Climbing Mount Kenya - Postscript

The year group on top of Mount Kenya

And they made it! Of the 29 12 and 13 year olds and 4 teachers, 26 children and 3 teachers made it to the top of Africa's second highest mountain, - 16,353 feet - including our precious Firstborn.  A major life achievement. As the father of a UK friend of hers wrote:
'Well you made it to the top of a mountain five times bigger than the largest mountain in England before breakfast!'

But as Firstborn says 'It was really, really difficult. It wasn't that I enjoyed it. But I'm very very proud to have done it.'
Half of them vomited on the final ascent (possibly not helped by the consumption of porridge at 230 am).  Many of them cried.  Several, including FirstBorn, carried on despite altitude sickness.  But it became clear that at this point the impetus was theirs.  They'd walked for three days, and a few had to turn back in the last few hours because of altitude sickness, but all were clear, if they were able to, they now wanted to get to the top.

I - and many other mothers - had been in many minds about this endeavour. But watching our fortunate ones return, unwashed, having drunk water from ice-fed streams for five days, having slept in tents in subzero temperatures yet standing three foot higher with pride at what they had managed, well, I can see the value of it.
'We really bonded' said one child, fairly recently arrived at the school.
'I was sick twice in the last hour from altitude sickness. I knew if I showed the teachers the second lot they'd send me back down the mountain. And I didn't want to give up then just before the top, so I just walked away from it,' said another boy.
'It was really, really hard. I hadn't anticipated it being that difficult,' said one fit male teacher in his late twenties.

For several of the children it was their first sight of snow.  For some of the Kenyans it was their first ever sunburn.
'They hadn't really believed they could get sunburnt, till their noses started peeling.'
Others had never encountered chapped lips before.
'She asked me would it go away again in an hour, if she put some lipsalve on. She was horrified when I told her it would be about a week.'
And there wasn't the mass menstruation onset we'd feared. Hurrah.

Many things in life aren't in our control. That in part was what our children - and we adults - learned there. You couldn't know who would be struck down with altitude sickness, it wasn't logical, you couldn't foresee.  But  in some things in life, though they're really difficult, it matters to just keep on going.  Having friends next to you helps. But some things in life you don't give up on even though they're difficult.  Though it hurts. Though you can't get enough oxygen. Though you're cold and vomiting and uncertain whether you'll make it.  And that is a powerful realisation for any twelve year old, and one for which I give thanks.