No Hurry in Africa (36 page)

Alfred and I set off for the summit at 3am. The thinness of the air and steepness of the ascent were now severely testing my energy reserves. But, unlike the final assault on Kilimanjaro, visibility on this cold starry night was excellent. The white jagged summit towered over us in the moonlight; a full moon sat wedged between the two main peaks.

At such high altitudes, weather conditions can change with frightening rapidity. It started snowing on us at about 15,500 feet. The fresh snow was making it dangerous and slippery in many places, especially clambering over the loose scree. Most serious climbers use ski poles as walking aids in the mountains; I was using a cheap umbrella that I had bought off a hawker in Nanyuki. It did the job for me just as well as a ski pole, though.

We finally reached the summit just as a hazy orange dawn was breaking. The snow had stopped, revealing a stunning panorama of luminous peaks, dark tarns, glinting glaciers, and valleys quilted in snow. Looking around, the rest of Kenya stretched away to distant hazy horizons, and far to the south in Tanzania, I could make out the distinctive outline of Mount Kilimanjaro. I was overjoyed with a sense of achievement.

I discovered later that Alfred and I were the only people who attempted the summit that day by any route. Almost half of those who set out to climb Mount Kenya fail in their attempt. Some do not even get beyond the rainforest, driven off by elephants or buffalo. So, there was considerable satisfaction in realising, that for a brief while, Alfred and I were the highest two people in Kenya, on the second highest mountain in Africa. The batteries in my camera froze after I had taken a few photos to record the moment. As it was bitterly cold, and Alfred was keen to begin the descent, we did not linger too long at the top.

Re-united with our porter, we set off on our way down from Shipton’s Camp in the blazing mid-morning sun. After my Kilimanjaro experience, I had applied lots of protective sun cream. Then it was down through a thick mist that had entrenched itself in Makinder’s Valley in the afternoon. Something near total exhaustion meant that I slept very soundly indeed at Old Moses Camp that night. Early next morning, it was back down to the road for Nanyuki.

‘I have now retired from climbing African mountains,’ I announced to Alfred, as I slipped him a tip.‘… for the time being anyway!’

Back in Nanyuki, I wanted to catch a bus to Nyeri. I asked one local Kikuyu man for directions to the bus depot. He started a loud communal debate in the Kikuyu language with half the street, which lasted for five minutes. After much arguing among themselves, I was provided with an answer.

‘Just turn right here,’ he told me.

The journey got off to a slow start. Several passengers, including a Kikuyu proudly sporting a leprechaun hat, helped me to push the ‘Maggie Thatcher’ a few hundred feet in order to start the engine. We made it in the end however. Nyeri is the capital of Kikuyu country, a lively town about fifty kilometres south of Nanyuki. It nestles among the picturesque valleys in the Central Highlands, south-west of Mount Kenya, in the very heartland of the coffee farms. Nyeri, it is claimed, is at the optimum altitude for growing coffee.

In Nyeri, like every other sizable town in Kenya, I fell in with a gang of Akambas making bicycle brakes from worn-out sandals, and making sandals from worn-out lorry tyres. Other Akambas specialise in woodcarving or basket work, and are renowned for their artistic inclination and skill; they too are to be found in towns throughout the country. I always greeted the Akamba people wherever I went, and they were always thrilled to meet a
mzungu
with a few phrases of their language. One Akamba man insisted on me visiting his home for tea when he heard about my months in Kitui. He was from a village near Kwa Vonza and, inevitably perhaps, he turned out to be related to Mwangangi. But then who wasn’t, I was thinking!

Before I left the Nyeri region a couple of days later, I had to make a pilgrimage to Lord Baden-Powell’s final home, a modest cottage on the outskirts of the town. He died here in Kenya, having lived in the colony for some years, and is buried in the local Anglican cemetery. His cottage is now an interesting little museum. It was Baden-Powell, after all, who founded the Scout movement, and it was in the scouts that my interest in mountaineering was born. Having just climbed Mount Kenya, there was a certain appropriateness in paying my own tribute by visiting his cottage.

After the short stay in Nyeri, I returned by bus to Kitui village to spend a few days there in mid-May. I was staying in a cottage next to Fr. Paul’s home. On the second evening, it flooded.

‘There has never been as much rain in Kitui since the
El-Niño
rains of 1998,’ Fr. Paul remarked as we watched the water levels rise and rise around us.

I woke up the next morning to find that a huge tree had fallen straight through the roof of a neighbouring cottage, a matter of yards from where I was in bed. I had not even heard a thing; I was still recovering from the exertions of the climb.

I was more concerned that morning about a mosquito infection that was spreading up my left leg. I visited Kitui hospital to have it treated. From the outside, the hospital resembled nothing more than a couple of old farm outhouses in Ireland. When I called into the compound, there was a hundred-strong queue of patients standing outside, all patiently waiting to have their eyes scientifically checked—by calling out letters on a sheet that was pinned to a tree. Some seemed to think it was like a school test; they were memorising what the people in front of them were calling out.

I eventually lost patience and ended up cycling to the Irish Mercy nun, Sr. Helen, who treated my leg at her new dispensary near the mission station. On my way back from there to Kitui village, I was forced off the road by the approaching ‘Monica Lewinsky’ bus, its horn blaring. It was a hairy moment. There was a sheer drop on one side and a giant crater on the other side that could have sent me over the handlebars. Luckily, it did not. To add insult to potential injury, some joker on board threw his banana peel at me. It crossed my mind that I might be safer climbing high mountains.

I
N THE SECOND HALF
of May, my girlfriend, Bríd, flew over from Ireland to spend a few weeks with me. I had already organised my time in Africa before we started going out together in college. She had been my perfect match; her beauty and charming persona had left me smitten. That was then. Now my mind was a whirlpool of thoughts and emotions. Would she still feel the same about me, and did I really feel the same even though I thought I did? Had her first year of work changed her? Had I changed? Could we simply pick up where we had left off nine months before, as easily as all that? So many questions.

I tingled with nervous apprehension while waiting at the arrivals gate of Nairobi Airport; but mostly it was an eager feeling, an impatience to embrace her. People continued to straggle out past me as I searched for someone with jet-black hair. Finally, after an eternity, we set eyes on one another. The months simply evaporated as we raced ecstatically towards each other. Brid and I hugged warmly; it felt wonderful, magical.

We chatted and laughed so naturally on the back seat of the bus into the centre of Nairobi, it seemed like it was only the evening before that had been our last moment together. Over dinner at our hotel, she handed me a few special items she had brought from Ireland. I was so elated to be once again in her presence, to be able to admire her winsome features, and be beguiled by her gentle heartening smile.

We soon established that our loving feelings for each other had not diminished. Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder, as the saying goes.

‘Brendan, you haven’t changed a bit!’ Brid assured me.

This was confirmation I needed. Though my outlook on life had changed in subtle ways, I was hoping that my experiences in Africa had not changed me as a person.

Bríd was only in Nairobi a few hours when she was greeted by the sound of gunshots in the street below the bedroom window during the night. Welcome to Nairobi, I thought.

‘It’s probably criminals, or maybe police in a shoot-out. It’s not exactly unheard of in any big city nowadays,’ I suggested.

She was alarmed, understandably, but I was able to calm her fears.

We were up early to catch the Kitui bus, which we ended up sharing with three smelly goats. Bríd was experiencing culture shock. She was wide-eyed with excitement when we had to stop to let a herd of giraffes cross the road.

‘Welcome to Kwa Vonza,’ I said as I helped her alight from the bus. ‘It’s a long way from Tipperary.’

The reply stuck in her throat, as she suddenly realised that all the eyes of the village were focused on her. The villagers always met the bus and greeted the passengers, out of idleness as much as curiosity.

I had not even noticed anything unusual; I knew all the people of Kwa Vonza by this stage. I had to tell the villagers that Bríd was my wife. They would not grasp the concept of a girlfriend. One of the ladies whom I had turned down in marriage (‘because I cannot marry outside my tribe’), grumbled to me in English,

‘But you are light brown (my tan), and she is white. You are from two different tribes.’

Then it was on to Nyumbani, bouncing on the back of a pick-up. I introduced Bríd to all my friends. They welcomed her warmly, and with varying degrees of shyness and curiosity. Just as I imagined, there was not much Village activity going on, only a few workers keeping the organic farm running, and Nancy and Nzoki keeping the offices ticking over. I was not required in Nyumbani any more, because there was not enough work to be done.

‘It may be months yet before Phase III commences, Brendan,’ Kimanze speculated. ‘But at least the deeds have finally been signed over.’

This was a positive development. I was delighted, too, that Mama Mbolea and Kaviti were busy harvesting ripe vegetables to sell to the market in Kitui village.

Kimanze located a motorbike for us. Bríd sat on the back holding onto me grimly as we careered through the bush. I painfully stubbed my toe at twenty kilometres an hour as we bumped our way to Nancy’s most African of African homes. We found Nancy’s children sleeping in the dome granary. I explained to Bríd that sleeping in the thatched granary on wooden stilts gave the children some protection from the baboons and other nuisances.

Bríd was fascinated by Nancy’s home in its compound of round thatched mud-huts.

‘It looks as if nothing has changed since neolithic times,’ she observed.

Inside the compound, we were treated like royalty. We received the usual honour of being invited to pick out which chicken Nancy would slaughter for us. I suggested a medium sized one. Bríd winced at the idea.

‘No Bradan, it must be the biggest hen! Choose the big black hen,’ Nancy demanded generously.

By this stage, the food shortage in the region had eased, which made me feel less uncomfortable about accepting Nancy’s generosity. I knew from experience that the Akamba would go hungry themselves in order to feed a guest. They have a term for any visitor that translates as ‘a blessing,’ no matter what time of day or night the visitor calls. Food is always on offer. Nancy had been in the process of wafting smoke through her harvested maize to protect it from pests and, hopefully, disease. Other members of her family were harvesting the rest of their maize crop nearby.

Nancy’s neighbours quickly assembled when the bush telegraph announced our arrival. The adults had great fun fitting together the jigsaw puzzle that Bríd had brought with her—even though it had been meant as a gift for the children. The younger ones were as timid with Bríd as they had been with me months before, but she soon won their confidence. There was some disappointment when her arms proved not to be hairy like mine!

Bríd and I were planning to spend the next three weeks touring in Tanzania. Our send off from Kitui was another excuse for Sr. MM to host a colonial-style party for the Irish in the area. Fr. Paul was anxious to thank Bríd, who had worked tirelessly with our college friends to raise funds for Kitui. And so, as another big red sun was consumed by the horizon behind us that evening, we found ourselves devouring a sweet trifle fortified with some of the altar wine meant for the week’s Masses—Sr. MM had run out of anything else to flavour it with!