Meet The Awsome Adventurer as he tells Exquisite about his climb up Kilimanjaro
EXQ: Could you tell us about yourself and how the Kilimanjaro adventure was birth?
Awesome: My name is Joshua Awesome, I am a motivational speaker, a life coach, I compare at conferences and most recently, I have began a new phase of my life which is adventure and adventure for me is climbing mountains. So many people have asked the question why mountains? The mountain thing started for me three years ago. First and for most, from by background as a professional speaker which I have done for ten years, Am a professional member of the international federation of professional speakers. I had an opportunity to speak at an international conference three years ago where I meet a colleague of mine by the name Ronnie Muhl; he is the first South African to lead an expedition up Everest and he was speaking at the same conference I spoke at and I remembered when he shared his story up Everest, the entire energy he expressed was infectious and I will never ever forget. It was as if what he was saying was leaking out to the audience, to consider doing it also and that was the beginning for me. The seed of the desire to climb mountains was sowed in me and I thought about it, but I didn’t do anything about it but I remember clearly last year, I had spent some time researching about mountains because I wanted to understand a whole lot about mountains but the beautiful thing was my research was still tilted towards social responsibilities, because I found out that Sir Edmond Hillary is the first person to actually climb Everest and he also discovered that a lot of people in the shepherd community were actually suffering. They didn’t have any hospital in their community, they also didn’t have a school so Sir Edmond Hillary used his climb to draw attention to the community and eventually, the school got constructed, Hospital got built and several transformation came to the community by virtual of his climbing, so I thought someone climbing a mountain can bring attention to a country, a community and possible to a cord, so I want to believe that was what really inspired me and got me going that I decided and contacted my friend who is the first South African to lead an expedition up Everest; I told him I wanted to climb Kilimanjaro and he was excited because he’s led a lot of people up Kilimanjaro, Elbrose which is the highest in Europe and EBC which is called Everest Base Camp, because if you must climb Everest you need to do the base camp first so your body gets acclimatized. I asked him to send me a form, so I filled the forms and sent it back to his office and I began to prepare, spending lot of time studying and understanding and finding what is required of me to make a successful summit of the huhurupic (huhurupic is a Swahili word for freedom) which means if you get to the very top of Kilimanjaro, you’ve experience freedom. I took time to study and understanding a whole lot Kilimanjaro, mountain climbing and I also found out that 22, 000 people attempt Kilimanjaro every year and about 40% of the 22, 000 never make it to the top and 2 of every 4 that made it to the top never make it down alive. The figures were staggering and all these figures were in my head as I was preparing but I was very conscious of taking my exercises very seriously. Something very interesting happened while I was preparing, as a professional speaker, I attend conferences not just to speak but to also learn and the more you learn you can help others learn and as they say, “The more you learn, the more you earn”. I went for two conferences prior to climb Kilimanjaro and I remember one of the conferences was called Brand Africa which was specifically set up to draw African representatives from around the continent to talk about the affairs of Africa but tacky, no other Nigerian was present at that conference except me, so I felt honoured to be the only Nigerian in that conference zone. The conference was held at the Fountain Convention Centre and I remembered clearly one of the key note speaker who is a nation branding expert by name Simon Hanhault, who has branded 33 countries s at the last count so during coffee break, I walked up to him and asked ‘You talked about nations and branding and you said it’s a waste of Government investors to try to brand their nation by advertising on TV networks’, and he said to me yes. So I asked him how will a nation brand itself, so he said one of the ways a nation can brand itself is by looking for people who are doing positive things in that country and show casing them to the world so I said to myself, am a Nigerian who has had the opportunity to speak at a few conferences not just locally but also aboard and here am I thinking of climbing Kilimanjaro and not just climbing Kilimanjaro but also planting Nigerian national flag at top Kilimanjaro, which has never been done before so I felt really honoured and motivated to take up that climb with Nigerian national flag which became my very first goal.
The second goal was to look for a social project to tie it to. I attended another conference and this time this conference had nothing to do with my professional passion but it had a lot to do with giving back because I know lots of medical people always give back someway somehow. So I went the IPAC (International Paediatrician Association Congress) because I wanted to network and meet a lot of people. Incidentally during coffee break again, I was seated with a friend so he went to get himself some muffins and coffee and by the time he returned, a couple of Americans had come and wanted to have their seat. We introduced ourselves and I told them that one of the reason am at this conference is to meet people, and don’t forget that I had done research on Sir Edmond Hillary and written specifically in my column with Business day and it was focused on social responsibilities, so I was looking or more persons to interview when I met these people and I was excited to meet them. I told them about interviewing them and they agreed, but they wanted to know the reason for the interview and where it was going, so they were excited to share when I told them about me, but I didn’t know why until they told me that the woman amongst them is actually a Doctor’s Doctor (A mentor to younger doctors) and she’s been lecturing for over 15years and she also brings them to African to see some of the diseases they learn about in medical school. The second person amongst them told me that he and couple of his friends built the first clinic and Ultra sound and scan machine centre in Upper Volta Ghana and the clinic serves the entire community. How do they maintain this facilities, they buy Art work from Africa and they take it to the US and sell them and ship the fund back to Africa and they’ve been doing this for 15years. I felt I had gotten all the information I needed and wanted to leave when they told asked me to meet someone, who is their mentor, a white elderly man walks up and took his seat and was smiling, so I wondered why, but I suspected he knew they were talking about something related to him and their profession. When he sat, we introduced ourselves and he said to me ‘my name is Michael Saba’. He is the Executive Director for Stamford Health Foundation, which is a non profit organisation that seats on the ground of $400,000,000. What they do basically is that they take donated Dollars from their $400,000,000 and look for a deserving nation, community and try and get people with that community to raise about $2.5Million and then get their government to provide free land and then they match the funds and construct a clinic that looks like a castle. I was blown away when Professor Michael Saba found out that I wanted to climb Kilimanjaro and I was looking for a project to tie my climb around so he handed me his brochure. As I prepare to climb, I got a renewed motivation and that was how the whole thing started. To also make me know that they are serious about this project, they took a photograph with me and officially handed me the folder. On our official website, there is a letter written by Stamford Health Foundation endorsing me and looking forward to a castle clinic being constructed in Africa. When I came back to Nigeria, I was listen to the news and I heard that 200,000 children die in Nigeria every year, over lack of paediatric care so that hit me and I said to myself, that I can tie this to my climb and several media brand are supporting and telling this story, so it getting the world prepared so when we are going to have a fund raising here in Nigeria, we can actually raise and people will show up and support the call to reduce the number of children that die in our country because of lack of paediatric care.
Haven spoken for ten years to over thousands of people, I wanted a whole new unique experience, not somebody else’s story and today I have eight lessons I learnt on the way up Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro is 19, 340 (Nineteen thousand three hundred and forty) above sea level and it takes about seven days to get to the top but I climbed Kilimanjaro in six days. I thing preparation played a major role and which is one of the lessons I learnt on the way to the top. I have a saying which is “If you are not ready for Kilimanjaro, the mountain will tell you when you get on it”. When you are not ready for Kilimanjaro, on the way up your body will basically say no, both by you having High altitude sickness, aches etc and these are illness that affect your living. I am excited to say that I didn’t just prepare but I prepared for three and half months.
EXQ: Tell us about your Exercises?
Awesome: The first month, I was expected to hike: take a long walk for about 5KM. The second thing I needed to do was to make sure I drank about 6liters of water everyday now these things actually helped me on the mountain, because as you climb higher it gets colder and you lose appetite. On the mountain there are mountain nutritionists who prepare meals for you on the mountain including soups and trust me they are wildly experienced in what they do. My mountain guard has climbed Kilimanjaro 177 times, so leading me up meant he had done it 178 times. There are also seven other persons who were helping me, they carried water to an extent of the mountain and by the third day we had water from the rock to drink and trust me we had spring water and the air there is total fresh and different from what we have down here and even when people saw me descending, they said I was looking well.
EXQ: Next Mountain?
Awesome: I actually did the toughest route climbing Kilimanjaro which is called Hubuwe route and that route is used to train mountain guards, so when I got to the top they told me that they had just taken me through the toughest route which meant that I was to lead people up the mountain. Am leading the first all Nigerian Group up in September 2011 and we are looking at 10 people but we are going via the easiest route which is called the coca cola route and that takes about four to five days but in 2012 am going to climb Elbrose which is the highest mountain in Europe Russia, 2013 I will be attempting Everest. I have set out goals and am ready to keep persevering until I can raise $2.5Million to build a castle clinic.
We are going to be using several strategies to raise the fund for this project, one of it is having a photo exhibition at Tera Kulture on the 26th of June and our goals with the photo exhibition is to showcase the exclusive photographs that I took on the mountain. Whilst we preparing for Kilimanjaro in September, we are excited that National Geographic was interested in the documentary and discovery network am hoping that Mnet will support and there is a major news network that wants to actually produce the documentary with us up Kilimanjaro and they are talking to one of Nigerians top banks about at and we are excited about it. I want to tell you this authoritatively that I will take Nigerians flag up all the seven highest mountains in the world.
EXQ: Advice on the benefits of climbing?
Awesome: Every year from 2011, am going to have two public expeditions aside the once that I will be lead to climb mountains that I have never climbed before, I will lead Nigerians up Kilimanjaro every year and I have two, the first for professionals and the second for students. One other thing am planning to do is seeing the possibilities of climbing Nigeria’s mountains or hills and bring some attention to it. Tourism is tied to this also where we are hoping that state governments whose states are mountainous can actually sponsor the climb and media films the climb and get a whole lot of story out of it, it will draw so much attention to that state.
I will continue to give key note speeches around my climb at conferences, seminars and retreat. One of the things I learnt on the way to the top is patience which is called pulepule in Swahili. If you must get to the top of Kilimanjaro you have to be patient. These are some of the lessons I have learnt and they have shaped my life as a person and I believe it will also shape the lives of so many people, help them to become better people.
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