Our wake up call this morning was at 6:30am as usual. We had a nice breakfast, packed up our things and got ready for the 5 hour descent. Before leaving, the porters gave us a real treat. They got together and sang for us a coupld of songs. We recorded them with our camera. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did! It actually brought a little tear to my eye. (had trouble posting the video...will try again later!)I have to give a shout out to the youngest porter in the group, Nikas. He was a boy from the village that looked like he was 14 years old, but Jamaica assured me that he was indeed 22. I tried to talk to the guys as much as I could. I learned some Swahili that I would use at all possible times. Good morning is "habari za soobooy". As the porters passed us on the trails, I would say, "pole, kaka" which means take it easy brother. They would respond, "Asante, dada" which means thanks sister. I told the boys who were carrying what looked like a heavy weight or a skillfully placed basket on their head, "Habari za kazi" which means good job. Our cook, Abel, got a lot of those every time I saw him because of the fine cooking. Whenever any porter passed us we said, "jambo" which means hi and they would respond "jambo". Now if someone said "mambo" which is the slang of "jambo", you were supposed to respond "poa" (po-a), which means cool. If you wanted to get really fancy, I would say "poa cheze comandeze" (po-a chee-zee ko-man-dee-zee) which means cool like a banana. Whenever I left the camp, I would tell the guys "Tuta o nana ba dai" which means see you later. I made it a point to say something to Nikas everytime we saw him as he was really a kid at heart. When the porters were relaxing at the camps, he would climb on the rocks and have the other guys take pictures of him.
So after the singing, we shook hands with all the porters, guides, cooks, saying "asante sana" or thank you very much! It was kind of sad saying goodbye to everyone as they were all such great people and we'll probably never see them again. We wish them all the best in life!
Our hike down took what seemed like forever! Finally we made it to the trucks after about 5 or so hours and had lunch. After signing ourselves out of the park, we packed up the trucks and headed back to Moshi. At the hotel, a collective sign that shook the ground could be heard as we took hot showers for the first time in 8 days! We met up for dinner that night and reminisced over our experiences.
After dinner, Jamaica came over to our hotel to collect any items that we didn't use. He runs a porter assistant program where porters can borrow anything they need for the hike, shoes, warm clothes, sleeping pads, etc. Had we know about this, we would have brought so many more of our older hiking/camping/skiing gear. We did part with a few pairs of really thick socks and some thermal underwear though. We also go Jamaica's home address so that when we get back to Boston, we collect anything that we and others may have to help the porters here. It is the only way that we really know that the things people need will get to them. If any of you have anything that you would like to send, we'd be happy to send it: old tennis shoes, hiking boots, gloves, hats, mittens, sleeping pads, socks, coats, you name it. We'll send out more info once we get back, but as you do your spring cleaning, keep this in the back of your minds.
The hike up Kili was amazing! A truly life changing experience, both the mountain and the people!
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