People keep asking me if I’m nervous about Kilimanjaro. My son – who has recently turned 18 – told me that I’d better “get with the programme and start walking up LOTS of hills”.  So, yes I am nervous.  And yes, my son is right:  I have lots to do.  But it also occurs to me that I am in very good hands with Team Ubuntu.

Early this last Spring, Kilimanjaro Team 3 decided to choose a team name. A few names had been bandied about when Rolf Roth came up with one which blew the others away:  Ubuntu.  It means ‘I am because we are”.  Rolf had learned about Ubuntu when he was in Kenya and his driver had explained Ubuntu during a one and a half hour journey.  In Rolf’s own words, he was overwhelmed with the knowledge of the meaning of this philosophy.  In turn, each of us  “Kili Team 3” members took this name and message into our hearts.

“I am because we are”…for me, Ubuntu sums up my understanding of the essence of what this endeavor is and what we will learn from it.  Of course, I expect and hope to feel proud of ‘my’ accomplishment when we finish the climb. I expect and hope to contribute to and benefit from the teamwork it will take to get us to the top.  I expect to learn all sort of wonderful and useful things that I can apply to my role within the Group.  But more than all of those very important things, I think our brilliant team Ubuntu experience will give each and every one of us a real taste of the African philosophy that is Ubuntu.

My President Obama summed it up perfectly when he referred to Nelson Mandela:  “There is a word in South Africa — Ubuntu — that describes his greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that can be invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us…”

To me, it seems clear that looking after one another plays a major role in the success of humanity – whether its our species as a whole or our nations, our cities, our communities, our schools and businesses, our families, our teams of people…right down to the group of 12 that will be learning on the way up to the top of Kilimanjaro.

As the village child said: “How can one of us be happy when all the other ones around us are sad.”  Indeed.  From what I’ve seen so far from Team Ubuntu, I can rest assured that we will work together, strive together, climb together, succeed together and be happy together. Most of all, we’ll look after each other together.