“Jambo! Karibu! Habari Gani? – Hello! Welcome! What’s the News?” by Debra P. McGill

We gathered in the dining tent at 10:30. Inside, light from the lanterns illuminated our tired but excited faces. Outside the glow of the lanterns through the canvas competed with the stars that shimmered in the otherwise impenetrable darkness of the night.

We were served hot tea and Dickson, our guide, ever smiling and confident, gave words of encouragement and instruction before we began the final climb to the summit . . . in the dark. The hope being that we’d make it to the summit to watch the sun rise above the clouds spread out like an ocean below us.

That was the hope, but in my heart of hearts I knew that the reason we were making the final climb to the summit in pitch darkness, was that if we could actually see what we were doing, we wouldn’t do it!

“We were thinking of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro for our honeymoon,” my daughter Violet had told me some time ago. Perrin, her beloved and my soon to be son-in-love, was standing next to her, both of them wearing huge, toothy grins, “and we were wondering if you would like to come with us?”

They had spent two wonderful weeks with me when I had been living in Botswana and though I had been back in Canada for two years, I hadn’t been able to shake the dust of Africa from my sandals. And so an opportunity to return to Africa! “Yes! Absolutely yes!” I said.

We spent the rest of the weekend talking excitedly about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, but on Sunday morning as they were preparing to leave, I said to them, “This is your honeymoon . . . you don’t want your mother sleeping in the same tent as you!”

“That’s okay, we were thinking it would be more like a holiday.”

“No, really. That’s very thoughtful of you. But it’s your honeymoon and you’ll never have another honeymoon. I want you to talk about it on your way back home. I am so grateful for the offer, but you think about it.”

The drive from Barrie, where I was living, back to Guelph University where they were both students, was two hours and almost to the minute, my phone rang and a very tearful Violet cried into the receiver, “your right, it’s our honeymoon, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I said, trying to comfort her.

Violet and Perrin booked the climb through G-Adventures, but not enough people signed up for the trip and so the Mt. Kilimanjaro climb was cancelled. They honeymooned – without me – in Machu Picchu – which turned out to be one of those “it didn’t go quite as planned” honeymoons, but that is their story to tell.

But when they returned and recovered from their Machu Picchu adventure, they called and asked if I would like to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro with them next year. The honeymoon was over and so “yes, absolutely, I would LOVE to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro with you!”

On August 23^rd, 2011, backpacks strapped over short sleeved shirts, gaters zipped over our lower pantleg and hiking boots firmly laced, Violet, Perrin and I stood with twelve other adventurers, three guides, three cooks and twenty-seven porters who carried our gear, tables, chairs, dining tent, food, pots, plates, utensils, washbasins, toilet tent, and water . . . on their shoulders, heads and backs . . . and one after the other, we walked through Machame Gate into the hot, moist Enchanted Rainforest that is Kilimanjaro National Park. Hakuna matata. Karibu! (No worries. Be My Guest!)

“Porters to the left! Porters to the right!” I lost count of the number of times I confused my left and my right as I turned my body to let a porter pass by me, checking to see if my fire engine red duffle bag was one of the bags stacked on his back.

After much walking and talking and getting to know each other, and the passing by of the porters, the mud floor morphed into packed dusty earth and the lush canopy and ground cover transitioned into thick, dry brush as we climbed up and out of the rainforest.

Every once in a while, through the branches, I would catch a glimpse of a distant rounded mass of grey rock with tendrils of glacial snow imbedded in its crevices. The snows of Kilimanjaro.

In the months before leaving for Moshi, Tanzania, I trained as much as is possible when there aren’t any mountains to climb. I took aerobic classes at the Y, I ran and rode my bike up overpasses, which is as much altitude as there is in Barrie.

Years after reading it the first time, I reread Ernest Hemmingway’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”. When I told people that Violet, Perrin and I would be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, people inevitably asked me if I had read Hemmingway’s story. I had. And knowing the plot, that the “hero” was merely hallucinating, I wondered silently, “Had you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I did read it.”

And now I’m peering through branches, catching glimpses of the glaciers

that during Hemmingway’s day, covered the entirety of the summit and which now today, have almost entirely disappeared. But she was still beautiful and majestic, the sun turning her into burnished gold as it reflected off the rock as we made our way into camp.

Six hours, eighteen kilometers of walking with an upward climb of 2,980 meters, we shuffled into Machame Camp to find our tents set up between groupings of trees with our bedrolls rolled out and our duffel bags set inside, the toilet tent and dining tent were erected.

Our chef greeted us as we entered the tent, a white towel draped over his arm, an entertaining smile on his face and bowls of Chakula cha jioni (hot cucumber soup) and plates of roasted potatoes on the table ready for us to devour. And devour we did. Fifteen ravenous and grateful climbers, tastebuds savouring every bite, mouths full of food and compliments. “Ladha sana!” Delicious. “Asante sana!” Thank you, chef.

Violet and Perrin shared a pup tent . . . just the two of them. And because I didn’t have a partner, I was assigned a tent mate, Beth Hallowell, a young woman from Britain. We were well paired and being that we were sharing a very small space, I was grateful for that.

The sun set gold and night came quickly and very, very dark. And stars! I never thought I would see stars again as magnificent as when I was living in Botswana. And now . . . the night sky was filled with uncountable shimmering glints of star light.

I fluffed my sleeping bag and then with socks on to warm my feet and a hoodie over my long johns, I wormed my way into my sleeping bag, pulling the zipper up close under my chin, and wiggling my hip, found a sweet spot on the rocky ground beneath me. Usiku mwema. (Goodnight).

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Note: All photos by Debra, except for the tents under the stars, which was taken by Chinese Canadian climbing companion Xi Zhu.

Debra P. McGill retired for a whole four months after twenty-five years as a United Church of Canada minister. Now, for the nine months, she’s been serving and learning at the St. Clair United Church with the Aamjiwnaang First Nation community in Sarnia, Ontario.  

Growing up in a Canadian Air Force family, Debra has been blessed to experience many adventurous opportunities, including this story, a short chapter of a much longer story. Debra has two daughters, two sons-in-loves and three grandsons. She dabbles in photography and very much enjoys putting pen to paper in the hopes of sharing stories that others might find affirming as they stir up memories for reader.

Read more short stories, essays, and poems by your fellow writers here (and scroll down).

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“The Necklace” by Debra P. McGill

 

Three more weeks until my retirement, not just from St. Stephen’s on-the-Hill United Church, in Mississauga, but from ministry in all its many and varied forms. I have heard it said that our identity is not our occupation, our vocation, but being a “reverend”, a “minister” has been so intimately woven into the very fibre of who I am, I’m not certain if I will be able to separate the threads without leaving a large tear in the fabric.

Three more weeks until my retirement and I’m standing in the sanctuary of my church looking over tables of handcrafted cards and home brewed Kombucha, wheel thrown pottery and woodworking, artisan jewelry and other works of art.

The annual church garage sale has, since COVID, become a vendors’ sale, and I’m determined to spend my last couple of paycheques supporting as many of the vendors as I can, knowing that in a month’s time, there won’t be any more salary to spend.

I stood for a few minutes at the jewelry table gently fingering the long slender piece of amber entwined in thin, silver wire, dangling from a silver chain. All my other purchases were thankyou gifts for other people, family and folk at my church, but this necklace, it was to be for me. Sharon, a parishioner, came up beside me.

“That’s pretty.” She said. “Do you like it better than the others?”

The artist had made many different styles of amber necklaces, one of which I bought at last year’s sale, but this particular one caught my eye.

“I do like this one.” I said. “But I have to think about it.”

“Don’t think too long,” Sharon said. “Someone else is bound to like it too!”

We chatted for another minute, and then I left to check out some pottery on a table at the other end of the room. By the time I made my way back to the jewelry, Sharon had been right. Someone else liked that same necklace. It was gone.

My last Sunday was filled with laughter and tears, lots of cards and kind words, small and large gift bags and after the service was over . . . fellowship time and an abundance of food . . . more than enough for all.

Later, after most people had left, my family helped me pack everything into my car and turning left at the end of the long church driveway, I made my way to the highway, pointed my car towards Sarnia and headed to my new home.

Except for an air mattress, a cooking pot, a few dishes, church clothes and my laptop, I had moved all of my furniture, clothes, books, office paraphernalia and sundry household goods from my small condo apartment three weeks before. So when I opened the door to my new home, I was greeted by furniture not yet arranged, a bed and a treadmill not yet assembled, piles of boxes not yet unpacked and pictures not yet hung on walls.

It was almost a week before I got around to opening the cards and gifts from the people from my church I had come to love. And there, nested in a piece of tissue paper and carefully slipped inside a card, was a long slender piece of amber, entwined in thin, silver wire, dangling from a silver chain. 

I am addicted to black turtlenecks, but given the sultry, humid +30⁰C Sarnia summer, I knew I wouldn’t be able to wear a black turtleneck to show off my new necklace just yet, and so it hung in my closet, anxiously waiting for cooler weather.

Sarnia is not a big city. I’m a five-minute walk to a beach and five minutes in the car takes me downtown.  The beautiful St. Clair River runs parallel to Front Street and its old, historic store fronts. As I drove, I noticed a tent pitched in a park on the river’s edge and then two tents, then three. Having lost count, I realized this was a tent city, “home” to a small village of homeless men and women.

I have long been a believer in God-incidences, not so much coincidences of happenstance, but God-incidences, those things I need to take notice of. In the four-page Sarnia and Lambton County “This Week” newspaper (with its 20lbs of flyers stuffed inside) were articles about Rainbow Park and the unhoused people living there in tents and tarps.

“Everyone is invited to the homelessness forum being held at the Dante Club” the article said. “September 25^th at 7:00 p.m.”

I marked it in my calendar, and I went. The evening had cooled off and so I wore my “summer” black turtleneck and my new necklace, the amber and silver looking refined . . . classy . . . against the black top.

Though I arrived fifteen minutes early the first and second parking lots were full and we were directed to overflow parking two lots away. As I got out of my car a young woman and a middle-aged woman were walking up the grade and so I joined them.

Reta had driven down from Sioux St. Marie, a five-hour drive! She ran a shelter up in the Sioux and was looking for new ideas and perhaps solutions to the ever-growing homeless situation. I introduced myself and then the young woman, early twenties, smiling and enthusiastic said, “I’m Justine. I really like your necklace!”

“Thank you,” I answered as we got to the doors of the Dante Club. I held the door for Reta and Justine and we walked into a room that was already almost filled to capacity. I had assumed that Justine and Reta were together, but they and I separated as we went inside, each of us sitting in a different place.

The forum was well organized with guest speakers from social services, the police, food banks, Indwell and other charitable organizations, and a couple of local municipal leaders. The audience listened respectfully, heads nodding in support, and if not in support there were no raised fists or yelling of abuses.

Then came the Q & A. Ninety seconds per person at the microphone and though there were many who spoke, wanting to find solutions, there were some who needed to vent, who wanted the tent city torn down and the men and women taken somewhere else where they would no longer be “visible,” no longer be a nuisance.

“They are peeing and shitting on the ground, even on the sidewalks.” One woman said, her voice raised.

“My son has to walk by them on his way to school. They’re just a bunch of addicts and drunks. They shouldn’t be allowed to be there. Get rid of them!” a man said loudly into the microphone.

And as each person spoke against the tent city and those who lived there, some in the crowd clapped in support.

My chair was two from the aisle where those who went up to the mike to speak stood waiting. When a new person joined the line, I glanced over to see Justine standing quietly, waiting her turn.

“My name is Justine and I live in Rainbow Park,” she said, her voice, gentle and calm.

“I’m one of those people who has peed on the grass. Believe me, I don’t want to. None of us do. But there aren’t any portable toilets. And none of the restaurants, not even Tim Horton’s, will let us use their washrooms. There isn’t any place where I can shower. If there were toilets and showers at the park for us, we wouldn’t be forced to act like animals. I’m not an animal.”

Just as gently and calmly Justine handed the mike to the moderator and walked back across the room. I tried to see where she sat but she had disappeared into the rows of people.

The event ended a few minutes later after thankyou’s were extended. On my way out, I stopped in the foyer to look at headshots of some of the unhoused that were on display, memories of those at The Compass I had come to know.

I was still trying to find Justine as I made my way to the door, thinking that she had probably left after she spoke and so I was startled to see her just outside the door, talking and lighting a cigarette.

She recognized me and smiled and I went up to her, embraced her and thanked her. Reaching to the back of my neck, I unclasped my necklace and holding it out to her I asked, “Is it okay if I give this to you?”

“Yes! It’s beautiful! Yes, thank you!” she said as I put it around her neck. “God bless you.”

“She already has,” I said, and we embraced.

Nine o’clock and it was already dark. As I walked back to my car, I looked up to see a beautiful Van Gogh starry, starry night sky.  An artistic genius, whose severe mental unwellness made him a social outcast and if it weren’t for the sacrificial love of his brother Theo, Vincent would have often been homeless.

Washrooms and showers in Rainbow Park would be a human kindness, but they are not the solution. Neither is giving my necklace to a young, homeless woman. But she told me her name. Justine! And I pray that she felt valued and worthy.

Later, as I prepared for bed, I turned the light on in my bedroom closet to see my Alb and multi-coloured, hand-woven, Nicaraguan preaching stole hanging inside, the attire of my occupation, my vocation.

The Alb is yellowed at the neck and some of the embroidery on the sleeves has worn away, but the fabric of the gown itself has not thinned and still has many years of life left in it.

The stole, its colourful, tightly woven threads, remain strong and unbroken, its patterns of biblical story symbols still distinct and vibrant and beautiful. And I realize, this is who I am. The threads are strong and the fabric is intact. And the necklace . . . the necklace is gone from the hook where it hung in my closet, but it is where it belongs.

Debra P. McGill is a recently retired United Church minister who served both rural and urban churches for twenty-five years, spending nine months of those years in Botswana. While in ministry, Debra served as a part time Chaplain in long term care home in Hespeler and was the volunteer Chaplain at The Compass, which served many unhoused, unemployed, underemployed, newcomers and those with mental health issues in Mississauga.

Debra dabbles in photography and hopes to use her writing to share the many happy surprises, anxious moments and life-shaping learnings with others through story telling.

See upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and four-day retreats here. 

Read more short stories, essays, and reviews by your fellow writers here (and scroll down).

“Toes” by Debra P. McGill

 

Mweke Camp

That night, I sat on the padded mat, knees drawn up to my chest, my arms wrapped around my shins, feet bare, heels down, toes pointing upward, so badly battered and bruised, I couldn’t even touch them. In the glare of my lamp, I could see that the nails of both my big toes had started to turn black. I didn’t have anything to ease the pain, so I just swayed back and forth, hoping to rock the pain away.  

The night before, I had trouble falling asleep. Knowing I had to be awake, dressed and ready to go by 10:30 that night, made it impossible to relax enough for sleep to come. I couldn’t turn off my mind, couldn’t stop thinking. And I was cold! So cold I wore my clothes to bed: thermal underwear top and bottom, wool socks, turtleneck, even the fleece liner of my coat.

So the “being dressed and ready to go part” wasn’t a problem, but the falling asleep part certainly was. I lay as still as I could. I slowed my breathing, kept my eyes open and stared into the darkness, hoping my eyes would tire and that would bring sleep. But even that didn’t work. I needed to relax. I had already climbed the wall once today. Once is enough!

If I did sleep, it was fitful and so I was up and dressed by 10:30. I pushed my way out of my polar sleeping bag like a moth from a cocoon. Lying on my back I slid my snow pants up over my thermal leggings. Rolling onto my knees, I pulled the outer shell of my Columbia men’s size “M” jacket over the fleece liner.

Boots on and laced up. Buff scrunched around my neck; hat, mitts, poles and head lamp at the ready, I unzipped the tent and crawled out into the pitch black of night, the darkness lit only by stars. So many stars!

I made my way to the dining tent where hot tea and a snack was set out on the portable table. Six of my companions were already there and soon the rest joined us. Our guides, Dickson, Vallee and Rama hurried us along. “I know you’re tired after climbing the “Wall” today.” Dickson said, his Swahili accent calming. “You did a great job! But if we want to make the summit by sunrise, we need to begin before midnight.”

Debra partway up the Wall, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Day 4

The “Wall” was just that. A rock face that seemed to rise almost straight up, though there was a trail. Sort of! We moved in single file, climbing over large, jagged boulders, both poles poking up from my pack as I used my hands to pull myself up onto the next rock.  And now, after a long, physically demanding day and no sleep, we headed out once again.

Midnight, the end of day four, the beginning of day five. Pole, pole, (pronounced “polee”) Dickson reminded us once again. Slowly, slowly. And for good reason. At about 2:00 a.m. we made our way passed another group at about 4,800 meters, our headlamps revealing young men sprawled on the rocks, sick and exhausted. Athletic types who tried to conquer the mountain with speed.

At around 3:00 a.m. we stopped in a rock clearing to have an energy bar, drink water, catch our breath. I stood atop a flat rock, head resting on my hands, leaning on my poles. A moment later my body jerked awake as I felt myself beginning to fall. I caught myself and then my headlamp caught the faces of some of my companions, Bill, Sonia, Beth, my daughter Violet, my son-in-love Perrin, the others. All of us visibly tired. Dickson rallied us once again and we continued up the rock slope. 

There was a lot of time for reflection as we made the ascent. Lift the right foot, slowly swing it and place it down in front of the left foot. A momentary pause and then lift the left foot, slowly swing it and place it down in front of the right foot. And then pole, pole – slowly, slowly, I came to a realization. I know why we began the climb before midnight.  It wasn’t to see the sunrise from the summit at all. It was because if we could actually see what we were doing, we wouldn’t do it!

Sometime around 4:30 a.m., off in the distance, a thread of light broke across the horizon revealing a cloud bank between us and the first light of dawn. We were literally walking above the clouds. The sun had begun to rise, but we weren’t anywhere near the summit yet.

When the sun broke, we were standing close to a glacier, greatly shrunken from the days when an hallucinating Ernest Hemmingway wrote about the “Snows of Kilimanjaro”.  And we still had another thousand meters left to climb.

The rock that bore us, that had been so solid beneath our feet, suddenly gave way to scree and at the same time the ascent became even steeper. Pole, pole.  As I am wont to do every once in a while, I began to pray. “Please God, let a lion come out and eat me so that I have a good excuse not to finish the climb.”  Alas, there are no lions on Kilimanjaro, no life of any kind up that high. 

Our group began to separate, some gone ahead of us and others trailed behind. Violet, Perrin, Sarah, Dickson, Vallee and I sat under the ridge at Stella Point to rest a moment, a thermos of hot tea passed between us, shivering as a loud, cold wind howled. One hundred and sixty-five meters more to climb and I really wasn’t sure if I could make it. Pole, pole. 

As we began the final ascent to the summit, another glacier rose off to my left and to my right Bill and Sonia literally skipped down the slope, smiling at us, encouraging us. “You’re almost there”, they said. “Just a few more minutes!”

Liars! 

Those are the same words Dickson or Vallee or Rama would say every single day as we yearned for that day’s climb to end. “We’re almost there, just around that ridge, just another half hour.” But it never was.

Dickson (kneeling – lead guide)
L-R, Debra, Natalia, Violet, Perrin, Vallee

And then quite suddenly, as the bright morning sun poured down on us, we stood in front of a handmade wooden sign that read: 

Congratulations! 
You are now at Uhuru Peak, Tanzania
Africa’s Highest Peak 5,895 meters

That’s 19,344 feet – every inch of it - all up hill! Congratulations indeed!

There is more to my tale of climbing up, more to the story of my mountain top experience. But those stories don’t involve my toes. That was in the going down.

When I first purchased my extra sturdy mountain climbing boots at MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-Op), the young man who helped me as I tried them on never told me they were specially engineered and that all the grommets and hooks and laces and strap thingies had a purpose.  He never told me that I should pull the boot laces extra tight at the ankle when descending the mountain as that would hold my foot tight and prevent it from sliding into the toe of the boot, stop my toes from being smashed.

The slope of the descent going down Mt. Kilimanjaro was as steep as it was going up and even though I used my poles and my cross-country skiing techniques to protect my knees, keep me from falling in the scree, I didn’t know to tighten up on my boot laces to protect my toes.

After four hours of unrelenting descent, I felt the first twinges of pain. We stopped for a short rest and a quick lunch and then we set out for Mweke Camp where our porters would set up our tents one last time. My boots too heavy to lift, my toes too sore to walk, I soon dropped behind my other companions. Dickson and Rama stayed with the group, Vallie stayed with me.

As afternoon dusked into evening, we had descended over 2,000 meters. The temperature rose significantly, and the landscape changed dramatically. The rocky trail wound through dense plants and trees that stretched out around us. As darkness enveloped us, our headlamps revealed shapes in the shadows and at one point, I could make out a Buddhist meditation garden dotted with small statues, though the only thing I meditated on at that moment was the throbbing pain of my toes.   

Vallee was patient and encouraging. I had been hobbling for hours, trying desperately not to stumble on the rocks or knock over the Buddhist statues, which I later discovered, didn’t actually exist. Nor did the meditation garden. Dumb shadows! Long after dark, Vallee led me into camp, the night sky alive with stars, the dining tent lit by lanterns and laughter. Cheers from my companions greeted me as I walked into the tent, though I have to admit I was feeling a little embarrassed. But I wasn’t the last to arrive. Rama and Victoria weren’t there yet.

That night, I sat in the dark on the padded mat in my tent, my headlamp illuminating my feet and I could see that the nails of both my big toes had started to turn black. I didn’t have anything to ease the pain and so I just swayed back and forth, hoping to rock the pain away. It did not.

The next day I walked backwards much of the five hours through the sultry cloud forest, grateful when we arrived at the base of the mountain. There our bus waited to take us back to Moshi and a few days later, I was on to the next adventure. Eventually the nails of my big toes fell off but have since grown back again. A small price to pay for the experience of a lifetime.

 

Debra P. McGill is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada, and for the last 2 ½ years has served at St. Stephen’s on-the-Hill United Church in Mississauga. Debra has two daughters, two sons-in-love and three grandsons. Earlier in her ministry she said “yes” to an opportunity to live and work in Botswana for nine months (unpaid but amazing) and has never been able to shake the dust of Africa from her boots. Saying yes to many other opportunities has enriched her life in so many ways and led to lots of adventures.         

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