By the time you read this, radio personality Laimi Elago will be somewhere up the 5 895-metre high Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Having started the trek on Saturday, Elago and 21 other women took on the adventure as part of the Women’s Day Summit for Women by Women.
At around Saturday 13h00, she was on Camp 2, situated some 3500 metres above sea level. They are expected to complete the expedition on Friday.
Each woman and, by extension, the men on that mountain right now, decided to take on Mount Kilimanjaro for one or other reason.
For Elago, it is a way to deal with the grief of losing a loved one.
“This has been a mental health journey for me and my story is about grieving, having lost a dear and a loved one. It’s me being on a fitness journey, which is part of my mental health,” she told VIBEZ! before jetting off to Tanzania to climb Africa’s highest mountain.
Elago shared that she was supposed to be put on anti-depressants but that’s a route she didn’t want to take.
“I fought hard and told my therapist those aren’t for me and we deliberated on other ways of healing and dealing with my grief and fitness, and working and moving my body was an idea that was birthed out of that.”
On her journey of continuing the quest of finding her purpose and keeping fit at the same time, Elago teamed up with Saray Khumalo, one of the first black women to climb Mount Everest in Nepal, to conquer Mount Kilimanjaro.
“Saray has got an inspiring story she wrote about in a book called ‘My Journey to the Top of the World’, which is how I got started on my journey. I picked up a book from Exclusive Books and the next thing you know, I’m following her. I find her very inspiring,” said Elago.
Of Khumalo, she said: “When she went to Everest, nobody expected her to summit because she was a black African woman. That’s how they looked at her; people were very rude to her. But she’s just trying to create this belonging, especially for black African women that we do belong on these mountains.”
Khumalo has conquered six mountains since she first climbed Kilimanjaro in 2012 and even did a South Pole expedition in 2019.
Earlier this year, Khumalo went on social media, looking for 20 women to go with her to Kilimanjaro and Elago decided to tag along.
“The goal is to challenge myself. I want to inspire others because that’s what Saray did for me when I read her book: That a woman from an African village can reach the heights of Everest and that I too can challenge these mountains not only the physical ones but the metaphorical ones as well.”
The journey doesn’t stop there, Elago told VIBEZ! that her crazy dream is to reach the highest peaks of all African countries.
“We need to learn and know more about intra-Africa travel. It’s a crazy dream but I can try. This is going to be mental health journey for me,” said Elago.
Fellow media personality Hilda Basson-Namundjebo, who has also been to the top Mount Kilimanjaro, wished Elago well on her journey and shared some tips.
“You also begin to lose hope that you’ll make it although you see that you are making progress. The secret is to put one foot in front of the other. You will eventually get there. Don’t worry about people overtaking you or about people looking stronger and fitter,” she said.
Basson-Namundjebo also advised Elago to trust the guides and go slow, saying “The anthem of Kilimanjaro is ‘pole, pole’, meaning slow, slow when translated from Swahili”.
Among other tips, she also shared that moisturising the skin is vital, even without taking a shower, and for Elago to prepare for how the rocks and stones under her feet will make her suffer.
Along with taking in a minimum of two or three litres of water per day, Basson-Namundjebo said Elago should make sure to eat well.
“Eating is hard on Kilimanjaro but you have to eat those meals; proper, big breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, because you need the energy,” she stated.
Elago’s adventure was made possible through her employer Radio Wave and Momentum Namibia Insurance.