To the top of the world Africa-style

This week, the LHRC is travelling to Moshi in Northern Tanzania for a three day retreat. At the retreat, the LHRC will assess its performance for 2008 and develop its work plans for 2009. As all the lectures and planning are in Swahili, my participation in the retreat will be limited to the social activities and continuing to write the Human Rights Report.

After the retreat, the LHRC has arranged for its employees and members of other civil society organisations to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to support a campaign against gender-based violence. At this point, I think there are 30 people climbing. We are starting the climb this Saturday and winding our way up the mountain on the so-called Coca-Cola route. There was a fair amount of back and forth as to whether the climb was going to happen, so I left my preparations for the climb to the last minute. Basically, this means that I spent last night knocking on my neighbours' doors to see whether they had any Kili-appropriate gear and I'll be making a quick trip today to Mr. Price to buy an extra pair of pants. Thank goodness, I brought some of the important stuff with me, like long johns, a toque and altitude sickness pills. Everything I can't find, we will rent when we get to the mountain.

In about ten days, I will be able to tell you whether I saw the top of Africa or if I just got a really good idea of what the top of Africa may look like. Wish me luck.