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Nov. 4, 2011
A trip to the roof of Africa
Mt. Kilimanjaro climb raises awareness about Alzheimer’s.
DAN LEVITT
In September 2011, 10 Vancouverites began their journey to raise awareness of the impact of Alzheimer disease by hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, considered to be the highest freestanding mountain in the world and the highest mountain in Africa. To date, the group has raised more than $125,000 and, since the Ascent Team program began in 1998, more than $2 million has been donated. This is the first diary instalment in a three-part series from one of the trekkers who is an active community member.
The Boeing 777 landed gracefully at Kilimanjaro International Airport in the African night. As it taxied to the terminal, I peered out the window and realized that we were the only airplane at the small airport. It seemed as though the whole airport had stayed open waiting for us to arrive.
We exited the jumbo jet, carefully walking down a steep flight of stairs directly onto the tarmac, where we were ushered toward the arrivals area. Entering the main hall of the terminal, we were struck by the seemingly inefficient procedure to obtain a visa for Tanzania.
While waiting in the customs line, we noticed an office off to the side that had a health department sign next to a closed door. Peering through the window to the left of the door, an oversize KLM calendar was turned to September and displayed a picture of a Canadian Mountie – instantly, we felt right at home. However, as we waited in the customs line up, the power went out a handful of times and we quickly realized that we were no longer in North America, and that we should slow down to adjust for a different sense of time.
A half hour later, we had our Tanzanian visas and had retrieved our duffle bags from the carousel. After loading our equipment and gear onto the jeeps, we drove an hour and a half to the Marangu Hotel at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Upon arrival at the hotel on Sept. 26, we were greeted by the friendly staff, which welcomed us to the dining room for a late four-course dinner. Following the meal, we were escorted to our rooms.
Lying in bed, peering up at the mosquito netting and hearing the sounds of crickets in the night, I reflected on the distance we had traveled to venture up Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Our journey had started from Vancouver two days earlier, with our flight taking us over northern Canada, Baffin Island, Greenland and Iceland, descending over Scotland and landing at Schipol Airport near Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, I had a chance to walk past Anne Frank’s house and gaze at the majestic Portuguese synagogue where I would attend Yom Kippur services two weeks later. All the members of the team met the following morning at the Schipol departure lounge for the flight to Tanzania. It felt like a reunion of sorts. We had trained for the past six months together and had bonded as a team.
As our daytime flight to Africa ascended, the lowlands of Holland gave way to the towering mountains of the Alps as the plane traversed Europe on its way toward the Mediterranean Sea. The turquoise waters soon came into view, with the Aegean Sea and its Greek Islands just out of reach 38,000 feet below the plane’s belly. The distinctive crescent shape of Santorini came into view, with several large cruise ships anchored safely in the middle of the Caldera harbor. Memories of past summers in Greece quickly faded away, as the Med ended and the grey sands of the northern Sahara Desert took over the landscape. As Khartoum, Sudan, and the Nile River came into view, the sun began to set to the west. One could not help but think of the millions of people impacted by the devastation of the famine in nearby Kenya and other parts of East Africa.
The next day, we awoke to the sounds of roosters and the bright equatorial sun. Walking out into the lush tropical grounds of the Marangu Hotel property, it seemed more like Hawaii than what one would imagine Tanzania to look like. The morning was spent doing gear checks and packing up to ensure our duffle bags did not weigh more than 33 pounds – the maximum weight porters would carry up the mountain.
After lunch, the team walked with a local guide to a public (non church-sponsored) elementary school, where we were greeted by the vice-principal. Each Ascent Team member brought a care package with school supplies donated by employees at Tabor Village, a Mennonite-sponsored seniors care facility located in Abbotsford, B.C. Other staff members from the school joined us and seemed to be overwhelmed with the gifts from Canada.
The vice-principal toured us through the campus, which was situated on a soccer field surrounded by basic, single-storey classrooms. Entering the classrooms, the coed pupils were dressed in well-worn school uniforms, all with short-cut hair. Despite the bare classroom, there was a focus on academic excellence. The teacher quickly focused the students on singing the Tanzanian national anthem and other songs they had learned in school. A few were in English and we joined in and sang along. The excitement of seeing visitors from Canada also meant the students had the chance to see themselves on the digital displays of our cameras. By the time we left the school, it was 3 p.m., dismissal time, and many pupils followed us along the dirt roads, banana farms and coffee plantations that made up much of the village of Marangu.
Later that evening, Seamus, the proprietor of the Marangu Hotel, gave the Ascent Team a lecture in the briefing room on what to expect over the next seven days on the trek to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. There was apprehension in the air as the well-trained, well-equipped team listened to the talk. Looking at the black and white images of the glaciers at the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and the old maps of East Africa plastered to the walls, my mind wandered as I imagined Indiana Jones lecturing in this briefing room, and one could easily expect the likes of Captain Jeffery Spalding (aka Groucho Marx) jumping into the room to sing “Hurray for Captain Spalding the African Explorer.”
The room fell quiet as Seamus began talking about what could go wrong on the hike. He explained that there are different types of altitude sickness. Acute mountain sickness is very common, but is not as frightening as its name suggests. The symptoms include headaches, nausea and vomiting, though not everyone suffers from all of the symptoms. Normally, symptoms fade after a few hours but, if they do not, a climber may need to turn back, especially if the vomiting is leading to dehydration.
As if that was not enough, we learned that there is a much more serious type of altitude sickness, called edema. This is a build-up of fluid in the body and, when the fluid collects in the lungs (pulmonary) or the brain (cerebral), a serious condition develops that requires immediate action, and the climber must descend to a lower altitude, where recovery takes a miracle. Though there are fatalities every year on Mt. Kilimanjaro, the success rate of trips guided by the Marangu Hotel has been high.
Concluding his talk, Seamus, with a smile on his face, reassured us by emphasizing that, to properly acclimatize, a climber should not climb more than 300 metres per day, but, even though the daily ascents on Kilimanjaro are higher, they are made at a slower pace to ensure safety.
With the preparation stage complete, the next day, the Alzheimer Ascent Team would begin our ascent of the world’s highest freestanding mountain.
Dan Levitt is executive director of Tabor Village, a seniors care community located in Abbotsford, B.C., and a member of the 2011 Alzheimer Ascent Team.
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