You Will Find No Revelations

It is dark and cold. If you look to the horizon beside you, you can see where the sky meets the mountain ridge. Both are colored in shades of darkness. You follow the ridge with your eyes until you are straining your neck to look upwards and you lose your balance as you plod forward among the train of hikers. Ahead in the distance there is another train and behind there are several more. You can identify them only by the headlamps they wear and that is how you know how many are attempting this summit at the same time you are.

     The air is cold so that it hurts in your lungs if you inhale through your mouth. So you make sure to inhale only through your nose. You do this for a few breaths until you find that your nose is so cold inside that it now hurts when you inhale as much as your lungs did when you breathed through your mouth. So you put your neck gaiter over your mouth and nose and breath the warm air as deeply as you can. But soon this becomes suffocating because the spoiled air you exhale does not entirely escape the gaiter before you inhale again and you need more oxygen. So you pull the neck gaiter down and draw several heaving gasps through your mouth, and then through your nose, and then you put your gaiter on again.

     The wind comes slashing across the mountainside. If it strikes you in mid stride it might unsteady your balance and you might not have enough air in you to adjust or enough leg under you to stay up. So you might stumble or you might go down. If you go down, hopefully you will land softly and you will avoid boulders or sharp outcrops. The wind is strong when it rises and it carries a cold that goes through your jacket and deep into you. 

     ‘Are you OK?’ the Tanzanian guide asks at the front of our train of six - two guides, an assistant guide, and we three tourists.

     Maria and Sanne respond mutely, ‘Yes.’

     ‘My water is frozen. I have to stop to fix it,’ I say.

     I feel bad to stop the group because rhythm and pace is everything and I hate to break it. But I am twenty or more minutes without a drink and I am getting very concerned about dehydration. The group stops. I take off my heavy gloves and un-shoulder my pack. The water in the tube is entirely frozen but inside the plastic sack of the Camel Pack it is still liquid. I drink deeply and I feel better. I work the frozen tube in my hands to break up the ice and I try to suck the water through. It begins to break up and I take in a squirt of liquid. I replace it in my pack and we begin to ascend.

     Just over an hour earlier I lay awake warmly in my sleeping bag in my tent. I am half dressed and I am warm enough but I am nervous so I feel a cold shivering inside. My stomach aches and I feel a bloating. I lie awake worrying that this is from the altitude which could be a very bad sign. I tell myself that it is an upset from the food and now made worse by the worrying, but I cannot be convinced.

     Damn it, I think angrily, pull yourself together. But my nerves are unravelling and that is making my heart pound faster and harder. This makes me more nervous, which makes my stomach ache more. You fucking priss, I think, where’s your sand? I continue to berate myself until I run out of foul words in English and Spanish. I am more nervous now that the berating has stopped because I am silent and so now I can hear the cold shivering in the core of my body.

     I break. You can turn back whenever you need to, I tell myself. I feel small for saying, I feel weak but I notice that it makes me feel better so I begin to repeat it over and over. Each time I say it I grow calmer so I keep repeating it. Now I am laying quietly and when the pounding starts to come again, I repeat the cop-out phrase over and over until I am quieted. My alarm sounds, which means it is 23:30 and time to prepare for the midnight ascent to the summit. It is a bad omen that I am starting for the summit with shaken nerves but at least I am out of my sleeping bag now and there is activity to keep my mind off of the stomach ache and ill omen.

     A few moments pass on the ascent and I notice how cold my fingers are even after I have replaced the heavy gloves. I work the fingertips of one hand over roughly in the palm of the other hand and then I alternate. I do this for several minutes while the numbness grows painfully across all my fingers and down from the tips. Finally, the numbness recedes and is replaced by a terrible burning. The burning is very bad but I know it is a good sign because it means that the feeling is coming back. So this must be frost nip.

     Finally feeling is restored to my fingertips and I realize that I am thirsty from the walking and the concern over the numbness. I suck from the tube of the Camel Pack but it is frozen through again and no water will pass. Dehydration will be worse than the altitude, I think, and I cannot continue like this only drinking every thirty minutes at a rest stop. Also, my stomach is still bad from the nervousness of before and it is becoming clear that I must do something about it if I am to continue to ascend. I am very concerned now about how long I will be able to continue and there are many more hours until sunrise when we will reach the summit. I call for a halt.

     ‘My water is frozen again and I must drink. Also, my have to use the bathroom,’ I say to the Tanzanian guide at the front of our small group. ‘Maybe you continue without me and the assistant guide and I will catch up when I am ready.’

     He agreed to this. I had spent most of the previous days far ahead of the group with the assistant guide so we had the experience of going off on our own. I took another long drink while the group prepared to continue the ascent. Once they were off, I gave the Camel Pack to the assistant guide to hold so that the water did not spill while the screw top was off and I placed the tube under my shirt against my skin to warm it up. Then I took the toilet paper and walked 10 meters or so off the trail to where there were a few boulders. I was listening to a book about the recent war in Iraq. It was an odd choice for the circumstances but it was all that I had left after six days of book listening throughout the ascent. More importantly it was compelling, which helped to take my mind off of what I was doing. I watched the headlights of the trekkers that had been further behind and I saw that a few saw me because their headlamps struck me straight on. But I did not care and probably they did not care either. It was too dark and too cold and there was too little oxygen and too much struggle for caring. For each of us there was only ourself and the mountain that mattered. And, if you thought more about it, maybe there was not even the mountain, only the part of you that strives against the part of you that does not.

     When I am done, I feel very good. I return to the trail where the assistant guide waits.

     ‘I am good now,’ I say.

     I take back the Camel Pack and I screw the tube on. My stomach is very cold from where it was pressed against my skin but its heat has gone to break up the ice. I take a long drink and now again I can suck through a stream of water. I feel better with the dehydration pushed back for awhile and I am lighter and a little stronger and a little less worried. I heave my pack onto my shoulders and we resume.

     Hours pass of slow, steady, painful trudging. Mostly I look straight ahead only calculating my next footstep. The night is too dark to see far beyond that. Occasionally I look up and I can see only the line of the next ridge ahead. When we reach that ridge there is another beyond it. Always there is a another ridge but I know that eventually after one of them will be the summit. I am cold but I am keeping a better pace and I do not have the cold shivers from the nerves anymore.

     But the worries are not all gone. Each footstep is a huge exertion and my chest is pounding, the heart and the lungs. There are pains that may be from exertion or may be from something worse but I cannot know because I have never felt these pains before. But now it is not like it was earlier that night when I was alone in my sleeping bag in my tent. ‘You will go until you finish or until you collapse. If you are going down before the summit, it will be on a stretcher.’

     I repeat this to myself over and over and I believe it. I know as I say it that it is a terribly extraordinary statement but isn’t that why you came here to do this? I repeat it and it settles my worries. The pains do not go away but the worries about them do. The worries are about what the pains might signal, but right now there is only now and there is nothing after this if I do not get through it. Another extraordinary statement but the top of a continent is the right place for extraordinary statements.

     I take one footstep and then another. I am not listening to the book anymore, so I remove the headphones. I remember a conversation from many years before.

     ‘The reason to do the right thing is because it is hard and that it is hard is how you know it’s the right thing,’ I had said.

     ‘It’s circular reasoning,’ I was told.

     ‘Well, is good and right ever easy?’ I replied.

     I thought about that now and I thought about all the hard things I had done in my life and I decided that it was still true even if it was a logical fallacy.

     We continue plodding on. Right in the head now but feeling exhausted and dehydrated, I slip into a sort of a trance. My mind is clear but each thought is stretched out so that I cannot get to the end of it to conclude it but only keep stretching it inconclusively further on with what seems to be no elastic limit. Like a sound that fades but never quite disappears. Outside of this there is only enough rational thought to carry on the mechanical grind of the footsteps and the periodic sip from the Camel Pack.

     I had not noticed that the sky has begun to lighten until a long slice of red begins to seep from a point over the horizon. In a few minutes I have reached Stella Point at 5,739m where there is an amazing eastward view of a sunset beyond mountaintops with a sky of clouds above and a sea of clouds below. I stay to watch this a short time. Many stop here and go no further maybe because once their rhythm is broken so is their resistance or maybe because it represents an achievement and so they have gotten what they came for.

     The assistant guide urges me on but I need no urging, only another moment of rest. It is another 45 minutes along a series of undulating ridges to Uhuru Peak where the true summit is. I resume the plodding, chest and lungs and head pounding but muscles strong and stubborn. It is a very long 45 minutes but soon I am within view of the summit - a small, sloped clearing where a handful of hikers have thrown down their packs and are posing for photos beside the plaque. When I see the summit and my mind begins to understand what is means, a powerful emotion comes over me. My eyes begin to tear and then my heart rate increases so that I have to calm myself because my pulse is already as high as it should go. I continue walking until I arrive. I am greeted by several who have arrived before me and I nod in return but I am not ready to say anything. At 5,895m I throw down my pack and I stand breathing deeply, feeling the warm sweat growing cold now and my breathing calming and all my sense growing sharply focused as I look out.

     You will find no great revelations at the summit of a mountain and this can be very disappointing. Maybe it is like a sort of postpartum depression because you have done a very powerful thing for a period of time and now it is over. It is over and, as hard as it was, you miss the thing that you were doing because it was everything to you while you were doing it. Now you feel empty. You do not yet realize that your life will be a little different or maybe a lot different from now on and, because of what you have done and because of who you are, you will soon find there is a next thing to become everything to you the way this was.

This Is Your Happiness that You Feel

In the morning you wake up stiff in the back and in the muscles of your legs and your shoulders. Your back is stiff because the ground is hard and gravelly through your thin isolation pad and your legs and shoulders are stiff from the long hiking and the weight of your pack from the day before. You might be cold or you might not be - that depends on how good your sleeping bag is and your isolation pad and how resistant you are.

     You rise before the sunrise when the sky is light gray and fresh and as beautiful as any sky anywhere. Then you dress, which is to say you put on the same clothes you wore yesterday and probably the day before. While you dress, one of the porters brings you warm water. The warm water is wonderful as you rub it over your forearms and your face, but even better is the coolness you feel afterwards from the wetness. It is a beautiful, intense discomfort that you feel, which, like most all sensations when you are here, reminds you that this is what it feels like to be alive.

     Then, dressed and washed, you sit on a rock away from the commotion of the campsite and you watch the line of shadow descend along the mountain slope as the sun emerges from over the opposite ridge. When it reaches high enough, the shadow will descend to you and you will experience the first warmth of the day on your face even as your fingertips are still cold at your sides. You unbutton your coat and take off your wool beanie and you feel warm and cold at the same time. You will feel these things and you will feel a surge pass through you like as if you had touched something electrical. This is your happiness that you feel pure through unsuppressed senses.

     Maybe you are not someone who ordinarily ‘feels’ a lot. If that is you then these feelings will be especially good because they will be uncommon. And if that is not you then it will still be very good because these will be the most simple and true things that you have felt in a very long time.

     Soon you will smell the scrambled eggs and toast or hot chapati and the cook will summon you into the tent for the breakfast meal and a cup of hot tea or coffee. The eggs will arrive steaming on the metal tray and you will mix some chocolate into your coffee for the pleasure of a simple indulgence. You will thank the cook and ask for more hot water to be put into the thermos and then you will attack the simple meal he has brought. You will eat more ravenously and more gratefully and probably it will taste as richly as anything you can remember eating previously.

     After you eat maybe you will have to lighten your stomach and that will not be very pleasant. Going in the open air is a fine thing but here there is only a field of small rocks and no trees to provide cover. So, if you have not the time or desire to find yourself a private place at some distance, then you must use one of the several latrines scattered around the edges of the campsite. When you do this, you will be sure you bring your scarf or bandana to tie over your nose and mouth before you enter.

     When you return from your morning preparations, the porters will be breaking up the camp. You will shed your warm clothes because you will soon be walking and carrying the pack and then you will appreciate the chill. When you set out you will feel stiff but you will not feel awkward. You will only have felt awkward during the first day until you broke your muscles and your breathing into a rhythm. If you did not find your rhythm during the first day then probably now things will be going pretty difficult for you, but if you did then the stiffness will work itself out very soon and then you will only feel good and warm and very healthy. You will feel the hard earth beneath you and the support of your boots and the rigid frame of your pack. You will walk evenly, rhythmically so that your breathing is harmonized with your strides and you will drink between your breaths so that you minimize the disruption to them. Your thoughts will be clear and less scattered and if you are lucky then you will hardly be thinking anything at all. The less you think the better it will be and the more you will experience of what you are doing.

     In the morning the sky will be clear and the sun will be strong. You will apply sunscreen and wear sunglasses and a hat and you will use the solar panel strapped to the outside of your pack to recharge your iPod and your digital camera. Before lunchtime the clouds will have come and they will be either just above or all around you depending upon how high up the mountain you have ascended. When the clouds come it will become much cooler so that you will increase your pace if you can or you will put on your rain shell and use the zippered vents on the sides to trap the right amount of body heat. With the clouds around you now it might even rain lightly and for a short time. If it does then it will be refreshing and as much a necessary part of the experience as the morning sunshine and, anyway, you are already wearing your rain shell.

     You will eat lunch when you arrive at the next camp and, if you do it that way, then after lunch you will probably lay down on your isolation pad beside your tent, listening to music until you fall into sleep. If you are still on the trail at lunchtime then you will eat from the pre-packed meal that the cook gave you before you set off that morning. There will be a sandwich or a chicken breast and an orange and maybe a juice box. There will be plenty and you will be plenty hungry but you will have to control yourself to eat very little. If you eat too much you will be heavy on the trail in the afternoon. The heaviness can be dangerous if you have to scramble over any boulders but mostly it will upset your rhythm and it could make you feel sick. If you eat too much then all the blood and the oxygen that it carries will go to the digestion in your stomach. Already your body is short on oxygen because there is less of it in each inhale and you are using your same lungs to capture it. You have been compensating for this by breathing deeply and steadily and by drinking plenty of water mixed with rehydration salts. But if you eat too much and then must walk again before the digestion is done, you can easily upset this tenuous equilibrium.

     The clouds will stay through the afternoon and it will grow cooler, especially since you are probably ascending now, which means you are at a higher altitude than you were this morning. When you reach camp you will feel good and well worked and your muscles will be tired but they will somehow be stronger than they were when you started out in the morning. You will set you pack against a rock beside your tent and you will drink longly and deeply the way you wanted to all throughout the day but did not allow yourself so that you would not get cramps. Then you will peel off your rain shell and your nylon sport shirt and you will stand shirtless for a few minutes letting the cool sweat dry and enjoying the fresh air against your skin. You will lay out your clothing to let them dry and to let them absorb the fresh smell of the mountain air so that it will not be so foul when you put them back on tomorrow morning. Now you stretch and then dress yourself warmly. It is not cold yet but you are not moving now and you know the cold will come before the night does. You will dress in long underwear under your trousers and several shirt layers under your fleece jacket. You will replace your sunhat with your wool beanie and exchange your sweaty bandana for a wool neck gaiter. Now that you are properly dressed you might walk around the campsite or take a nap or more likely find a comfortably shaped rock where you can sit and read a book or listen to one or listen to music and vacantly observe the activity around the campsite or the stillness across the mountainside.

     You will do this for a long while and maybe you will have dozed or maybe you will have remained alert, but either way you will feel entirely relaxed. You will feel that you are exactly where you should be and that you should never be anywhere but here. You will watch the sunset which will be spectacular or quite mundane depending upon whether the sunset is on the horizon at its proper time or much earlier against a high mountain ridge. When the twilight is almost faded into night, the cook will call you to the tent for dinner. There will be hot water for tea or coffee and a soup of squash or pumpkin or lentils. Then the cook will come to refill the hot water.

     ‘More soup?’ he asks in uncertain English.

     Sanne and Maria, the two Danish ladies in the threesome, will look at each other and then Sanne asks, ‘What is next?’ because her answer to his question will depend on his answer to hers.

     ‘Dinner,’ he responds.

     She smiles and you smile and Maria smiles and she asks for ‘more soup, please’.

     Dinner will be chicken or beef and some vegetables. It will be very good and very filling and you will eat as best as you can. But there will be enough for much more than the threesome so the cook will return and think you do not like it and you will have to convince him that you like it very much but maybe you don’t want to eat too much because of the altitude or something like that. After dinner you will drink hot tea to digest and you will finish the rehydration mix that you prepared when you arrived at the camp and have been working on ever since. The taste of the rehydration salts is bad and the Tanzanian tea is very weak but you accustom yourself to both and you enjoy the sensation of switching between the hot and the cold drinks.

     After dinner it will be very dark outside and very cold. It is maybe 20:00 or 21:00 and you make your preparations for going to sleep. But before you go into your tent you lay upon your isolation pad on the cold hard ground as warmly bundled as you possibly can and you take out your star chart. You shine your flashlight on it while you look away so that the constellations will glow on it and you can look at them for reference without ruining your night vision. The campsite will be almost completely dark and if you remove your earphones you only hear the sounds of the porters having a few drinks or smoking ganja after their clients have gone off to bed. If there are no clouds you will probably see as many stars as you can ever remember seeing before, but most nights there are clouds so you will only see a small portion of the sky with clarity. But that one portion will be enough because after ten minutes or so it will be too cold to lay outside inertly any longer. Your fingers will be numb and your nose will be wet from the cold.

     In your tent it will be noticeably warmer because the dome will capture your body heat and then, inside your sleeping bag with the extra lining inserted for extremely cold weather, you will be warm and tired and very happy to be closing your eyes before 21:30. You will listen to your audiobook for a long while and then you will doze or your attention will wander so you will switch to music and then you will doze. You will sleep fitfully during the night because the isolation pad is too thin for the hard, uneven ground and because the altitude will not allow you a sound sleep. Your sides will bruise at the hipbone from laying on them and you will shift constantly throughout the night. By early morning you will be tired but just as well ready for the day to start because lying there is not accomplishing much anymore. Even with the difficult sleep you will wake up refreshed and you will have reserves of energy. Yesterday will have been a great day and the night will only have been an obstacle before you can begin another just like it.

God Is on this Mountain

‘You know, I was the national boxing champion,’ he said.

     ‘Were you?’ I said.

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘You must have been quite good.’

     ‘I was national champion for four years. I was very good for those years but then I experienced a bad period and then I retired,’ he said.

     ‘He’ was the Kenyan guide that had come with us on the bus from Nairobi. He was a small man and aging but lean and solid from the years of boxing and then the years of mountain guiding. He wore a blue baseball cap and a heavy blue coat. He wore the coat and I wore a t-shirt and he looked comfortable while I was sweating heavily under the strong sun and the weight of my pack. Africans have a very different perception of weather, I thought, remembering how a couple months back I would come out of the house shirtless in the early morning to find my South Sudanese security guards shivering under heavy blankets.

     ‘I was a bantamweight,’ he said. ‘I was very fast and I had good lungs. I was very good with the jab and then the left hook. When I lost the quickness I was no good anymore and I had to quit.’

     I nodded.

     ‘You must be very fast and you must have very good lungs and you must be able to hit back for every hit you take.’

     I nodded again, enjoying the walking and the working of the muscles and the weight of the pack.

     ‘When I lost my quickness I still had the lungs and I could hit back but I was not good like before.’

     We walked side by side on a wide, gently rising trail through thick forest that blocked out the direct sunlight from above. It was midday and we were just more than an hour into the 10 kilometer trek of the first day. This day would take us from Machame Gate to Machame Camp where we would spend the first night at 3,000 meters. From there it would be five more days up and then another day down but that was all too far ahead to think about.

     Now, an hour into the first day’s trek, my muscles were warm and I could feel the benefit from the previous weeks of early morning jogging. I felt strong - my breathing was good and my legs were confident under me - but also I could feel the first day awkwardness as the tendons accustomed themselves to the weight of the hiking boots and the shoulders to the weight of the pack and the whole mechanism searched to find its rhythm.

     Finding the rhythm always decided if it would be a good accent or a struggle. For a high altitude trek like this one, I was certain that it would be the difference between success and failure. The rhythm was there in the muscle memory, learned hard from all the previous hikes you had done and just set aside in the time since the last one. Like every time before, all you had to do to get it back was go through the motions during the first day until the muscles were tired enough to be broken of their natural stubbornness.

     Then when you found the rhythm, the movement of your legs and your arms and the respiration in your chest would synchronize. You would inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth, deeply and slowly, and you would get all the air you needed and maybe more at least until you entered the real altitude. If you were real good and were really keen to be synchronized you would take water from a Camel Pack and you would time it so that the gulps came between the breaths in order to disturb the synchronized breathing as little as possible.

     Also when you were synchronized you would not want to talk. You would feel so good, feeling your body in harmony and your senses sharp and your mind clear, so that the talking would only disturb this. But at least now while the muscles were being broken to find their rhythm, I did not mind the talking because it was a good distraction.

     ‘Soon after I was no longer good I retired and became a guide. That was when I was lost because I didn’t have the boxing anymore. But then I found my faith and everything was different after that.’

     ‘You found your faith?’ I said.

     ‘Yes. You see I was born a Christian but I was without faith. It was an experience that gave me faith after I started guiding.’

     ‘I see.’

     ‘Of course you are a Christian so you will understand about finding faith.’

     ‘I am not a Christian. About faith I have tried and I have not succeeded,’ I said.

     ‘Truly you are not Christian?’ he said. ‘What are you then?’

     ‘I am without religion.’

     ‘But you believe in God,’ he said, ‘even if you are without religion.’

     ‘I don’t.’

     This he could not understand.

     ‘It is important that you believe,’ he said. ‘I had my experience and it changed me so I know how important this is.’

     ‘Maybe I will have an experience and then I too will know,’ I said.

     He liked this and he became happy.

     ‘I think you will. I think you will find God on this mountain.’

     ‘You think so?’ I said.

     ‘Yes,’ he said decidedly. ‘God is on this mountain.’

     This mountain was Kilimanjaro - the highest on the continent with a peak reaching 5,895 meters above sea level. It was not supposed to be a difficult technical climb but rather a long, brutal slog up into thin air. If you were accustomed to the altitude, then you would still find it challenging enough to keep your interest. I was coming from the dry, flat land of Malakal, South Sudan at 415 meters, so I was plenty concerned.

     God is on this mountain? I thought, well it sounds pretty enough and I guess he wouldn’t be bothered by the altitude at least. Anyway, even if he was here, finding God seemed like a pretty lofty goal. My goals are much more modest, I thought. I was here for the fresh mountain air to clear the Malakal dust from my lungs and for a good challenge to clear my cluttered mind of all the mundane thoughts for a while. If he was here and if he could be found, I was not particularly interested in looking. Anyway, it seemed like a lot of effort to find God and I was already climbing a mountain on my holiday. But I try to keep an open mind and I have always considered that to indulge another in something they really care about is the highest form of charity. Damn it, it’s my holiday and I don’t want to be charitable, I thought. Do it anyway.

     ‘If he is here as you say then maybe I will find him,’ I said.

     ‘He is here and I am sure you will find him,’ he said. ‘Now let me tell you of my experience - the one that gave me my faith.’

     ‘OK,’ I said.

     The air was just a little bit cooler than when we started and my muscles were feeling better and more pliant with each step. This meant that the breaking was not far off, so I was glad that this story was coming now because later I would be feeling too good and I would not want to hear it and I figured it would be a shame not to learn how God was found on this mountain.

     ‘So I was guiding a group of men - they were Germans and they told me they were Satan worshippers.’

     He paused, maybe for effect or maybe because he expected me to utter an exclamation of horror or disbelief. I walked on and listened and he continued.

     ‘I didn’t know what this was then but they explained it to me and I knew it was very bad. Then in the night at the campsite they played a terrible music and they chanted some things about me. Whatever they said it cursed me and I became possessed.’

     ‘You became possessed by Satan?’ I said.

     ‘Yes. It was terrible. For a week I had these terrible images that went through my mind and I felt a great urge to do evil things like kill. It took all my control not to but still I went around like a mad person for that whole week up to the top and back down again. When the tour ended and I returned the Germans to Nairobi, I went to a Catholic church.’

     ‘I understand the Catholics are the best with exorcisms,’ I said.

     ‘Well the priest didn’t do anything like that. He prayed with me and then he told me to return here to the mountain and ascend it again. He told me to eat only ugali and to drink only as much as I needed. This way I would stave the daemon and it would be expelled. He said when it was expelled, the Holy Spirit would enter and I would be saved.’

     ‘And the daemon was expelled this way?’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘And the Holy Spirit entered?’

     ‘Yes. And it took away all the madness and the terrible thoughts of death and killing,’ he said.

     ‘So that is how you found your faith?’ I said.

     ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was a terrible trial but in the end I found my faith so it was worth it.’

     Soon after we caught up with the two Danish women who were the two other tourists in the group. As they entered the conversation, I was able to exit it. The Kenyan guide began to talk to them about finding God on the mountain and I did not need to hear the story again so I increased my pace until I was beyond earshot. Now I was feeling the rhythm in my step and my breathing had become deep and slow and even. I put in my headphones and I listened to a book that imagined the way things were for the cave people thousands of years ago. I listened intensely and I felt the churning of earth and rocks under my boots and I observed the trail and the trees and the sky above them. I noticed my head cleared and my thoughts became more lucid and less scattered.

     I did not know what a faith-finding experience would be like. I only knew that sometimes you could experience a perfect moment or, if you were very lucky, a series of perfect moments. I believed I had experienced a few in my life so I knew how rare they are and also how to spot them when they came. I did not hope for one of these moments during this trek mostly because they occurred when they wanted to and certainly not when you were hoping or expecting them to come. When they did come, if they came, it would be because whatever you were doing you were doing it completely and there was no part of you that was not involved in doing it. Then you would not care if the moment came because you would only care to keep doing the thing completely.

     So let’s don’t think about it, I thought, the thinking only ever gets in the way. Thinking is the hardest thing to stop and the best way to ruin whatever you’re trying to do, I decided. It seemed as true as anything else I had come up with and it seemed like very good advice. So I replaced my earphones and returned to the story and tried only to focus on the movement of my body and the terrain that I was ascending.

     

     

Make The Most Amusing Ass That You Can Of Yourself

‘We have missed you in Malakal,’ I said.

     ‘Yes, I have missed you guys too,’ he said.

     He is the Finance Officer and he was well dressed on that day as he is always well dressed. Many will wear a full suit every day or randomly throughout the week because that is one of a half dozen outfits and all have their turn in the rotation. You will be in a t-shirt or a polo shirt and just the thought of a suit jacket will make you begin to feel the sweat. Today he wore a dress shirt and slacks that were too short for his long legs. His dress shoes had long, narrow toes and they were covered in brown dust from the unpaved road in front of the office. He is very tall and very dark and very uncompromising. He is a Dinka. It is very wrong to make one person your picture of a whole people. But to me he is what I think of a Dinka to be. He is made up of some of the best and worst of his people and their traditions. He is boxed in by those traditions and he knows it, but he follows them and he attempts to flourish despite it. I like him because of this - there is an authenticity about someone who is uncompromisingly, unapologetically, and inflexibly who he is and where he comes from. I suspect he is what our cowboys were or what we expected them to be and, anyway, this is very much a frontier town. Also he is good humored and does not take himself too seriously, which is not very Dinka of him. I like him for that and also I like him because he is colorful in his opinions and hardworking and he does not give too many excuses for what he does.

     We were in Juba because he had been in his village to arrange his marriage and I had come to the capitol to spend the holidays. He had been away two months. The first month had used up a year of earned leave and for the second month I had given him unpaid leave. He had not returned when he was supposed to and for this I should have begun the termination process. But it is hard to find a finance person you trust and I had spent a lot of time training him and, anyway, as I said, I liked him. So I gave him a warning letter and a month of unpaid leave and this had gotten me in trouble with the Country Director.

     We were in the logistics office, which is always busy - or should always be busy - whether there are programs running or not. So I led him out and into an empty room where we could talk.

     ‘So tell me how things have been going,’ I said after we greeted each other again.

     ‘Yes, so you know I was in the village and now it was down to two of us competing for the lady.’

     ‘Yes, I remember. Who is left that you still compete against?’

     ‘The one that now lives in Australia his people found him another lady. So the one that remains is the student in Wau,’ he said. ‘She does not want him but his father is old friends with her father. So you see how it is.’

     ‘Yes, I see.’

     ‘The family did not want to choose me so I took her,’ he said.

     ‘You took her a second time?’

     ‘Yes, the first time was when I was in Malakal and I called my friends to take her for me,’ he said

     ‘Yes, I remember, and then the girl’s family beat and kidnapped your uncle.’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘So you took her again?’

     ‘Yes, but she went with me.’

     ‘I see. How did you do it?’ I asked.

     ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I did not want anyone to know I was in the village. I did not tell anyone but one of my people. I bought a mobile and he gave it to her to communicate with me. I sent her airtime from my mobile. You know, I spent three days in the bush with only water and packages of biscuits waiting for her. Her family always watched her but sometimes she called me when she went to the latrine. Then in the night after three days she called me after they all went to sleep. So I came in the village and I took her.’

     ‘Where did you take her?’

     ‘We spent two days in the bush. We stayed in an empty tukul away from the village.’

     I imagined him in the bush with this lady who was probably still a girl and him wearing his dress clothes because maybe that was all he had or because that is where he was in the clothing rotation.

     ‘You took her to the bush,’ I said. I was repeating it because it is a way of actively listening and I have found it works quite well here.

     ‘Yes. Then the lady’s family went to the police and the police arrested my father and mother.’

     ‘They arrested your parents because you took the girl?’

     ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Then, after we were two days in the bush, we went footing to Bor. When my phone had a signal, my parents called and told me they were arrested. So I had to come back.’

     ‘Sure.’

     ‘When I came back, they let my parents out of prison and they arrested me.’

     ‘How long were you in jail?’

     ‘For three days and they fined me.’

     ‘And the girl went back to her parents?’

     ‘Yes, they took her back.’

     ‘And why is it that the girl’s family does not like you?’

     ‘It is the father and grandfather and uncle that are against me but the rest likes me just fine,’ he said.

     ‘And the girl likes you?’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘And you like the girl?’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘Even after the two days together in the bush?’

     He looked questioningly.

     ‘Sometimes you will spend time with a girl and find that you don’t like her so much as you thought you did.’

     ‘Yes, I like her very much,’ he said.

     ‘OK then. So, two days in the bush,’ I said. This was me listening again.

There was a moment as we thought about this - perhaps each thinking something different or perhaps thinking the same thing. ‘So, did you...?’ I said, making a gesture with my hands.

     He smiled because he understood or because he did not understand but he did not answer and I did not press him.

     ‘So why does the father and grandfather and uncle not like you?’ I said.

     ‘You know, it is because I talk to them,’ he said.

     ‘I see.’

     ‘The rest of the family they like me but at the family meeting the father and grandfather and uncle - they are the head of the family and they overrule the others.’

     ‘Yes, I see. So what will happen now?’

     ‘So now,’ he said, pausing and then continuing, ‘the girl must escape. If she escapes they will see that she has made her decision.’

     ‘She must run away from home.’

     ‘Yes. Maybe this will have to happen two or three more times. But I cannot take her again. Now she will have to escape on her own. When she escapes, then she will contact me and I will have my friends take her again. I left 500 pounds with one so that he can conduct her away, maybe to Malakal.’

     ‘And if she comes to Malakal?’ I asked.

     ‘Then the judge would make her father settle. Then they would accept my best offer because they would know that she will not come back.’

     ‘Better to accept your offer of cows than to get nothing,’ I said.

     ‘Yes. You see how it is?’

     ‘Yes, I see,’ I said.

     We both thought about how it is but I think we thought very different things in that moment. I could not know the thoughts that were in his head but I wondered about them and I had my own ideas. It was all very dramatic, I thought, rival suitors, a deal between old friends, a bride price in cows and cash, a kidnapping, a reverse kidnapping, a stakeout, them running away together, then jail and fines, and probably plenty of other things that he had not told me about but that I could make up. It would make a damn fine story if you could write it well, I thought, but I did not think I could. To write well, I figured, you have to believe in what you are writing or at least take it seriously. I felt bad that I did not because I was skeptical that this was really love. Maybe it was not love only inexperience or maybe or was pride - him seeing a thing that he could not have and seeing that as reason enough to want it. And maybe her playing out that first act of rebellion that is how we know when a girl becomes a woman.

     I thought about how quickly I could summarize this biggest event of their lives into something trivial and that made me feel very bad. I felt bad for him because his labors deserved more than my skepticism and mostly I felt bad for myself that I should be so skeptical about what someone else felt. He is inexperienced and certainly she is, but that is not a bad thing. They might be inexperienced but that doesn’t make the feelings any less real. Still, you do a lot of stupid things when you’re inexperienced, I thought. You do a lot of stupid things anyways, I corrected myself, but especially when you are inexperienced.

     Then I was remembering my inexperience and how it was on my first proper date, which seemed like long ago but was suddenly quite vivid in my mind. I had taken her to one of those places where you order at the counter and then they bring the food to your table. It was not fast food but it was not very far from it. We took our drinks and selected a table and then she went to the restroom. As she was going, I turned clumsily to follow her with my eyes and, when I did, I knocked over her soft drink. It was my first crisis situation so I allowed myself a few moments to panic. When she returned she saw the pool of Coca Cola and a large caution sign and a man was mopping it up. Then she discovered me at another table. I think I was pretending to check my phone or maybe it was a pager back then.

     ‘The waitress knocked your drink over,’ I said, looking up as casually as I could manage.

     ‘There are no waitresses here,’ she said.

     There was a moment while we examined each other.

     ‘Yeah, I knocked your drink over,’ I said, recognizing that I was defeated.

     She was very magnanimous in that her first of many victories over me.

     The rest of the evening went very much the same: me trying to be entertaining as I drove us to the laser show and her pointing out that I had missed the freeway exit and then us returning the other way and me missing it again. Then, after the laser show, it was us enjoying the view of the city from the observatory while everyone else departed and then us getting locked in until eventually the security guard discovered us. It was a fiasco of a first date and it was a very fine success. So I learned something important after that experience: if you are not rich or gorgeous or an athlete or a musician, then you’re best strategy is to make the most amusing ass that you can of yourself.

     So I thought of that and that thinking led to other thoughts. The spilling of the drink made me remember when I was on the flight to Jordan before going to start my first mission in Iraq. The drinks were served and I took a red wine. I poured a near full glass and then placed it in the cup holder while I reach down for my headphones. When I came up my hand struck the cup and the wine went all over my khaki pants. So I spent the rest of the flight wet and cold and deeply purple stained so that I had to carry a blanket in front of my crotch whenever I went to the lavatory. When I arrived in Jordan six hours later and my new colleagues collected me at the airport, I decided it was better not to blame in on the flight attendant.

     Then it seemed like a long time had passed while I was thinking and I decided that I should say something.

     ‘It seems that you have done what you can do and you made preparations for what needs to happen next.’

     ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

     ‘So now you have to trust her to do her part, I guess.’

     ‘Yes. You know, it has been very hard but I think she will do it,’ he said and he sounded very tired. He did not sound enthusiastic as he had sounded two months before in Malakal when he had told me the plans for his conquest.

     ‘They will have to accept me,’ he had said with as much confidence as one could imagine.

     Now that confidence was gone and he looked a little older and wiser and very tired.

     ‘It sounds like it has been very hard,’ I repeated.

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘You like her that much?’ I said. I decided that I would ask it again and, if he answered it well, then maybe I could suspend my skepticism. Maybe if he could wait all that time in the bush and then make the long walk to Bor and then return because it was what he had to do, knowing that he would lose her and go to jail - maybe if he go through all that and tell me about it and be at his lowest point, and then answer this question and make me believe it...at least I wanted to be somebody who would believe it.

     ‘Yes, I like her very much.’

     ‘OK,’ I said satisfied and a moment later, feeling better, I decided, ‘You have fought very hard and I think it will work out.’

     ‘Yes,’ he said.

     Maybe he appreciated my effort at confidence in his situation or maybe it was what he needed to hear at that moment because now he was smiling and you could see he was proud of himself.

     He considered this and so did I until it seemed like time to say something again.

     ‘So then will you be returning to us in Malakal while you wait for her to escape?’ I asked.

     ‘Now,’ he said, ‘You know, when they arrested me, they fined me 2,000 pounds. I'm broke. So you see how it is?’

     I smiled because it was all so damned amusing and it did not matter if I believed it because it was real and happening now.

     ‘Yes I see how it is,’ I said. ‘Come on. We will arrange it with logistics and you will fly back with me tomorrow.’

The Oil Sizzles as It Strikes

He pours vegetable oil from a recycled plastic water bottle and the oil sizzles as it strikes the wrought iron pan. The pan is on a small grill filled with hot coals. The coals receive air from the open sides and he adds new coals and the ash of old coals he sweeps out so they scatter into the wind and upon the ground. There are others along this street that do as he does, tending the coals and squirting the cooking oil and frying the chapati in it until it is brown and hot. I choose this one because he seems as good as any other and he is closest by.

     ‘A rolex, please,’ I say.

     ‘One egg, two eggs?’ he says.

     ‘Two,’ I say.

     ‘Three pounds,’ he says.

     I nod and he breaks the two eggs into a cup. He takes up a big kitchen knife that is one sheet of metal with no proper handle. He cuts a small piece of onion into smaller pieces and does the same with the tomato. The chapati is finished and he takes it from the pan and places it upon the stack in a plastic bag. He uses the knife to stir the egg and onion and tomato. Then he takes up the water bottle and squirts cooking oil onto the thick, black iron pan. He puts too much oil on but I think he will stop so I say nothing but he goes on and now I decide it is much too late. He pours the egg upon the sizzling oil and immediately it bubbles and bloats and cooks through instantly. He pours more oil around the egg and now I think I will not need to chew. I will only bit and open my throat and the greased egg will slide down whole. When the egg is almost cooked he places a chapati upon it and leaves it to cook longer. Then he sees and smells that it is done so he turns the chapati so the egg is on top. He places it on the table between him and me and he rolls tightly and places it in a clear plastic bag. He begins to the put the one bag into another bag but I stop him because I already have a bag in my hand. I pay him and I take my rolex away.