on the rocks

No, it’s not what you think.

These rocks aren't ice cubes in my gin and tonic. They are mountain faces, and pretty high ones at that. I spent the day rock climbing with a very diverse crowd that ranged from others in the UN community, to those working for local NGOs, to a band of Yemeni youths who appear to be part mountain goat, judging from their climbing ability. The climbing is organized by Joshua, a Croatian-American (!) writer from Seattle who has been living in Yemen for a little over three years. He has made an agreement with a local landowner in the mountain village where we climbed – access to the mountain for free climbing lessons for the landowner’s sons. The relationship has given rise to something that is part adventure travel, part eco-tourism, with the goal of providing this mountain community with an income-generation project that also raises awareness of the environment and the very challenging trash problem in the countryside.

So, what’s it like to hang about 50 yards off the ground, gripping onto a sheer rock face with your toes and fingernails? Terrifying at first. My first time up the cliff I got about three-quarters of the way up and was suddenly over come with very inopportune case of vertigo. Joshua is a great coach, though, and calmly talked me through it, pushing me to finish, knowing that I needed to if I were to try again. I still don’t know how I made it past some of the more difficult rocky turns, but I eventually made it all the way up my first time. Apparently, one of the biggest challenges to doing this is to stop thinking too much and “trust your feet.” As with many things, success lies in overcoming the mental challenge, even more than the physical.

Even if I hadn’t managed to scale up to the top, the day spent outdoors with a bunch of people I hadn’t met before still would have been terrific. Work has been pretty intense, and I doubt it will let up before January. When I think of all that I need to do, and all that I need to know in order to be able to do it, I can almost feel a similar panic to being up on the rock face, unsure how to take the next step onto the tiniest of ledges.

I need to keep reminding myself to “trust my feet.”