A Promise Fulfilled

Earlier this year I was contacted by one of our regular customers, Roger Middleton, with an unusual and touching request.

Roger and his wife Pat had joined KE’s Ethiopia Simien Mountains Explorer holiday back in January 2015. Whilst looking around the small rural village of Ambiquo, the location of our camp beneath Ras Deshen (Ethiopia’s highest peak), they’d been introduced to a young farmer and his wife. The friendly couple had kindly invited them inside their simple home to share some traditionally prepared Ethiopian coffee.

After spending an enjoyable hour with the couple and their child, Roger and Pat bid a fond farewell and headed back to camp – but not before capturing the couple and their baby on camera and making a pledge to ensure that some of these family portraits would find their way back to Ambiquo and into their hands!

This January, keen to honour his promise, Roger got in touch with KE to see if we could help make this possible. So it was that, almost exactly a year later, fellow trekkers George and Kate Ashton headed out to Simien Mountains armed with a series of photographs, a letter, and a map of Ambiquo village with the rough location of the families hut marked on.

With the assistance of KE’s local guide, Philemon, the couple were easily found and were finally presented with their precious family photos! They were understandably thrilled to receive the images, with many of the village children coming in to view them too.

On returning to the UK George and Kate were able to write to Roger and Pat with the news of mission accomplished, and more photos to prove it! Thanking them for the opportunity to meet more of the local villagers, in such a worthwhile way, George added that “it’s nice to be reminded of the human of trekking”, which is so often overlooked. Roger told us afterwards, “The smile on the young woman's face in George and Kate's photo is all the thanks I need”.

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