kili & kittens

i'm erroneously training these kittens to like white ladies. i have no shame. 

perfect Kili and Meru shot

view from the office: Kilimanjaro

This is the view from our offices at KCMC. So you know, when you get overwhelmed by your lack of forward movement... step outside.

Shira and saying Kwaheri

planning the hash

wazungu in the mist...

freezing, but successful!

someone here is tasty...

A5 says Karibu!

upon waiting for the 1 train.

there's a cool breeze teasing the edge of my miniskirt as i wait on the above-ground train platform- a treasured rarity in the depths of summer in the city.
i can see across the harlem river from here.
there is a small peak of rolling green hills amid the high rises which, seduced by the momentary fresh air, reminds me of italy.
which reminds me that my passport has just expired. damn.

but, i can't bear to sink below that film of disappointment. so i brush it aside, closing my eyes and turning my face into the beating sun.

here and now i will relish living in a destination city, even if the language is my own and the gleam has long faded and my dreams sit dusty in plastic storage crates under my one-side mussed bed.

the sky is bright blue. the color richer through my fancy sunglasses, a deeply perfect robin's egg.
it is surprisingly quiet for a 9am work day. the truck grumblings muffled somehow. a siren does a quick crescendo, but just as quick fade out, leaving only the light chatter that beats below the city, a heartbeat that never stutters.

there is no train in sight. unsurprisingly. i'm going to be late. the mismanagement of public transit is just another truth to be swallowed down on a pretty day.
but it does mean the tracks extend unblemished into the distance, curving enticingly away.

how many pictures of roads from all over the world are scattered in my life?

each curving forward. a promise, as all roads are, of paths ahead and paths behind.

way with words

while working, i came upon this awesome site www.wordle.net that creates these neat images from writing. the story i was reading was using the app to create a picture from articles about the health bill.
for funseys i tried it out on my blog about climbing Kilimanjaro . you either enter the web address or copy and paste the text, the site ignores common words, then makes a cloud graph out of the top used ones. the size of the words relates to the number of times used, then randomizes the position and color.

gives you a different way of looking at things

Xmas, yet again I have defied you!

i love christmas. i hate christmas. i love beautiful snow laden trees and moon reflected glowy nights. i hate dark days and freezing solitude. i love the rebirth of a fresh year. i hate the emotional upheaval of lost days, endings, and missed moments.

yes, i am a soldier of the winter doldrums. i'm not sure when it started. on the one hand, it seems like it has always been this way, yet on the other, i remember a time when xmas was only about santa clause and presents and school vacation. i think it must have been high school. there was one winter that is pristine in my memory, the penultimate for a young teenager with hope in her heart and stars in her eyes. that makes it sound much more dramatic than it should. but i suppose the important thing was that in the moment, nothing could be better.

and of course, what solidifies such a moment? the moment's end. and once life was once again tarnished by so many things, you are drawn back over and over to that seemingly perfect moment. you polish it reverently, till the edges are smoothed away, till it becomes something it never was, gleaming, perfect, infinite.

remembrances are all well and good. but a pearl is a dangerous memory. nothing in the moment can ever compare to something enhanced by such attention. if you are lucky, you have other good experiences, good days. and with time, these events will also be lifted above themselves. perhaps only your own memories can save you from your memories. the brightness of the new cherished memory dims the glow of the old.

as a child you have endless hope and future opportunity. then you have successes and failures. you lose things and you gain things. as you get farther down your own time line, you begin to see -or imagine you see- the endgame. with the end come the limits, not of your abilities or even your chances but of your time to reach those abilities, fulfill those chances.

how easy it is to get lost in the past, polishing, instead of living and creating new moments to remember a decade from now.

my sister recently talked about getting rid of her "box" -that collection of items that link you physically to memories, people, time. my "box" still lives on the walls of my childhood bedroom--mementos, pictures, posters of productions from high school to college to grad school and beyond. my mother told me she takes my little cousins on trips into "the museum" as they call it. that is frightening.

but i'm not ready to throw my box on the funeral pyre. i'm taking another tactic all together. i'll let them grow dusty, forget about them from time to time. then i'll add new moments to the old. i want to fill the museum of my heart all up till it's full to bursting.

we do this in acting. prepare, prepare, prepare. image, elucidate, fill out the corners of the imagined life, till you walk out on stage and it pours through you unconsciously.

course, the danger is living in the old and not making the new. this is my challenge for the new year. to prepare my real life as i do for the stage, to keep making the memories to out shine the old.

eh, resolutions!

 

kilimanjaro: the metaphor of the mountain

with the rain delaying my run, i've finally finished posting my account of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. i'm glad i happened to look back at it today. it has been a tough week, i have struggled to come out of the dark side, to put out some positive energy, appreciate what i have without coveting everyone else too much.

yeah, i'm still going to struggle with that a bit, but having my own words thrust back in my face doesn't hurt:

"Can i hold on to the metaphor of the mountain? it is impossible not to see the implications of it in my own life. simply jogging, i am reminded- how can i quit now, this is not as hard as Kili, not as cold or hot, i can breathe, i am not empty. but of course even further the comparison is unavoidable. i am an actress- unemployed for quite a while, frustrated and more often depressed by my comparative successes to my friends and colleagues and family.

i see around me what i have sacrificed, the relationships, the security. but am i yet empty? and even when i have given everything, does that mean my feet stop? do i turn back, beaten, or do i go on? reaching my highest peak, battered physically, mentally, and perhaps only half brained, but reaching it some day all the same..."

read it here: shangala-bangala

remembering kili

i can't believe how long ago i was living in africa! it still seems like just yesterday.

i had many adventures while i was there, including climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with my stepfather, john and stepsister, julia.

i wrote a lot about that trip while i was still in moshi. i've unfortunately discovered that myspace blogs don't tend to last that long. so i'm reposting/writing them up on blogger, to hopefully keep them around a bit longer. it's still under construction, but i invite y'all to check out the adventure.

it was, as they say, life changing:
http://shangala-bangala.blogspot.com/

5.19.18

Well, I did it.
You know, I've done a lot. I mean, obviously I've traveled all over the world and have had amazing experiences, emotionally, mentally, professionally--but I don't think just looking at me, you'd guess the physical side of things-- paragliding, snowboarding, sword fighting, then summating Kilimanjaro and completing a marathon in the same year!

The Marine Corp Marathon. It ended up being a family affair, mostly because it fell on my grandmother's birthday. A perfect opportunity for a bunch of us to gather. John, my uncle Brandon, and cousins Jimmy and Alex, and lastly me would run, while Mother and Aunt Anne cheered and Uncle Tom followed along through the digital updates with Nanna. Unfortunately, my cousin Alex was diagnosed with a stress fracture just a little while ago, after one of his races, so he wasn't going to be able to run. He would have been the 2nd youngest out of the 35,000 racers. One little indian down, 4 to go.

We had to get up at 5am, to catch the subway to the Pentagon. Alex trouped out with us in the freezing cold dark for moral support. It took only about 2 subways stops for the feeling of complete ridiculous to set in. At each stop, we picked up more runners-there was no one else on the train- in their matching running outfits, their lithe, athletic bodies, braving the 40* weather in their little shorts, while they pinned on their numbers. Then there's me in my giant, tattered, paint strewn Duke sweatshirt and Maria's old hand-me-down biker shorts. Yes, when I realized I'd been staring at a man's incredibly defined calves, I knew things were going downhill fast.

At the Pentagon stop, we had to walk for a good 20 minutes along with the steadily growing crowd to the starting area. The sun began to rise just as we came to the beginning of the port-o-poties that stretched as far as the eye could see. We found some port-o-potty lines and waited our turn, before dropping off our belonging bags and heading for the start. I was lucky Brandon wanted to run the same slow pace as me, as James and John were going to speed through.

I'm not sure what I imagined the start to be, but I certainly did not have a grasp on what 35,000 people look like smooshed into a road. Now I really lost it. There was no excitement or adrenaline, just an overwhelming sense of wide-eyes hilarity, most closely akin perhaps to "Kilimanjaro despair" Stan promised would hit us climbing. For that, however, we had a distinct prescription: "have a little chocolate." Not so here.

When the canon shot at 8am, Brandon and I couldn't even see the starting line, there were so many people before us. We didn't even get to the starting line till about 8:15. I was quite thankful to have Brandon with me, keeping me on a slow run 6 minutes, walk 1 minute pace, so I didn't have to think about it. Our pace was slow enough that we could comfortably chat, though the girl vomiting at mile 3! for goodness sake, was not helpful. Nor was seeing men go dashing to the side to pee constantly. I don't think their was a single stretch till we hit the monuments where people weren't running into the trees. I was laughing at it, till Brandon took off to join them. The first time, I walked and waited for him to catch up, but the second time he dashed to the woods around mile 6, I had to leave him behind. I later learned he continued on till about mile 13, when his insides won out and he had to quit. 2 little indians down. For my part, the thought of peeing tormented me. I knew I'd be running for hours and hours and couldn't avoid drinking liquids whenever offered, but was convinced that if I stopped to wait for a port-o-potty and even if i ran to the trees myself, the stopping would be my downfall. Luckily, I sweated out all need to stop.

Since a good fourth of the people around me had headphones in despite the ban, I pulled my own out of hiding. For the next 15 miles Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows kept me distracted. Thank god. I'm not a very social runner, not inclined to make buddies with the people around me. Harry Potter was just fine. And yet, I didn't tune out the world. I enjoyed the fog off the Potomac, the monuments towering around me, the cheers of the people along the road. Though I didn't write my name on my chest, back, or calves as many had done, many people shouted out "Go Duke!" or "Alright, Blue Devils!" I think this was better than hearing strangers shout my name. I don't know them, why should they cheer me? But everyone should always cheer for the Blue Devils. When I heard them, I would throw my hands up and give a little "whoo" at varying degrees of enthusiasm depending on the mile. In fact, I kept passing one supporter in his own Duke shirt and crazy hat who was on his bike waiting for some one, then biking ahead to another spot. On the last really terrible section, around mile 24, a long stretch on the overpass, with the sun bouncing off the cement and the traffic running the other direction, I was walking for a few seconds, trying to massage out the awful cramp right under my rear, when he passed by on his bike. He slowed down and yelled at me to keep going and "Pick it up Duke!" And for some reason I said alright and took off again.

Sadly, around mile 17 disaster struck John as he felt a definite snap in his ankle. He had been running for around a 4:30 or 4:15, when he had to start walking, but his ankle could handle the slower stride even less. Rather than put himself into the hooplah of the medics, he hobbled to the metro, where he discovered he had left his metrocard with his checked belongings. The subway stations were a complete disaster zone. So many people, mother and Anne got trapped on one as they stopped letting people get off or get on! John is standing in wall to wall people, just barely keeping from vomiting and passing out from the pain. Only the revulsion of being trapped in DC medical services, kept him on his feet. 3 little indians down.

Jimmy was the ultimate success story of the day. He's on his cross country team, but has never run a marathon length. In fact his longest run was probably around 20 miles in Tanzania over 2 months ago. Yet, he never slowed down once! Faster than his goal, he ran the whole thing in 3:23, with just over a 7 minute mile! He was the fastest 16 year old and 11th in his division --14-19years old! Amazing. I actually saw him at one point, around my mile 5 and his mile 9 or 10, i guess. He was flying past, didn't even look winded. Brandon and I yelled out like crazy, but he was too fast to hear us. haha.

All in all, I ran at a pretty leisurely pace. Since I'm just tight and a bit sore, I imagine I could have gone faster. Normally, I run around 10 minute miles, but I ended up running about 12 minute miles, even though I stopped walking on the 6 run/1 walk schedule. I hit a wall at around mile 12, my usual stop length. I tried to bend over and stretch for a brief second and thought I'd never get upright again. The last time I did that. Then I paced myself with Kermit, literally--some crazy man in a head to toe Kermit outfit, who must have been boiling under there. I figured I had to run as fast as him. My feet were like bricks and I ached all over, but I found myself deciding Kili was still harder, at least at my pace. On Kili, I was slowly asphyxiating, the lack of oxygen feeling like an iron suit, weighing me down. All I could think was "one more step" and by the time I reached the highest point, I was babbling nonsense and trying to stay up there forever. Though it helped not to have a brain left to say "you can't do it," I simply lost any sense of self preservation. Here, I think the overwhelming "there's no way" from the beginning had a similar effect of holding off the specific "i can't go on." And yet, I never thought I would die, I just focused on good ol' Harry like a hamster in a wheel, that doesn't realize the effort to get somewhere will go on forever.

I sped up significantly around mile 20, more out of an intense need to stretch my legs and my hamstrings in particular. I had a brief vision of sprinting all the way to the finish, that ended quickly when I hit the wretched overpass stretch-- No water, only a handful of biked supporters, and many hobbling runners. The last 2 miles I went for good run-- well as good as I could manage, to make a nice photo finish!

And that was that.

The marines put water in my hands and a medal over my neck, congratulated me, and shepherded me along.
No big whoop.

Kilimanjaro- in words better than mine

There is no place more arresting, even heart-stopping, than Kilimanjaro

Spectator, The,  Jan 15, 2000  by Parris, Matthew

He looked exhausted, drained, absolutely whacked. Stretched flat on his back on the red desert rock which covers the saddle between the peaks of Kibo and Mawenzi on the Kilimanjaro massif, face covered from the cruel sun, he lay, perhaps asleep. And no wonder. At the altitude of 15,000 ft he had already reached, the effort for so heavy a man must have been stupendous. He looked all of 15 stone; quite an achievement. But then 31 December 1999 was a day for final achievements. It was early afternoon. No reason, I reflected, he might not rouse himself to make it to the top by sunrise the following day.

I said as much to his companion - a chap with a German accent standing nearby, in sunglasses. But the man seemed to have little enthusiasm for the climb. Or the crush. 'There are about 200 more coming up from the hut we slept in last night; the Rongoi route,' he said. 'And maybe as many waiting to climb from the Kibo hut.'

He spoke of the final ascent as though that might not be for him. We discussed routes and numbers as the rest of my party caught up, panting in the thin air. My sister and her Catalan husband, their family and I - six people - had spent two days in the company of three friends, Emily, Julian and Bernadette, walking round the northern side of the mountain. Having circled it, we were now about to rejoin the hundreds who had come straight up the southern slopes from the direction of Moshi in Tanzania. We had taken our diversion to acclimatise to the altitude, and because few ever try the and northern circuit. The dry side of this mountain is like the dark side of the moon.

 We had been rewarded with spectacular views over the Kenyan plains, hours of walking across moonscapes of shattered, clinking rocks, picking our way through fields of obsidian, a beautiful black volcanic glass whose sharp edges (said Emily, who knew about anthropology) were prized in ancient times for their knife-like blades. Obsidian was hunted and carried away like treasure, she said, and, because various volcanoes spew molten obsidian of a composition peculiar to themselves, its distribution in different hands around the world has helped historians establish patterns of human movement.

Shortly after dawn that day we had come across elephant dung, several weeks old, at 14,000 ft, quite near the edge of the grassline. Kudu droppings were everywhere, and jackal at 15,000 ft. What drives animals so high, to a place where it is hard enough for humans to breathe? Were these rogue creatures, limping up to die - or do great deer, predated upon by big cats and dogs, graze regularly among the ice, heather-trees and giant groundsel? And always as we walked, that huge, silent, blinding, glistening, glacier-topped cap of the Kibo crater in the sky above us, to our right hand. Do animals, too, look up and wonder?

We had been on the mountain for five days, and most of us were feeling strong. Eleven-year-old Cristina, my sister's child, was doing fine, in a world of her own as usual. She had seen monkeys, as hoped, in the jungles below. Her older sister, Tammy, who is 16, was limping badly from an old injury where a horse once kicked her, and dreaming of her own horse, Unique, stabled at Queen Ethelburga's College in Yorkshire where she studies and rides. Rodger, her brother, had powered on ahead of us, 14 being an age when only two gear-stick positions are available: overdrive or park.

Their mother, Belinda, along with Emily and Bernadette, was confirming what women over 30 so often can: that their reserves are deeper, their trudge-capacity greater and their stamina more durable than flashier male performers can summon. Belinda's strong, fit husband, Joaquim, was to need real guts to get to the top in ten hours' time.

Julian felt sick that day but nothing could stop him. I was fine; a slight headache, that's all, but who doesn't when oxygen is scarce? It did not bother me, for I have loved this saddle in the sky between Kibo and Mawenzi since I was first there at 18: like a Martian desert commanded by two peaks; the evil, black, blasted crags of the lower, Mawenzi, a smashed fist raised at snow-smooth Kibo. The landscape has immense presence, an atmosphere as thick as the air is thin. I know no environment more arresting, but it is not a nice place: quite disturbing, really, but for me compulsive.

Anyway, we had only another few hundred feet to climb, though that would take a gasping hour or more. Kibo hut was almost within sight and there we could sleep until midnight, when the final ascent for the millennial dawn would begin. I felt exhilarated.

The German sounded downbeat, a bit flat. Julian and Emily were already there, and by now our other companions had almost reached us. Our African guide, Charles, was in noisy conversation, in the Kichagga language, with the German's guide.

'How many will there be at the top?' I asked the German.

'Too many.'

'I believe the Tanzanian government and the national-park authorities were expecting four times as many. It's lucky they never materialised .....

'Yes. One does not want a party.' The fun seemed to have gone out of things for this man, but altitude often takes you like that and he did not seem to have much company in his companion. The conversation was coming to a natural end. I did not expect him to climb.

'Well, we'll be on our way. I guess you'll be resting longer. I hope your friend gets his strength back. He looks like he's dead!'

'Unfortunately he is.'

'Dead?'

'Dead.'

'Your friend has died?'

"Died.'

'I'm sorry.'

'No. It's all right.' 'When?'

'Now. He has just died. He fell down. His heart was stopped. It was immediate.'

And again: 'I'm sorry.... Can we help?' 'Help is coming. It is too late.' His guide had already sent on up to the next hut. Within minutes we would see a young white medic running down, a black porter pushing a wheelbarrow-trolley at a canter behind him. All this, which was pointless, was on its way. The German did not, I sensed, wish us to stay.

'Goodbye. I'm sorry.'

'Goodbye.'

We walked on, leaving him still standing there, in sunglasses, his late companion, head covered, on the ground a few feet away. I never saw the eyes of either, of course.

Matthew Paris is parliamentary sketchwriter and a columnist of the Times.

Copyright Spectator Jan 15, 2000

Machame: KILIMANJARO

the kili climb is fast approaching. Machame route. July 11th- July 16th

READ my climb up kilimanjaro here

http://shangala-bangala.blogspot.com/

Kili kisses the sun

Kalulu the Hare

from my english teaching tools:

KALULU AND HYENA AND THE POT OF FAT

Kalulu the Hare and Hyena were friends, and they lived together in the same village.
One day Hare said to Hyena, "Hyena, we are not eating well. We are not eating enough fat. We must eat more fat."
Hyena said, "We have not enough fat to eat."
Hare said, "I know a way of getting fat."
Hyena said, "How will you get fat, Kalulu?"
Kalulu said, "There is a cart which comes along this road, and the men have pots of fat in the cart. I will lie down on the road. The men will see me and they will think that I am dead. They will put me into the cart, meaning to eat me when they get home."

"Yes, yes!" said Hyena, "but how shall we get the fat?"
"I will throw a pot out of the cart on to the road," said Hare.
"Yes, yes!" said Hyena, "that is good!"
Then Hare and Hyena went to a place on the road and Hare lay down on the road. He looked as if he was dead.
Then the cart came along the road. And one of the men in the cart said, "Ho! Ho! Ho! Stop! There is a dead hare lying on the road."
"What will you do with it?" the other man said.
"We will put the hare in the cart," said the man. "We will take the hare home and cook it and eat it."
Then the man took Kalulu and threw him into the cart. The cart went on.

Kalulu looked at all the things in the cart. He found a big pot of fat. He threw the pot out on to the road. The men did not see Hare throw the pot of fat out of the cart. Then Hare jumped out of the cart and the cart went on.
Hyena thought, "I will lie down on the road too. I will get another pot of fat." So Hyena lay down on the road and the cart came along.
"Ho! Ho! Ho! Stop!" cried one of the men. "There is a hyena lying on the road."
"Is it dead?" said the other man in the cart. "Is it really dead?"
"I do not know," said the other man, and he hit Hyena with his big stick.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" cried Hyena, and he ran away.

Then Hare came, bringing his pot of fat and they sat down to eat the fat.
Now Kalulu did not want Hyena to eat much fat. Kalulu wanted to eat all the fat himself. So he said to Hyena, "Oh, Hyena, if you eat much fat you will be ill."
"No, Kalulu," said Hyena, "I shall not be ill."
And Hare said, "If you go to sleep and when you wake there is fat in your mouth, you are ill. You are ill because you have eaten too much fat."

Then Hyena went to sleep. Kalulu put a big piece of fat in Hyena's mouth.
After some time Hyena woke up. And when he found the big piece of fat in his mouth he said, "I am ill, Kalulu. I am very ill. I will not eat any more fat."
So Kalulu ate all the fat himself. And he laughed --and laughed --and laughed.

from moshi to dar