AT 19,341 feet above sea level, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania
dwarfs the highest peak in the Malvern Hills (Worcestershire
Beacon, 1394 ft), which is the terrain more typically explored by
the Bishop of Dudley, the Rt Revd David Walker.
Sitting in a tent last month during his ascent of Kilimanjaro,
the highest mountain in Africa, with the temperature dropping to
ten degrees below zero, he "prayed very hard for the strength to
make it to the top". Two weeks ago, he began the five-day climb, in
aid of maternity care at Berega Hospital in Tanzania, which he
visited last year.
"It is miles away from any kind of tarmac-type road, and serves
a very rural area," he said on Tuesday. "One of the main issues it
is dealing with is women who develop complications out in these
remote villages. It is a real difficulty getting them into hospital
safely." Funds raised by the Kilimanjaro climb will go towards
bringing earlier to hospital those at risk of such
complications.
Next door to the hospital is an orphanage for those whose
mothers died in childbirth. Tanzania has the 22nd-highest rate of
maternal mortality in the world (almost 40 times higher than in the
UK); and, despite a strong economic growth rate, it is one of the
world's poorest countries in terms of income per person. Bishop
Walker said that he chose to climb the mountain to reflect the
"very dangerous and demanding journey those women are taking".
Of the 13 people in the climbing party (the members included
teenagers and climbers in their 60s, nine made it to the summit
(pictured above).
"We started at about midnight, and the first lot got up there at
six, just in time for sunrise," said Bishop Walker. "I felt a huge
sense of achievement, and an awareness of how difficult it had
been. At the top there is less than half the oxygen [compared with]
the air that we normally breathe. There is this exhilarating view
looking down at the glacier below, and you think: 'I am on the roof
of Africa'."
To help the group double, by Christmas, the £5000 raised to
date, go to http://www.cofe-worcester.org.uk.