Friday's Washington Post (May 24) included the usual sadly depressing litany of people killing one another: the page 8 world news digest included " 5-day death toll at 16 after frightful night" (Lebanon); Rickshaw bomb killed 13 in Baluchistan"; "7 Iraqi soldiers shot dead at checkpoint."
Then at the end a short note on an astonishing event: "Japanese man, 80, becomes oldest to scale Everest." The paragraph notes that "an 80-year old Japanese man who began the year with his fourth heart operation became the oldest conqueror of Mount Everest. . . even with an 81 year-old Nepalese climber not far behind him."
This is the mountain that for the first half of the twentieth century the world's greatest climbers, in the prime of their lives failed to conquer, until Edmond Hillary and Tensing achieved the feat in 1953. And they were young and in top shape. Many octogenarians, myself included, consider it a challenging climb to walk upstairs in our houses and here are two men in their 80's, one of whom had recently had his fourth heart operation, on top of Everest! It's almost impossible to believe.
Mountain climbing has long been one of my favourite activities. I've hiked the Green Mountains in Vermont, the White Mountains in New Hampshire (including several winter ascents of Mounts Washington, Adams and Lafayette, with some of the world's worst weather), The Rocky Mountains, the French Alps, and even the Himalayan foothills. But never have I aspired to try the great Himalayan Peaks.
So I have no envy of Yuichiro Miura. I have only incredulous awe of his feat and vast admiration. At a time when I'm dealing with reduced physical capacities, he's climbing Everest after his fourth heart operation. What a guy. I'd love to shake his hand some day.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Young and Reckless in Nambia
You might think that after sampling a week behind bars in a Mexican jail, I wouldn't go near any more jails. Wrong! (See my post of March 5). During a school break when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Lesotho, a fellow teacher, Richard, and I decided to visit Namibia, which was then called Southwest Africa and controlled by apartheid South Africa. How does one get from Lesotho to Southwest Africa without a car? Hitchhiking, naturally.
Using this method we crossed the subcontinent and arrived in Southwest Africa, well south of Windhoek, the capital. Our destination was Etosha Nationals Park in the extreme north, bordering on Angola. Where would we, on volunteer budgets, stay during the nights? Richard had read somewhere that if you went to the local jail and they had a free cell, you could bunk down there. One problem solved. We spent several nights in unlocked cells, not the Ritz, but a roof over our heads. .The other problem was that there was a war going on between the South African army and the freedom fighters of SWAPO (Southwest Africa Peoples Organization). Well, we'd just have to be careful. The jail idea having actually worked well, in due time we arrived in Windhoek.
In Windhoek we learned that all speed limits were off to the north to give motorists the chance to evade the war. We rented a car in the capital and started off. We encountered South African army patrols going through the woods and figured that all would be well once we got to Etosha. So we had a pleasant few days watching the big game, confident we didn't need to worry about civil war. There were no other visitors. Only later did we learn that SWAPO was using Etosha as its headquarters.
We made it back south where Richard and I parted, he going to Cape Town and I going back to Maseru, Lesotho. When I arrived in Bloemfontein, the bastion of apartheid, it was evening and I had in my pocket enough money only for dinner or a hotel. I opted to eat and afterwards made my way to local jail, where I was asked to wait for half an hour.
Eventually someone showed up and said "I'll show you to your quarters." I thought that sounded promising until I was put in a cell and the door was looked. They had never locked the doors in Namibia. "Wait! I'm not a criminal!" "It's for your own safety. You'll be released in the morning." Around 11 p.m. the door was unlocked and a wildly drunk man, yelling and thrashing about, was pushed into the cell with me. I immediately set about trying to calm him down with minimal success. I may have slept an hour or two.
Sure enough, the guard opened the door at 6:30 a.m., where there was woman from the Salvation Army, handing out religious tracts. "God bless you, my son," she said to me.
Later, when I was a Foreign Service officer in Lesotho, I told this story to the king who roared with laughter at my naiveté in thinking I could mosey into a jail in Bloemfontein without consequence.
Using this method we crossed the subcontinent and arrived in Southwest Africa, well south of Windhoek, the capital. Our destination was Etosha Nationals Park in the extreme north, bordering on Angola. Where would we, on volunteer budgets, stay during the nights? Richard had read somewhere that if you went to the local jail and they had a free cell, you could bunk down there. One problem solved. We spent several nights in unlocked cells, not the Ritz, but a roof over our heads. .The other problem was that there was a war going on between the South African army and the freedom fighters of SWAPO (Southwest Africa Peoples Organization). Well, we'd just have to be careful. The jail idea having actually worked well, in due time we arrived in Windhoek.
In Windhoek we learned that all speed limits were off to the north to give motorists the chance to evade the war. We rented a car in the capital and started off. We encountered South African army patrols going through the woods and figured that all would be well once we got to Etosha. So we had a pleasant few days watching the big game, confident we didn't need to worry about civil war. There were no other visitors. Only later did we learn that SWAPO was using Etosha as its headquarters.
We made it back south where Richard and I parted, he going to Cape Town and I going back to Maseru, Lesotho. When I arrived in Bloemfontein, the bastion of apartheid, it was evening and I had in my pocket enough money only for dinner or a hotel. I opted to eat and afterwards made my way to local jail, where I was asked to wait for half an hour.
Eventually someone showed up and said "I'll show you to your quarters." I thought that sounded promising until I was put in a cell and the door was looked. They had never locked the doors in Namibia. "Wait! I'm not a criminal!" "It's for your own safety. You'll be released in the morning." Around 11 p.m. the door was unlocked and a wildly drunk man, yelling and thrashing about, was pushed into the cell with me. I immediately set about trying to calm him down with minimal success. I may have slept an hour or two.
Sure enough, the guard opened the door at 6:30 a.m., where there was woman from the Salvation Army, handing out religious tracts. "God bless you, my son," she said to me.
Later, when I was a Foreign Service officer in Lesotho, I told this story to the king who roared with laughter at my naiveté in thinking I could mosey into a jail in Bloemfontein without consequence.
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