Interviewing The Climbers:The Sasha Report

Behind The Scenes Interviews By Sasha Fraser
(late publication date due to PLAYING TOO MUCH SOKA)

Soon my dad will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa.
He is expecting to see great distances and perhaps look down on the clouds. He expects to see lots of interesting rocks and look down into the volcanic crater. He expects to get a little bit of altitude sickness.

“I think I will feel strange. I think my stomach will be upset. I don’t think I will be eating very well. I think I will have difficulty breathing.”

He says he is going to make it to the top. “ I am going to make it to the top because I’m very stubborn person I don’t give up that easily. If I get really sick I will turn around and come home.”

These were my dad’s predictions before his climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro. I was able to interview my mom after her climb. She reached the top of Kilimanjaro which is Uhuru Peak, 5895 metres above sea level on New Years Eve, 2007.

The first thing she remembered was that she had cold hands and it was hard to stay warm. Night time was very cold. She wore ski pants and a toque to maintain body temperature at night. It was warm in the daylight but cold when the sun went down. Horombo Hut was moist and cold.

At the top of the mountain, she wore five layers of clothing, not including her parka and windbreaker. It was minus 20 degrees Celsius and Uhuru peak was foggy and winds were reaching up to 60km per hour. Mom didn’t feel she got a lot of altitude sickness, just a little headache.

“Your body does not have enough oxygen to do its normal functions. You can’t walk and eat at the same time or you will get all numb. When you walk fast, you breathe more heavily and your stomach tightens and you feel like you’re going to vomit.”

Our friend Margie was feeling nausea but then my mom gave her gravol and it went away. They went on and saw glaciers that were well over 100 metres tall.

I am stupefied that both my parents are climbing Kilimanjaro. I hope I will climb Kilimanjaro when I am twenty two years old.

Climbing Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa

Chris, Uhuru Peak Jan 24, 2008




Steph and Margie Parikh
Gilman's Point and Uhuru Peak
Dec 31, 2007

“As wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of Kilimanjaro.”

Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro

To view photos of Steph and Chris climbing Kilimanjaro, click here or go to:

http://picasaweb.google.ca/crrfraser/Kilimanjaro

All the time spent contemplating and planning the climb to Uhuru peak, the highest point of Kilimanjaro, 4.5 km above Kilema and 19450 feet above sea level, does not in the least prepare you for the physical challenge of being there. All body systems scream for respite as you slog, “pole, pole” (slowly), toward the summit, brain convincing you it is pointless, lungs screaming for more oxygen and legs more leaden with each stride.

But then the sun cracks the distant western sky, ice crystals instantly illuminate and towering glaciers reveal themselves to you in soft pink columns, with deeper blue-grey recesses between. You have made it, the roof of Africa, dizziness and exhaustion morphing into goofy elation and a warm rush through the body which erases all unpleasant sensations.

So much to take in from here, with views to Kenya and Tanzania below, lands you feel you have left far behind. The ancient volcanic crater below and the shattered western crater rim speak to the turbulent and violent geological history of this site, countless massive explosions and avalanches, events fundamental to all since, ultimately determining where humans have settled and how they live

This spectacular thrill of being at Uhuru is made more special by your awareness of the fact that it cannot last: lack of oxygen and the unavoidable cold ensure that you will soon have to leave. But this is not an unpleasant thought, as the vista below reminds you of spectacular alpine deserts, meadows and lower rain forests you will transit on your reluctant departure from this amazing park.

Would you do it again is the unavoidable question during the exhausted descent back to oxygen and more familiar conditions. You think about the three sets of young legs at home, growing and strengthening daily and decide that ten years hence, if they’re game for it, there’s no place you’d rather be.

The Day Novat's Eyes Changed

Novat Riwa, Kilema Hospital , January 12, 2008

It is the look in Novat’s teenage eyes which alarms me, a resigned and detached gaze I have not seen before from him.

Today his eyes completely lack the brightness and animation I have come to look forward to at all our visits, to which he comes alone, the routine the same each time as he sits across from me and leans forward intently, planting his elbows firmly on the desk with hands folded. His intense brown eyes then lock on mine with a definite purpose and ask, “How am I going to get better?”

When visiting me at the HIV centre, Novat has walked several kilometres and I wonder what those long kilometres are truly like for him in recent months as his health has steadily declined. His HIV has stubbornly progressed to Ukimwi (AIDS) since October, despite him starting and faithfully continuing all the medications I asked him to take, morning and evening. For several years Novat’s face has had blistering fungal infections, accompanied by darkened and elevated patches of skin announcing the presence of Kaposi’s sarcoma, vascular lesions brought on by the progression of HIV infection. Until this past autumn, his family avoided bringing him to the centre for care, the shame of a child so clearly affected by HIV too much for them to deal with.

But as this intelligent and confident boy monthly sits before me, many questions are unavoidable. How does he view himself, victim or responsible for what has happened to him? What looks and murmurs from local children and adults accompany him on his walk to see me? What future has he imagined for himself as he sees that his body does not grow and develop like his schoolmates?

I will never know the answers to these questions. Novat always beams a curling, sneaky smile as he answers questions about how he is doing and he confidently explains his plans for his studies or other activities at home, dismissing uncertainty or the possibility that he will not achieve what he has planned. I am struck by the contrast of how physically ravaged by HIV he appears to me and his robust attitude to the future and what he plans to achieve. Struck but not really surprised any longer, each day among the people of the Kilimanjaro region showing me new examples of resilience and determination.

But today is different. We now face each other on his bed, one of sixteen in the adult male medical ward. He looks misplaced, a child among men, but at the age of fifteen he has moved on from pediatric in the classification of Kilema Hospital. This is a particularly cruel classification to Novat. He looks as though he should be a playmate of my son Lachlan and indeed he shares Lachlan’s seven year old stature and weight.

He has new and severe chest pains which bring him to tears, worsening cough with bloody sputum and shortness of breath. His eyes have dimmed, his gaze directed beyond my perception. These are the same eyes into which I looked in November and December and spoke hopefully about HIV medications halting or reversing his Kaposi’s sarcoma, skin infections and recurrent pneumonia. But I have just looked at his chest Xray of yesterday and in addition to worsening pneumonia he has a new shadowing at the lung bases and probable spread of his Kaposi’s, a very poor prognosis in one so young and fragile.

I can do no more to help him in Kilema.

Novat will require transfer tomorrow to Moshi, for an attempt at chemotherapy to halt the destruction of his lungs, lungs which are far too small in a body never given a chance to grow normally, from a virus he received through no fault of his own. A malicious cascade. I wish I could tell Novat that I could reverse or undo all this.

Novat’s gaze returns to me finally, as if he senses my discomfort and is trying to help me. “When will I be coming to see you in the clinic?” he asks.

“I hope I’ll see you there in two weeks,” I reply weakly, grasping for hope.

“I will be there,” and his grin curls, faintly and slowly but definitely there.

I wave at this small but brave boy among men as I leave the room, clinging to the image of that grin and the hope that those elbows with folded hands will, against all odds, soon be planted firmly on my desk once more.