When I journey alone, I’m not the ‘woman with one leg’ – I’m simply Zainab

For a very long time, I didn’t recognise the woman within the mirror. I used to be a collage of stitches and plaster casts, tape measures and socket moulds. At residence, my mom cupped my face with each fingers and mentioned: “You are strong. You were made unbreakable.” I didn’t consider her. But I wished to. And perhaps that’s what led me right here, to the aspect of a cliff in Oman, fingers clawed round a metal lifeline, pulling myself inch by inch up the rock. We’d began at dawn, the trail zigzagging throughout free shale and burnt orange limestone. I used to be the one lady within the group – simply me and some Omani adventurers I’d discovered on Instagram. They had been cheerful at first, serving to me test my harness, asking about my prosthesis. But as soon as the hike started, the speaking stopped. The terrain demanded it. The rock was brittle, flaking underfoot, at all times somewhat uncertain. We scrambled over boulders, edged alongside free ridges with open air on one aspect.

By the time we reached the by way of ferrata – a climbing route mounted with cables and steel rungs – my muscle tissue had been already aching. We clipped in. The cable was chilly, clean, unsentimental. I moved with care: proper foot, then a pivot of my hip to swing the prosthetic into place. It doesn’t observe like an actual leg would. Every step is deliberate. But when the danger is actual – if you’re excessive up and targeted – there’s no house for resentment. That’s once I realised I hadn’t considered it in an hour. I wasn’t calculating how for much longer I may maintain going. I wasn’t questioning if individuals would choose me if I finished. I used to be simply climbing, like everybody else.

The guys had been forward, their actions fluid and positive. I stored my distance. I didn’t wish to sluggish them down. But one among them turned briefly and grinned. “You good?” he referred to as. I nodded. “All good.” He didn’t supply assist or ask if I wanted something – he simply stored climbing. And that was the respect I hadn’t recognized I wanted.

When I pulled myself over the ultimate rung, arms trembling, solar overhead, the view struck like a wave: mountains stretched like ripples in a bedsheet, the sky washed pale, the wind shearing throughout the ridge. The others had been already there, consuming water, laughing. And in that second, I felt it – not pleasure, not victory, however permission to be there. To take up house. To be precisely who I used to be, with out apology or clarification.

Zainab Al-Eqabi celebrating her climb

Zainab Al-Eqabi