Pole Pole: Still I Rise — The Mountain That Raised Me

I didn’t apply to hike Mount Kilimanjaro because I felt brave.

I applied because something in me refused to stay still.

The requirement was simple: 100,000 steps in seven days.

No promises. No guarantees.

I put my name forward without confidence, without certainty—only with the decision to move.

It was enough.

That single yes split my life open—like the first blade of light cutting through a long night.

What I couldn’t yet see was that Kilimanjaro would demand far more than lungs and legs.

It would strip me down. Ask for discipline when motivation evaporated. Patience when effort showed no reward. Humility when ego had no place to stand. Emotional endurance when comfort disappeared entirely.

Long before my boots touched African soil, the mountain had already begun its work.

It trained me to show up without certainty. To stay present inside discomfort. To trust myself one step at a time.

Preparation was relentless. The gear list alone felt like a test—down jackets, base layers, fleece, liner gloves. Endless trips to Adventure HQ and The North Face. Layer by layer, I armored myself for a place I hadn’t yet seen.

Once selected, there was no halfway commitment. Alongside two colleagues, I gave my Saturdays to the mountain.

Every week began in darkness.

A 4:00 a.m. departure from Abu Dhabi.

Cars packed with water, electrolytes, snacks—and resolve.

Ras Al Khaimah humbled us fast. By the time we staggered back to the car, our legs trembled like brittle glass. Our feet pulsed with pain. We tore off our boots in silence, swallowed Tylenol, and questioned our life choices.

And then—we came back the next week.

Slowly, almost invisibly, something shifted.

Like water carving stone, persistence did its quiet work. The climbs grew steeper. The hikes longer. The fear softened. Progress didn’t arrive loudly; it arrived faithfully.

By the time all 18 of us gathered at Abu Dhabi airport, there was a shared energy between us—excitement braided tightly with nerves. We stood there in our new gear, smiling and laughing, looking prepared on the outside, unaware of how deeply unprepared we truly were.

Tanzania greeted us with warmth—colour, noise, life everywhere.

Kilimanjaro stood apart. Silent. Towering. Still.

It didn’t acknowledge us. Didn’t care we’d come so far.

It just waited.

The bus ride had already hollowed me out. Legs heavy. Head thick. Then my boot hit the dirt—and the rain came. Hard. Immediate. No warning. No mercy.

Water sluiced down my jacket, found every seam. Mud seized my boots and refused to let go. Even the gear looked defeated, as if it already understood what this mountain would take.

I kept moving.

Step.

Breath.

Step.

The first few days are the easiest, they said.

I swallowed a laugh.

Enjoyable? Maybe.

Easy? Not even close.

From the first hour, my heart betrayed me—hammering too fast, too loud. I fought to slow it, to stay inside my body, to convince myself I belonged here. Not a single day came easily.

By nightfall, we reached Mandara Huts—2,700 meters. Soaked, cold, wrung out to the core. We were handed buckets of warm water—the only luxury. I washed carefully, reverently, as if each drop mattered—because it did.

That night, four of us shared a narrow cabin. Exhaustion pressed down like a physical weight. I didn’t drift into sleep.I fell—hard and instantly—into darkness.

Days blurred into one long grind—wake. eat. hike. breathe. repeat.

Breakfast was basic: oatmeal, eggs, bread, tea. Nothing special. And yet it felt sacred. Fuel. Familiarity. Something solid before everything else was stripped away.

As we climbed, the mountain tightened its grip. The air thinned. Breath became work. Every incline forced me to slow, to negotiate with my own body. Kilimanjaro has no patience for ego. It humbles you quietly at first—then without apology.

By Horombo Hut, sleep no longer belonged to me. I hovered on the surface all night, never fully sinking. Summit night pressed in—dense, wordless—like a question I couldn’t avoid.

This was the night we had trained for. Weeks of preparation distilled into one attempt.Still, anticipation gnawed at me. I couldn’t rest that afternoon. And when we woke—already hollowed out by exhaustion—I knew we were starting from a deficit.

Summit night began at 11:30 p.m.

We pulled on everything we owned—thermals over thermals, gloves, hats, scarves. Headlamps cinched tight. We stepped into the dark in single file, swallowed by it.

The cold hit instantly. Violent. It cut through layers like they didn’t exist. Fingers went numb, one by one. Toes turned rigid, foreign. Nothing warmed. Nothing eased. Only forward remained.

Two hours in, we stopped.

0.2 kilometres.

My stomach dropped. My fingers burned. My nose ran. The boots in front of me were the only thing I could see. I memorized them—the cracked soles, the slow sway of the pack. Looking up felt dangerous. Impossible.

Step.

Breathe.

Step.

Then I saw her—a hiker sitting down, lying back on frozen ground. Still. Peaceful. An ending.

I wanted it. I was that close.

Then my porter lifted my pack from my shoulders. Calmly. Simply.

“Just keep going.”

Those three words didn’t inspire me. They pinned me in place.

The cold gnawed through bone. My lungs scraped for air. Every step felt borrowed, like my body was done but my will hadn’t been informed yet. I wasn’t strong. I was empty—and still moving.

Somewhere on that mountain—stripped of warmth, comfort, dignity—I made a vow I couldn’t ignore.

If I reached the summit, I would leave behind everything that had weighed me down: the anger, the resentment, the quiet, invisible burdens I carried alone. I would throw them over the mountain, let the wind take them, and reclaim my life.

With every step, I carved the promise into myself:

You are fierce.

You are relentless.

You are unbroken.

You never quit.

You do this—even when it hurts, even when it feels impossible.

Pole pole. Slowly. Relentlessly.

One step. One breath. One heartbeat at a time.

And with each step, I rose a little higher—stripped, raw, unstoppable.

And somehow—against logic, against comfort, against my own doubt—we made it.

At the summit, four of us collapsed into each other, bodies shaking, faces wet. Tears froze on our cheeks. Not joy first—it was release. Survival. Triumph. The kind that only comes after you’ve been cracked open.

I stood there with numb fingers, burning lungs, a heart blown wide open—and felt lighter than I had in years. As if something heavy had been shed, piece by piece, in the dark.

Kilimanjaro carved this truth into me:

Life is not conquered in bold moves.

It is conquered pole pole—slowly, painfully, deliberately.

One decision. One breath. One step forward—when every muscle is screaming stop.

That mountain stripped me bare until only what was true remained.

It reminded me of my strength. My resilience. My refusal to quit.

It reminded me who I am.

What is etched on my arm: Still I rise.

And just as we reached the summit, the mountain delivered one final lesson:

It wasn’t done with us yet.

There was no victory lap. Almost immediately, we began the descent—2,000 meters down to safer ground.Ten hours of climbing had already emptied us. Then came seven more. Seven hours of relentless downhill. Knees screaming. Quads on fire. Feet numb, then burning. Step after punishing step.

By the time we reached Horombo Huts at 9:00 p.m., I was beyond exhaustion. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t speak. I peeled off my layers, collapsed onto the bed, and let go. Sleep took me hard and fast—the kind only comes when the body has nothing left to give.

When I woke the next morning, something had shifted.

I felt lighter. Fierce. Unstoppable. Stripped bare and rebuilt overnight. Grounded. Clear. Ready.

The final day was 20 kilometres down to Marangu Gate. The trail twisted endlessly, refusing to let us go. And yet—I couldn’t stop smiling. Every step carried the weight of what we had survived. I had done the impossible.

As I walked, I thought about life waiting beyond that gate—the courage I would carry forward, the strength I now trusted, the clarity that comes from walking through something hard and coming out whole. Kilimanjaro hadn’t just changed my altitude. It had changed me.

And the people—oh, the people. On that mountain, stories weren’t just told—they were handed over, raw and unfiltered, like whispered prayers against the wind. Each step revealed bravery, sacrifice, hope.

One hiker carried the weight of an entire family on her shoulders for years, never calling it extraordinary. I felt its enormity. Another dared me to imagine a life bigger than my fear, recounting an Ironman journey that lit a fire inside me I didn’t know existed. Another reminded me that love—real, cinematic, unwavering love—still exists, raw and undeniable.

Different lives.

Different battles.

Different dreams.

One mountain.

We arrived as strangers.We climbed side by side.We descended forever changed. Witnesses to courage we never could have imagined.

And somehow, in the cold, the rain, the struggle, we found the most powerful truth:Strength is contagious.

Hope is unstoppable.

The human spirit—ours, theirs, ours together—rises.

Still I rise.

“I arrived chasing a mountain. I left knowing no peak can hold me back—I rise, always.” – Faiza Chaudhary