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10/17/2018 08:30 AMShe went to Tanzania for the first time last year on a volunteer vacation, working in a village near the mountain.
“I was motivated to go after I recovered from cancer surgery and did well and felt like…I want to give back,” she says. “I volunteered at this small school—it’s a non-government organization school—and fell in love with these kids.”
Living in the village, Kathleen says she’d see Kilimanjaro every day and decided that, one day, she would climb it.
“I know so many people now in Tanzania. I always feel safe and supported,” she says.
After some training, Kathleen returned to Tanzania in September 2018 to climb the mountain and raise funds for the Step Up Center school and for the nonprofit organization for which she is the CEO, the Institute for Healthcare Communication (IHC).
The woman who started Step Up Center “wanted to teach respect, she wanted to teach good hygiene…That was her wish, to go beyond the strict reading, writing, counting,” Kathleen says.
The school teaches students from three to about seven years old, often drawing up to 70 students per day, all taught by a few teachers and volunteers.
The money Kathleen is hoping to raise is intended to help the school expand its building to fit all the children the program attracts. But she also wants to support the IHC by contributing to a scholarship program for hospitals and other organizations that could benefit from IHC’s programs but cannot afford the training.
So far, Kathleen has raised $7,000 from her climb. Her GoFundMe page is still open. Donations to Step Up Center and IHC can be made at www.gofundme.com/mount-kilimanjaro-climb.
“Everybody’s been so generous,” she said. “It’s been wonderful.”
Kathleen is confident the money will be well spent.
“We train doctors, nurses, anybody who works in healthcare, how to improve how they communicate with their patients,” Kathleen said.
She says that she came to work for the organization through the backdoor. She was one of the actors the organization hires to portray patients in the training of healthcare professionals. With her background at a VA hospital, she was very interested in the non-profit’s work.
Her background hadn’t prepared her to scale one of the planet’s most impressive peaks, however. Kathleen trained for four month in preparation for the eight-day climb on Kilimanjaro.
“You’re talking hiking on very uneven surfaces and balance is really important and altitude is really the wild card. It’s over 19,000 feet,” Kathleen says. “But I think a lot of it’s in your head. You got to have the right mindset.”
Together with a couple from the United Kingdom, Kathleen climbed over boulders and rocks for an average of five hours per day.
“Every day was different and beautiful,” Kathleen says. “The final ascent, that’s the big one.”
They started the climb at midnight, wearing four layers and a headlamp, marching up a glacier to catch the sunrise from Kilimanjaro’s summit.
“Everything is polepole, which in Swahili means ‘slowly,’” she says.
Kathleen said she had a tough time on the final ascent, having to stop several times. Once, when she tried to stop, her guide asked her if she wanted to turn around. But she wouldn’t do it.
“Something switched…something in my head. It was like determination,” she says. “This is gonna kick my butt, but I’m gonna make it. And that’s what did it.”
After that, Kathleen made it all the way to the Uhuru summit, a word that means “freedom” in Swahili.
“Everything was shining bright. It was pretty darn cool,” Kathleen says.
The climb was hard, Kathleen said. On their trip back down the mountain, it poured rain. She had to do the final leg in four wet layers.
“The thing was…that rain down there was snow up above. They got like 2 ½ feet of snow,” Kathleen says. “So just one night’s difference and, who knows, we might not have made it.”
Kathleen, who just turned 63, says that she took it as a badge of courage being the oldest person to sign into each camp. Her age may have helped explain another notable aspect of her trip.
“You know what didn’t bother me at all? Being disconnected. It never even occurred to me. I was amazed,” she says.
Kathleen says she’s always liked hiking, though she plans on savoring her Kilimanjaro hike for now.
“It’s very meditative. It’s time to reflect,” she says. “You’re with yourself. You can’t be on the phone…It’s nice. You can’t beat nature.”