Man-made

It’s cold in the tent, high up in the mountains. It’s been raining steadily for an hour and more, and the air is fresh and everything smells green. But it’s cold and it’s very ,very wet.

The sleeping bags are not warm enough and anyway, each time we turn, the zipper slides down with a protesting sound, exposing limbs to the cold , damp air.  Then, there is nothing to pillow the head on, and an arm that is put to use quickly develops pins and needles making things just that bit worse.

Frost settles on the tent tops, and some of us find  that the rain has found a way inside. The ground is wet under us!  We shift around and make the best of the dry patches left  around us. The days are pleasant but the climb uphill is tough, made just that bit tougher by the heat of the sun. The sun is warm,  even in the cold air, and burns through the skin.

We cover our faces as best as we can, pull down our sleeves to protect our arms, and trudge gaily on. Kilometres need to be covered before nature changes her mind. In the mountains bad weather  in the form of rain, sleet or snow, can mar one’s progress, dampen one’s outlook and create risk for body and mind. Life for the moment is about going ahead, one goal to another, one day to the other, one night, however tough, to the next.

And somehow, through it all, the mountain air, and the silence around us, keeps us buoyant, and full of hope. We even find ourselves singing as we walk the rough roads. The morning sun, as it washes down into the valley is a beacon of hope. The stars that fill the sky nudging the blue out of sight are a cause for joy.

The cloud rising in a plume as the wind hits a peak makes us stand and stare and reach for our cameras.

A dust covered glacier, hidden under the sediment of centuries makes us leave the narrow path that will take us to our goal, and  we set off on a detour. There is no real path down slope but we make one, carving it out of our need to go closer to something that we have never seen or touched before. The exhilaration of the exercise makes us forget our dusty feet and that our hands are grimy from our having clutched on to soil and rock…

Then it is all over and we are back in the city. The fumes from the cars hit us like slaps across our faces. The heat is like a sledgehammer on our backs. Blink once and it is as if one was always caught in this mesh of city life.

Come evening, and there is a trip up, the lights fail for all of six hours. Water taps run dry without the power to run the pumps. I find myself swearing and sweating, cursing the city and its accompanying ills. The fortitude that I had developed in the mountains, the never say die attitude, the ability to look beyond the immediate, is all lost, enveloped as I am in my habit of comforts taken for granted. I wonder what has changed in me. Just a day ago, nothing was too hard to bear; every comfort had been happily foregone.

I ask myself why am I complaining? This is the choice I and countless others have made. In fact, we as a civilization, have made. To trade the natural for the man-made.

 So when what we have made fails, who can we blame, but ourselves?