Isolating on Mt. Kilimanjaro made it easy to forget about pandemic

 Photos and article by Tony Mangia

At first, going to Tanzania during a pandemic seemed like a crazy idea, but the restlessness from months of self-isolation was numbing and the lure of conquering Mount Kilimanjaro just too strong.

The Machame Trail is one of the most popular — and shortest — of the seven main routes up Kilimanjaro. It is usually a seven-day trek with a difficulty rating of challenging, but my team (a guide, a chef and four porters) and I made the top in six.

My guide, Michael, told me mid-September was usually one of the busiest times on Kilimanjaro, but COVID had discouraged or scared away most tourists — even the adventurous ones. 

The Machame’s thirty-seven miles of up-and-down footpaths, dotted with many rock, gravel and scramble sections, are hailed as some of the most awe-inspiring trails in the world. The numerous panoramic views helped take my mind off the rugged hike while I plodded on. 

Climbing independently made it difficult to pace myself against anyone except the porters who always passed me a couple of hours after I left them breaking down the campsite — and with 25 kilos of gear on their heads, to boot. 

But the solo aspect of my journey had it benefits.

There were many moments, looking out onto the magnificent horizon alone, with the unseen mountain’s silent power always looming, which lent themselves to quiet contemplation. These special instances, concurrent with the lack of internet and television, made it easy to forget about all the troubles in the world — including COVID-19. 

A sort of social media distancing.

There were cold nights (15°F) and foggy mornings bookending the usually sunny days. I’ll never forget the invigorating scramble up The Baranco Wall — an intimidating, winding artery of slippery rocks — or crossing the moonlike Alpine Desert  and a snow-showered lunch at Lava Rock.

Staring up at the Milky Way through the chilly, nighttime air, made it was easy to wax poetic about the journey I was undertaking, but, when my hands were too cold to scribble or the dazzling view actually left me speechless, there would be a traditional celebratory dance with song by my team under the million-year gaze of Kilimanjaro the morning after my summit that paid tribute to its majesty.

My pre-dawn, moonlit start from base camp to the crest also rewarded me with a glorious sunrise breaking over the surrounding peaks before reaching the top — hypoglycemia and altitude sickness be damned.

Descending down Mweka Trail, when the six days of inspiration, seclusion and media-free introspection was nearing an end, it was easy to imagine that all of the world’s problems had vanished — coronavirus and all. 

Isolation isn't so bad … if you find the right place to do it.

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Making veterinary house calls in Tanzania with Dr. Maguo

Article and photos by Tony Mangia

Animal welfare in Tanzania seemed like a simple enough volunteer program to sign up for once I made the decision to “get away” this past fall during the pandemic, but I didn’t expect to find myself poking needles under fur and getting elbow deep in body fluids, all with the aspiration of helping keep creatures — including myself — safe in a remarkable land far away from my isolation bubble at home.

This was my eighth volunteer stint at different worldwide outposts over the past five years, but, this time, the excursion came with the threat of an invisible menace — namely COVID-19. 

Overseas volunteering is a proclivity I do twice a year for three to four weeks — with a  week or two of adventure mixed in. On this trip, I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro before my volunteering stint began and, like almost anyone else going anywhere nowadays, it was my first time traveling during a worldwide pandemic, so there was that added sense of risk as well.

Before leaving in September, I did get a flu shot and had considered getting a rabies pre-exposure immunization, after I was told I be working closely with animals, but the injection timeline — three shots spread out over 28 days — didn’t fit my schedule or my macho sense of immortality. So that inoculation was ignored — quite irrationally.

I would be spending two weeks with the International Volunteer Headquarters program in Arusha, Tanzania. IVHQ is a reputable organization with a variety of worldwide programs based out of New Zealand — six of which I already had satisfactorily completed with them. 

There was a standard orientation and meeting with some of the volunteers in other IVHQ programs (mostly childcare) my first night at the hostel in Arusha. Not surprisingly, COVID restrictions and worries had narrowed down the usually larger number of volunteers, but there were still about a dozen twenty-somethings from different locales such as Mexico, Switzerland, England and the US already there. IVHQ took a lot of care to safeguard its enlistees from the virus, as well their all-around safety. We were in good hands.

Each day, I would be picked up outside the home where I would be residing for almost three more weeks (There would be a four-day safari in-between). I preferred paying a little extra for a private homestay in order to avoid the noisier coming-and goings of the younger volunteers inside the group dorms. As a bonus, I get to live with, and get to know a local family.

On my first day, waiting outside the gate of my temporary home, Dr. Maguo — a genial, neat-looking man in khaki pants and button-down shirt with what already seemed a permanent smile — waved me over to his jeep-SUV hybrid with the PAWS (Protection of Animal Welfare Society) logo on the doors and tire cover.

Inside the vehicle were two other freewill engineers (my personal euphemism for us volunteers) — Liam — a 20-year-old from New Hampshire and Julien — a 75-year-old Canadian from Halifax — together, a nice combination of polar-generational perspectives in the mix. 

Liam had already been in Arusha with his wife Jordan for a few weeks and the young couple planned to spend the next four months in Tanzania. Julien — a retired dentist — was, like myself, on his first day of the job.

The doctor gave us a brief background of his experience and explanation of his official duties — with a fairly impressive command of English — while we drove to our first assignment.  His ancestors came from the Chagga tribe — the second largest group in Tanzania behind the Sukuma — and he has a masters degree in zoology and a BS in environmental science (both from Atlantic International University in Honolulu) plus a doctorate in veterinary medicine. He grew up around Arusha and has been working as a veterinarian since 1990. 

I found myself addressing him as Doc in some casual settings. He didn’t seem to mind.

Doc and his wife Evelyne established Elang'ata Agro-Vet Services — legally registered by the Tanzania Government — in 1997 as a way to promote animal rights and provide for their welfare, while at the same time educate people by offering advice and free veterinary services.

Since 2010, Dr. Maguo has been working as the District Animal Welfare Inspector in Arusha. Prior to this he was the district subject matter specialist in disease control, meat hygiene and inspection, artificial insemination and small and large animal production.

To put it mildly, he was, and is, a dedicated animal specialist whose enthusiasm for his work is well … infectious.

Elang’ata Agrovet provides a number of animal welfare services and sells veterinary supplies and medicines, but the one crusade that Dr. Maguo, as founder of Arusha Society for the Protection of Animals, spends a great deal of time on is combating the scourge of rabies — known as Kichaa cha Mbwa Kinaua or “madness of dog” in its Kiswahili name —  as much as his resources allow. We just called it Kichaa for short.

Dr. Maguo has been taking on volunteers like Liam, Julien and I to help in his quest for about 10 years now. 

For the most part, like an old-fashioned country doctor, he does mostly personal house calls — only with pets and livestock. But, when Dr. Maguo does mass dog vaccinations and promotes rabies prevention in the temporary rural health centers he sets up around Arusha, it turns into an amazingly grand scene. 

Until then, we would be making the rounds with Dr. Maguo — watching and learning — during the house calls.

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Seeing Tanzania during pandemic made it more than an adventure

 Article and Photos by Tony Mangia 

There weren’t too many countries in the world accepting visitors when I made a concerted effort to escape from my COVID-19 cocoon at home this past spring. Then, after languishing on my own throughout the summer, a September window of opportunity to get away from the isolation arose, and I broke out my cobwebbed passport and made plans for Tanzania.

My previous plans for an overseas expedition in April were dashed — like so many others were — when flight limitations, the fear of contacting and, possibly, spreading COVID or finding myself stranded in a foreign quarantine ward were, for lack of a better phrase, at a fever pitch.

So, during the summer months, I watched as coronavirus cases spiked and subsided around the globe, even wondering if I would ever be able to travel overseas again without all the excess baggage a person would now need to bring along — namely COVID plus all of the concerns, and even guilt, associated with it. 

In all honesty, traveling with the pandemic scare only added to my sense of adventure and the urgency to leave.

Meanwhile, I waited patiently, somberly gazing at my computer screen, reliving photos of my past faraway journeys and researching all I could about the virus, until I contacted a doctor friend (an infectious disease specialist) who assured me it was okay to travel, but stick to the standard precautions like masks, hand-cleaning and social distancing. As simple as those well publicized safeguards were, her professional reassurance and tone went a long way in helping to make my decision. So, after months of anxious, self-imposed seclusion at home and, after Tanzania re-opened its borders, my mid-September take-off couldn’t come soon enough.

And it would be worth every bit of the precautionary frustration and health advisory red tape just to break free of my tiny quarantine bubble.

My September-October itinerary would include a two-week animal welfare volunteering stint in Arusha sandwiched between a seven-day climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro and four-day safari in Serengeti National Park.

Looking back, I don’t know what was a crazier idea — going to Tanzania and attempting a world-class climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro or just going to Tanzania during a world-wide pandemic in the first place?

But also, in retrospect, the global virus — which had basically kept us all locked up at home — was a catalyst fueling a desire to challenge myself and take more risks, especially anywhere far away.

And what better way to isolate and break the boredom of self-quarantine than making a solo climb on the deserted trails of a lone mountain? 

Talk about taking social distancing to an extreme. 

It would be my first time in Tanzania, so it goes without saying that the climb up Kilimanjaro would be a new accomplishment. I did a safari in Kenya a few years ago, but, even so, whenever you have a chance to see the wildlife of Africa up close, you do it.

And the volunteer program, well … who knew what to expect dealing with that?

I did get a seasonal flu shot in advance and, after being informed I would be physically handling many different animal breeds in the volunteer program, I considered getting a rabies pre-exposure immunization, as well. But that injection’s timeline — three shots spread out over 28 days — didn’t fit my schedule or my macho sense of immortality. So that inoculation was, quite irrationally, ignored.

So, despite that bit of recklessness, the trip was on. I packed the normal essentials plus those hard-to-find-over-there extras: headlamp, batteries and baby wipes. Then I added some new first-time carry-ons — including about a dozen face masks, rubber gloves and a half-dozen, pocket-sized bottles of hand sanitizer — to what I usually pack in my luggage.

A few maddening domestic flight changes by the airline (Departure from Dallas, then Chicago, then New York City) in the pre-flight weeks and having the overseas take-off pushed back (from Thursday to Friday) and Tanzanian airport rerouted (Dar es Salaam Airport was restricted because of COVID) to Kilimanjaro International only days before takeoff turned my whole departure into a convoluted logistical mess.  And when I finally got to the Tampa check-in starting point, an agent then asked for my “negative COVID test.” 

Of course, I hadn’t gotten one. 

Should Fans Blame Owners or Players If MLB Season Is Cancelled

By Tony Mangia

While MLB owners and the player’s union present their proposals for the 2020 season to commence after the COVID-19 virus pandemic flattens out, a complicated financial and health concern battle is taking place between the two sides. But to fans looking in, the real question is whether the owners or the players will be held responsible for sealing or breaking a deal which ushers in a new season of baseball.

And most fans don’t care if they throw spitballs at each other, the only curve they care about isn’t a pandemic, it’s a pitch.

Photo illustration by Tony Mangia

It’s been over two  months since MLB locked its gates. The normal pent-up anticipation of a new baseball season compounded with the onset of the pandemic lockdown has left home-confined fans with a huge sports void many have never experienced in their lives. 

There were some intriguing major league storylines which were on the hot stove before the COVID-19 hit. They included would Gerrit Cole’s presence help get the Yankees over their World Series slump? Could Mike Trout win his fourth MVP — and two in a row — or are the Mets rotation and the Dodgers lineup as good as advertised. 

So without a 2020 season, fans will never get to see how many times an Astros player gets hit by a pitch either.  Come to think about it, if the season does resume with no fans in the stands, the villainous Astros might be the only team happy to welcome the stadium void because it means not getting booed incessantly at each away game. 

If the season does get a reboot, a host of intriguing developments might include how that newly instituted universal DH rule will affect the National League game strategy or how many times players get thrown out of a game for spitting. And how that forehead thermometer in the dugout becoming more important than the radar gun behind home plate?

It’ll also be interesting to see if any high-profile celebrity fans get use of the private viewing suites for a price. My money is on Jay-Z, Jerry Seinfeld or Charlie Sheen.  After all, Sheen did buy a whole seating section of an Angels game just so he could catch a foul ball.

All moot points if the season is cancelled.

Like most American’s lives, almost every aspect of MLB has been impacted by COVID-19. Besides the complete shutdown of the season, the Hall of Fame has since announced its annual induction weekend will not be held as planned this July. Instead, the Hall of Fame hopes to hold a tandem induction weekend in 2021. The draft, meanwhile, has been shortened to five rounds, with draftees receiving significantly less money over the next two years.

So, with plenty of time to contemplate — or stew — in solitude, who will the fans side with or blame if the 2020 MLB season is cancelled?

It’s logical to think that the typical sports fan can sort of relate to the players — more than owners — because most fans are usually salaried workers too. But those same fans might draw a line at that bromance with the professional athletes whom they often perceive as pampered prima donnas making in a single game what the average working stiff earns in a year … playing a game at that!

But their perception of fat cat team owners with stacks of old money isn't exactly relatable either.

So on those points, let's call it a push between blaming the owners and players.

Owners-1 Players-1.

Last week, the owners and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred sent a proposal to MLBPA and the two sides began negotiations to salvage the season and, in some cases, some franchises. 

The league’s proposal includes an early July target date for Opening Day. Other plans include the afore mentioned universal DH, an expanded postseason field, precautionary health measures and a revenue-sharing plan that would lead to players taking pro-rated pay reductions. Besides the minuscule health concerns, that pay cut  — for the lighter workload —  is already a major sticking point with the player’s union. 

And, if only getting paid for games they actually play chafes the players' rosin bags, well, that  is one negotiating issue where the average sports fan will most likely side with the owners and not the players. 

Owners-2 Players-1.

Several players have already spoken out since MLB's proposal was approved by the owners and submitted to the MLBPA —  and it includes a couple of big names. But, if it comes down to these highly-paid players refusing to take a pay cut causing the season to be cancelled, this might be the last straw for the fans when they take sides.

Can you say boycott?

Adam Jones, who played 14 seasons in the big leagues and is currently with the Orix Buffaloes in Japan, called on the game's star players to speak out against the proposal. Some have, including the Tampa Bay Rays Cy Young-winning pitcher Blake Snell.

“Bro, I’m risking my life. … If I’m going to play, I should be getting the money I signed to be getting paid.,” Snell opined. “I should not be getting half of what I’m getting paid because the season’s cut in half, on top of a 33 percent cut of the half that’s already there — so I’m really getting, like, 25 percent. On top of that, it’s getting taxed. So imagine how much I’m actually making to play, you know what I’m saying?

“I’m just saying, it doesn’t make sense for me to lose all of that money and then go play. And then be on lockdown, not around my family, not around the people I love …”

A lot of people trashed Snell for sounding motivated by money and not the game, but one one of the league’s biggest and most recognizable stars backed him.

“He ain’t lying, he’s speaking the truth bro. I ain’t mad at him.” said Phillies star, Bryce Harper, about Snell’s statement. “Somebody’s gotta say it, at least he manned up and said it. Good for him.”

Snell, as well as other players on his side, might see this as righteous, but many fans see him as greedy, self-serving and ungrateful to have a job. A lot of fans remember the baseball strike of 1981 and see this 2020 showdown as another hard-headed owners vs. over-paid players battle which leaves the fans out.

Think about all of the people out of work these days, struggling to pay their rents and mortgages and actually protesting to get back to their jobs. This might be the majority of the MLB fan base. It’s definitely not the main stream media talking heads and do-nothing politicians who preach to the masses about staying home while all that time they are still collecting a paycheck.

Score another run for the league. Owners-3 Players-1.

Granted, that with fans watching games on TV in the safety of their own homes and owners doing it from sanitized suites and mansions, it is the players who are taking all of the real health risks. But how much of a threat could it be for players to play in empty stadiums, with limited and distanced staff and personnel, special transportation, sanitized housing and the best preventive measures and professionals to keep them safe? You come in more contact with people scouring the aisles for toilet paper at Walmart.

And why wouldn’t games played in front of empty stands work? Fan-less baseball games seem to be okay in South Korea.

The KBO started regular season games in early May and could be a good template for how MLB can handle playing in front of empty stadiums. The world’s third largest professional baseball league has instituted new COVID-19 rules which include: players having their temperatures checked twice a day; everyone not in a baseball uniform, including umpires and athletic trainers, wearing face masks and gloves; if a player shows symptoms, he'll be immediately quarantined and they'll close the stadium where he played his most recent game; if he tests positive for the virus, contact tracing will figure out others who need to be quarantined for two weeks. 

And while nothing will ever replace the aromas and energy of a packed crowd, maybe teams could fill the stadium with piped in crowd noise and music to distract the players from boredom?

Not exactly peanuts and crackerjacks, but it’s glimmer of hope that someday you will be able to go back.

MLB’s proposed early July starting date would be enough time to see a leveling out of the pandemic curve and allow for at least an 82-game schedule. The owners have also proposed a 50/50 split of revenues with the players and that’s where it gets fiscally complicated. 

Without paying customers, concessions, souvenir or parking receipts, most of the income will be from broadcast rights (and there should be abnormally large audiences). MLB owners have already announced that they will lose $640K per game without fans totaling $4 billion in final losses by the end of the season. A lot of specifics of the bottom line have to be plainly laid out regarding this untested and hastily-conceived revenue-sharing system between the union and owners and all of the accounting angles that comes with it. Essentially, the players will still be get a paycheck — with a pro-rated paycut —while the owners take all of the financial risks with a shortened and ticketless season. It remains to be seen if the odd coupling of owners and players can share millions in profits without driving each other crazy. 

Outside of baseball tradition and continuity, there are many reasons to cheer for the reinstatement of baseball. First of which is that it’s a return to business as usual — or at least as much a return to normalcy in our lives we could hope for right now.

It sounds like the owners have laid out some reasonable compromises where they'll be looking at a probable financial loss, while the players risk a minimal health concern and at least get a paycheck. Money is really where it all seems to boil down to so I'd give the owners a slight edge over the greedy players for taking a hit on their bottom line. 

Owners win, 4-1. So you can hold the players responsible if the 2020 season is cancelled.

And if beaning Astros and a Yankees’ World Series revenge weren’t incentive enough for baseball to get back on track, Bartolo Colon has declared that he wants to slip a uniform over his portly, 47-year-old body one last time. 

So owners and players, if not for any other reason to come an agreement, just do it for Big Sexy.. 

Imagining the "new normal" when MLB opens the gates after the pandemic lockdown

By Tony Mangia

In just a few short months the whole world has been tossed upside down by the coronavirus. An invisible scourge which has disrupted our lives in everything from work, travel to sports and leisure time. In the United States we are experiencing what seem like cataclysmic changes to our lives and not only adjustments to our lifestyles, but to our freedoms as well.

We know business closures and confinement are just temporary sacrifices everyone has to make and whether through ingenuity, humor or just plain stoicism, most of us have weathered the hard times with flying colors. 

But exactly how short-term will these precautions be? Nobody seems to know.

Just like post-9/11, our way of life changed dramatically coming out of the ashes, but slightly over the long run when you look back. Airport security had become stricter and bothersome, but a necessary task. Thanks to the shoe bomber, even removing our shoes in line has become routine (Thank you Velcro lacing) and, just like airports, stadium security at public events will see some major changes after Covid-19. 

We’ve been through cultural and personal changes due to recent hardships before and have a history of overcoming adversity through adaption and innovation which someway became the norm.

WW2 brought about rationing, blackouts and other inconvenient precautionary measures, but also begot great advances in medical and technological innovations. 

The terrorist attacks at the World Trade center was the catalyst for many security procedures and similar changes in our way of life.

On a relatively smaller danger scale, even the Tylenol scare of the 80s tamper-proof bottles and the elimination of most capsule-type over- the- counter medicines — something we are grateful and complacent about now.

We coped and we overcame.

But what will the pandemic bring once we are allowed to attend sporting events after we get the okay to gather en masse?

What new patterns of behavior will we have to endure to enjoy the stadium experience again? 

Since Major League Baseball seems about the most logical professional sport which might be reinstated this summer, we’ll start there — and with my hometown Yankees and Mets. 

This is all speculation on a lighter note and a prediction that there will be an opening day with fans this season — albeit with the new precautionary and social distancing guidelines.

Let’s imagine the anticipation of the first pitch as newly set-loose fans file out of crowded subway cars and make their way to Citi Field or Yankee Stadium — both which will have instituted unfamiliar and stricter rules to adhere — after maybe months of isolation. Never mind the logic, but will fans have to line up on little marked boxes six feet apart  ... after they stepped off those mobbed trains. I imagine that the event staff will all be wearing face masks — probably in home team colors — and all ticket punching will be electronic so there is no physical contact. Cash might become obsolete in stadium settings. 

As you pass through the turnstile an event staffer will stick a hand-held thermometer to your forehead — checking each person’s body temperature — before allowing you to pass. A cough will never be looked at the same way as before.  God forbid you clear your throat before spouting off how the Astros cheated the Yankees out of a World Series or the Mets have once again been duped out of real ownership and are whisked off to a tent with a big red cross on its side where you will  be further questioned by people in haz-mat suits inside about your physical history.  

The surreal apocalyptic environment will continue once inside inside the arena or stadium.  There will probably be those six-foot spacing boxes at every concession stand and in the souvenir shops where over-priced Purell and official licensed team face gaiters will be big sellers. No more communal condiment tables to pump your ketchup and mustard anymore. Can't have more hand contact spots or any mingling areas than you need. And in the men’s room, every other urinal will sealed so there is no close contact or chance of spraying your neighbor. Oh yeah, thefts of toilet paper will become rampant.

Every other seat or more will be closed off, so there will be plenty of elbow room in the stands. The empty seats will be filled with cutouts of Jerry Seinfeld at Citi Field and Chazz Palminteri at Yankee Stadium. Sorry Spike, your face will relegated to Knicks game — whether you are boycotting them or not.  And in The Bleachers, like those metal pigeon repellers, the aluminum planks will be proportionately spiked to keep fans at acceptable distances. It's not like barbed wire ever kept the Creatures from doing anything they wanted anyhow.

So now with the fan attendance cut down more than half, the roar of a crowd will become a low murmur — sort of like every Tampa Bay Rays home game at The Trop.

Fan behavior will also be monitored. High-fives after a score or good play will banned. So will fist and chest bumps. Fan celebrations will be restricted to rapid blinking at each other.  There will be staff on hand — with six-foot rulers — to discipline drunk social-distance offenders and fans reviving The Wave, making sure they don’t make contact with anyone in the seats around them. And the time-honored ritual of fans passing down a hot dog or a beer from a vendor over to that poor soul seated in no-man's land will also be a big no-no.  

Baseball stadiums will be netted around the entire field to prevent fans from throwing an opponent's home run ball back onto the field. And, sadly for Mets fans, Mr. and Mrs. Met broke up during the quarantine period together. She got tired of listening to him excitedly talk about the possibility of J-Lo becoming a team owner and his joke about Miss A-Rod pole dancing to “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” thus giving the 7th inning stretch a whole new meaning.

There will still be fun. Mascots will fire rubber gloves — with official licensed MLB team logos — from t-shirt cannons over the nets and there will be Lysol Spray Giveaway Night. Although it's too bad the Kiss Cam will become the I’ll Just Look Endearingly At You From Six-Feet Away Cam. 

But god forbid some wiry teenager does manage to get onto the field. That will entail a complete shutdown of the game because MLB has to protect those players.

When this whole lockdown confinement is over and things get relatively back to normal, many of us will have profoundly changed forever — probably a little more introspective and lot more cautious. The idle time gave us more time to think about family, relationships, finances, politics and health. I see a kinder more grateful fan who won’t let little things bother them as much ... except maybe how the cheating Astros robbed the Yankees of a World Series.

And then we can all wait for the first NFL touchdown celebration where players act out pandemic social-distancing.