The final countdown!

3 days to go.
2 days in school, then it's an early morning wake-up for a 7am flight to Kilimanjaro Airport.
The bag is packed (my mother would be proud - I had a practise pack first!!), I have medical kit to cure anything from a blister to an operation with my sterile needle kit (five years old and never opened), 2 sleeping bags (just in case it gets extra cold), thermals, beanie hats, sun screen, 2 headlamps and loads of batteries, a camel pack and enough snacks to fuel an entire rugby team!
Today we had our final Sunday walk, followed by a dinner and a briefing. A couple of things made me chuckle.
The first is that Diamox, the controversial anti-altitude sickness drug, lists 'lack of sex drive' as one of the possible side effects. Well, excuse me, but I would be very concerned about anybody who actually had a high sex drive on the side of Kili, being as it will be minus ten and we are staying in huts with up to 120 dorm beds in them. Anybody who starts to shed any of their clothes should be immediately escorted down the mountain, in my view!
Secondly, and of great importance to me, is that the meal plan includes a cup of tea in bed each morning. Excellent!

What a load of old rubbish?

Look at what we came across on today's walk. It looks like some kind of artwork, all made out of old rubbish, to promote sports in Uganda. The spelling is a little worrying, considering it was in the grounds of a university.

Marabou storks thankfully DO NOT deliver babies!

Baby Marabou Storks - they are fluffier but NOT cute!

Or you will get Maribou Storks around ...

Amateur Boxing Association is what they were trying to say!

Except it is outdoors!

Game of chass anyone?

TURG of War???

Prosperous enough to buy a dictionary?

A space for the Kabaka

And also a space for the president!

This was too good not to share. The artist must be a dedicated soul to root through all the feral garbage!

And now for something completely different!

I found this Monty Python Kilimanjaro sketch this morning when I was looking for clips of Kili to show to the kids. It was quite a welcome distraction after watching people huff and puff their way to the summit.

This was the first time I have really talked to the kids about climbing Kili and after sharing a few You Tube clips, they are quite impressed and bewildered by the thought of the whole trek. One boy thinks we are lucky to have the opportunity to play in the snow and asked me to bring some back! I hope it was a joke - otherwise I have been wasting my time teaching States of Matter for the past 4 weeks. However, my favourite comment was:

'Miss, if you slip and fall off the mountain and die, who will be our teacher?'

I am so glad they appreciate me!

Who turned up the heating?

January and February are the hottest, driest months in Uganda. Great, when all you have to do is lie by the pool and read a book; not so great when you have to teach twenty energetic little people.  The temperature in my classroom has regularly been hitting over the 30 degree mark and we are all wilting. All I can think about all day is the moment when I can dive into the pool at 4.15pm and lower my body temperature. And we wonder why the kids find it hard to concentrate ...

On the other hand, I should be careful what I wish for. In just over a week, I will be wearing multiple layers and shivering on the side of Mount Kilimanjaro. It's not such a bad thought right now!

The best spot in school!

Kili Training in the Rwenzoris

Our strong and determined Team Kili

One of the many uphills!

Lush views!

Almost at the top!

The porter carried our lunch in a cardboard box on his head!

We climbed one of the mountains in the background

ONLY TEN DAYS TO GO!!!

This weekend we ran out of the school gates faster than the kids, loaded up the bus and headed off for one of my favourite spots in Uganda, Fort Portal. By 8.30pm, we were tucking into a rather filling home-cooked meal at the Ruwenzori View Guest House, followed by an early night, ready for an early morning start on the mountains.
The first half hour of the hike was a real test of our mental and physical stamina. As we plodded up the steep hill, I started to wonder what I was letting myself in for and whether the whole of the Kilimanjaro was going to be like this. I think it is a thought that crossed everybody's mind.
At the top of that first steep hill, we found a school. So it would seem that our mountain practise is just run of the mill for many of the kids living in that area. And they do it every day, either barefoot or in flip-flops! Looking at the bloated kwashiorkor stomachs, it is also clear that they were suffering from malnutrition too - and they were more than able to overtake us, carrying jerrycans of water! No North Face extreme mountain gear for them. It puts everything into perspective really.

A girl takes a rest outside the village school

I was relieved to find that the path evened out a little and that our ascent became more gradual. There were a few heart pounding moments, but nothing I can't deal with. What I did realise though, is that hiking is pretty tough on the calves and I wonder what else I can do to build up strength in the remaining week and a half.
The team is really starting to gel. I enjoyed getting to know the students a little more and we all mixed up as we walked at different paces. We're a pretty feisty team and believe that we will have the mental strength to push ourselves through the challenges to come. Nobody complained, nobody bitched and nobody is afraid of getting dirty or not looking pretty on the mountain. OK ... maybe we are a little concerned about the lack of showers and hair washing situation, but we won't let it get in our way.
By the end of the day we had hiked for about eight hours, walked about 12-15km (a very rough guesstimate!!) and climbed up and down something in the region of 1000m.
Now most of the physical training is done. If we're not fit enough now we never will be, so the focus has to change to the mind. I'm not only visualing the summit, but also the big meal we will have when we return, the pool in the hotel and a large glass of chilled white wine!

The Pre-Kili Medical

I've been watching clips of the celebrity Comic Relief team climbing Kili recently. They had teams of experts helping them to prepare and making sure they were all fit and healthy enough to endure the climb. They had all sorts of medical checks, got wired up to machines monitoring their heart-rates, entered chambers that mimicked the effects of altitude to see how they fared and took medics with them.
With this in mind, I booked myself an appointment at the doctors. The first thing I asked, was whether I should take Diamox. This drug is believed to help with the effects of altitude, however, the side effects of nausea, head-aches and  tingly feeling limbs are similar to those caused by altitude anyway So does it really help? He strongly advised against it, so I walked away empty handed. Does anybody have any experience of this or strong views either way? I'm not much of a pill-popper as it is, and I normally put head-aches down to either dehydration or tiredness.
I was feeling a little under the weather that day, and have been concerned that if I catch any sort or cold or 'flu (which is fairly easy when you work in a germ factory - I mean school) then my training would be interrupted. 'Training?', he said with a puzzled look on his face. 'What do you need to train for?'  Well there I was, thinking about 7 days of intense climbing and exercise, when he was making it out to be a walk in the park.
He then asked which route we were taking, and proceeded to draw me a little map of the mountain and talk in depth about the toilet arrangements and how the 120 bed dorms can be a party zone. Not what I imagined at all. I had a demonstration of how you should walk on the last day (heel, toe, breathe, rest, breathe) and was told that he has climbed it in trainers, right until the last day.
In total, I spent about 25 minutes in the consultation room, without even seeing a stethoscope. I was told to help myself to dressings and microtape to treat any blisters and told to take paracetamol and go to bed for my impending sickness. This may strike some as worrying, but it actually set my mind at ease a little. It was good to hear somebody talk about climbing Kili as though it isn't the scariest thing in the world and I stopped worrying ... well not completely, but just a little!

Lights out!

One of my best buys in Uganda!

I was just about to start chopping up the veggies to make a butternut and carrot soup tonight, when ping, off went the electricity again. We have been experiencing more and more power cuts of late, for longer and longer periods of time. I think this is now the third in a week. I am, however, getting much more inventive in my ways of dealing with them. Last week, I was half way through cooking my dinner when the power went out. Now a less resilient person would sigh and give up here, opting instead for a bowl of cereal or some raw veggies. Not me! I suddenly remembered that I had bought a camping stove off a leaving friend last year, so lit the stove and hey presto, dinner was served only a little after originally planned. This little gadget is so great - it even has a little rack to toast bread on. Now I will be reluctant to take my emergency cooker on any sort of camping trip though!

The power cuts are a major headache in Uganda - slowing down productivity and making life generally more miserable for those experiencing them. They have even been said to be a major cause of the high birth rate - after all, what else is there to do in the village in the dark?! When the inverter goes out (a big battery that stores up power so the lights still work in a power cut), I however, will be reading by the light of my head torch, so rest assured, there will be no unwanted pregnancies in my household!