DAMMAM – Prince Muhammad Bin Fahd, Emir of Eastern Province Saturday honored a team comprising five Saudi girls and young men who raised the Saudi flag atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania after successfully scaling the highest mountain in Africa. The expedition is a part of the campaign to express their support to build the first early detection cancer center in the Kingdom.
In a press conference held at the Saudi Cancer Foundation in the Eastern Province Saturday, the climbers said the first thing they did when they got to the top of the mountain was to prostrate to Allah, the Almighty to show their gratefulness.
“We walked ten hours every day for seven days,” Abdullah Al-Melhem, a team member, said. “The higher we got, the less sleepy we felt and we walked slowly to maintain normal breathing.”
Another climber, Noor Al-Shadawee, who works as financial manager at a company drew parallels between mountain climbing and fighting cancer. “Both demand physical stamina and endurance and one must focus on getting to the top,” she said. “Many a time, we fell and vomited but we engaged in pepping each other because we wanted to show to the world that we didn’t come here for fun.”
A prior training for three months at a local gym helped us gain the strength we need during the expedition, she said.
Muna Shehab, the coordinator of the program and one of the team members, said their one and only motive was to raise public awareness about cancer and support setting up an early detection cancer center. — SG
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