Mt. Kilimanjaro, with Ernest Hemingway.
On a cold December morning, I arrive on campus and my first stop is the English Department. As an international student, this was standard procedure. Excited and full of energy on a snowy Monday, I whisper my hellos to everyone in the room with me. Seated across us is an old white man deep in his rusty book. He lowers his book, gazes at us for a good few seconds, then slowly resumes his reading, without a word.
In the spirit of making new friends, we start a conversation around where we are from and what we will study. Seconds into our introductions, the old man stands up and says “this will be interesting, do you all not celebrate the holidays? Welcome to America!”.
The test centre attendant calls us all in, we were assigned our test booths for ESL (English as a second language), of course, a standardised test. Only two of us made the second round, which was comprehension and composition. We passed.
Two weeks later, another cold Monday morning with classes delayed due to a blizzard. I am walking to my first class of the semester, and behold the old arrogant and very intimidating white man with a head full of silver hair, greets me with a smirk on his face. “You are early to class”, he says. “All this way only to learn what you are already good at?” said Prof. Jon Burton. Baffled, I stood as if I was asked to stop. Frozen. Before I found my seat in a uniquely arranged classroom, or could gasp for air, he asks again “Do you know what yellow snow is?” Confused, I responded with a “No”, at this point, I just hated all of his bewildering humour. He laughs out loud, it is almost as if he is talking to himself, he proceeds to say, “Just do what you need to do and make sure you don’t come back here next semester to be asked the same question. For which you will have an answer to”. Instantly, I loved to hate this old man. My initiation to sarcasm and dry humour.
Class started. Around me, high school graduates with a thorough understanding of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird, and Mark Twain’s The Adventure’s of Huckleberry Finn, and more. All I have is crammed passages, word for word on Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Ngugi Wa’ Thiong’o’s The River Between.
We started our first class with a deep dive into ‘inferencing’ and ‘paraphrasing’ of literary work by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Zora Neale Hurston. Coming from the carefully scripted answers to literature exam questions for national exams, I was perplexed and left in awe that I am to write “how I feel” about the characters and short stories read in class. Other than reading and understanding a book on our government-approved syllabi, no one ever asked me what I thought about the storyline or the characters. How is it about me when there’s an author and a population of smart and older philologists that have answers already? But this is a story for another day.
Prof. Jon Burton, will always remain an integral part of my understanding of the english language and the art behind it. From how I read a passage or decipher it, to my listening skills. Not so much on the writing, as he always believed this comes naturally. He emphasised on critical thinking and contemplation of the multiple ways an audience would receive a message.
At the end of our first class, Burton handed me two books by Ernest Hemingway and asked me “do you know what makes a great writer?”, I stood there quiet, tired of his yellow snow jokes, and like always before I could answer, “do you know what makes a well-seasoned man?”. Lost as I was, I would have responded with Salt or Lawry’s, because Kanye taught me. Frozen, again, and afraid to blab irrelevant information from a rap lyric, he finally answered his own question. He says, “travel”.
Burton further explains, in his quest to make me understand, why travel is a form of learning. Ernest Hemingway is one of the best American writers and journalist of the 20th century, because of his travels. He has experienced all four seasons as they come and go, on high and lowlands, on mountains, valleys, old towns and big cities. From the Serengeti to Paris. There’s no place that you would describe that wouldn’t resemble his experience.
Burton reviewed my composition test for which I wrote about a fictitious place. My short story was about a six days journey up the “Mountain of God”. I don’t recall much about it other than a story that glorified nature, ghosts, food and the local community. In his own words, “Such an aide-memoire”, my first time hearing this word. “The Snows of Kilimanjaro is a good read. You will also enjoy A Moveable Feast since you uniquely describe food” he suggested. The lazy reader in me shelved both books as I manoeuvred through the actual snows of Virginia, navigating trains and bus schedules was already a hassle. I was consumed with learning about this new college life and how to excel at it. And now I have professors that want us to express ourselves versus dump knowledge on a copy-paste model. All I wanted to read, was people.
15 years later, I reread both books. In a more detailed manner, with a different outlook and understanding of life. Hemingway is an artist that has lived through wars, near death experiences, exploring lands he made his own, reflecting on the occurrences of life in an artistic manner. His words would captivate any reader and visually immerse them in an experience once lived. I have yet to experience Paris, Barcelona, Cuba or Madrid. Now more than ever, I want to visit these cities with Hemingway in mind.
His writing gleaned my experience in a way that very few writers and journalists have accomplished. His words succinctly capture vivid experiences, taking a reader through geographic, religious, political, and culinary experiences without leaving the page. Paragraphs full of explicit emotions, and visually compelling imagination of natural and war-torn states.
Climbing Mountain Kilimanjaro allowed me to revisit my emotions, goals, relationships and relive my hopeful ambitions and some hopeless pasts. In the The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Hemingway describes Harry as part of the “Lost Generation” of World War I, who had to reconstruct themselves after being wounded in conflicts and warfares. Harry, the lead character in this story, relays his life story through a series of flashbacks as he confronts his past and assesses his life whilst on the mountain. In his self-evaluation, he realises many things including that he wasted his skill and artistry through procrastination and being complacent with life at a particular stage. The journey permits Harry to reconnect with himself, his battles, and his relationship with Helen, as he longs for one last chance and entertains hope.
Good things happen in the mountains; bad things happen on the plains.
Good company is rare, but company with self is much more rare in a bustling world. My solo climb was everything that Harry experienced, and I might have found my leopard, or I am that immortal leopard. I found solace in solitude and harmonised my thoughts, in which liberated me on a whim. My rescue plane, the journey to the summit, definitely arrived on time.
I am not as “seasoned” as Prof. Burton would have described or assimilated, but experiencing the four climate zones and vegetations of Mt. Kilimanjaro is close to the four seasons. The five days of walking and pushing through alpine deserts, thick rainforests, and rocky terrains, felt like I was caught in each struggle for forever. Eventually, without giving up, each tormenting day ended after a long fight, much like the phases of life.
Like Harry’s spirit, I am victorious. The summit, a reminder of the virtues of hard work, honesty, and struggle recalibrated my drive and passion. It has restored a sense of self, clarity in ambition and discovery of my strengths and weaknesses. Nothing in life comes for free, but everything you achieve is a result of hard work and conducive surroundings. The roof of Africa, where the view is “wide as all the world” is breathtaking. It is yours and yours alone to take in, even when with people or an army around you, you are there alone with your thoughts and emotions. Silence, solitude, strength, widened perspective and clarity behold. This is the gift of the Mountain.
Today and everyday from today, I will live to remember the moment of the summit and the struggles to achieve it. A resemblance of life, its journey and its everyday constrictions. Today, I have a story to tell about the “Mountain of God” I once considered a fictitious story.
Some are born to dance in glittering dresses, some want to tip toe on glistening mountains (or glaciers), dance to their own tunes of struggles, and sing songs with the Sun. Everyone wants to tell a story.
5th August 2020
