Cape Town - Think about it – if you have lived through a remarkable experience, doesn’t it mean you should go on to the next? Monde Sitole has thought about it and now he bases his whole life on that idea.
And the 25-year-old adventurist has had a lot of time to think about things, because he has so far had a very busy life, filled with the kind of things that gives one the ammunition for thinking.
He has sailed aboard a tall ship, crossed an ocean, climbed some of the highest mountains Alpine style, sailed on Lake Geneva and learnt about conservation.
And now he has set his sights on climbing the highest mountain on every continent and skiing unassisted to the North and South Poles, while completing training as a yacht master.
All this is not too shabby for a kid who spent his earliest years growing up poor in a sprawling Port Elizabeth township.
But what makes Sitole’s story that much more remarkable is that he actively seeks to take others with him and share remarkable experiences with them.
Sitole hopes to reach the disaffected township youth – who turn to gangs and crime in rebellion against their circumstances – and help them channel their energy in a positive way by helping them gain access to the better things in life.
When Sitole moved to Khayelitsha with his family as a poor, disadvantaged youth, he was given an opportunity few other children receive – to spend a year learning and sailing aboard the SV Concordia ship.
“It was during the Khayelitsha Festival while I was still at school that I was invited to go aboard the Concordia on the Class Afloat programme,” he explained.
“A mere month before I joined the ship I still could not swim and once aboard, I was seasick for a week before I started getting used to being at sea. I survived a storm at sea and that was when I knew I was meant to go on and do more things. The achievements you reach only means there are even greater, better things to go on to. There are still more things you have to do.”
Aboard the Concordia, Sitole sailed from Cape Town to St Helena, Ascencion and Brazil to Trinidad and Tobago.
“It was in the West Indies that I was really introduced to rock climbing. We went cliff diving in Bermuda and, to get back to the top, we had to climb that cliff.”
Sitole then joined explorer and adventurer Mike Horne. He went to Switzerland where he climbed Mont Blanc and learnt about Alpine style climbing.
“This is climbing with minimum aid, no fixed ropes and no oxygen,” Sitole said.
“There are two approaches to climbing – the first is the type tourists do for the sake of experience. They are the people who use oxygen bottles and just leave them on the mountain when they are done. Real explorers do not do that. Real explorers do not do things for the experience, they do it to learn.
“And that is what I want to impart to kids who are where I was. Alpine style has a purity of intent, tourism is for the ego.
“We use the spirit of the gangster to a positive result. It is like taking fish in a dam and helping them get to the sea and we want to couple this with strategies that will benefit them. It has to be education-driven.”
Sitole is adamant that the youth should learn to create opportunities for themselves.
“They must learn to do this from the youngest possible age. Use what they’ve got to better themselves. We cannot depend on the government to do everything for us, because they won’t. We cannot wait for policies to change, we have to go out there and make things work for ourselves.”
He has launched a programme to expose township youngsters to similar adventures. He visits schools on speaking tours and takes school children on hiking and climbing trips on Fridays and weekends.
To formalise his plans, he has created the programme Mondetalks for his educational efforts and Mondewalks for his adventure training.
“There is always another Monde out there, another child who can do with an opportunity,” he said.
Cape Argus