The Things We Do For Love“Don’t play for safety. It’s the most dangerous thing in the world.” – Hugh Walpole

Notoriously known for his cutthroat approach to business, a fellow told the famed author Mark Twain how performing pilgrimage to the Holy Land was at the top of his bucket list. “Before I die, he said, I will climb Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud at the summit.” 

“I have a better idea,” Twain quipped. “You could stay home in Boston and keep them.”

So much for grand posturing. The highest mountains we will ever have to climb in our lives are not actual mountains. I have been fortunate to be at the foot of the Sinai but I dared not climb it; I dreaded the fate the Israelites met with every pronouncement coming down from that mountain. 

Rwenzori is the utmost mountain range in Africa, with six massifs: Speke, Stanley, Gessi, Emin Pasha, Luigi da Savoia and Baker. Mount Stanley has the highest peak – Margherita – standing at 16,763 feet above sea level. Unlike Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya that are volcanic in nature, the Rwenzori Mountains are a fault block mountain range that was formed as a result of tectonic plate movement (rifting) over ten million years ago. The flora and fauna of the Rwenzoris is otherworldly but the landscape is mercilessly unforgiving. It is rated the most challenging of all African mountains to climb. While you trek up Kilimanjaro and Kenya, ascending Rwenzori is a a scramble up and down and up sharp, rugged rock, moor, forest and bog (high altitude swamp). Even going down, this mountain is the ultimate test for fitness, calling for a lethal combination of leaping power and aerobic vigor. I suspect the natives had the sense to avoid the summit believing, perhaps, that an angry god squatted up there. The Duke of Abruzzi, Luigi Amedeo, the slim Italian noble who was the first known man to conquer Margherita and his team encountered much more extensive glaciation a century ago than is presently seen. His climbing party had to contend with ice avalanches tumbling down from the peaks; all six peaks were glaciated then. I have read that in the last ice age, glaciers covered the lower slopes of the mountain. Apparently, even Nyabitaba hut, our camp on the first day of climbing (at only 8600 feet above sea level) is built on a moraine from a long-retreated glacier. Fast forward to today, it’s only Mount Stanley that has any glaciation worth reckoning. It is expected that the ice will entirely be decimated in a decade. 

Having endured another sleepless night once I was safely back to Elena Camp from the Margherita Summit, I decided against rushing back to the base camp the next morning. I asked the other men to go on without me. Whatever supplies I was missing they graciously left with me. Top on that list was Ian’s sub-zero sleeping bag which I promptly jumped in. It was a whole new world. Only 30 minutes in it left me sweating with abandon. Obviously, even with all the complaining and protesting, my body had gotten accustomed to my daughter’s comfort zone sleeping bag! For the first time in six days, I slept a straight three hours. I woke up at 11am to white scenery everywhere. The falling snow had covered the entrance to the hut, and the wind had pushed open the door. This shack (I can now safely put all pretenses aside) did not have a latch and the duct-tape that I had used to seal it had given way. The snow had drifted right on top of the sleeping bag I was tucked in and everywhere around me. Snowbound, I just lay back there and took it all in. My glasses, bible, pen and notebook to my left side had frozen. My bag packs were covered in ice. Snow gently falling outside the wide open door, my heart light came on in this blessed quietness. A sense of accomplishment flooded my heart. I scanned my environment and my gaze settled on the graffiti on the tin roof and wood walls. From my vantage point and with a flicker of light coming through a crack in the tin, I could tell the last climber before now had reached this point on March 20th 2014, right before the rain season had set in. They had been the wiser for that, I mused to myself. All the free-falling in the pitiless, incessant and un-forgiving sleet (ice and snow) had completely supped the little strength that I had left. And that is not to even talk about my now overly swollen, throbbing knee and the sleeplessness I had endured on account of the biting cold that was not helped by my ill-preparedness. My seven hour descent from Margherita had given me the beating of a lifetime and left me sprawled on the floor, feeling like Samson. In his hairless state, that is. The toil and suffering of the last five days now told upon me terribly. The vengeful Margherita had mercilessly let loose on me for squarely sizing her up and looking her in the mouth. Stung by my brave mockery, she saw to it that I pay the full price for daring her, on home terrain at that.

The dictionary defines home as both an origin and end point. The mountain was home to me for seven days. And I spent the last two days of that week without the other five men. I bid Elena, Margherita’s gentler relative, farewell. Shafts of light broke through the early-morning clouds over the snow as I began hobbling down the mountain. Well, sort of; the general incline is downward but being the mountain range it is, it was another repeat series of down and up, and down again. In that order. Sort of. I minced down a jumble of rocks and across icy and slippery bridges that span the mountain. Bridges. Bridges. And more bridges. It seemed I had not noticed them going up. I counted close to a dozen of them. Pondering, the life nugget I got here is that bridges in life are for crossing; and that when life affords us any, we should take them for the divine providence they represent. How many times can we count the ships have docked on our shores but we did not have the presence of mind to anchor them? That first night, plodding across the one kilometer wood bridge I had crossed days earlier, the sky flashed as the moon overhead played silhouettes on the starry night canvass. It was surreal. Magical. A scene from beyond planet earth. Growing up in a small country town, I loved to sit out evenings counting the stars and making out shapes on the moon. Stopping to gaze, I thought I saw a familiar one from my childhood; the shape of a father carrying a child. That would be God carrying me, I always thought. He sure was now. 

I cherish moments of solitude. I thrive on solitude. Solitude forces an engagement with the supernatural. Between loving my wife, raising my girls, being a mentor and good friend, supporting my pastor and serving at my church, and doing time at my workstation, there is hardly any time am left to myself. And yet it’s in these quiet moments that you hear the voice of God. You will never grow to be intimate with God in the fast lane of life. Here, faith stays surface-deep at best. Like Moses on Mount Sinai, I heard the voice of God during those last two days without the “noise” of the other men. It’s just as well. At 40, you don’t have the luxury of playing hopscotch with life. So I prayed. I dreamed. And wrote my mandate for the next 40, by reason of strength. In many ways, those two days were a personal renaissance for me. And then I gave thanks. Thanks to God for the ransomed life he has given back to me; mine is a life truly blessed. God continues to give me more than I could ever have bargained for. I gave thanks for Mona, heaven’s angel on loan to me, and my beautiful girls: Leesha-Namara, Tanya-Kirabo and Jasmine-Malaika. I would, without batting an eye, throw myself in front of a moving 18-wheeler to keep them out of harm’s way. I gave thanks for my earthly family and friends – every one of them, by name. I smiled (and chuckled some) for all the shared memories. There is a uniqueness to every one of my friends that brings untold joy to the journey of life. Then the men who I had just had the privilege of spending an uninterrupted five days of my life with. We had in the course of that week constituted ourselves into the Alpine Seal MOP’pers. Alpine Seals because we had all successfully scaled the precipitous alpine zone of the mountain and, in our formative years, had pioneered a transformational men’s movement – The Men of Purpose. My thoughts drifted to Titus . A man who knows me so well he could second guess me. And annoy me in equal measure. Ian , who for the last 20 years has pulled out every stop to ensure my wellbeing and now, with the distance makes a big fuss every time am in Canada. Charles , who almost single-handedly organized my paltry-budget wedding 15 years ago. I was so in love and left all the worrying to him. I gave thanks for my earthly father, Old Man Zik, who had taught me – by first example – to be the man I am today. He died in my sister’s arms five months later. 

Coming from my childhood, I have always had a wandering mind. I reckon that is how I survived Old Man Zik’s relentless life lectures and unending stories. Oh, and the most boring church attendance and rituals I was subjected to. I would always retreat to my little private box that was not limited in time and space. Here, I got transported next door or somewhere beyond the rainbow. Here, the trivial and grandiose shared the same platform. And that also happened when I had to escape myself. Take for instance the struggle I had with my prayer life as a young believer. Whenever I knelt to pray, my mind would not budge from the doughnut I was going to have for breakfast; that stayed in the near subconscious for the entire time. And then one day it occurred to me that my life was like a doughnut, with a hole in the middle. And that I had to ask Jesus to fill that hole. Or the lingering thought I had at university – that I would miss a final exam because I was taking an afternoon nap in my room. It happened. Or that I would show up for the exam without my trouser pants on. Thankfully, that did not happen. Going down that mountain, my random thoughts drifted in the direction of the duo characters – Susi and Chuma, they of the David Livingstone fame. For the unschooled, David Livingstone was a British Missionary to Africa in the later half of the 19th Century. When their master succumbed to illness, they summarily decided he must be gathered and interred with his forefathers. If only that involved a trek to the nearest missionary station or colonial outpost. Alas, this epic journey is unprecedented. I still marvel at the faithfulness, sheer grit and tenacity of these two guys. They put together all of Livingstone’s personal effects (every single button was accounted for) and embalmed his body. Putting their very lives on the line, they traversed on foot – Livingstone’s body on square shoulders, through fierce tribal territories, rivers, mountain and forest. Nine months later, on a rainy February morning in 1874, these men of honor delivered their master’s body and belongings to Her Majesty’s Royal Consul at the seaport in Bagamoyo, a world away from Chief Chitambo’s village where they had buried his heart under a mvula tree and where he had died, kneeling in prayer. 

After the time I slipped two of my discs, it felt as if the story of my life, the enchanted tale I liked to tell about myself, had screeched to a halt. No more marathons. No more adrenaline-filled, hair-raising thrills. No more extreme adventure sports whose prerequisite was a signed indemnification. I had become a character without a story. Am writing this more than a year after reaching the summit, and three years after the diving accident. In the time since, I have sufficiently been energized to attempt other feats. This Christmas, I’ll set myself up for failure again and go on to summit Uhuru – Africa’s highest peak – on Mount Kilimanjaro. You see, my dear friends, when you do the nearly impossible, the merely difficult starts to seem easy. And it dawns on you that in the race of life doggedness is even more important than method and motivation. I’m happy I dared the mountain. It was a terrific experience and a great reminder that the journey can be as gratifying as hitting the summit post. Looking at the photos I took then – especially the one across the glacier reminded me that, in the grand scheme of things, we are all but specks on the landscape of life; here today, gone tomorrow. And that what we do today is what will inform our legacy tomorrow. 

As a young impressionable teenager, I was enamored by the aura surrounding Kabaka Mutesa II, the late monarch of Buganda. Now, in many respects, the young King Freddie (as he was fondly called) lived quite the colorful life. The handsome, trim and fit fellow he was, he used to go on hunting expeditions in the wild and come out unscathed, game trophy in tow. Yes, I told my young self, this is the stuff that makes a man’s man. I even hang a black and white regal-pose portrait of him on my wall. Wherever that picture is now. I remember reading his very well written memoirs, “The Desecration of My Kingdom.” In one of the more  poignant accounts, he recalls his escape by a whisker when his Lubiri Palace was attacked at the height of the so called 1966 Buganda Crisis. He narrated how he had to run through the siege and scale the high palace perimeter wall to safety. What a man, my very impressed teenage self mused. Much later as an adult, I read an independent account of this most intriguing scene. Far from the super hero I had made him out to be, this account said King Freddie was pushed up the wall, and plopped squarely on his backside once he was on the other side. Whoa. What?! Well, it is now my turn. In the most flowery and heroic descriptions, I cannot wait to regale my wife and daughters with stories of the mountain, I thought to myself – a twinkle in my eye. And yes, until the mountain gets it’s own historians, the tale of the ascent will always glorify the climber.