Day 4: Karanga Valley to Barafu Hut- struggle to the summit!

Today the team is walking for approximately 5 hours upwards and across to Barafu Hut (4600 m). They started off feeling energized and the altitude sickness was gone for Mat, Jon, Cam and Mark.  Last night's Karanga Valley campsite was relatively cold and exposed with night frosts.  


The trekkers are now in and out of the Moorland zone and Zone 5 of the Alpine Desert where the altitude is roughly 13,200 to 16,500 feet (4100 to 4600 m).  Blinding glare, high evaporation, and wide daily changes in temperature characterize the alpine desert, which can drop to freezing at night and soar to over 100°F/38 C during the day. Water is scarce, and the zone's thin soils retain little of what does materialize. The kinds of plants that can withstand such harsh conditions run to certain tough everlastings and tussock grasses, along with the curious moss ball, which envelops nodules of soil and rolls about with the breeze. Some of the same animals that visit the moorland appear here, but they're only passing through. The views are stunning, both out over the undulating savannah far below and up toward Kilimanjaro's twin summits, Kibo and Mawenzi (16,896 feet).


Their guide Geoff has told them this will be the most grueling day of their life, much less of the hike!  They must really focus on pacing themselves with their breathing, not to to rush to catch up with anyone and go at their own most comfortable speed.  As we contemplate the struggle that they will endure this day, it brings to mind the whole purpose of this hike - to help those children who are struggling every day of their life in South Africa.

When COPT volunteer Leah Egginton asked the creche children, “What are your goals in life?” these were some of the answers they gave:

Thapelo (age 9): “to buy a car and stop crime in South Africa and buy clothes in my spare time when I'm not working” 

Mpuse (age 3): “to be a doctor and stop people from getting sick” (little Mpuse has been infected with HIV from her birth)

These kids are so young, and have experienced the horrors of crime and sickness like some of us never will.  An older group of children at the Ubuhle Bezwe orphanage, a COPT project in Tembisa, were asked by COPT volunteer Keren Robertson to write a poem during their English classes.  The following day, the students  brought not one poem, but pages of poetry.  After class finished, the girls huddled round her, reciting poems for her to hear. She says, " It was then that I realized what these children had- a need to share their stories, a need to be heard by someone.  Most of them had lost both parents and many to AIDS, and had been abandoned by any remaining family members.  Their life stories contained great tragedy and heartbreak:  abandonment, rape, extreme poverty and disease. While they were grateful to have found a home in the small four room orphanage, their futures were uncertain and all their resources minimal.  They had few adults in their lives who cared to hear about their experiences and even fewer people with the resources to make a difference."


This is where the COP Trust and its volunteers make such a difference with their touch and teach programs.  The community centres that are funded through generous donations make such  an impact in the lives of children who would otherwise go without supervision in the muddy streets of the townships. In our country there are many situations where both parents are forced to work, and still not afford to pay for their children to be cared for. As a result many of these children are either left at home with older siblings or with neighbours. Sadly these children are often not cared for and most receive no stimulation in these important formative years.  The pre-schools and skills centre represents a melding of the efforts of generous corporate investments, foreign volunteers and local community leaders.  The community centres  highly-subsidized pre-school facilities to children selected by local social workers based on their need. They are also a youth centre providing HIV/AIDS education and life skills training for the youth plus free adult skills training to the local community.


So as we consider life's struggles, let us turn our thoughts to the men on Kilimanjaro today, struggling to reach the summit after a long and arduous journey.  Some may succeed, others may have to turn back because the obstacles are too great.  In the end only they can make that choice.  Let us give that same opportunity to the children of South Africa,  to have a chance to set out on that journey they dream of, to the summit that is called Life. 

I Will Keep on Dreaming

-A poem by Mpho

God created me

to have a purpose 

in this life of namhlanje

And my purpose

in this life of today

is to keep on dreaming

dreaming

dreaming

and dreaming until

I reach what I want to be,

and I will shine like a shining naledi

and I will not be fooled by people

who comment caibhedayo

I will keep on dreaming

at the end of it.

I am Dimpho the dreamer.