August 23, 2009 (Day 3 on the mountain)
Lisa heads out to send a quick message in the morning in our toilet tent (for the less populous trails you are required to bring a toilet tent and pack everything in and out—and based on the smell and appearance of the popular trail we passed through on the way down, this is the much preferred method), and reports back that it is sunny and clear and we have a perfectly framed view of Kilimanjaro from the door of the toilet tent—our porters were extremely thoughtful and clearly have an artistic eye. We all pile out into the sun to enjoy the first real beautiful view of Kili we’d had.
After breakfast we start an easy trek in the sun across the Shira Plateau. The vegetation is now clearly high desert, i.e. shrubs. As we look behind us, we realize that we have broken through the clouds and that the ‘mist’ of the past two days is, in fact, clouds (mawingu). From now on we will spend most of our time above a vast sheet of amazing clouds.
It is sunny, warm, and Anita and I are in tanks for the day (Lisa is used to
Jambo Hello
Jambo Bwana Hello Sir
Habari Gani How are you?
Mzuri Sana Very well
Wageni The tribes
Wakarebishwa Welcome you
Kilimanjaro To Kilimanjaro
Hakuna Matata No worries
Tembia pole pole Walk slowly slowly
Hakuna Matata No worries
Tutafika Uhuru To the top of
Hakuna Matata No worries
Na Dada Zetu For all of the sisters (that’s us)
Hakuna Matata No worries
Macho and Nelson together are quite a duo. They work well together. Papa is assured, decisive, definitely the leader. Macho is sweet, quieter, very attentive—always making sure we have our poles and water. Both are highly protective of us, they don’t want us mixing with other hikers as they want nothing, including the attitudes of strangers, to taint the trip.
By now we are all comfortable together. We learn the porters don’t like being called porters, but prefer the Swahili term wagum. We assume this means porter in Swahili, and don’t learn until our safari guide tells us much later that it means hard, or hard person, basically tough guy. Can’t blame them wanting to be called that considering they all carry 50-60 pounds up the mountain on a regular basis, often on their head, and always moving faster than us. They truly are tough guys and are quite remarkable.
We, on the other hand, have now readily adopted the title mzungu (wazungu the plural when we refer to ourselves as a group) which is the Swahili version of gringo—or white person—and have become the dada wazungu—the white sisters. Papa refers to us as dada (‘twendi dada’—‘let’s go sisters’), we call him papa, but when I ask what brother is in Swahili to call Macho that, I learn that it’s kaka. And being the mature adult that I am, I never can refer to him as Kaka Macho without an inner giggle and outer mouth twitch.
To be continued...
Photos: Me at a signpost of where we're going, Kili behind. Papa, Macho, Anita and Lisa, Kili behind. Kilimanjaro--first real view, from the toilet tent.
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