Scaling Mount Kanturu - POP Season!

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"It was psychologically jolting, and for a second, I thought we might not be able to descend the hill. My funny mind kept flashing back to episodes on discovery channel where survivors were rescued using choppers, and I imagined myself being hauled into a chopper."

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EPISODE 1:

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After my not too honorable break from posting on this blog in mid-October, I thought it wise to, at least, round it up honorably. In NYSC speak, POP stands for Passing Out Parade, which is the event that marks the end of a service year for a particular batch.

Being a part of the passing out batch, I decided to make my last days in Kanturu community exciting. My goals were to: have no reason to think or say ‘I wish I had…’, catch as much fun as possible, and catch such fun legitimately.

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 Ergo, I decided, alongside Hillary, to climb a nearby hill. Kanturu community’s access road passes through a valley between two hills. As a result, the hills when viewed from a distance look like the pillars of a city gate and the intervening vegetation seem like the leaves of this imaginary gate (I assume your mind’s eye can form a decent image).

A batch B corps member, Nnadi, decided to join us for the expedition and we all wore our jungle boots to provide us sufficient traction for the steep mountainsides. I quickly grabbed a knapsack and packed in my mobile phones, a sachet of water, an indigenous snack (which I won’t disclose because it may shock you), groundnut, and Nutri-C.

We strode on the tarred road until we got to the entrance of Kanturu and then veered into the surrounding bush approaching the foot of the hill from a bird’s eye view, which is a straight line. Although, at first, I quivered for obvious security reasons, when we entered the thick bush, the smell of adventure caused some ‘fight’ adrenaline to drop into my bloodstream, which gave me boldness and heightened sensory acuity. In NYSCese, I was “good to go.”

I walked, ran and sometimes crawled on all fours up the hill. I had a good grip of the rock thanks to the NYSC boots and I did well not to look downwards. I noticed that I ran out of breath sooner, and so did my companions – perhaps because air gets thinner with an increase in atmospheric height.

Either way, whenever we stopped to regain our breaths we used the time to snap photographs. At some point in our ascent, I had to get a hold of Hillary’s hand for I felt I could easily miss a step and tumble down like “Jack and Jill who went to fetch a pail of water up the hill.”

At about fifty meters into the climb, the view of the surrounding thicket and nearby Kanturu was panoramic. I could see herd of cattle, with their faithful shepherd agrazing deep in the bush, and I wondered why cattle had to go so deep to feed. I wondered even more for the herdsmen who faithfully watched over the cattle, and I remembered Jesus who is the Good Shepherd.

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In say twenty thirty minutes, we were at the summit of the hill. The sun was just setting over the horizon and its indirect rays made everywhere surreal, but beautiful. I quickly lay on the flat peak and basked in my exhaustion. 

“ Hello – Ufuoma, Seun…. Make una come see us oo.” I heard Nnadi say on the phone.

Apparently, my colleague was calling the female corps members who were left behind in the corpers lodge to take a look at us from the peak.

“We dey see una came the almost chorused response from the phone’s speaker…”

One atop the hill, we began taking photos and enjoyed the conspectular view of the village. It was instructive to me that the towering houses in the village seemed as mere dots when viewed from the mountain top.

I believe that life has the same principle. While we struggle to achieve one worthy goal or the other, challenges seem insurmountable and the top looks like a dream, but when we do arrive at the top, we see that those challenges weren’t really so big after all. The lesson I have kept to my heart is this:

“Problems look different based on perspective, and I have a right to choose the best viewpoint – the top.”

I remembered to concoct my make-shift snack and enjoyed it too. You may call it high-level snacking if you wish.

 

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While the sun and moon fought for precedence in the sky, darkness appeared in the interregnum and we thought it was high time to go. As we walked to the side of the hill, we noticed that the precipice was much steeper than first anticipated.

Our first reaction was “how we take climb am sef?”

It was psychologically jolting, and for a second, I thought we might not be able to descend the hill. My funny mind kept flashing back to episodes on discovery channel where survivors were rescued using choppers, and I imagined myself being hauled into a chopper. I even fantasized about my celebrity status when national dailies would carry our pictures with the headlines “NYSC members rescued from a hill by the Nigerian Air force.”

We soon figured out a less steep path – although longer – and we traced a gently sloping spiral until we got to the foot of the hill. We arrived to a much darker semi-forest and soon got lost in the vegetation. 

Double wahala.

Somehow, we roved and roved in the bush until we found a bush track we recognized from our journey to the hill. The cashew trees in the bush were glad we had found our way and they cheered us temptingly with their ripe and big fruits. We eagerly fell for their appealing beckoning and ate the fruits with gusto.

We were soon home.

“Them don come O.” one of the ladies shouted upon our arrival.

“Una bin resemble three tiny dots for on top that rock.” Another added.

We laughed and laughed, but I remembered my lesson:

“Problems look different based on perspective, and I have a right to choose the best viewpoint – the top.”

WATCH OUT FOR EPISODE 2