"Hakuna Matata" by Rob

‘No problem’ said our Tanzanian guide Jonas Rutta, “Hakuna Matata”.  Everything would be OK and in the end it was and we got to see the sun rise on the summit of Africa’s highest mountain, the almost mythical, Kilimanjaro.

The picture of me, the one every walker wants, is of a tired but elated pilgrim next to the sign that reads:  ‘Congratulations, you have are now at Uhuru Peak’.  To get there we had battled intense biting cold, a long dark zig-zagging climb and creeping altitude sickness and in the long hours stumbling back down the mountain in the blazing sun, it had all seemed like some sort of dream.

The reality of what we were about to do and why we were doing it had come home to us seven days earlier, when our mini-bus bumped along a long dirt track through sun-flower groves and under a vivid blue sky, to arrive at the village of Qash, (pronounced ‘cash’) in the Manyara district of Tanzania. 

In the midday heat, we had learned how a new ‘water-point’ had become an essential resource for the village, allowing precious clean water to be drawn up from the red parched earth.  Later we saw how a school had benefited from sanitation and a new toilet block, transforming the health and wellbeing of over 600 children.

It is often said that climbing Kilimanjaro can be a life-changing experience and driving back from Qash that day, I think we all realised that what we were doing would indeed change lives by giving people like those in the village access to something which we all take for granted in the UK.

The rest of the trip I remember as a kaleidoscope of moments and experiences: The nerve-jangling descent from Lava Tower; the sleepless nights under canvass; the astonishing star-encrusted night-sky; the long drop toilet trips with head-torch;  the daily routine of chlorine tablets in the water and blood-oxygen tests.  And most of all, the camaraderie and the slowly getting to know people I hardly knew at work,  as we trudged the long miles together, ‘pole, pole’.

Humbled, cold and completely exhausted, we had reached Uhuru Peak and overall, it felt like we had all done good.

Rob