The First Hurdle

 

After being selected for the expedition to Ol Doinyo Lengai, I was super excited to get stuck into organising the trip but it wasn’t until out first meeting that I truly began to understand the task in hand.  

 

Firstly the trip needed approval by the Exploration Society and the University of Glasgow as scientifically worthy, safe and logistically achievable. I was part of the logistics team along with Jenny, Joanna and Ben and it was our job to essentially make the trip work.  This meant organising in-country transport, food, accommodation as well as flights. The issue with organising the in-country logistics is the difficulty in getting and keeping contact with the people out there. Initially we were planning to camp in the grounds of a hotel, which would provide us with 3 meals a day and water as well. However the hotel kept coming back to us with more and more expensive quotes so before long it was way out of our budget. We had to rethink.. This is when we explored the idea of wild camping and we decided the easiest way to do this would be to employ a team of local experts who know the area. We would need a chef, some drivers and some expert guides.  Jenny organised lots of skype dates and eventually after lots of emails chasing various people up, she found a company that would be able to provide all of the in-country logistics for a reasonable price. 

 

Now that we had the basic logistics in place I had to turn and focus on my position within the group as Health and Safety Officer. The deadline for the prospectus was looming and with exam pressure mounting I would be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling slightly overwhelmed. In the prospectus I had to provide details of emergency evacuation plans and create an informative booklet for team members about how to avoid dangerous situations and what the procedure should be if they were to happen.  The most memorable part of creating this booklet would definitely be researching all the dangerous insects and snakes we could come across in very unlikely (& unlucky) situations.  This was particularly daunting, especially when we came across the black mamba, a snake feared by all East Africans, that can kill a human within twenty minutes. Although I knew the probability of meeting one of these was extremely low we all decided it would probably be best to bring along an anti-venom for this one.

The prospectus was completed and handed in at the beginning of November 2014 and soon after, we found out that our expedition had been approved and commended by the Exploration Society.  This was a great relief but we were only over the first hurdle.  Since then the focus has shifted to fundraising. Our target at the moment is £15,000, which is an eye wateringly large number for me, however like the daunting prospect of getting our expedition approved in such a tight time scale, I feel this also achievable.

 

Our next fundraising event is a Ceilidh at the Glasgow University Union on the 24th of February. Tickets can be purchased for £5 from all team members before the night. For more information check out the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/945417298804247/?fref=ts

 

Written by Eadie McCallum.