It all started when a friend told 26-year-old Raha Moharrak that there would be no way for her to climb to the highest mountain in the world. She simply took the challenge and did it.
Moharrak is the youngest Arab and the first Saudi woman to reach Mount Everest and she has been the talk of the town ever since. She said her biggest challenge was to convince her father to let her reach her high dream. Her journey started in November 2011 when she climbed to Mount Kilimanjaro and several mountains. After that, she went ahead and climbed Mount Everest last May 2013.
She is just a normal Jeddawi woman who was born and raised in the Kingdom and continued her education in the American University of Sharjah majoring in graphic design. “I am severely dyslexic so I’m not the person who can do a lot of typing, writing and mathematics. I don’t excel in anything except in things that had to do with creativity and things with my hands. I like to build things and take things apart,” she said. “Graphic design fits with what I like and what I can do. I was lucky to get hired right after I graduated at advertising agency Leo Burnett. I spent three years learning and working with them but I had to go back to Saudi Arabia for family reasons,” she added.
Moharrak hates when she doesn’t know where she is going and what she is supposed to do next. “I wanted something different, I wanted something that challenged me and that pushed me further. Then this idea of climbing Mount Everest came to my mind,” she said. “It stuck in my head for days. Someone told me I couldn’t do it and that really annoyed me. I thought to myself, why should I put up with this and why not take action to prove that Raha Moharrak is different than what is said about Saudi women,” she added.
Over the years, Moharrak has heard many prejudices about how Saudi women only care about their homes and don’t have any priorities other than the kitchen. “I wanted to prove to the world that Saudi women are more than just housewives. They are strong women who can do anything if they are given the chance to,” she said. “Above all I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it and leave my comfort zone. I wanted to tell people they should not stereotype of Saudi women because I’m nowhere near that kind of judgment,” she added.
The first step Moharrak took was building up the courage to tell her father of her decision of climbing the Mount Everest. “Us Saudi girls, we live to make our family happy. You can always find us seeking to please them. Of course I had to eventually call my father and that’s when I was faced with a rejection,” she said. “I still couldn’t get it out of my head and so I started writing him an e-mail, explaining why I needed to climb this mountain. It was a one-way conversation and I couldn’t sleep, eat or do anything for three days until I received his reply, saying, ‘I love you, you’re crazy, go for it.’ And that’s how it all started,” she added.
She later started preparing herself by reading about climbing and changing her daily lifestyle. “Considering I hate going to the gym and I had never been camping, I started researching online on the best way of training and what to expect as a first-time climber. I went biking, running, I played volleyball and I did rock climbing. The training was very intense for two months to get in shape enough for climbing,” said Moharrak. “I then booked my ticket with a fellow climber and went for it. As soon as I started my journey, I knew this was what I was meant to do and this is what I had been missing my whole life,” she added.
To her, it was like jumping off a cliff. Moharrak did not know she was not ready for the amount of cold up there. “I took me a week to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. It was a shocking experience and it was way out of my comfort zone to me but I loved everything about it,” she said. “I almost died up there, I got really bad hypothermia. My core temperature dropped below the required temperature for normal metabolism. My teammates were on it as soon as I got sick and I started turning blue. They gave me extra clothes and saved me. We were a team and that’s what I love about climbing,” she added.
After reaching Kilimanjaro’s summit, Moharrak felt a sense of accomplishment and relief.
“In my backpack I carried equipment from water, camera, sunblock, extra layers and more,” she said. “As soon as I reached the top, I started taking photos and took out a Saudi flag to celebrate this victory,” she added.
Moharrak then started taking one mountain after the other. She felt clearance after climbing Kilimanjaro and decided she needed more and wanted more. “I just snowballed, after I came back and my family saw how happy I was. I got invited to join the Everest Base Camp and then I started climbing one mountain after the other,” she said. “I climbed Mount Vinson, the highest mountain of Antarctica, Mount Elbrus, a dormant volcano located in the western Caucasus mountain range, Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, Kala Pattar, a mountain in the Nepalese Himalayas, Pico de Orizaba the highest mountain in Mexico, Iztaccihuatl, a dormant volcanic mountain in Mexico and finally Mount Everest, the earth’s highest mountain,” she added.
Moharrak was one of 64 climbers who scaled Mount Everest from Nepal’s side of the mountain on May 18. She was part of a four-person expedition that also included the first Qatari man and the first Palestinian man attempting to reach the summit. Their Twitter page states that they were “working with ‘Reach Out to Asia’ to raise money for Nepali education.” The “Arabs with Altitude” group included Mohammed Al-Thani, a member of Qatar’s royal family, Raed Zidan, a Palestinian property businessman and Masoud Mohammad, an Iranian living in Dubai.
“It took me two months to get there and I can’t explain the feeling I got when I reached the summit. All I can say is that it was complete satisfaction,” she said. “Remembering all of this now, I am very proud that I insisted on climbing my first mountain. I believed in myself, I believed I was capable of living my dream and I just needed someone to give me the chance to do so. I chased my dream and I conquered it,” she added.
Moharrak made headlines in international newspapers and was trending in social media where many people wondered, why did she do it?
“As selfish as it sounds, I did it for me. People were trying to find a political connection or social reasons, but it I simply did it because I could,” she said. “I climbed nine mountains because I love adventure and I got addicted to that feeling and I never wanted to stop. I wanted to see what I could accomplish. I finally can say that I stood on top of the world,” she added.
Moharrak is not going to stop climbing and she has her sight set on two more mountains. “I would love to finish the seven summits of the highest peaks on every continent, I have done five out of seven and I have two left,” she said. “If I finish those, then I will start a new project probably. First, I’ll head out to Australia and Alaska to climb Mount Kosciuszko and Mount McKinley. Until then I will only focus on these,” she added.
Raha Moharrak climbs to the top of the world because she can
Raha Moharrak climbs to the top of the world because she can
A 98-year-old in Ukraine walked miles to safety from Russians, with slippers and a cane
- Describing her journey, the nonagenarian said she had fallen twice and was forced to stop to rest at some points, even sleeping along the way before waking up and continuing her journey
KYIV, Ukraine: A 98-year-old woman in Ukraine who escaped Russian-occupied territory by walking almost 10 kilometers (6 miles) alone, wearing a pair of slippers and supported by a cane has been reunited with her family days after they were separated while fleeing to safety.
Lidia Stepanivna Lomikovska and her family decided to leave the frontline town of Ocheretyne, in the eastern Donetsk region, last week after Russian troops entered it and fighting intensified.
Russians have been advancing in the area, pounding Kyiv’s depleted, ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs.
“I woke up surrounded by shooting all around — so scary,” Lomikovska said in a video interview posted by the National Police of Donetsk region.
In the chaos of the departure, Lomikovska became separated from her son and two daughters-in-law, including one, Olha Lomikovska, injured by shrapnel days earlier. The younger family members took to back routes, but Lydia wanted to stay on the main road.
With a cane in one hand and steadying herself using a splintered piece of wood in the other, the pensioner walked all day without food and water to reach Ukrainian lines.
Describing her journey, the nonagenarian said she had fallen twice and was forced to stop to rest at some points, even sleeping along the way before waking up and continuing her journey.
“Once I lost balance and fell into weeds. I fell asleep … a little, and continued walking. And then, for the second time, again, I fell. But then I got up and thought to myself: “I need to keep walking, bit by bit,’” Lomikovska said.
Pavlo Diachenko, acting spokesman for the National Police of Ukraine in the Donetsk region, said Lomikovska was saved when Ukrainian soldiers spotted her walking along the road in the evening. They handed her over to the “White Angels,” a police group that evacuates citizens living on the front line, who then took her to a shelter for evacuees and contacted her relatives.
“I survived that war,’ she said referring to World War II. “I had to go through this war too, and in the end, I am left with nothing.
“That war wasn’t like this one. I saw that war. Not a single house burned down. But now – everything is on fire,” she said to her rescuer.
In the latest twist to the story, the chief executive of one of Ukraine’s largest banks announced on his Telegram channel Tuesday that the bank would purchase a house for the pensioner.
“Monobank will buy Lydia Stepanivna a house and she will surely live in it until the moment when this abomination disappears from our land,” Oleh Horokhovskyi said.
Amazon Purr-rime: Cat accidentally shipped to online retailer
- Galena was found safe by a warehouse worker at an Amazon center after vanishing from her home in Utah
LOS ANGELES: A curious cat that sneaked into an open box was shipped across the United States to an Amazon warehouse after its unknowing owners sealed it inside.
Carrie Clark’s pet, Galena, vanished from her Utah home on April 10, sparking a furious search that involved plastering “missing” posters around the neighborhood.
But a week later, a vet hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in Los Angeles got in touch to say the cat had been discovered in a box — alongside several pairs of boots — by a warehouse worker at an Amazon center.
“I ran to tell my husband that Galena was found and we broke down upon realizing that she must have jumped into an oversized box that we shipped out the previous Wednesday,” Clark told KSL TV in Salt Lake City.
“The box was a ‘try before you buy,’ and filled with steel-toed work boots.”
Clark and her husband jetted to Los Angeles, where they discovered Amazon employee Brandy Hunter had rescued Galena — a little hungry and thirsty after six days in a cardboard box, but otherwise unharmed.
“I could tell she belonged to someone by the way she was behaving,” said Hunter, according to Amazon.
“I took her home that night and went to the vet the next day to have her checked for a microchip, and the rest is history.”
What did people eat before agriculture? New study offers insight
- Analysis of forms — or isotopes — of elements including carbon, nitrogen, zinc, sulfur and strontium in these remains indicated the type and amount of plants and meat they ate
WASHINGTON: The advent of agriculture roughly 11,500 years ago in the Middle East was a milestone for humankind — a revolution in diet and lifestyle that moved beyond the way hunter-gatherers had existed since Homo sapiens arose more than 300,000 years ago in Africa.
While the scarcity of well-preserved human remains from the period preceding this turning point has made the diet of pre-agricultural people a bit of a mystery, new research is now providing insight into this question. Scientists reconstructed the dietary practices of one such culture from North Africa, surprisingly documenting a heavily plant-based diet.
The researchers examined chemical signatures in bones and teeth from the remains of seven people, as well as various isolated teeth, from about 15,000 years ago found in a cave outside the village of Taforalt in northeastern Morocco. The people were part of what is called the Iberomaurusian culture.
Analysis of forms — or isotopes — of elements including carbon, nitrogen, zinc, sulfur and strontium in these remains indicated the type and amount of plants and meat they ate. Found at the site were remains from different edible wild plants including sweet acorns, pine nuts, pistachio, oats and legumes called pulses. The main prey, based on bones discovered at the cave, was a species called Barbary sheep.
“The prevailing notion has been that hunter-gatherers’ diets were primarily composed of animal proteins. However, the evidence from Taforalt demonstrates that plants constituted a big part of the hunter-gatherers’ menu,” said Zineb Moubtahij, a doctoral student in archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and lead author of the study published on Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
“It is important as it suggests that possibly several populations in the world already started to include substantial amount of plants in their diet” in the period before agriculture was developed, added archeogeochemist and study co-author Klervia Jaouen of the French research agency CNRS.
The Iberomaurusians were hunter-gatherers who inhabited parts of Morocco and Libya from around 25,000 to 11,000 years ago. Evidence indicates the cave served as a living space and burial site.
These people used the cave for significant portions of each year, suggesting a lifestyle more sedentary than simply roaming the landscape searching for resources, the researchers said. They exploited wild plants that ripened at different seasons of the year, while their dental cavities illustrated a reliance on starchy botanical species.
Edible plants may have been stored by the hunter-gatherers year-round to guard against seasonal shortages of prey and ensure a regular food supply, the researchers said.
These people ate only wild plants, the researchers found. The Iberomaurusians never developed agriculture, which came relatively late to North Africa.
“Interestingly, our findings showed minimal evidence of seafood or freshwater food consumption among these ancient groups. Additionally, it seems that these humans may have introduced wild plants into the diets of their infants at an earlier stage than previously believed,” Moubtahij said.
“Specifically, we focused on the transition from breastfeeding to solid foods in infants. Breast milk has a unique isotopic signature, distinct from the isotopic composition of solid foods typically consumed by adults.”
Two infants were among the seven people whose remains were studied. By comparing the chemical composition of an infant’s tooth, formed during the breastfeeding period, with the composition of bone tissue, which reflects the diet shortly before death, the researchers discerned changes in the baby’s diet over time. The evidence indicated the introduction of solid foods at around the age of 12 months, with babies weaned earlier than expected for a pre-agricultural society.
North Africa is a key region for studying Homo sapiens evolution and dispersal out of Africa.
“Understanding why some hunter-gatherer groups transitioned to agriculture while others did not can provide valuable insights into the drivers of agricultural innovation and the factors that influenced human societies’ decisions to adopt new subsistence strategies,” Moubtahij said.
Palestinian prisoner in Israel wins top fiction prize
- The mask in the novel’s title refers to the blue identity card that Nur, an archaeologist living in a refugee camp in Ramallah, finds in the pocket of an old coat belonging to an Israeli
ABU DHABI: Palestinian writer Basim Khandaqji, jailed 20 years ago in Israel, won a prestigious prize for Arabic fiction on Sunday for his novel “A Mask, the Color of the Sky.”
The award of the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction was announced at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi.
The prize was accepted on Khandaqji’s behalf by Rana Idriss, owner of Dar Al-Adab, the book’s Lebanon-based publisher.
Khandaqji was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Nablus in 1983, and wrote short stories until his arrest in 2004 at the age of 21.
He was convicted and jailed on charges relating to a deadly bombing in Tel Aviv, and completed his university education from inside jail via the Internet.
The mask in the novel’s title refers to the blue identity card that Nur, an archaeologist living in a refugee camp in Ramallah, finds in the pocket of an old coat belonging to an Israeli.
Khandaqji’s book was chosen from 133 works submitted to the competition.
Nabil Suleiman, who chaired the jury, said the novel “dissects a complex, bitter reality of family fragmentation, displacement, genocide, and racism.”
Since being jailed Khandaqji has written poetry collections including “Rituals of the First Time” and “The Breath of a Nocturnal Poem.”
He has also written three earlier novels.
Mexican doctor claims victory in $28 Cartier earrings battle
MEXICO CITY: A Mexican man has claimed a victory over French luxury brand Cartier, saying an error allowed him to buy two pairs of earrings for $28 that were supposed to cost nearly $28,000.
After a four-month struggle, doctor Rogelio Villarreal said he had finally received the jewelry, which he accused the company of refusing to deliver after his online purchase in December.
According to Villarreal, he came across the low-priced earrings while browsing Instagram.
“I swear I broke out in a cold sweat,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
Cartier declined to recognize the purchase and offered Villarreal a refund, as well as a bottle of champagne and a passport holder as compensation, according to a company letter shared by the doctor.
But Villarreal refused and decided to take the case to Mexico’s consumer protection agency, which ruled in favor of the doctor.
Cartier accepted the decision, Villarreal announced.
“War is over. Cartier is complying,” he wrote.
