The Sky's the Limit!
on A Zambian Experience (Zambia), 19/Apr/2011 10:16, 34 days ago
It’s a hot and sunny morning in Chipata and I’m about to take my lunch break. Normally by now, I’m quite chilled out after a hectic morning of advising, planning, writing and researching and generally still trying to be ‘effective’ in my placement. However today is no ordinary day as I haverecently made the brave decision (or sometimes I think a mad decision) to climb Mount Mulanje in Malawi.My expedition to the mountain will start tomorrow and continue over Easter. I’m getting stressed as I haven’t even made a list of things to pack yet! My holiday form has been signed off by my boss and so technically I’m ready to go. It’s been a good week on the work front as Kwacha Kum’mawa have been selected in the final stages of the funding application that I talked about a few ‘posts’ ago and it looks like the Chipata Nutrition Group may be getting a new borehole from a donor, which will sort out the water problem and provide the community with access to clean and safe water, so now I think I’m in need of a new challenge, but I hadn't thought abouthow dangerous this next one might be.Mount Mulanje is the highest peak in Southern Africa at 3000 metres tall. I will be going with an experienced team leader who has done the trek before and apparently it can sometimes take 5 days to reach one of the many peaks of Mulanje with its many crevasses and cliff drops. It will be an amazing experience, but I just hope that things go well.Rumours of witchcraft, people going missing and a recent volunteer who went up and didn't come back are all playing through my mind. However, it will be an adventure of a lifetime and will give me a great opportunity to see more of Africa from an aerial perspective. I will keep you posted on how I get on. In the meantime, my colleagues think I’m mad for wanting to spend my holiday climbing a mountain and I don’t know, maybe they are right?