I haven't written any posts yet about my climb up Kilimanjaro. Quite the adventure...and what stories I have to tell... I think today I'll just focus on one tonight - dear Jackleboo.
Background: In the summer of 2005, I went to Africa. Since I was going to be in Africa I decided I might as well climb Kilimanjaro while I was at it. I have this dear friend named Stacy who is about as crazy as me...and decided to fly to Tanzania to meet me for the climb. (love you forever for this Stace!) There is, of course, way more to all of what I just said, but for now I'll leave it at that.
Story #1 - Jackleboo
Stace and I climbed up the mountain with Ed from Canada and 19 porters and guides. Lots of fellas were with us - some spoke English, some didn't. We had a sweet man who would bring our food to the dining tent for each meal. He had a huge smile and a kind face, but didn't seem to speak much English. Toward the beginning of the trip, I asked Stacy what his name was, and she said something to the effect of "Jackleboo." Well I was certainly puzzled by that as it's not a name you typically hear (even in Africa), but figured "what do we know" and proceeded to call him Jackleboo all week. After all, one of our guide's names was "Honest". When you consider that, how different is Jackleboo really?
We were around Jackleboo a lot. He would come by in the morning and yell to our tent that it was time to get up. He brought our food each evening to the dining tent. I still hear myself saying "Thank you Mr. Jackleboo." "How are you doing Mr. Jackleboo?" "Dinner was wonderful, Mr. Jackleboo."
all week long...
Sweet Jackleboo...I still remember the last night on the mountain - I was crying with Stacy in the tent about how bad we smelled - our clothes, our tent, everything. We had dirt crammed under every single fingernail. We had stopped brushing our teeth days back. We had lost all sense of decency...and sweet Jackleboo came by and gave Stace and I a warm bowl of water for us to soak our hands in... I can still remember us laying with our torsos out of the tent with our hands in that warm water. Gosh I wish I could thank him now for that.
At any rate, that evening we had our final dinner on the mountain with our guides. Jackleboo was serving the dinner as usual. Our head guide, Francis, was listing out the porters who had helped all week so that we could give a tip at the end of the trip. He wrote everyone's name and their job for the week. I looked at the paper. You can imagine my suprise when I read the words "Server - Jacob". WHAT?!?! JACOB...but our server is Jackleboo?? I still remember looking at Stacy across the table and saying - "His name is Jacob!?" She of course responded with something to the effect of "I swear I asked him and he said Jacaboo!" Which was also a suprise to me as I thought she had said Jackleboo earlier in the week. And all of the sudden, it sounded so clear to me - Jacob with a Swahili accent totally does sound like Jacaboo.
Well JACOB came back into the tent and we looked at him sheepishly and said "You're not Jackleboo?" And he got a BIG huge smile and shook his head no....
"You're Jacob?" And he got a BIG huge smile and shook his head yes....and this is where the apologies started.
Jackleboo - your kindness and your smile is not forgotten...and wherever you are... thank you for your graciousness to these two American dingalings :)
More Kili stories to come.
