Siodi Namunyak is a 24 year old teacher and former student from Tembea Girls School in Kajiado, Kenya. Tembea is apart of Beads for Education and their mission is to improve the status of women in Kenya through girls' education and women's business development. WHOA travel is proud to be friends and long-standing partners with this wonderful organization, and to provide life changing adventure opportunities to these amazing women! Since 2014, we've summited Mount Kilimanjaro with 4 women from the school, and in March 2016, Siodi will be the 5th Tembea woman to reach the summit of Kili with us...and on International Women's Day no less! Read, in her own words, what climbing to the highest mountain in Africa means to her.
Siodi, we're so honored to get to share this experience with you - see you in Tanzania!
THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO ADVENTURE
by Siodi Namunyak
Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to get to Africa’s peak next year. I am grateful to you and to Debby for making this possible. I am especially happy because many people at my level do not have the capacity and might never be able to get to that peak.
My main reasons of wanting to climb Kilimanjaro is to satisfy my spirit of adventure and also to test my limits. I have never seen snow in my life and I don’t know how my body will react to it as well as how its functionality will be affected. I have also never stayed for a day without taking a shower and I guess that is one of the things I will certainly forgo for a day or two. Besides, I was born right at the foot of Kilimanjaro, though on the side that faces Kenya, Amboseli. My parents and their ancestors have lived there with their livestock where they have co-existed with the wildlife of Amboseli. Since my childhood, I have woken up every morning and seen this feature that no Maasai history could explain to me until the time I gained formal education and knew it is a geographical feature. Now I can help someone understand such geographical happenings and their social implications. Climbing Kili, I believe will help me gain more knowledge and also virtues of life. When I asked Debby to try and get me to climb with you someday there was a part of me that started growing impatient as I waited for the response. Later, I thought that maybe that is the first lesson I should learn as I start the adventure, patience!
Siodi on a hike in the Ngong' Hills
Now I can’t wait for March. My friends from college all know that I will be on the adventure. We have been on several adventure trips together but this is incomparable. We have also been on several hikes on Longonot Crater, Menengai Crater and Karura Forest, all in Kenya. We are planning to go up the Ngong’ Hills at the end of this month.
Siodi and her friends on Menengai Crater
I look forward to getting fit by the time of the hike. I exercise every day, while at Tembea Academy where I work and also when I am out of Tembea. I play volleyball at school in the evenings and go for a 20 minutes run in the morning whenever the weather is favourable. I also take a 30-45 minutes’ walk to school whenever I don’t spend the evening in Tembea.
Thank you very much once more for granting me this opportunity.