Team Kilimanjaro

There are a gazillion black and white ways to define a person. Are you a cat person or a dog person? A chocolate or vanilla person? Tea or coffee? Beatles or Rolling Stones? Hepburn or Monroe? Mountain or beach person? Which are you?

 To that last one I can confidently answer, mountain. Now more than ever.

For some time, I've had an armchair obsession with high altitude mountain adventure/survival books like Into Thin Air and Miracle in the Andes. I half-heartedly wanted to join in the mix, but thought I probably didn't have the fortitude.

Nevertheless, I thought about trying out Kilimanjaro many years ago in college when someone mentioned that it was doable for laypeople. I hadn't considered it until recently, when my friend and fellow rock climber, said he wanted to climb it. Of course, I was in.

The prep was semi-arduous.  Kilimanjaro is a National Park which mandates that you take a guide with you. There are hundreds of companies that facilitate climbs so picking one can take forever. Fortunately my friends use spreadsheets for fun. The pros and cons were graphed before I even typed Kilimanjaro into Google.

We went with a company called Basecamp, which came recommended of course. They work closely with a hotel in Arusha, which gives a home base at the bottom of the mountain. We arrived there in a fog of sleep late at night, incredulous that after 24 hours of air travel, we would begin the climb early the next morning. Altitude + jetlag!


Our Team:

Roman
From: Cincinnati, Ohio
Occupation: software engineer for a debt management company in Orange County
Strengths: seemingly endless supply of energy and jokes
Weakness: over-packing



James
From: San Francisco, specifically Hayward
Occupation: IT technician for a financial investment company in Century City
Strengths: Experienced hiker, climbed Mount Whitney, insanely goal-oriented
Weakness: He will leave your butt behind




Olga
From: Originally from Latvia, grew up in Canada
Occupation: Professor Piano
Strengths: She flies planes, boom. If we are in a plane and the pilot passes out, we have no worries
Weaknesses: She's never been camping before



Wallace
From: Originally from Taiwan, grew up in East Los Angeles
Occupation: Freelance computer game programmer
Strengths: Avid hiker and Boy Scout, has bobby pins and duck tape at all times
Weaknesses: Is there such a thing as being too organized?



Me / Missy
From: Southern Virginia
Occupation: Artist, costume designer, sometimes art teacher and explorer
Strengths: very adaptable and resourceful
Weaknesses: always cold

Hashim 

From: Arusha, Tanzania

Occupation: Lead guide for Basecamp

Family: Wife and two kids (10 and 7)

Venance 

From: Lake Victoria, Tanzania

Occupation: Assistant Guide for Basecamp

Family: Wife and baby (Brian, 6mo)

Raymond
From: Moshi from Chagga Tribe
Occupation: Assistant Guide for Basecamp and in school
Family: Wife and two kids (7 and 5)





Nemes
From: Arusha from Chagga Tribe
Occupation: Cook for Basecamp






Ebrah
Occupation: Assistant to the cook for Basecamp







Baraka
From: Arusha
Occupation: Security for Basecamp
Family: Hashim's younger brother

Packing for extreme cold, extreme hot, extreme shortage of space, extreme activity and extreme laziness (that'd be Zanzibar beaches, hehe). 

the time is near at hand

Next Saturday is the send off. We've been doing stairs with heavy backpacks and pretending like we are in shape.. and making lists, checking on vaccines and visas...

Things are not

He gave me a box filled to the brim with little things. I brought it home, turned on a lamp, and sat down on the floor. Pulled out a card that we had given him for his birthday. One never expects to get their gifts back in this way. Patches from Nepal and Vietnam, books on the Black Panthers, Rapidiographs and pen nibs, Japanese stationary, Lakota Indian sweat ceremony instructions, my heart sank with every piece. How strange it is to be left with this. But how comforting "things" can be in their ability to allow you to hold on to what we perceive as lost.

Perhaps that is why people lose their shit grabbing for crap when loved ones die. In some cases it is cold greed, and sickening. But sometimes, I think the materialism that follows death is just another form of grief. Perhaps we should be a little more understanding of relatives who dive like vultures into pieces that are left behind.

voyage

  Hey everybody.... Guess what!

I'm going to Africa! 

Destination: Tanzania. Kilimanjaro Mountain. 

The picture above is me resting my aching legs. Also in the picture are our two friends who are hiking Kilimanjaro with us. They've been helping us train for a couple months. I never thought it could be that difficult to hike... or essentially walk miles on end, but 12 - 14 miles of uphill and steep downhill is no joke, crying loudest: my knees. 

In total there will be five of us attempting to reach the highest peak in Africa. And afterwards some animal watching/safari, and beach lounging/Zanzibar Island. 

Really I'm just looking forward to drawing and painting.

Godspeed

Godspeed Rider Show

My first full gallery show in Los Angeles!

Be sure to come by if you are in the area!

I'll be showing paintings and work from my art books and travel journals!

anonymous

I am reminded why it is good to see documentaries in Los Angeles; half the time the filmmakers live here and are in the audience and half the audience is in the film or was working on it. Such was the case this weekend when we checked out this outstanding new doc,We Are Legion. Writer/directer, Brian Knappenberger was answering questions and we happened to be sitting next to the film's editor.  

If you are at all interested in anthropology, the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, politics, activism, or power to the people, or even cheap laughs, check it out, by nature of the content they have uploaded a version to youtube already.     

What's it about exactly? Well, the film chronicles the pretty incredible way disorganized internet users  coalesced into the political movement called Anonymous, which is closely tied to and overlaps with the Occupy Movement.

 < Computer Hacking + Activism = Hacktivism >

Documentaries like this are fascinating to watch because this is not ancient history, in fact the filmmaker was saying that he was literally updating the film as they were editing in the previous weeks. Major developments are happening, one of the Anonymous leaders admitted to being an FBI informant, some of the hackers are on trial, there is still civil unrest in the Middle East. This is an evolving movement that we are watching real time. To have a reflection on how this all started so early in the game is immediate gratification, like watching 100 hours of news feed condensed into one entertaining and important story.

I had to post this because I think her views on this are so inspiring.

The original picture was of a Sikh woman with facial hair, taken by someone on an online forum for laughs. A friend told the woman, Balpreet Kaur, that the picture was all over the internet. Balpreet decided to get online and respond. Here's what she wrote:

"Hey, guys. This is Balpreet Kaur, the girl from the picture. I actually didn't know about this until one of my friends told on facebook. If the OP wanted a picture, they could have just asked and I could have smiled However, I’m not embarrassed or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positive] that this picture is getting because, it’s who I am. Yes, I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body – it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will. Just as a child doesn't reject the gift of his/her parents, Sikhs do not reject the body that has been given to us. By crying ‘mine, mine’ and changing this body-tool, we are essentially living in ego and creating a separateness between ourselves and the divinity within us. By transcending societal views of beauty, I believe that I can focus more on my actions. My attitude and thoughts and actions have more value in them than my body because I recognize that this body is just going to become ash in the end, so why fuss about it? When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can. So, to me, my face isn’t important but the smile and the happiness that lie behind the face are. So, if anyone sees me at OSU, please come up and say hello. I appreciate all of the comments here, both positive and less positive because I’ve gotten a better understanding of myself and others from this. Also, the yoga pants are quite comfortable and the Better Together tshirt is actually from Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that focuses on storytelling and engagement between different faiths. I hope this explains everything a bit more, and I apologize for causing such confusion and uttering anything that hurt anyone."

The original poster obviously learned something. He came back and apologized.

bottom feeding is good

The word foraging always made me think of vultures and bottom feeders, but I have a new appreciation. We went out to the woods with a survivalist over the weekend and brought back enough edible things to make a gigantic salad. These are my notes and this is the salad.

Some of the ingredients include: Prickly Lettuce, Chickweed, Oxalis, Willow Herb, Watercress, Black Nightshade, Sow Thistle,  Scarlet Monkey Flowers, Mint, Curly Dock, and Nut Grass.

Only drawback was the worms. They kept popping up everywhere.