A Mountain's Perspective

by Emily Gillespie (United States of America)

Making a local connection Tanzania

Tears came quicker than I expected. At a campsite nearly 4,000 meters up the side of Mount Kilimanjaro, my eyes lingered on each face of the female porters and guides who sat crowded around the plastic table. Their features were illuminated by the sun pushing through the tent wall, casting a blue hue across everyone huddled inside. Fuhara, a petite woman with white-rimmed glasses, trembled as she told her story. She was 20 years old when another porter accused her of sleeping with a client. The rumor reached her family and she ran away from home. A year later, she returned to the mountain resolute. She earned her job back and found a sponsor who funded the education required to become a guide. Today, she earns a good living leading clients and her crew safely up the mountain. By the time she was done speaking, the group of women around her were beaming with pride. Only a few days into my seven-day trek to reach Africa’s highest point, I made a simple observation: all of the porters and guides I’d seen so far were men. “Do women work as porters?” I asked my guide Stephen. “Yes,” he said, hesitating. “It’s not super common, but it happens.” Later on, as we rested from a long day of hiking, I saw out of the corner of my eye Stephen motion for a passerby to join us. “Ehh, this girl wants to meet some women porters,” Stephen said. I was momentarily taken aback, but offered the woman a chair. “Ekeny,” she introduced herself. She was quick to smile, relieving any awkwardness. Over tea and popcorn, we shared in a pleasant conversation before Ekeny invited me to her campsite. “There’s a whole group of female porters working together right now,” she said. Once at her campsite, Ekeny ushered me into the dining tent. One by one, more women filed in. I asked what it was like for them, what had drawn them to the work. Many spoke of the hardships – how carrying 20kg of supplies on their head and back never got easier and how being away from their children for weeks on end made their hearts ache. But in the job, they earned good money, they told me, something hard to come by in Tanzania. One woman punctuated how she knew it was all worth it after getting her first paycheck, a comment that led to laughs and hoots of joy from the group. It then fell quiet again. “You no longer have to rely on the men in your life,” Fuhara said. Tense jaws and nods of agreement followed. Ekeny looked me in the eyes. “Now, women try to help themselves,” she said. “This is my team. If I can help her and she can help me, together we can do something big.” I carried our conversation with me for the rest of my journey. During the quiet hours I spent traipsing through valleys blanketed with sagebrush and climbing over steep ridges of volcanic rock, I thought of those women. Our lives were so different, yet this mountain had brought us together to witness each other’s experience. On the sixth day, I woke at midnight to begin the hike to the summit. The seven merciless hours that followed pushed me to my limits, testing every facet of my physical and mental stamina. I spent hours sucking the air for oxygen, never bringing with it any relief. Each step I took felt like a feat worthy of celebration. The frigid temperatures that accompanied the altitude meant I could only rest for five minutes at a time, otherwise I would begin to feel my blood freezing in my veins. By the time I reached the top, the rising sun streaked the sky and tears streaked my face. The glacier-lined crater peak was stunning amid the sea of clouds that stretched for miles into the horizon. After soaking in the scene, we began the descent. I knew I’d just done the hardest thing in my life, but my thoughts returned to the lives of the women I’d met. Up here on the mountain, I could see clearly just how easy I really have it.