Mountain Climbing: A metaphor

This weekend I climbed Mount Gangan with Ravi (my postmate), Rosa (a volunteer from Benin), Ousmane (Ravi’s host brother) and two of Ousmanes friends. We planned to leave from my house around 9:30am. At 4 pm we left. Nothing in Guinea starts on time, but that does not mean you cannot still go for it. We headed off towards the mountain. When we got a little bit past the base, we realized that we did not exactly know the route and there was no single clear route. We went the way of least resistance. Further along, it turned out that taking the path of lest resistance in the beginning meant taking the path of most resistance later. It was gorgeous. Open plateaus, palm trees, cows and the African sun high in the sky. 

About 30 minutes up, we got to what looked like a wall of rock. You had to climb up about 6 feet, then shuffle along a ledge, then use a tree to pull yourself up another 5 feet from out of a crevice. I thought, there is absolutely no way I can do this, but I’m here so why not try. If you put your all into something, you will surprise yourself. Also, after pulling water from the depths of the earth and then carrying to your house for 5 months you will discover upper body strength you never knew you had. The last bit was the hardest and the way I got up was not graceful. Solutions here rarely are, but they can work. I ended up flat on my stomach on top of the ledge and gave myself 30 seconds to just laugh at myself. It truly is the best medicine. After conquering this first challenge, I was awarded with breath taking views of Kindia. 

Hard to tell, but this is a ledge, not flat ground, that we climbed up spiderman style

We walked through a manioc field with white cranes nesting. We rounded a corner and came upon a herd of beautiful tan cows. It was still up hill from here, but more manageable. At the top of this mountain is a village. The soil up top is great for bananas, so people live and farm up there and then walk down the mountain and into town to sell their produce. It’s hard to imagine that people are living like this at the same time that people are living in NYC. We met a lot of these villagers on the path. They were shocked to find a bunch of white people who greeted them in Susu. We were shocked that they were easily coming down this steep mountain, barefoot, heads piled high with produce, babies on their back, wearing skirts. About 1:30 up, we got to a rock wall about 15-20 feet high. The strongest Guinean boy in our group had trouble getting up. I thought, I probably cannot climb up, I’m scared of coming back down, and the view from here is enough for me. You have to respect your limits and I respected mine. The rest of the group decided to hike up 15 minutes more. We needed to leave soon if we were going to make it down before dark. I sat on a rock and enjoyed the view and time for reflection. After about 5 minutes, some more villagers came down the mountain. They did not attack it straight on like we had. They took a winding path, which was very manageable and not at all scary. You should never forgot that oftentimes the locals know how to do things better than you. Learning goes two ways. I realized that I could do it. The group came back and we made it to the base just as night was falling. We have time here and with our experience we are going to attack the mountain again in a few weeks. We now know that if we want to make it to the village at the top, we are going to have to leave earlier and to asses our surroundings before trying to go straight up. This morning my knee is swollen and my thighs are sore, but I am so happy for the wonderful afternoon we had yesterday. With the Peace Corps, it really is no pain, no gain.