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It might be the most boring topic, which I could have chosen for the first post, but How and Why must be written about.
It might be the most boring topic, which I could have chosen for the first post, but How and Why must be written about.
It was one of
these gloomy December days. I was sitting at home in Klaipeda, Lithuania, when Lin's call woke
me up. I cannot remember, did she call from Singapore or Delhi, anyway, she
asked me “What do you think, shall we do the North Pole?” ”Why not?” I replied
without thinking. It must have been one of these days, when I was bored of
everything.
Eirliani received the BMW Foundation Responsible Leader Award in 2015 |
I met Eirliani Abdul Rehman (Lin's
full name) in Delhi Rock, indoors climbing gym in Delhi. She didn't take much time to find connections with me. We
became climbing partners and friends. At that time, she was working at Singapore High Commission in New Delhi, India. But soon she finished her carrier as a diplomat
and started to work with Noble Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi. She
joined Bachpan Bachao Andolan (eng. Save the Childhood
Movement) and started to work with abused children. Eirliani, also, is a founder of YAKIN (Youth Adult Survivors
& Kin in Need), a non-for-profit working with children from abused or disadvantaged background. They also work with adults survivors. These reasons compelled Eirliani to make a big
journey, which became Antarctica. About her reasons read more here and here.
Eirliani was very enthusiastic about our idea and started to
act immediately. In one week, she made a
schedule for our training,
found the people, who can train us, found the guides, made a list of the equipment we need. But life would be easy,
if everything would be simple as puzzle for 3 year old kids. We had to rethink each and every aspect of our journey. We even changed the destination; instead of crossing the North Pole, we decided
to do the South Pole. I realised that I couldn't handle the mental challenge of sleeping at the North Pole and being afraid of polar bear eating me. I know, South Pole is not an easy task either. I
have to stay in freezing
weather for one or two months, drag the sledges of 60 kg in the middle of nowhere. It is not only a physical challenge. It's
mental as well. The cold will make
the body tired and lazy. It
hits your will, which can be crucial under these extreme conditions. Loneliness makes you think, analyse
your self, face your demons inside
and deal with the wicked thoughts caused by harsh conditions. I am lucky, that
South Pole is the land of vegetarians,
as I mentioned before, and there's no chance, to become a fresh snack for polar bears. All this is still in the future and we do have time to explore more and get ready for this.
Now we have to deal with other challenges: money and time.
Funds
is the first step to make this expedition happen.
While we are not „<..> famous professional athletes“ – as one
famous company supporting extreme sports wrote me in an e-mail – our internal
companies policy are not allowing us to fund you <...>“. Being unknown makes it harder to get sponsors
and is taking longer than we had expected. Anyway, thanks for those, who supports
us: Delhi Rock, BMW foundation and others.
Exercising in Lodi Park, New Delhi The injured hand won't stop me from running or high steps. Photo by Agne Majauskaite |
We face different
reactions. Some people are encouraging, others are asking us to cancel it. They are
doubting if we can do it. I know we can, once we get a chance. Anyway, I am happy we decided to do it. My answer „Why not?“ encouraged me to move further, to rethink, what I want and what
I am searching for. It made me to start new things, this blog as well. Thank you, Eirliani, who gave an idea to open the blog about our expeditions, its reasons and training. I decided
to open this blog for more topics:
for the stories, people and their works, which inspired me. This blog will
always find the place for the stories, which needs to be inspired. Some place will
be left for my fiction essays, which
hopefully make you to rethink
the values or our daily things, we see, but ignore.
Interview in Outdoors journal:
Lin's blogs:
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