in the background. The villagers in the valley can't drink the stream water because it contains minerals that cause malformed bones in children. So the villagers trek farther up river where the water runs clear and they bring it home in brightly colored buckets balanced on their heads. Some use donkeys or bicycles, but most carry the water on their heads, adults and children alike.

In one village, near the gate of the national park, children ride wooden bicycles. The entire bike has been roughly hewn from wood and probably works best going downhill. Three boys on wooden bikes, about 8-12 years old, do not want me to photograph their bikes. In the shadows of Kili, we pass the "Hatari" Hotel. Hatari means danger in Kiswahili and was the title of a John Wayne Movie. In the movie, they have baby elephants on their ranch. And the buildings used to film the movie are now Hatari Hotel. Part of the movie was shot in a hotel and store in downtown Arusha. Our driver, Exaud, says the store and hotel look exactly as they did in the late 50s when the movie was made. I've seen that movie! Hollywood comes to Arusha and nothing much has changed in 50 years since.

We can't drive all the way to the trailhead because of the road, so we must hike an additional few miles. We get to the spot where we'll begin hiking and about 30 men are gathered, waiting to carry our belongings. Local people are tending their nearby potato fields and their children, only boys, are lingering near us, watching and smiling. One boy has a toy cell phone that rings and he keeps pretending to take a call, saying "hello" and "goodbye" in English, which causes the other boys to giggle. The boy with the phone seems to have high status in the group.

We hike up a red dirt road, past temporary houses (because it's a national park, no one is allowed to live here. The people who work for the park must build only temporary houses out of wood slats and tree branches). It's a steady incline, so we look down to keep our footing. I hear a child cry out for his mother, saying "Maaama, Mama," and look up. We are approaching three men sitting on a bench next to the road. They have a boy of about 4 years with them and the boy has an infant strapped to his back. This 4-year-old is openly crying and talking, tears running down his face. The infant cries as well. The men half smile. Ben talks to the men and the boy in Kiswahili as we continue to walk slowly past. I'm dismayed to see the child's anguish and ask Ben what the trouble is. He says the boy has never seen white people and is frightened. And while he cries, he asks us to forgive him for his fright. But don't you come by here on every climb with other white people?, I ask Ben. Yes, Ben answers, but normally they're driving by, not walking slowly. Poor child.

We soon enter the forest with its steep, muddy steps and we all slip occasionally. As we approach the lunch site, one porter yells up to another, who yells up to another that we're arriving. Lunch is spread out on tables with African print clothes. They provide a chlorine-based cleanser, mixed with water, to wash our hands and warn us not to sling the water on our clothes. While eating, we balance on three-legged stools with tiny cloth seats. What we do not eat is eaten by the crew when we begin hiking again.

Two more hours of hiking and we're in camp by 2 p.m. The porters bring us hot water to wash with and they prepare tea and popcorn in the mess tent (eating popcorn and drinking tea mid-day is a tradition among many African tribes). There are two, 3-sided toilets for the seven of us. The ladies claim the one closest to the tents--we don't want the men walking up on us in the wee hours of the morning. Dinner is peanut chicken stew with coconut rice, sauteed beans and mushrooms, and avocado and tomato salad. Most of us are asleep by 8 p.m.