All set for mission to conquer Kilimanjaro

A week ago, some of my colleagues went to Oloitoktok – a place down in the expansive Kajiado County, next to the Kenya-Tanzania border, to visit a food security project which the Nation Media Group, Safaricom, Strathmore University and the Kenya Red Cross support.

Kenya Red Cross has been doing the projects all over the country, to ensure that communities are empowered to have their own food at every time of the year. Other corporates have joined in, through the Kiliclimb Initiative, to ensure that the project is a success.

I couldn’t make it for the trip –I had spent Thursday night in Parliament chasing the dossier that had the MPs’ illegal , Sh2 billion severance package—to write the story for the Saturday Nation and prepare a follow-up for the Sunday Nation.

However, those who attended came back with eye-opening stories about the situation in Kajiado. They spoke of Maasai’s, the legendary herdsmen and pastoralists, switching to crop farming.

That, as one Annie Gitau, a Brand Executive, at NMG’s marketing department, put it, is “pushing the Maasai’s out of their comfort zone”.

My colleagues told me, that the bus-ride down to Oloitoktok, around 240 kilometres from Nairobi, was an eye-opener. They told me of a place called “the eye of Kilimanjaro” where the clean waters from Mount Kilimanjaro come to irrigate the plains of Oloitoktok.

Annie said that some of the farmers were having trouble with irrigating their land because a group of rich fellows had bought a pump and were draining the bulk of the water. As a result, the folks downstream, who depended on gravity to get the water, had been left at the mercy of rainy seasons or hope that at some point the pump would go off.

Simply put, there’s very little water to go around.

I recalled the NMG Corporate Affairs boss, Mr David Maingi, telling the team from NMG, Safaricom, Strathmore University and the Kenya Red Cross that they will have to visit the place to know why the fundraiser-cum-climb to the peak of Mt Kilimanjaro was a noble effort.

According to Dr James Kisia, the Deputy Secretary General at the Kenya Red Cross, the Kiliclimb 2, fundraising-cum-climb is an extension of the Kenyans-for-Kenya initiative in which millions were raised for relief food for the hunger-stricken Kenyans last year.

The point, he said, is to generate debate and ignite action to ensure that the country places food security in the centre of the national agenda.

“I believe so strongly in the work that the Red Cross is doing, and the importance of highlighting the issues around food security in this country,” said Dr Kisia, as one of the reasons as to why he’s taking the trip up Mt Kilimanjaro.

That climb is scheduled for October 14, 2012.

The team has been training hard for all the conditions of the mountain. They have done the runs, up to 15 kilometres, just to tone their muscles and push their endurance.

Then the team climbed Mt Longonot to taste the steepness that is found in some sections of Mt Kilimanjaro. They then went ahead and did a high-altitude training on Mt Kenya to experience the low oxygen levels and ice-cold conditions at such altitudes and how the body reacts,if the climb is done very quickly.

The final leg of the warm-up climb was at the Ngong Hills, just this weekend, where, as Mr Steve Kiteto, of Tanari Trust, put it, the extreme windy conditions, and the steep ascents and descents, are great for people to acclimatize to the mountain terrain.