Mount Kilimanjaro: Lessons on fears, faith, gratitude, and realism
I’d be remiss to open this latest entry without naming the fact that this blog has sat idle for well over a year amid my inability to put written words to my never-ending maze of thoughts, as though a reminder that all things in this mortal realm first collect dust and then ultimately become dust, whether it’s a vast worldly empire or a long-suffering blog that almost no one reads, much less knows exists.
Be that as it may, this ephemeral life goes on, along with its milestones, including my adventure this past July to Tanzania during which I hiked to the 19,341-foot summit of Mount Kilimanjaro — Africa’s highest point, tallest free-standing mountain on Earth, and one of the world’s Seven Summits.
There is indeed a fair bit of pride at play in listing off those distinctions about this iconic peak. But the full truth requires far more humility: Not until it was complete did I publicly mention anything about this expedition—neither on this blog (obviously), nor on social media, nor even to extended family members unless they explicitly asked.
Why not? Because as is entirely typical for me, I was burdened with anxiety over a veritable laundry list (including, as I’ll note in a moment, literal dirty laundry) of every conceivable thing that could go wrong. Believe it or not, getting altitude sickness and failing to make it to the top was not even particularly high on that list.
On fears…
I considered every possible exotic malady that could afflict me during my first time in Africa—from malaria to meningitis, typhoid to hepatitis. (I spent too much time reading advice online from travel clinics.) Though I have a lifetime vaccination for yellow fever, I was worried about being able to prove it if asked at immigration, since it’s been more than 10 years since I got the inoculation.
Relatedly, shortly before I left, a colleague told me that an immigration officer in Tanzania asked her for a bribe the last time she visited—so naturally, I worried (and assumed) that the same would happen to me. Then I worried that my flight from Chicago to Addis Ababa would be delayed, and I’d miss my connecting flight to Tanzania, and I’d end up stuck in Ethiopia. And if that didn’t happen, I worried that once I got to Tanzania, I’d be unable to locate my shuttle driver at the airport and would be unable to reach anyone for assistance.
Then, of course, were the more mundane worries about foodborne illness, potable water, or even electricity. Would all of the food on the trip—including at the lodge where I was staying before and after the climb—be safe to eat? Would clean drinking water be provided throughout? Would the electrical outlets at the lodge include adapters that would accept the American-style plug for my phone? Would wifi be available? If not, how would I communicate to anyone that I had arrived safely (assuming none of the other hypothetical disasters befell me en route)?
Last but obviously not least were the anxieties about the climb itself. What if I did fall ill, due either to eating or drinking something bad, or one of the aforementioned maladies? What if I got an uncontrollable, soil-my-pants type of diarrhea on a six-day journey during which even the most basic of facilities would be, for the most part, available only at the camps, and of course with no laundry services of any kind?
And yes—what if I got horrible altitude sickness and not only failed to summit this mountain, but had to be evacuated via helicopter, as in fact we did see happening numerous times during our journey?
What if I invested all of this time, planning, and money on a once-in-a-lifetime, bucket-list adventure to the roof of Africa, only to fall short and have it end…like that?
On faith…
My parents dropped me off at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on the morning of my departure. It took me less than 15 minutes to get through security and to my gate in the international terminal, and once I was there, my dad texted me to let me know that on the way back, in the opposite direction of their travel on the expressway, from whence we had just come, they saw a terrible accident involving several cars on fire and a traffic backup rapidly forming. “We just missed this,” he wrote. “Had we been five minutes later…”
And inexplicably, at that moment, a voice in my head quietly yet unmistakably said, See? Just relax. You need to have the experience you’re about to have. There’s a path cleared for you.
And so, for the very first time since conceiving of this adventure, I did just that.
As it turns out, not a single one of my fears came to pass. Not even one. The flights to and from Africa on Ethiopian Airlines were all on time; the transfers in Addis Ababa were problem-free. I experienced no illness or gastrointestinal distress of any kind. The facilities on the trek, though simple, were adequate. The accommodations at the lodge before and after the climb were top-notch. Immigration in both directions went without incident; none of the officers did anything untoward, nor, for that matter, did they ask or care about my immunization status.
It was as though, at just this particular moment in time, under these precise circumstances that can never again be replicated, a path was indeed cleared for me, through no intervention of my own.
So why all the unfounded worry? In my case, it’s a question worthy of many hours of psychotherapy and examination of my personal trauma narrative, but on a general level, it’s symptomatic of the illusion of control—the notion that whatever happens to me, or doesn’t, is solely a function of my own action or inaction.
It’s an illusion because if one takes an honest, clear-eyed look at the seemingly arbitrary, chaotic nature of life and the universe, it becomes devastatingly obvious that there is vanishingly little in this temporal existence that is within anyone’s control. The best-laid plans can be laid to waste by an infinite number of random circumstances that we are powerless to influence or dictate, much less predict.
Yet I continue to worry, because if I admit that precious little is actually within the realm of my control, that itself paradoxically becomes a source of anxiety.
So what remedy exists? In my case, it has been learning to live on faith and viewing my fears not solely as hindrances but as an invitation to put my trust in something greater than myself—to just sometimes relax, in the words of the small voice that spoke to me at the airport. To occasionally step out of my comfort zone and the excruciating mundane monotony of everyday life, in spite of—or maybe precisely because of—the risks and inherent unknowns associated with doing so.
On gratitude…
And yet, what this trip taught me in so many different ways is that constant blessing exists even in what seems to be mundane.
Clean drinking water from the tap (which, it occurs to me, is practically all I drink at home, apart from coffee and the occasional beer or wine). Warm showers. A warm, safe, climate-controlled space to sleep at night. Laundry. Such fundamentals are normally easy to take for granted; but when you spend a week subject to the elements on a dusty, sun-bleached, high-altitude trail on the other side of the world, they quickly take on renewed significance and value.
So, too, does the opportunity to make meaningful, if impermanent, connections. Prior to the trek, I had never met any of the fellow climbers with whom I would share this adventure. All of them turned out to be wonderful people. Ours was a small, intimate group; initially there were just three of us, including me, and the two others were a man from Melbourne, Australia, and a woman from Birmingham, England. We were joined at the trailhead by another guy from Austin, Texas, who discovered upon arriving that he was the only person in his group and thus tagged along with us.
We told stories and got to know each other well on the trail. We commiserated when things were difficult. We bonded. And we were very well looked after by a team of professional guides, porters, and a chef (seriously, I can’t offer enough praise for all of them), who each had their own remarkable stories. One of our guides, for example, was formerly a Tanzanian police officer who decided it was time for a career change after he got into a gunfight.
It’s always fascinating to me how even the most fleeting of interactions with other people can create lasting memories. When I returned to Chicago, for instance, the U.S. customs officer I spoke to at passport control predictably asked me what I had been doing in Tanzania. When I told him, he excitedly responded that Kilimanjaro was also on his bucket list and that he wanted to know more. We most assuredly would have spoken for longer if the context had been different. Instead, I’ll never see him again, but it’s a random encounter I’ll remember.
It’s clear to me that to the extent that this life has any meaning at all, it comes neither from material possessions nor achievements, accolades, or social status; to the contrary, it stems from the connections we form with other people and the experiences we have because of those connections. On that basis alone this trip left much to be grateful for.
On realism…
Still, in the words of a theology professor I had during my master’s program, we are very much “east of Eden.”
This trip was an example of an experience in which it was easy to bond very quickly with a group of people I didn’t even previously know, both because of its formative nature and the risks and physical and mental stresses involved. And bond well we did.
But these are people with whom there’s a good chance I will never cross paths again. Our wonderful support team, all of whom were local? Almost certainly not. Even my fellow climbers, all of whom had been on previous global adventures and will likely do so again in the future, all live in different parts of the world. We can’t exactly get together for happy hour regularly.
The best theory I can offer in relation to such an apparently sad reality is that we are all sojourners on individual paths that are each unlike any other, which we must each walk on our own. But our own various paths inevitably cross with those of others in very specific times and places, and we have a moment to walk alongside each other in those times, and at the end of the day, it’ll turn out that all along, we were really just walking each other home to the place of shalom we are all seeking.
Shalom is not here, not yet. But for me, glimpses of it are possible through experiences like the one I had this summer on Africa’s highest peak.
