Everest
My first impression of South Africa was that it was absolutely the most gorgeous landscape I had ever seen. On my first night there, I walked outside, along with the rest of my mission’s team and I was immediately awestruck by the blanket of stars that was spread across the bed of the universe. There were so many!
“Wow! Guys, look at the stars! They’re everywhere!” I exclaimed. No one paid any attention to me and they all just kept walking up the hill on the path we were on, towards our cabins. But I wanted to stay outside for just a few more minutes. I wasn’t used to such broad and vast cosmic arrays.
With Baltimore, Maryland as my hometown, I had been used to city life and knew nothing of what the African sky could look like at night. The African sky was speckled with stars, constellations, nebulae, and estoiles like those that the wisemen must have seen.
Since Baltimore is close to the shore, the weather is so fickle that the cloudy days, not to mention the rainy ones, outnumber the sunny days. The brightest and sometimes only star in the Baltimorean sky isn’t even a star at all; it’s the planet Venus. The stars were never bright enough for me to easily find Orion when he decided to grace us with his presence. In Africa, there were so many stars spread across the sky that I’m sure Venus was lost and Orion could have appeared numerous times. All of this sky spanned across an incredibly vast landscape filled with mountains, valleys, and deserts. None of which I had seen before.
My reason for coming to Africa was simple: I went to be a summer intern at a small mission base in South Africa which was located on the site of an old game reserve. Leaders at the mission base trained teams and facilitated outreaches to the local communities. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to help missionaries reach the natives of Africa and I was determined to take full advantage of it.
Friends of mine, who had never been to Africa, had shared some thoughts with me about the vast continent before I left Baltimore. It was hot all the time. The indigenous people lived in caves. The civilized Africans lived in huts and tribes. The land was covered with jungles and deserts.
Yes, the weather was unbearable but it wasn’t because of the heat. Many Americans think that when it’s 100 degrees in one place, it’s relatively similar everywhere else in the world. Contrarily, weather in the Southern Hemisphere is the complete opposite of that of the Northern. While it was 100 degrees in Baltimore, it was 40 degrees in Harrismith, South Africa. I learned this awful truth when I got off the plane in Johannesburg; it seemed odd, but in the middle of June, there I stood with a sweatshirt on.
I’d also heard that in Africa what wasn’t filled with deserts was covered by jungles. There were no jungles. What would be called deserts were actually miles and miles of flat, dry planes.
Of all this landscape, the most intimidating feature was the mountains. Of what I observed from the two-hour bus drive from Johannesburg to Harrismith, there weren’t any mountain ranges, just random mountains that were surrounded by flatland. I enjoyed every minute of that bus ride and while most of my team slept, I stayed wide awake and visually explored the unknown terrain that was before me. My team was stationed at a mission base that was surrounded by three relatively large mountains: Mooihook, Everest, and Eagle.
Mooihook was an Afrikaans word whose meaning was unknown but my guess would have been “beautiful mountain” because that’s exactly what it was. I talked to some interns at the mission’s base and one explained to me that Mooihook was the hardest of all three mountains to scale. Upon closer examination of it, though, I was amazed to realize that on one side of the mountain there was a slope that was almost completely vertical. On this vertical slope, about 300 feet from the ground, there was a huge ledge. To my even further amazement, on this ledge was a large chalet with no visible entryway! I was dumbfounded.
Eagle Mountain was appropriately named because the rocks on the top formed the shape of an eagle’s head. Eagle was the longest and highest of the three and the highest by far. Someday I hoped to climb it.
Everest was probably named so out of sarcasm for it was the smallest of the three and probably the least intimidating. This was the one that my team was to climb.
The climbing as well as the abseiling, (or, as Americans call it, rappelling) was mandatory as part of a team-building exercise. I had dreaded the climb ever since hearing about it. This was the point at which all my fears about being overweight came back and haunt me.
Upon leaving for Africa, I was eighteen and well over 200 pounds. It was then that I feared that I would be the only overweight person on my mission team. So, before going, I prayed that I wouldn’t be alone. But I knew that even with ten other people on my team, I would be completely alone. I knew from experience that even when surrounded by a lot of people, if I were the only overweight one, I would be completely alone.
Fortunately, there were two other girls there who were around my size. Megan, a blonde from Indiana, was the only girl on her high-school football team. She was sturdy and I believed that most of her stockiness came from muscle. She always had a smile on her face no matter what the circumstances were. Megan wasn’t your stereotypical fat person: gluttonous, lazy. She ate normally and she always had to be active (which would later prove to be advantageous to me as she would need someone with whom to walk.)
The other was Jace who was two years younger than I was and also from Maryland. I thought it was kind of funny that even though she and I were from the same state, we had to go all the way to South Africa to meet. Of all the people on our team, I think that Jace was probably the one with which I could most identify. We both lacked self-confidence and self-esteem though she was more sanguine about it than I.
One evening before the ascent, I sat at the round dinner table with Megan and Jace, my meal untouched before me. I couldn’t eat.
“Are we really going up the mountain Saturday, guys?” Jace asked, a note of desperation was in her usually cheerful voice.
“Looks like it,” I said reluctantly.
“Don’t worry, Jace,” chirped Megan. “It’ll be fun.”
She giggled.
I squirmed.
At dinner on the night before the ascent, I glared with anxiety at the calendar with the next day’s activities on it. I sincerely hoped that God would send a massive snowstorm to the mountain so that the climb would be cancelled. But upon inquiry, Lucas, the native South African who would be leading the escapade the next day, assured me that there was no inclement weather in tomorrow’s forecast.
Any hope of that was removed when the next day proved to be bright and sunny.
When we all met at the base of the mountain, each person received a harness and helmet. I tried on every size and still could find no harness that would fit around my oversized waist. I panicked. What if I didn’t get to go? Oh well, I didn’t really want to—it was a long climb. But I didn’t want that to be the reason. Lucas handed me the last extra-large harness he had and when he put it on me it had to be loosened as much as possible. How embarrassing. This unexpected predicament that left me humiliated, not to mention, even more afraid of the climb to come.
My face turned red. I could feel the tears welling. No. I won’t cry. Gotta save my energy for the climb. Besides, I looked around and no one else was even paying attention. Good. My knees were shaking. I just put on my white helmet and went over to stand with Megan and Jace. They would be my security for now.
Abseiling was a great adventurous thought—for fit people. It’s a shame that I never thought about it. Not even as we hiked up the trail; I was so focused on achieving my first goal: reach the end of the trail without dying of a heart-attack.
The fear was overwhelming. ‘God?’ I prayed. ‘I get winded climbing up the stairs in my house. How on Earth can I climb a mountain?’
The answer came back, “One step at a time.”
I sighed. ‘Okay.’
As we started up the trail, we began to segregate: all of the energetic, fit people in the lead leaving the slow, exercised-challenged people to pull up the rear.
Save one, that is.
Jace admitted to me later that she couldn’t have made the climb at all had it not been for the words of encouragement offered to us by the one fit person who stayed behind: Lorraine. Lorraine was a professional cook from the state of Washington who was leading a group of short-term missionaries to South Africa who had been stationed at the same base that we had for the past few weeks. With blond hair and average height, she wasn’t extremely fit, but still not at all overweight.
Her team of six people had accompanied ours on the hike and though she had absolutely no obligation to stay in the back with Megan, Jace, and I, she did. She was by no means overweight; in fact, she probably even considered herself both young and healthy. Every word that she uttered all the way up the rocky trail was one of encouragement towards the three of us who were struggling. “You can do it!” “Don’t stop now!” “We’re almost there!”
Slowly, but surely, step by agonizing step, we each made it closer to the end. Megan, who had the most energy out of our slow end of the group, was in the lead cheering me on. I would look back at Jace as she struggled and exclaim, “Come on, Jace! You can do it!”
There were times when I thought that my heart would surely beat right out of my chest. Heart-burn. Heart-attack. Pulse . . . pulsating. Too quickly. Tendons in my legs will snap. They’ve caught fire. Can’t breathe. Must stop. Great. I’ll be left here to die and the nearest hospital is twenty miles and a mountain away. I remember even faking that I had to tie my shoes just so that I could stop to breathe. I hated holding everyone up. Every break we took, and there were several, was well-deserved and taken full advantage of. Breaks were never long. Just agonizing. I felt very discouraged, embarrassed, and extremely humiliated when I looked up and couldn’t see the other members of my team because they were so far ahead. Depression overtook me when I couldn’t see the end. But then, I just looked back at Jace and Lorraine and around at Megan. We were all here together and we were going to make it even if it took us the rest of the day! And I thought it would.
Other than having Lorraine’s words of encouragement to guide my every step, another hopeful thought was that with every step I was a little closer to the end. As I grew more and more tired, each step became harder than the preceding one. Periodically, I would look down over the edge of the trail and see how far up the mountain we had come. Every time I wanted to quit, I just looked at how far I’d come and tell myself, “If you’re going to quit now, that means that you’ve come all this way and wasted all this energy for absolutely nothing!” I couldn’t quit!
Before I knew it, the whole team was at the top of the mountain. Out of breath and out of sorts, Megan, Jace, and I were overwhelmed both with exhaustion and excitement. We made it. We made it.
I looked around at our group. I could sense that some were scared. Jace was the most vocal about it. She kept the situation humorous by making comments about the altitude and the view and how scared she was.
“Lucas, is this safe?” she asked.
“Yes, Mpo,” he replied patiently, using her Sesotho name.
Lucas assured Jace that he had helped many people heavier than she abseil down the rock before. She was completely safe.
I told her, “Jace, the hardest part was just getting up here. Getting down should be easy.” I had no idea what I was talking about but had always been of the opinion that getting down was a lot easier than getting up no matter what the circumstances.
“You’re right, Abby,” she stated with enthusiasm. “Wow, guys! I got up that mountain. I can go down it. Right?” She smiled broadly with her trademark smile which was to stick her chin out and curl her upper lip. Clapping her hands together she declared, “I’m goin’ down first, guys!”
I wanted to go first and get it over with. ‘No. Wait,’ I thought. ‘Let someone go first and let them get the kinks out.’
I was happy for her. In fact, I was so happy for her that I decided to go down second.
Until we had reached the top, I hadn’t had a fear of abseiling: my acrophobia had been diminished by my fear of climbing. At the top, I could see for miles and miles and was glad that I had brought my camera. I had someone take a picture of Megan, Jace, and I as soon as we reached the top. This was, by far, the highest place that I had ever stood. I wanted to look down over the rock that we were about to climb down. I looked to my right and was able to see the mission base, which from this altitude looked like an anthill. Looking up, I saw that there was still a little bit more mountain to go before reaching the top. We were about 4/5 of the way up the mountain. Leaning over the edge, and analyzing the rock confirmed just what I had already thought: this wasn’t going to be easy. I stepped back. The rock was the biggest rock I’d seen in my life. And I was going second!
Lucas stood near the edge as he gave us instructions and demonstrated what we were supposed to do while going down the side of the mountain. He was tall, unlike any of the other native South Africans I had seen, and he wore his hair short and his sunglasses dark. I looked at his muscles. Bulging. If I were to fall, he could be the one to save me. Oh yeah, falling. Every word he said made me more and more nervous.
“Do not forget to wear your gloves. Otherwise, you will get rope-burn,” he said in his thick Sesotho accent.
Check. Won’t do that.
“Always keep your right hand on the rope in front of you and your left hand on the rope in back of you.” He demonstrated.
Too many instructions. What if I do something wrong?
“I’ve been doing this for ten years,” Lucas explained. “No casualties, yet.” He laughed heartily.
That was comforting.
The caterpillars in my stomach were beginning to hatch from their cocoons as I became more and more scared.
“If you get scared, stop and I will rescue you. Do not get scared. I cannot rescue you. The best thing to do is to just keep going down ’til you reach the bottom.”
Just wonderful.
“One last thing,” he smiled. “Whatever you do, don’t look down. B’cause if you look down, den you gon get scared an’ dis rope don’ hold scared people.”
Jace told Lucas that she was going first.
“You’re gonna help, right, Lucas? I’m scared.”
“Ah, Mpo, dere is nothing to be scared of. Just do what I tell you.”
She was so trusting.
I watched as she disappeared over the side of the rock. If she could do it, I certainly could. Waiting was agonizing.
Finally, it was my turn.
Putting my back to the edge, I carefully took baby-steps towards it.
“It’s okay, Abby,” Lucas smiled. “I’ve got you. Besides, the first step is always the hardest. After that, it’s easy.”
He was right. I slid off the edge. Jumped down the side of the mountain; I did it slowly, though, so as to treasure the moment.
Wow.
I tried desperately to savor the fleeting moment. Not even ten seconds later I was at the bottom of the rock. Lucas was right: the first step had been the easiest. I didn’t think that I would ever have this opportunity again so I wanted to take full advantage of it. I jumped slowly. The rock was smooth. I took small leaps so that my time on the rock could be immortalized. I wanted to do it again. I didn’t have the energy.
Out of breath, I arrived at the bottom of the rock and a boy from Lorraine’s team hurriedly helped me become unattached from the ropes. Beneath the rock was a ledge about 50 feet long that came to a point that was out away from the rock. I immediately ran out away from the rock and farther out on the ledge to get a better view of the piece of mountain that I had just slid down. It was large, larger than I expected. Red rock beneath a clear blue sky. Beautiful. Smooth with some growths but definitely a good rock for abseiling.
“Abby, we did it!” Jace exclaimed as she ran over to me.
Sigh. We did it.
Lucas had said it was about 100 feet from the top of the rock to the bottom. I looked up at the top of the mountain to watch Lorraine as she leapt down the mountainside. Then I glanced down to the rest of the mountain. We were still about two-thirds of the way up the mountain. I was looking forward to the journey back. But I wanted to abseil again!
Little did I know that I would have the opportunity yet again about a month later. But the next time it was easy; not the climbing part, but that certainly was easier knowing that I had done it before. No doubt about it. I had wanted to make the most of my experiences in Africa and I had. In fact, towards the end of my stay there, Megan and I ventured up Everest all the way to the top. The abseiling adventure was just the beginning!
From top left going clockwise: Eagle Mountain, Mooihook, Mount Everest, The view from the top of the rock, The rock face that we rappelled down, Jace, Megan and I at the top of the rock, Jace going down the mountain.
