Three men and Everest

Marco Cremona, Dr Greg Attard and Robert Gatt plan to climb the sixth highest mountain, Cho Oyu (8,201metres) this September, and Mount Everest in May 2010 in their challenge8000 expedition. This is their story. But there are also others in on their adventure: Victor Saunders, their guide; and the three women who live with them.

Marco Cremona, 40, is a man in a hurry. A wiry man in perpetual motion, he speaks quickly. The conversation veers from green issues - at the core of his business as a mechanical engineer and environmental consultant - to the mountain boots he has just bought online for Euros 690 from a US specialist store. At an altitude of 8,000 metres and in minus 40 degrees, size 40 feet need size 45 boots to accommodate thick socks and swelling.

Dr Greg Attard is next to show up. At 32, he’s a cross between a rugby player and a 1960s’ Rock Hudson. He lets Marco do the talking. A query about whether Maltese climbing mountains is akin to Jamaicans doing bobsleigh at the Olympics is met with a shrug.

The answer comes later in an email from Robert Gatt, the third man in the challenge8000 team. “We’ve lots of good quality rock climbing in Malta. From rock climbing in Malta, it’s a natural progression to other climbing disciplines and bigger challenges.” Climbing is also a natural way for Robert to live. “Whether it’s a sun drenched rock wall in Malta, fell running on a wet English day in the Lake District, climbing up a frozen waterfall in Italy, an Alpine gully in Chamonix or a Himalayan peak in Nepal, it’s my passion,” he says.

The three did not discover mountains at the same time. Greg was always an all-action type; a Scout, in love with the outdoors. By 17, he’d started to travel. In the summer vacations on his medical course, he’d go for an elective exchange and spend two months a year climbing in eastern Europe and Greece. Marco got the mountain bug when he decided to join the Kilimanjaro One project. “After that climb I was hooked. I met Greg when I went to Etna for training. Robert I knew socially.” Marco is the glue among the men, and the expeditions.

The three were consistently climbing higher mountains; raising the bar by 500 metres with each climb. This September, the team plans to tackle Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth highest mountain. At 8,201m, it is the standard preparatory trail for Everest. The technicality of both mountains is similar – oxygen is required, and the expedition can take anywhere between eight and 10 weeks. The Everest expedition is scheduled for May 2010 and will entail climbing and camping in inhospitable terrain and unforgiving, cold to reach the summit at 8,848metres.

Climbing is a logistical challenge: the team needs the support of a specialist organisation to take care of equipment, flights, porters (two sherpas for each climber), food, water, visas, transport and equipment. The missing piece in the jigsaw is Victor Saunders, the guide, who has climbed Everest four times in the last five years. Victor calls himself a cautious coward. He was chosen on the basis of reputation, which is basically measured on the number of people he has got safely up and down the mountain. He’s known as a warm, level-headed, Scotsman, and is an architect by profession.

Training can be gruelling as you need a good cardio-vascular background. Greg runs and cycles. Marco says he’s lucky that he’s lightweight, but admits to doing aerobic exercise running up and down 60 degree clay slopes. “You have to train your mind too. Mountaineers are hard-headed and everyone involved has an opinion,” he says.

Timing is everything and often make or break of a climb. There’s only a short season, pre- monsoon, in which to climb the mountain and this can result in a kind of ‘people jam’ on the ascent routes, with up to 200 people all having a go at the same time. “I hate crowded mountains. You can have one to yourself,” Greg mumbles.

Climbers have eight hours on oxygen going up, and another eight coming down. In minus 25, sweating, they’re pushing it and running out of time and energy. Hypothermia can start to kick in. “If you don’t make summit before 2pm, you need to turn back. Till now, we’ve never failed a peak. I don’t know how I would react to failure,” says Greg. It’s no surprise that 30 per cent of attempts to climb Everest end up in failure.

What makes a good team? The team’s roles seem well-defined: Marco is the logistics person and more of a trekker; Greg is more a mountaineer; Robert is ‘very technical’ and more a climber. Male-bonding is inevitable; if you are going to spend ten weeks in a tent together, you have to get on. “The mountain brings out the worst and best in each of us,” smiles Greg. “You’re dealing with fatigue and bruised egos. Saying we’re all hard-headed is an understatement”. Marco says he finds it relaxing. He can get away from the day to day and the mundane and just concentrate on the task at hand.

We skirt around the subject of danger, but it’s something they are reluctant to discuss. “Climbing is dangerous and even more so at high altitudes where the ability to make decisions is hindered by hypoxia and extreme mental and physical exhaustion. Danger is a challenge to be managed both individually and as a team. We’re not madmen. We’re taking a calculated risk. People engage in extreme sports because they are so demanding, mentally and physically, that you live for the ‘now’,” says Marco.

If you collapse on a mountain over 8,000 metres, the chances are that you will stay there. They’ve seen a couple of bodies on previous climbs. They’re too heavy, with all that kit, to retrieve without risking other lives. Knowing your limits is key to survival, and that’s where a good guide comes in. He has to know how to push a climber to his maximum capability, but not let him get beyond that. He has to look for tell-tale signs – people getting out of breath for instance. The guide can turns things around if necessary.

What makes a man contemplate bad food, no sleep, no sex for 10 weeks, pain, danger, fractures, falls, frostbite, hypothermia, altitude-related injuries, disorders or possible brain damage? The answer seems to be one word: the summit. It’s a loaded word and keeps cropping up in the conversation. It’s as powerful a driver as the purely nationalistic one - to be the first Maltese to climb Everest. There is a sense of history being made. But the real motivation is personal; it’s part dream; part challenging yourself to get out of the comfort zone; and all about ‘pushing yourself to the point where you never thought it was possible to be, mentally and physically.’ They hope that their forthcoming expeditions will inspire people to dream and have a go at turning those dreams into reality.

There is nothing as painful as summit day. Their longest climb to a summit to date was 17 hours. “Half way during summit day, you think, this is the last time I am doing this. Once you get to a summit, you have to calculate the energy reserves you have to get back. You may get summit fever. You get intoxicated. That’s the risk. People judge if you are successful if you have got to the summit. Ten metres away doesn’t count. It’s a very cruel thing,” says Greg.

What happens when you’ve climbed a mountain? Marco says on the way down he dreams of beer, junk food, and a good shower. Greg says he’d be happy to stay on the peak, and that he gets ‘post-performance depression’ when he gets home. Both men say the mountain is a drug. “We read about mountains every day. We may live here, but we live the mountain each day”.

I wonder what it’s like to live with these men. They grin and say the heroes are the women who see them risk their lives, and spend a long time away from home and large sums of money on their lonely passions. Marco says the mountains came after his relationship, and that his wife knows he is cautious, but it’s tough not being able to communicate for long periods of time. He has been away climbing a mountain for one month a year in the past years. Greg says his girlfriend knew that ‘the package involved the mountain. ’ Robert, they tell me, lives for the mountain. I ask them what happens after Everest. Marco squirms. He says he’s agreed to have one shot at Everest and then that’s it. He’s 40 and this is his last big climb. Greg says that he will find some gentler peaks to go for, and perhaps take his girlfriend with him.

There are perhaps other limitations on their expeditions though. So far, they’ve been funding themselves, but the big two climbs coming up need funds from corporate sponsors. “Climbing is expensive, so that means I have to work harder when not climbing, “says Robert. Hopefully, corporate sponsors won’t be long in coming since the team’s effort is all in a good cause. Challenge8000 has pledged that throughout the next year it will be promoting awareness of asthma and better air quality in Malta through its association with the Society of Maltese Asthmatics and the ‘Stop the Dust!’ campaign.

As they leave, Greg jokes about the frostbite from his last climb and that his big toe is still stuck. Marco says they will be linking up on Etna over the weekend. When they leave, I switch off my laptop, and wonder if I’m any closer to understanding these two complex, gifted men, intoxicated by a summit on the other side of the world.

The Whistler and the last tambourine man

Tommy Camilleri spent the first seven years of his working life opening blocked drains.  Then he got fed up inhaling fumes and he got a job as a road sweeper in Naxxar.    “It’s good work if you want to get to know everyone in Naxxar,” he shrugs. 

Tommy is the last tambourine player of Malta. The tanbur is the poor man’s tambourine:  the frame is made from beech wood and sheep skin, often with some decorative tberfil painting on the skin.  A wooden loop (cirku) slides over the frame like a belt clasping the skin.  The jingles (plattini) were traditionally made from the lids of food preservative cans.  

Tommy played with some of the finest folk musicians of his generation - Toni Cachia ‘Il-Ħammarun’, Ganni il-Ħawli.   They played in hotels for tourists, in Carnivals, during Christmas, at weddings and for anyone who would pay.  Like all tambourine men, Tommy was the front man for the band, with his own well-rehearsed act.  Then, in the second half of the last century, Maltese folk music went into terminal decline.   And now the people Tommy used to play with are all dead.

He turns up for our appointment on a Tuesday morning in his finery:  cap, black waistcoat, matching pin-striped trousers, white shirt, black sandals.  He refuses a glass of wine at the Mqabba Band Club because he says he is recovering from a heavy night.  Behind his thick glasses, I could make out watery eyes.  Tommy is 78 going on to 98.  He’s tiny and quiet and weaves his hands nervously on his lap. 

Just as the acrid black coffee kicks in, we are joined by a beaming Guzi Sciberras, also known as ‘Il-Mija’.   Il-Mija is 57, and clearly still relishing early retirement from the Dockyard, where he was a Charge Man.  He now makes the flejguta, the Maltese end-blown cane flute.  It’s his idea that we should talk in his field ‘next to the Torri Vincenti’.  “It’s where I find my space and peace and quiet.  I’ve been spending all my spare time there since 1967,” he says. 

The glue between the tambourine man and the flute maker is Ruben Zahra, the freelance composer who often uses folk material within his contemporary works.  Ruben is in a race to save traditional instruments from extinction.  “Together with Guzi Gatt, I’ve listened to hours of 1960s recordings of Maltese folk music.  All the core Maltese traditional instruments - the żaqq, the Maltese bagpipe, the tanbur, and the flejguta – have stopped being made, for more than a generation.  In the case of the flejguta, we could not even find one.   But we knew the sound it made.  We decided to try and make these instruments before we lose them forever.  Our research led us to the makers of traditional bird whistles.  Enter il-Mija.’ 

Il-Mija’s piece of solace is a tongue of soil and a stone hut right by the perimeter fence of the airport.   In the middle of the patch is a beehive with an open door.    I immediately think of bird traps and sense that this place was a killing  fields of sorts, at some stage. “We used to bait the guys from the RAF for some morsels, through the fence, when we were kids,” grins il-Mija.  “Don’t worry about the bees,” he adds, as one zooms past my left ear.

Il-Mija opens a box over-spilling with pluvieri, the Maltese bird whistles.  He’s like a kid with the cookie jar.  The names of birds roll off his tongue as he goes through a demonstration of the sound each whistle makes.  “This one is Il-birwina – listen carefully!  This is the tellerita.  This is the gurlin.”   It is difficult not to get intoxicated by the childish delight of a man who has spent 40 years making whistles.  And as for the sound – if you close your eyes, you could believe that you were in the midst of bird song that most people in Malta can only imagine.

Maltese traditional instruments were made from locally-sourced material:  ashwood, cane, string, animal skins and cow horns.  Il-Mija is both an artisan and a recycling man.  In the true spirit of the Maltese, nothing is wasted.  He showed us whistles made from the bone of a horse’s leg, a piece of walnut, and the tubing from an old car tyre.  “You cannot make one of these things unless you are a whistler yourself.  The cane needs to be firm, dry and straight – but most of all you need to understand tone.  If you are going to fake a bird into thinking another bird is calling, you have to master this with precision.  There is no margin for error.” 

We ask him about his tools.  He laughs and shows us another box:  a hand drill, a vice, a scalpel, a chisel. “I’m not interested in TV.   I have made 89 whistles till now.”  Making the flejguta is just another challenge.  The air is directed against the sharp edge of a hole cut in the cane just below the mouth piece.  Six finger holes along the length of the flute produce different tones and distinguish the flejguta from the simple whistle.

Ruben thinks it’s time to get to the music, unfurls the zaqq from his bag and coaxes Tommy into playing a tune, right there, against the wall.  Coming face to face with  Iz-zaqq is a bit of a shock – half goat, complete with tail, half whistle; the weirdest of instruments.    Its bag is made from goat skin, its chanter from two cane tubes and a horn that projects its drones. 

When Tommy plays, he is like one of those Wallis & Gromit  Plastecene men, moving in slow-motion.    The tambourine is in perpetual motion, and the man seems stuck to the tambourine.  One moment it’s under his leg, then against his knee, then it hits an elbow, then it’s under the crescent of his darting fingers.  And the music is familiar, Moorish, raw and sad rolled into one.  I am told later that Il-Hammarun played the same melody on the zaqq all his life.

When they finish, I don’t know whether to clap or just relish the moment.  Instead, Matthew’s camera moves and snaps the moment.  I ask Tommy what he thought of the new tambur Ruben is producing, as he cradles it on his lap.  “I like its voice,” he whispers.  “Remember that the first sounds that Christ heard were iz-zaqq and the tanbur.  These are instruments of the shepherd.”   He cocks his head like a thoughtful dog when il-Mija announces that we cannot leave before we share a drink with him.

I watch the jet planes take off and ask Tommy about playing abroad.  “I’ve never been on a plane,” he says.   “I’m scared of heights .  Even going up in a lift is not good for me. ”

The two men have different ideas about legacy.  Tommy has five children, il-Mija has two, none of them are musicians.  Tommy says one of his granddaughters has promise.  Il-Mija boasts:  ‘My craft will die with me.  Besides, if I teach someone, will they attribute credit where credit is due?’  He etches his ‘100’ mark on the back of all his whistles.  Somehow, there are different egos at play here. 

“Malta is the only European country which does not provide folk instruments as a cultural product on a retail basis,” says Ruben.  “We’re trying to do something about that, before we lose this cultural heritage for ever.”  With a mix of determination and entrepreneurship, the new Maltese tanbur is being made in Spain.  I guess you have to start from somewhere to reclaim your past.

On a humid morning in Mqabba, the bees buzzed, the jet engines screeched and the zaqq droned and flirted with the tambur.   And our heads were filled with folk music, Il-Mija’s excellent J&B and the indelible passage of time.

Digging into Facebook

There are nearly 14,000 Maltese who have a Facebook account. Five weeks ago, when I started thinking about this snippet, there were 8,000.

Facebook is the Internet site of 2007. In October, Microsoft spent $240 million for a 1.6% equity stake, valuing the company at a whopping $15 billion. With 34.5 billion page views in September, according to comScore Media Metrix, Facebook is now www.strategywothe fourth most highly trafficked Web property worldwide. Together, with the iPhone, Facebook was the Internet story of the year.

What nobody can say for sure is whether Facebook will be as popular in 2008. Such is the fickle nature of social networking sites that the next big thing may be round the corner: Google recently announced its Open Social network.

I wanted to understand why the Maltese are taking to Facebook in their droves, when they can pick a phone and meet a mate in 30 minutes for a drink and a chat. And why people keep sharing the most mundane and (sometimes) intimate details of their lives with online ‘friends’.

So I asked six questions to 13 friends within my Facebook network. I spread the mix, to make sure there was nothing much in common (except that I knew them all). 12 Maltese, 1 Canadian in Gozo, from all walks of life: sales & marketing executives to businessmen, students, a technologist and a published poet. This is some of the chatter that came back:

Joining Facebook tends to be a collective of peer pressure, curiosity, professional obligation and boredom. Facebook helps people rediscover old friends and keep tabs on those living overseas. Or those anywhere else with an Internet connection and time on their hands.

Facebook is an addiction, a guilt trip, a time-waster, a laugh, a glorified Hi5 for adults. We find ourselves trapped in our need to communicate: we check our email continuously; we get mad if we forget our mobile; and, now, there’s Facebook. Many use it like SMS or Twitter, with fingers rattling on a keyboard to keep up with hundreds of ‘friends’ from all walks of life. It's an incredibly powerful virus which motivates people to infect their friends and colleagues.

Voyeurism and narcissism appear to be key drivers. Girls inevitably change their profile picture on a more regular basis than the boys. We are an ego-centric, nosey nation, and now have a licence to pry quietly into other people’s lives and what makes them tick. Exhibitionism is a major characteristic of contemporary life. Except that on Facebook, you're only exposing yourself to the people you choose, as opposed to the entire web.

You can also lose yourself in your kind of crowd. Join’ Michael Mifsud for President’ (869 members and growing). Or groups managed by restaurateurs, rock bands, politicians, journalists, socialites and lonely hearts. Throw a virtual sheep, send a zombie kiss, order an electronic ice cream or play Scrabulous with your grandmother.

Concerns about privacy are growing. Employers use Facebook to search and measure up current and prospective employees. Some may already be paying the price in terms of lost employee productivity without knowing it. And others have been quick to see the branding opportunities. Paraphrasing Shakespeare… all the world’s a stage, so potentially anyone and everyone is your audience. Act with caution.

Not everyone is convinced that all is what it seems to be. Who’s a friend? Are friends counted in numbers or shoulders to cry on? Are the ‘friends’ on your list simply contacts, or merely trophies? This is one facet of the internet: trying to personalise, even embody, contacts that could well be anonymous. Facebook can also stand for currently bored, lustful, socially unfulfilled or generally avoiding real life.

Yet surely there’s no easier device around to help you organise a party, share your videos and pictures, market your talents, illustrate your life, let people know your every mood swing. I found out about the lovely Café Brasil concert at MITP because ‘Indri Mangu’ set up a Facebook Group for the occasion. New friends to Facebook are regularly greeted by older ones with the rousing ‘what took you so long to get here?’ There must be a reason for being here, surely?

The Facebook backlash has started. Credit information group Equifax said members of sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook may be putting too many details about themselves online, and putting themselves at risk of identity fraud. Fraudsters could use these details to steal someone's identity and apply for credits and benefits. About 80,000 people in the UK were victims of identity theft last year, at a cost to the economy of £1.5bn. Facebook’s own new Beacon Advertising Service added to concerns about privacy issues. On 6th December, Mark Zuckenger, the Facebook founder ate humble pie and apologised for the way Beacon had been launched. People simply don’t want their personal data used for commercial purposes without their permission – even if the company using it is as familiar a travelling companion as Facebook.

Despite its success, nobody is quite sure if Facebook is here to stay. While many profess an inability to live without it, the same people think that like all technologies, Facebook will eventually be surpassed. It's the latest in a long line of social networks, starting from Friendster and, most recently, MySpace. Like all trends, the 'cool kids' will move on to the next big thing, and the masses will follow. Such is the fickle, transient nature that something deemed indispensible this year may well be old hat next. Just like the bar that was impossible to get into last summer and is not quite in vogue this year.

It’s as if our life cycles just got accelerated.

Maybe Facebook is just another indicator that being Maltese simply means being part of a global goldfish bowl. We use social networks like everyone else does. We will always run in herds to the next best thing, a time-poor, utility generation. Or maybe we’ve run to Facebook because the ‘cosy’ Maltese parochial life is long gone, as we spend more time in front of laptops, speak to fewer people in the flesh, pry over their shoulder online and gauge our social life success in terms of numbers of online friends. We long to feel connected in an age when one inevitably feels disconnected. There is a lot of talk, but much of it is mundane, and not of all of it may be true. We may be creating virtual online selves to make up for other things that we find lacking in our real lives.

Or maybe, we’re just smart, on the ball, and live full lives. Like millions of others, we are now connected, but on our own terms. The new glue for our social networks is online conversations. We’ve just become as good as anyone else in making our voice heard, assuming someone is really listening.

I suspect this conversation will keep going for a while longer.

More Facebook conversations here.

Mumbling

I don't quite know where I'm heading to.

So here's a list of where I've been.

1. On Wednesday night, I joined about 600 others at the AC Milan club to watch my team triumph (probably undeservedly, on the night) over the old nemesis of Istambul. Several highlights - the obvious one, watching Inzaghi's second goal crawl over the goal line and ending up with my neighbour's arm pit in my face. The best one was probably Gejtu the Club's secretary's announcement before the game: sic 'Friends! WHEN we score.. for fuck's sake... make sure you don't throw bottles at the screens! We rented them this time and they cost us a bomb!'

2. I'm setting up a startup called Muovo. Startups are normally the fodder of young guys in a garage in Silicon Valley or Tel Aviv, no? No, they're not. So the rollercoaster of creating something out of nothing has started. I've done this before. I've made a lot of money for other people. This time, it's me and two other illuminated souls. If we fail, we will do it gloriously, no doubt.

3. My ISP has been losing emails for the past two weeks. I finally lost my sense of diplomacy and sent a rude email to the technical director. He received it nearly 20 hours after I sent it.

4. Yesterday, at 17.14, a tiny sparrow, not more than a couple of weeks old, flapped against the window of my room. I stopped, blinked. Then a paw came out of nowhere and the sparrow screamed. And I charged out to see Smudge the cat, aged 10, run off with the bird in its mouth. By the time we had prised its jaw open, the bird was a goner. Seriously upset. Smudge looked smug for an entire hour.

5. Darren munched some pastizzi with me at Cafe Cordina and told me about BarCamps. Wicked ideas spinning in our heads.

6. I spent the best part of three days driving around Malta with a key associate for Muovo - a Bulgarian man who had never visited the island and confessed to liking Geneva. George liked Malta. A lot. I hadn't been to Mdina at night, for a while. The place just looks lovely. Palazzo Falzon is stunning, the lighting is subtle, and you still get a view from Fontanella. We've finally got a city we can be proud of.

7. I started one of those 'take a picture of yourself for 365 days and watch yourself age' projects. Mercifully, my memory card screwed up and wiped out an entire week's supply of mug shots. Project canned.

8. I washed my car, after a couple of months. Now I can see all the bumps and scratches.

9. Liz wants to build a room over our bedroom to 'improve the quality of our family life' and 'increase the value of our property'. No, there is no ulterior agenda.

10. Jacob has taken to calling himself 'Is-sur Jacob'. Primarily to irritate his mother, who cannot speak Maltese, I suspect. Then again, neither can he. Still, a near five year-old who aspires to becoming a chef might have a better game plan than a 45 year-old in a start-up.

Next week, I'm off to London to watch Zoot Woman, Rufus Wainwright and Cheek by Jowl's new production of Cymbeline. And to lose myself in crowds, think of new things, recharge the old grey cells, look up an old friend. And try and find some more answers.

Life repeated

I'm doing some theatre, after an absence of two years. Yasmina's Reza's Life x 3 is a seminal piece on marriage, parenthood, ambition and disappointment - a real mid-life sliding doors of a piece. It comes at a good time for me - when I am again stopping to take stock of where I am, and where I want to go.

It's also a real challenge. It's just four of us, on stage for most of the 100 minutes or so of the performance.

We've got just over three weeks' of rehearsals to go, and then we're on for three nights at the Manoel. That's the normal deal in Malta - quick rehearsals, quick runs. I don't mind. The process is intense. It makes life that much more interesting and dangerous.