To climb or not to climb...

When training for Kilimanjaro, one would focus on general fitness levels as well as climb-specific training. Whereas my general fitness training has been going fairly smoothly (will get to that next time), climbing is posting a tad more of a challenge. Firstly I do not want to climb on my own as, with the vivid imagination I have been blessed with, I have already pictured myself lying along the side of the Helderberg Mountain, with the vultures circling above me... My daughter Janka asked me to please not die on Kilimanjaro, which I assume would also include not dying on the Helderberg Mountain, so I am taking her instruction to heart.

Secondly I am dependent on the weather and due to a variety of activities a normal family goes through (ok- you can debate the normality of our family so perhaps I should just say as normal as we can be), there were only a few Sundays available for climbing. And on most of these days, it was raining!!! I don't mind getting wet, but am at this point referring back to the point above about me not dying on the mountain, so I rest my case...

This past weekend, we had a lovely time at Coen's Place on the Winterhoek Mountains at Porterville. Janka did some boulder climbing, "forcing" me to accompany her: crawling through narrow holes, up ledges and worst of all, down again... This, to say the least, made my tummy churn as it was a looong way down.  Spending "quality time” with her on these rocks was quite an experience, especially as one of the tiny pieces of rock I held on came off and I could once again see myself "flying" through the air. This made me realise how my kids might feel when I make them do things they don’t want to do!

So I am hoping that the “climbing” I did in Porterville can constitute as training. Interesting how our minds often play tricks with us. Well, I decided that I will reverse the roles and start playing tricks on my mind. So I decided in telling “Mrs Mind” that crawling up and down and through boulders on my hands and knees equates to proper training!
Ok, perhaps not.  Two weekends left so Helderberg Mountain, here I come!

How it all started

Climbing Kilimanjaro has been a lifelong dream for me. My husband, Jan, thinks I am totally nuts in embarking on this adventure, and perhaps there is an element of craziness involved in people who do stuff others might classify as “Xgames”.

“What for?” you might ask. The answer mostly would be: “I don’t know why, I just know I have to do this”. One thing I am sure of is I would like this hike to be more than just a fulfilment of a dream and also add meaning to other lives. So when Jan said “why don’t you hook up with Thembalitsha?” (an NGO he is on the board of) it immediately felt right to me.

The School of Hope (a Thembalitsha project) is a school “offering hope for education for vulnerable youth, inspiring them to a life of destiny and purpose”. These teachers are doing such a wonderful job in a society where it is acceptable to be a failure, where youths are lured into a life of gangsterism, into a life of living on the streets, due to a lack of positive role models and a stable home environment. A school that looks beyond traditional views of what one should be like. A school that accepts children for what they are, seeing what they might become and helping them to achieve their full potential in life.