Interview With Raha Moharrak: FIRST SAUDI WOMAN TO CONQUER EVEREST

“I am proud of what I have achieved but it has meant many sacrifices.”

Raha Moharrak.

For Raha Moharrak, the title of becoming the first Saudi woman to climb Everest and the other six highest peaks in this world has not come without great sacrifices on her end. Not just the same ones that other sportswomen have had to endure such as gruelling training, discipline, and risk; but for her, an Arab woman specifically from a conservative family in Saudi Arabia, climbing to the top of the world has cost her social labelling and may even significantly alter her future. Despite this, Raha assures she would do it again because otherwise, “I would be not being true to myself”. 

Despite being aware of the consequences of pursuing her dream of conquering the seven summits of the world, (Everest, Kilimanjaro, Mount Vinson, Aconcagua, Kala Pattar, Pico Orizaba, and Iztaccihuatl), she would do it all over again. 

“I wanted to live a life of adventure.”

“I did it because the alternative would be to live a life that wasn’t mine, it would be not being true to myself, lying to myself, telling myself I was something else…No… I chose to be different, there’s nothing I can do about it,” she tells us. 

Regardless of being aware that she has been “labelled by society in a category that I will never be able to get out of”, she is certain and shares with all women that “if you want to succeed, if you want to climb your own summits, it is not enough to ask for or want something, you must make sacrifices, prioritize. It’s not ‘I want this and give it to me’, it’s ‘you want it, go for it and take it.’”

“You need discipline, patience, to be a team player, to think of others; you have to be a reliable person, to keep your word. A lot of people say they do things but don’t do them. If you don’t have discipline for what you eat, for being on time, how are you going to fulfill your dreams?”

FIRST SAUDI WOMAN TO CONQUER EVEREST
The first thing according to Raha, is to have confidence in ourselves and for that, “the first step a woman has to take is to believe that she deserves what she wants in life: the job she wants, the position she wants, because if you don’t think you deserve it, you’re not going to aim for it.”

Not a lot of women are ‘lucky’ enough to have that confidence Raha formed in her childhood with the warmth of an open and loving family who respected her free spirit, but she believes that this confidence can be strengthened.

“Believing in yourself takes years, but you need to start somewhere, choosing what you wear, choosing the life you want.”

She says, “A lot of women don’t have the courage to say no when someone asks them for something, to say ‘I don’t want to wear that’ or ‘I don’t want to eat that’… Your opinion matters and what you want matters.” 

“I’m proud of who I am and where I’ve gotten to, but it has taken sacrifices.” And it may be, as it happened to her, you can’t seem to find a way to materialize your dreams. She just knew that she ‘wanted to live a life of adventure’, not that she wanted to climb mountains. “Sometimes it’s where you don’t want to be that guides you, not where you want to be. I didn’t know where I was going but I knew I didn’t want to be standing where I was.” As soon as she knew that she did everything in her power to get her parents to support it. “I proved to them what I really wanted.

”I’m always asked if I had a daughter, would I let her climb a mountain. And people are always surprised because I would answer no. But if my daughter gets up early, goes to training, and saves all her money for the team… if I see all that, I would let her.” 

Finally, Raha got the support of her family and was able to climb to the highest peak in the world, because “I was at the top of the mountain, I raised the flag, but I didn’t get there just by myself. I am very, very lucky to be able to say this. I have parents who love me, they think I’m crazy, they don’t always agree with me and didn’t support me at first, but then they did.” 

A traditional section of her society, however, does not see her accomplishments from the same point of view. “They don’t understand me. Once you stop to please everyone, you’ll be a much happier person,” Raha says. This does not say that Raha does not suffer, “There is always suffering when it comes to something so emotional; but it’s a part of life, you need to prioritize what are things you want to worry about and what are things you don’t want to worry about. It’s not easy. And then there are things you can’t control, you can’t control how you feel all the time, emotions are emotions; but you can control who you keep around you. I always tell people, ‘If someone is not good for you, you make an effort not to have them in your life.’”

 " The most crucial thing is to have a good relationship with yourself. Many of us don’t know how to be happy alone, most of us are when with people or things. You have to try to be happy without things, without people, with yourself. And when I say happy, I don’t mean happy all the time, but functionally happy, without thinking that there is something wrong with you if you are alone or you don’t have a certain car."

FIRST SAUDI WOMAN TO CONQUER EVEREST
Along with this stable relationship with herself alone, it is astonishing how this Saudi woman has managed to conquer all those summits, constantly aware of the support given to her by her parents and friends, and by turning a blind eye to people who do not see her for her accomplishments. Despite all the sacrifices, Raha has made her dreams come true and opened the doors for many other women in her country and the world to bring their dreams into reality.
Does Raha’s story inspire you to push you to go after what you want?
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