The Last Day

When I woke up this morning I turned to Cynthia and said- “I will never ever ever camp again!”She knew better than to argue with me at that moment.
We took some interior tent pics and then packed up. For the last time!!!!

The usual breakfast was followed by a ceremony with the entire team.
Emmanuel led the singing - call and response - and gave a shoutout to each and every porter, waiter, chef, toilet attendant, tent attendant and team member. Rama even let loose and pulled Cynthia and Tina out on the dirt dance floor. What a joyful experience!

We began the final descent of our journey. I think we were probably all using the same mantra this time. “Show-ER, show-ER, show-ER”. Since the previous evening, I had started to feel more like myself. At the beginning of the journey, Hamdi and Bahadir had remarked on my seemingly relentless good cheer. And I think that I am generally a joyful person. But as the altitude had increased, it was like regular me faded more with each step higher and what was left was just a body trying to survive. So it felt good to feel good!
Down we went, past the dusty moorland and into the rain forest. It was so great to see the greenery. Signs of life! We even spotted some blue monkeys!
A couple of hours later we arrived at lower camp and my phone began to vibrate with notifications. Connectivity! Grant had been texting me nightly even though he knew I wouldn’t be reading them. Here is one of his texts that really touched me:

“I’m sending all the love and positivity I can to you. There’s even a prayer or two.
You’ll have 8 days of crosswords cut out and stacked when you get back. Morning coffee and paper delivered for 6 months. Back rubs with renewed purpose. Two chocolate cakes waiting. And a new living room window in May.”

Oh, I love that guy!

Another couple of hours and we arrived at Mweka Gate - Our pickup point. But first….one final white lunch!! One might think that being the last meal, something out of the ordinary might be served. And I guess it was. On the table were a couple bottles of champagne, some beers, and some sodas. All warm. Dmitri asked if ice was possible and the answer was short and sweet. “No”. So we each selected our drink of choice and drank them warm. I drank an orange Fanta - full sugar version, and ya know what? Warm Fanta ain’t that bad!
Somewhere Haythem had seen a video of the goodbye lunch where they served chocolate cake and he was convinced that chocolate cake would be forthcoming. So we all sat there for a long time waiting for cake which was never to be.
All that waiting wasn’t in vain, though. I was sitting next to Jamila, the young woman from Moscow. The entire trip, I had wanted to ask the Russians what they thought about the war, but Cynthia strongly advised against it. This was my last chance.
“So, Jamila……what do you think of this war with the Ukraine?”
This led to a very interesting conversation which made me wish I had gotten to know our Russian teammates earlier. Jamila said that since Putin’s conscription last fall, at least 80 % of her male friends had left the country. I asked her if she liked Putin. “No!”, she vehemently exclaimed. She told me that the reason she stayed in Russia was because she thought she could have a greater effect for change from the inside. She actually houses refugees in her little Moscow flat while they wait on their bus tickets to get out of the country. We discussed what kept Putin in power and compared the political divide in Russia with that in the US. It gave me hope that this younger generation was skilled enough and motivated enough to fix at least some of what is broken.
After it became evident that there would be no cake, we boarded the van for the ride back to the Aisha Machame where we returned our rental equipment, reclaimed our valuables and prepared our tips. Then it was time for the ceremony I had been dreading. The conferring of certificates of completion. Rama began calling team members one by one to give them their laminated certificate of summit. I felt so conspicuous. The shame was thick. Would they just not call me at all? Would they give me a certificate that said “nice try”? All prospects seemed mortifying. My name was called. I took a laminated certificate, but didn’t even look at it. Just shoved it in a bag I was carrying.
After the ceremony, Jamila sidled up and asked what my certificate said. I took it out of the bag and we looked at it together. It was exactly the same as hers! Now, I’m not gonna lie. There was a small part of me that said, “Cool! I get the certificate and didn’t even have to do the climb?”, but most of me felt like it was just gross and devalued everyone’s certificate. I didn’t know what to do about it, other than to make sure that they knew that I knew that it was a sham and that I certainly would not be bringing home and hanging it on the wall. The whole thing was just awkward.
And now it was time to say goodbye to the team members to whom we had grown so close in such a short time. As I’m writing this, I am tearing up a little, but at the time
I think we were all so focused on the coming glorious shower, that we missed some of the significance.
Those of us that were staying in a different hotel boarded the van one last time and rode to the Chanya Lodge - a significantly better place than the place we had stayed earlier. We all had dinner together: Cynthia and I, Gaspar and Chelsea, Branch, (who was leaving early the following morning), and Kelly.
Said our goodbyes to each other and retired to our rooms to enjoy what I am guessing was the best shower of our lives!Read more