Eight-year-old girl conquers Mt Kenya

 As the rest of Kenya woke up last Saturday to celebrate 57 years since the country conquered colonial rule, an eight-year-old girl was conquering the mountain that gave Kenya its name.

Elsie Akeyo reached Point Lenana, the highest point a person can reach on Mt Kenya without requiring specialised gear and training, at around 7.20am that day, completing a gruelling task that had taken months of preparation.

“We had fun,” an elated Elsie told the Sunday Nation earlier this week. “The experience was nice. Mt Kenya was very lovely.”

Her 10-year-old brother Darwin Dulo had reached the summit minutes earlier than her, and these two siblings with a gigantic passion for hiking have lifelong memories of their encounter with Africa’s second tallest mountain.

Had the authorities been keeping records of youngest people to reach the top of Mt Kenya, the siblings would have had their names slotted in the prime pages of those record books. But that is not to be, as an official at Mt Kenya National Park and Reserve said they do not record such data.

“Not at the moment,” she said on phone, adding that there are young children from international schools who go there for hikes but the park administration does not track who finishes the journey and how old they are.

Nine-member team

Darwin and Elsie were part of a nine-member team that had seven adults from the Rotary Club of Ngong Hills, which included their mother Rachel Kungu, that was on the ascent on Thursday, Friday and part of Saturday and on the descent for the better part of Saturday before they returned home on Sunday.

The hike was part of efforts by the Rotary Club to raise funds for the rehabilitation of the Ngong Hills Forest, one of the catchments of River Athi.

The club targets to raise Sh1 million by April 2021 to facilitate the planting of trees within a fenced paddock to ensure animals do not devour them before they mature.

The fundraising has been happening through the club’s “Walk and Hike” initiatives that have seen them climb a number of hills and mountains over the past few months.

John Mwangi, the club’s president, said the activities are to encourage exercise among members, besides raising funds to help restore the forest.

So far, the club has planted 2,500 trees on Ngong Hills Forest through involvement of the government and Rotary clubs in Karen, Kikuyu, Ongata Rongai, Kiserian, and Kilimani, among others. The Catholic Diocese of Ngong has also chipped in.

Hiking

It was at the start of those “Walk and Hike” events that Darwin and Elsie fell in love with hiking. That happened in August when the club went up Ngong Hills. Ms Kungu brought along her children. “I thought, ‘When I go with them, they will at least be outside, because they no longer go to school.’ But then it became like a passion to them. That is how now they started,” the mother said.

With that new-found passion, Darwin and Elsie would later accompany their mother and the other Rotary Club members in hiking William Hill, Mt Kilimambogo, Sleeping Warrior Hills, Elephant Hill, and finally Mt Satima before they went on to conquer Mt Kenya.

Darwin, who is in Standard Five, says the hikes have deepened his liking for science and social studies. “When you go to the hills and visit many places, then you get to see what teachers were telling you about,” he said. “And also, sometimes we study about soil, like there is volcanic soil on some hills; you go and see it.”

Elsie, whose favourite subjects are English and Science, also notes that hiking has enabled her to see the world in a way she could only have imagined about.

“The views are beautiful, and they are things we have never seen. We only see them in pictures in class. When you’re there in person, it’s always interesting,” she said.

The Mt Kenya hike, Elsie said, was not all rosy. It involved long walks, for instance on the final day, when they trekked from 3am to 6pm. It also involved doing with little sleep so that they could traverse the mountain within the scheduled timelines. They also did not shower until the final day.

Reached the peak

The mother says there were moments the girl would ask for time to “recharge”, and their guide gave them all the time they needed. It is for that reason that they reached the peak later than the rest of the group.

“Our guide was patient,” said Ms Kungu. “He told us ‘Going up is not a running business; you have to be very patient.’”

Elsie admits that the descent, where they headed to the Chogoria gate after ascending from the Sirimon side, was easier. She added that on the way down, they met someone who asked her age.

“Then he said, ‘Well done; keep it up,’” says Elsie.

Ms Kungu said such compliments giver her children the determination to hike mountains.

“What encourages them most when they are tired is when they meet the adults and they are told, ‘You have come up to this place? Wow, I’m proud of you.’ So, they get that motivation and they say, ‘You know, we have to reach the summit,’” said Ms Kungu.

And what surprised her was the fact that on Monday, a day after they returned to their home in Ongata Rongai, the children were out playing with others as if they had not faced a punishing Mt Kenya that weekend.

“I was like, ‘You guys are not feeling tired?’ They said, ‘No, mama; we’re fine,’” Ms Kungu said.

Is Kenya now too small for them? Ms Kungu laughed when asked that question then replied: “Kilimanjaro here we come.”

The mother added that the family is organising a party for the two youngsters this weekend to celebrate their hiking feat. The Rotary Club of Ngong Hills, which they can’t officially join until they are 12, also intends to throw a party for the hiking children even as it fundraises for tree-planting.

“To you parents out there, let your children hike,” Elsie said.

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