June 26, 2015 – Today was the day. The impending notorious hike (12am-5am) to the peak of Blue Mountain made me nervous but brought me the excitement we sometimes get when we face a new challenge. I construed the beautifully laid out stars in the night sky of Blue Mountain as a foreshadowing of a grand, but benign journey we were about to begin. This thought could not have lasted any shorter. Ten minutes into walking uphill, I began to fathom how arduous this hike was going to be. My calves were screaming in pain, and the anguish in my thighs belied the pleasant ambience the mountain had initially created for me. Under the circumstance, I even began to think that the Jamaican residents and our advisers, who told us how the experience would be so fulfilling and joyful, were culpable of “misinforming” us. However, I did not have the luxury of complaining for long, as the aching in my legs screamed for my immediate and undivided attention. I made an abortive attempt to alleviate the pain by walking in a different way, listening to music, and emptying my mind. Unfortunately, the pain did not subside and the situation seemed abysmal to say the least. Each minute felt like ten, and the chronic pain in my legs and the shortness of breath due to the high altitude of Blue Mountain made me question: “is the experience really worth all this?”
Despite such adversities, I somehow managed to convince myself to continue on. In fact, I had to; I had passed the point of no return. Although being not very familiar with quotes and maxims, my brain somehow dug up a quote from the back of my mind, as it was desperately searching for some motivation. Reminding myself of Winston Churchill’s quote that goes something like “if you are going through hell, keep walking”; I walked in silence, step by step, until I finally reached the peak. After four hours of walking through hell, I finally reached the summit, what seemed to be a heaven on earth. I forgot about the pain and each tree, grass, and cloud (which was below our level as we were so high in altitude) congregated to create a beautiful scenery which I will never forget. The difficult hike made the experience and its “reward” a hundred times as valuable as it would have been without it. The scenery of the sun rising on the horizon, beyond hundreds of hill and thousands of miles, was simply subliminal.
After coming down from the peak, we left the village around at 4pm. Although I had only stayed in Blue Mountain village for three days, I felt at home there and had built a close relationship with Marilyn(mother of our host family; her food was simply amazing) and her son Naquin(he loves to play soccer and listen to music on my phone). So, the farewell elicited a lot of thoughts and emotions that were not too dramatic, but considerably sentimental. The people in the village are also very genuine and I have never experienced anything quite like this (in terms of building relationship) before. I cannot speak for all Jamaicans, but this may be due to the village’s abstinence from an excess use of technology that hinders the building of true “down to earth” human relationships, or due to Jamaican culture in general(we will see over the rest of our trip). Regardless, the experiences and the lessons I learned over the past couple days are invaluable, and I hope to visit again in the future if I have the chance and reconnect with the people and Blue Mountain.
Janghoon( Ryan) Yang, Sidwell Friends School