The Everest Tragedy That Left Blacks Shaking Their Head
Mountain climbers and thrill seekers are in a frenzy over what is happening to their counterparts in Nepal.
Early this month, more than a thousand hikers were trapped on Mount Everest after a heavy blizzard swept through.
Videos flooded social media, especially on what users now call Everest Tok, showing climbers gasping for air and clinging to hope in freezing white winds.
While the rest of the world sympathized, many Ugandans could not help but ask one simple question.
Why would anyone pay between 40,000 and 100,000 dollars, roughly UGX 150 million to 380 million, to climb a mountain only to carry their own oxygen and possibly die there?
And if they do, their families must pay another 70,000 dollars, about UGX 265 million, to have the body brought down.
Back home, that kind of money could take an entire village to school for a year, build a maternity ward, and still have enough to start a decent business to serve the community.
Yet somewhere out there, people are queuing up to pay for the thrill of almost dying in the snow.
Critics online have called them selfish, while others say it is proof that some people live lives so comfortable that they have to create their own suffering.
As one African said on TikTok, this can never be us.
We already climb life every day with barely any oxygen.
