MargheritaOne day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.  Paulo Coelho

April 6th 2014 (a year today) is a date I will remember for a long time. That date is etched in my memory not for the single feat that I set out to attain but the life lessons learned that I now carry with me. I hope I can somewhere share those nuggets in the story of my 7-day journey to the top over the next so many days. 

As a young man with high ideals in my early twenties, I set myself some lofty goals. One of them – summiting the highest point in Uganda – had, more than a decade later, only found a place at the back recesses of my mind and on paper. Sometime in 2012, the idea of climbing the Rwenzoris started floating around on an email forum of mostly diaspora friends I’ve done life with. Once the numbers were confirmed (high school bravado style – we go, we go – you get the drift?!), I didn’t give it much thought save for shedding off the dates scheduled for the climb in my planner. There were so many emails exchanged before the climb that, looking back now (with 20-20 hindsight) I would have done well to read. I always knew Rwenzori was going to be a tough climb but so was I. So I thought. I really did. Again, from my twenties, I have kept a religiously strict exercise regimen that entails running 7-8km, three times a week and a spirited swim over the weekend. But for the frequent travel I do that is a disrupter, am always on the road at the break of dawn every other week day, come hell or high water, and in that water when the week ends. 

God gives us good friends. And one of those friends for me is Pendo, a very fine lady. She is always asking questions. The kind that give you reason to pause long enough to realize you were on the brink of jumping headlong into shark infested waters. Knowing my itinerant lifestyle, and having aspired to do the climb herself, I benefitted greatly from the item check-list she passed on to me. After answering a few questions, that is. Gum boots. Gaiters. Rain Poncho. Water Bottle. Fleece wear. No jeans. The list seemed endless but I quickly figured between my camping paraphernalia (my wife and I are outdoor enthusiasts), farm and winter gear, I pretty much had all I needed. 

It is Abraham Lincoln who said the best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time. But that time eventually comes. And April 6th did come. My annual health check had coincidentally been scheduled a few days before this date – a definite boon to my immediate climbing aspiration. Beyond the lab and organ tests, part of the routine I was given was to run up the eight floors to my doctor’s office. I did this in record time, without breaking a sweat. It was near impossible convincing my doctor I had actually run up the stairs, and not used the lift. All done, she gave me a clean bill of health and wished me my hopes. 

At this late hour, the other small spot of bother for me was how to (without seeming too fatalistic and almost suicidal) relay to my beloved what to do in the event I made the statistic of those unfortunate souls that do not make it down the mountain. I had the presence of mind to realize that was a real possibility. I know. The things that devil-may-care men such as I do to our loved ones! This was especially critical because the men who know the drill in the event death “occurs to me” where going to be on that mountain with me. Growing up with a father who had a keen sense of his mortality taught me to live with that awareness too. My 16 years in the murky world of business has also taught me to always hope for the best but prepare for the worst. So, in a round-about way (with all the light hearted humor I could muster) I pointed my wife to a folder in the house that had all my key contacts; she knew most of these already but I was not taking chances. That, my Last Will and Testament, and the unmarked envelope. Again, I had to be sure. Even when veiled with laughter and banter, I was shaking like a leaf on the inside thinking what would happen in the most regrettable event something went terribly wrong. Before now, the last time I had signed a death liability indemnity was when I rafted the River Nile (the world’s longest river) and did all 9 rapids of the excursion (complete with several flips) a decade ago. And yet, compared to scaling the Rwenzoris, that was a walk in the park on a cool day. Around that time, I remember chatting with my friend Moses Galukande, a surgeon, who pointed me to the helipad at the hospital where he plies his trade. He told me the biggest number of evacuation operations that chopper handled were answers to distress calls from Adrift and the other companies that arrange white water rafting expeditions. Standing there, I couldn’t help but imagine speaker after speaker at my funeral saying how irresponsible and reckless I had been to put my family in harm’s way. And my friends walking off after, wagging their heads and labeling me “unserious, a loose shirt and a very thin vest.” That’s what I sometimes call them.