Manitoba lawyer hula hoops on mountaintop to help poor, break world record
Melania Cannon from MacGregor, Man., says hula hooping at high altitude was a fantastic experience
Melania Cannon never thought she'd be able to climb a mountain, but hula hoop at the top?
"I don't know if I will ever climb a mountain again. I never thought I would in the first place. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done and I have given birth twice and gone to law school with toddlers," she said.
Cannon lives in Peru with her two children and husband, an engineer working on a project in Arequipa. While continuing to work online for a law firm in Vancouver, she volunteers with Helping Overcome Obstacles Peru — HOOP. The organization's mission is to overcome the cycle of poverty in the community. Cannon helps with Saturday morning science classes and music and story time.
Cannon joined a band with other volunteers to help fundraise for HOOP and found out they were planning to climb Mount Chachani and break a world record.
Uphill training
"I thought no at first. Then I figured I have been running and doing a lot of working out, and it would be an amazing thing to participate in. I started training in October."
"We had to climb more than 6,000 metres above sea level. That's with oxygen levels cut in half of what they would be a sea level," she said.
"Some people can go up with no medication and no hiking experience at all and handle the altitude fine. Others in great shape who were training and working out and doing all the right things got altitude sickness and couldn't make it — nausea, dizziness and feeling disoriented. Fourteen of us made it; four didn't," she said.
Making the trek
Cannon and the group headed out on Sunday morning from the base camp, carrying five litres of water each, tents, sleeping bags and hula hoops. It was hot and sunny and they had to climb over a rock slide. They camped at 5,200 metres above sea level and the temperature fell to –10 C.
"Our guides woke us up at 1 a.m. We put on our backpacks and head lamps. It took us until 6 a.m. to get to the top after five hours of hiking. That's when the sun rose. My water bag was frozen solid," she said.
Cannon said near the end, she didn't think she would make it.
"I got to the point where I could see the peak and it looked miles away. I was the slowest in the group. Some of my companions were already on the peak and I thought, I won't finish. Luckily our guides were there and were encouraging us, saying, 'Come on, a few more minutes, you can do it.'"
Six hula hoops came out and everyone took turns with them. She managed to hoop for 10 seconds, about 15 rotations. Some hooped for more than a minute, she said.
"It felt great to be at the peak. It was fantastic. It didn't feel hard to put on the hoop and do it at that point. It actually felt really good," she said.
The group hoped to raise $10,000 to rent the HOOP school building for a year and run the free after-school program. They raised $11,000.
Some of the poorest children in the region attend the program, she said, getting help with homework, learning English and playing outdoors. The extra money will help pay for a math teacher and a social work program that includes a psychologist.
Record breaker
Cannon believes the group broke a world record, but she doesn't know if it will be submitted to Guinness. There is a fee to be accepted in Guinness and they don't want to spend the money raised for HOOP on getting into the book, she explained — but they have other ways to get the message out.
"The people who went with us filmed everything, and they are putting together a mini documentary of the trip. We will put it out on social media and online and announce as far as we know, we have broken the world record. We will leave it up to the rest of the world to come and beat ours," she said.