December 29, 2017
To start things off, Merry Christmas, Happy
Chanukah, Happy New Years, and Happy Holidays in general! It’s been
another month full of adventures and learning. I’ll be pairing my
adventures with some good ole reflection – that’s how the
Jesuits taught me! You go out into the world to have an experience, then you
make time to reflect, you learn from your experience and apply some new-found
insight, and then go out and experience again!
To
start things off on a high note, I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro!! It towers above
the nearby city of Moshi at 19,340 feet. Before, I had hiked one 14er and
handful of others that were somewhere between 10 and 14000 feet. We did a 6-day
trek and should have done the 7-day trek. When deciding which trek and how many
days, we made the cheapest decision possible with the youthlike arrogance of “we’re young so
we can do anything”. And we were kind of right – we did do it!
However, the 6-day option includes a full day of hiking on day 4, 3 hours of
sleep, and then wake-up at midnight to begin the summit. The 7-day option
allows a full night’s sleep (almost) before the summit.
Nonetheless, it was amazingly stunning,
challenging, and rewarding. The winning moto of most groups becomes “Pole-Pole” which is
KiSwahili for slowly. Essentially the guides are constantly saying Pole-Pole as
we take one slow step after another. The elevation is quite a beast especially
when you’re coming from sea-level. Many people in our group had rough
altitude sickness – one individual had been throwing up for the prior 36 hours to the
summit (and he still made it to the top!). At one point during the summit he
considered going back down – but the guide walking behind him told him no. The guide told him he’s already
made so many steps and told him to continue taking one after another.
On the summit day I kept myself motivated
with an old mental trick I learned awhile back – something simple
that can help one endure intense pain. With every step I would ask myself: “Can you take
one more step? You bet your ass I can!” and I’d take one more
step. Then I’d say to my self: “Please sir, may I have another sir?” and I’d take
another step. Then I’d repeat. And step by step by step the distance between us and the
19,340 foot peak grew smaller and smaller and smaller.
But Pole-Pole was the moto for the entire
trip, not just the summit day. I’ve done a fair amount of hiking and
backpacking and am well accustomed to setting different paces for a group. Fast
paces around 4mi/hr, normal paces of 3mi/hr, slow paces for steep parts of
2-2.5mi/hr, and really slow paces of 1.5mi/hr when it’s really steep and
your group is tired. The pace our guides set for us is the slowest I have ever
hiked. We averaged around 1-1.5km/hr (KM/hr!!). I would not be able to set such
a slow pace myself. Secondly, if the pace was any faster the altitude would
have wrecked me and summiting may not have been possible. We walked at a pace that was sustainable. A
pace we could do all day – a pace we literally DID do all day. I’ve never done that
before – in hiking or in my life.
Throughout University and High School, it
was always about how much I could fit into my schedule and my life. It was
finding out how much I could put on my plate and then running with it. There
was never a sustainable pace to it. There are 16 weeks in a semester and much
of college is getting through those 16 weeks, however busy you may end up
being. And then you rest a little at the end of the semester and do it again.
Pole-Pole is more about choosing a lifestyle where you intentionally decide to
take life in small, sustainable, ever-achieving steps. We have probably all
heard the proverbs – “even a journey of a hundred miles begins with a single step”. What we
probably forget is great achievements require a constant and ever proceeding
pace. It takes weeks, months, years, and
realistically decades to make progress. To build a road, a new bridge, change
societal views, move toward equality, etcetera. It requires a step forward each
and every single day. Not a large step, not an aggressively quick step, but a
step.
It's going to take some intentional effort,
but I want to work on including the Pole-Pole mindset in my daily life. I know
it’s my weakness and I’ve done it with a literally mountain, so now I need to do it with my
own life.
After summiting Kili, we went for a short
safari! We saw lions, zebras, elephants, a rhino, giraffes, hippopotamuses, and
so much more!! It was the perfect way to wrap up our hiking adventures.
Following the safari, we did a short coffee tour. We had the pleasurable
experience of making coffee from scratch – we started with
picking the coffee berries! And if you know me, you know my coffee addiction
and my love for it, so I especially had a thrilling time learning about the
process and a bit about the international market. As the international market
continues to become more competitive, many small farmers are less able to sell
their coffee. To give some perspective on prices, if you buy a 1lb bag of
coffee for 8 USD, about 8% of that money would go to paying the farmer (in
Kilimanjaro specifically – I do not know enough about pay scales elsewhere in the world for a
accurate generalization). Granted, there are a lot of things that 8 USD needs
to pay for – shelling, packaging, shipping, etcetera. Nonetheless, 8% of 8 USD
is the reason many Kilimanjaro farmers are no longer harvesting coffee.
Following the coffee tour, I began my
travels back to my site. It took 3 entire days and was quite the exhausting and
exciting adventure. Day 1 was 6am wake-up, Day 2 was 4:45am wake-up, and Day 3
was 3:30am wake-up! Day 2 and 3 I was traveling sozinho (alone). When I caught
my bus to mwtara (a town in Tanzania near the border with Mozambique), I
quickly realized the adventure I was about to have – no one spoke
English anymore! I learned some KiSwahili while in Tanzania but not a lot… So there I
was, in a new town where once again I did not speak a lick of the languages
being spoken around me. But fear not, I had done it once before so why not
again? When I got off the bus in mwtara I heard the best sounds ever – someone
speaking PORTUGUESE!!! And oh boy was I excited. I found 3 other Mozambicains
traveling back and stuck with them. One of the gentlemen was traveling all the
way back to pemba so I was able to stick with him through most of my travels.
We got a hostel together, watched each other’s bags as we
traveled, and they helped translate the KiSwahili for me (into Portuguese of
course). The gentlemen traveling to pemba imports clothing and other items from
India/China to the port of Dar Es Salaam and then has the items trucked into
Mozambique. Apparently the Mozambicain ports in the north complicate everything
to the point where he ships into Tanzania, flies to Dar, and does a 2-day land
travel back to Mozambique while trucking the items through another company back
to Moz as well. We talked about politics, the current status of Mozambique’s education
system, cultural ideals and beliefs that prevent many people (specifically
females) from receiving adequate education and health treatment, and many other
topics (it was a long ride).
For Christmas, I met up with some friends
in Pemba. We stayed at an Airbnb and it was AMAZING. We had a private beach
area, a pool, a furnished kitchen, AC in the main living room, access to a gas
oven and each other. Having a furnished kitchen I spent my first two days
baking and cooking. It felt amazing. During college I would generally make a
nice meal at least once a week. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had
access to any spice I want and basically any kitchen appliance too. I also kept
a piece of my family’s Christmas tradition and I made quite a few cookies!
For New Years, I’ll be home in
Namuno. I have yet to figure out what I’ll be doing, but
probably something small. It’s been raining/drizzling every day since I got back to Namuno which
has reminded me so much of being home in the Seattle area. The coming week I’m trying to
catch-up on work and prepare myself for the coming year. January 7th
to the 12th I will be traveling to South Africa to obtain a work
visa for my second year here in Mozambique. January 18th to the 28th
I’ll be in
Maputo – 2 days is for a PCV meetup, 4 days is a conference, and another 2
days is a different conference (still Maputo). So, I’ve been gone quite a
bit in December and will unfortunately be gone quite a bit in January. I’m trying to
spend as much time as I can in Namuno, especially because of our Peanut Butter
project (amidst thoroughly enjoying being here). A brief progress update – our PB is
actually in Seattle right now at a lab getting tested!! We need to pass a food
safety test and then a mining company near us is ready to begin buying larger
quantities. An upscale café/restaurant in pemba is buying our PB wholesale to resell to
customers. We’re still working on a grant that will allow us to fund the items we
need to meet a significant increase in production. It’s been slow-going – partly my
fault for being slow to complete aspects of the application and partly because
the Peace Corps staff person responsible already has so many grants being
worked on that not every grant has undivided attention.
Thinking back on the past 16 months, I have
learned a lot and grown a lot. I’ve learned 1.25 new languages and have
set a personal goal of growing that to 2.5 by the time I’m done in
Mozambique. I’m more outgoing and much more confrontational than I used to be. I
have little to no tolerance when being insulted or disrespected and even less
so when a female colleague with me is insulted/disrespected. I’m also
starting to feel that my passion is business development. When I first joined
the Peace Corps, I thought I was taking a break from school and would be going
back for a PhD (who knows, maybe it’ll still happen). The past 2-3 years I
have definitely fallen in love with creating – and creating/doing
business. My senior design team from University continued our work after the
school year and formed a company. Being here and involved with Ukumi Unawavia
(PB association), my passion for social enterprises is ignited once again.
I want to end with my two big takeaways from the past month. 1) It's astounding what you can accomplish when you take one small and sustainable step after another. An every sustainable pace of progress. 2) Likewise, it's amazing what you WILL accomplish when there is no other option. When the only option is to summit the dang mountain, you will summit the dang mountain. As they say, if you want to take the island, burn the ships!
Well, that’s all for this month’s post.
Happy New Years to everyone reading this – and I hope you are
able to take your next year Pole-Pole.
With all my heart,
Daniel
