December 31, 2007: Frog, Kenya

Someone had a serious sense of humor when they developed the climbing area known as Frog. For starters, it is located on a crazy dirt road (parts of which are more riverbed than road) that turns into an impassable barrier of mud when it rains, meaning a quick evacuation at the first sign of moisture in order to avoid being trapped. Now add in the fact that the area is directly adjacent to Kenyan military training ground and you've got a real party. When I say "directly adjacent," I mean a stone's throw. Literally. One of the climbing spots is called Target Buttress because it is in line with earthen embankments that comprise the shooting range and contains stray bullet holes. There were so many shells around that Henry made a bracelet out of ones he picked off the ground one afternoon. The truck notes say that when the military is there they will usually grant a ceasefire for a person to gain access to the climbing. Thank you very much, but no. There is no way in Hell I would be asking for permission to climb while the military is there shooting wildly about (Luckily, they were deployed in cities in anticipation of election troubles.). And where did we park BiRT? At the base of Target Buttress. Which, ironically, has some of the best climbing in the area.

I was a little disheartened at first with the climbing at Frog. I was still on a trad kick, but the "easy" trad climbs seemed way harder than their Australian ratings. I tried a 14 that should have been a walk in the park and wound up having my ego handed to me in a sling. Thankfully, I felt somewhat better when I onsited a 16 that had really difficult moves right off the ground and no protection for 7-8 meters. The initial moves were so difficult that the two people following me both fell off several times each, and other people that had attempted the climb abandoned it after being unable to get off the ground. For some reason, the "easy" climbs had sandbag ratings and it wasn't until a person got into the more difficult climbs that the rating seemed to be more in line.

Ian gritting his way up a route:
I wanted to try top roping a harder sport climb with an eye toward leading it as I had been doing nothing but pretty easy trad for a few weeks, and finally got my chance on a 24. It was the third best climb I've done so far on this trip -- only because it was not longer. It had some crimps, some layback crack, some face climbing, some boulder-y power moves, and it was tough, but had great places to rest. My only regret is that I didn't lead it straight away because I never got another chance at it. The next morning we packed up and left in a hurry because the clouds looked like rain.

Although it ultimately didn't rain, it turned out to be a good thing that we left when we did, because things started to get a little crazy as a result of the elections. We were heading back toward Karen, a primarily well-off and expat district outside Nairobi, to spend the night and rendezvous with Emma who had been in the hospital there while we had been at Frog. The plan was to do shopping for our next destination, Mt. Kenya, that afternoon at the shopping center in Karen. However, there was some significant unrest as a result of the disputed elections that had taken place a few days earlier. The opposition leader, Odinga, had been leading by a significant margin in the voting counts, but then, somehow, the incumbent president, Kibaki, emerged as the winner. The shopping center was jammed with people withdrawing money and stocking up on supplies in case things turned ugly. Some of the group spent hours in the supermarket lines that snaked throughout the aisles waiting to purchase their food. At one point, the supermarket closed its doors and would not admit new customers. Not that it made much difference, most things were cleared out in a few hours anyway.

Rumors were rampant: the supermarket down the street had been torched, there were riots in cities, borders were shut down, curfews were in order. A man in a well-tailored business suit shouted into his cell phone "I don't care what it takes, get me out of here now!" I heard people in line mulling over escape routes out of the country. It was impossible to sort through fact and fiction, but that did nothing to lessen the underlying sense of urgency as people tried to gather what supplies they could. A few of us went to a bar in the complex to have a drink (it was New Year's Eve after all, plus I couldn't handle the crush of people throwing elbows outside) and met an older, expat couple who seemed rather relaxed. We asked them what they thought of the situation and the gentleman replied "We have plenty of supplies in the pantry and food in the freezer. What we don't know is how long all of this will be around [gesturing expansively around the bar] so we thought we'd come down and enjoy it."

It wasn't until I was in a cab with Matt B. and Drew running a couple of errands away from the shopping center that we heard some of the first reports of violence on the radio. And it was disturbing. In less than a minute we heard "shot," "butchered," "arrow in the head," and "circumcised." Yes, circumcised. Apparently, an angry mob had grabbed a couple of men and forcibly circumcised them on the street! Ok, not that I particularly want to be shot or butchered, but circumcised by a mob?! I do believe I'll take the arrow in the head option, please.

Although we were supposed to be going to Mt. Kenya, we spent the next few days holed up in our campground waiting for more information about the escalating unrest that would help us determine if we could proceed as planned or needed to make a run for the border.