Why Everest?

Many people asked me: -Why have you decided to go on Mount Everest? What does this have to do with a project in Madagascar?

Well if we think only geographically: yes, Mount Everest has nothing to do with Madagascar and apparently there is no link between climbing a mountain and helping children to get a better education. And I understand that for so many it looks just like a great vacation.

The link lies in the symbolic aspect of climbing a mountain.

        2008 Celle Macra, Italy - Hiking with my family to the village where my father was born

When I founded A Bridge of Roses, my idea was very simple as I explained on my web site ABridgeofRoses.com:

-“I will do 4 challenges and ask to family, friends and all who I know to sponsor me. I pay for my trips and expenses and all the donations will go to the project.”

Then I started to think at which challenges to do. From that very first moment I decided that Mount Everest should have been the last challenge.

Why? Very simple: it is the tallest mountain in the world. And to climb it is, symbolically, the ultimate challenge.

I am actually not attempting to climb to the top but only to Base Camp (5,360 metres - 17,590 ft).

                                          2008, Mamma Rosa hiking

The first person with whom I spoke about A Bridge of Roses and the challenges was, of course, Tom. He loved it and supported me. Then I wrote a letter to my brother in Italy asking his support and to join me on this last challenge.

My brother and I, although we have very different personalities, we are very close. My father died when I was young. When we were children he not only took his role of big brother very seriously, but many times he substituted that father that I did not have. He was, and he still is, my special mentor. So it was natural to ask him to help me to raise money to build a school in honor of our mother Ponte Rosa (Rose Bridge). In that letter, while explaining him why I wanted to do this ABridgeofRoses project and why to climb the Everest, I wrote him this:

… I just finished to read a fantastic book, so many things touched me in this book but one more than anything else: -Thousand of children from the shore see a boat crossing the horizon, but only one asks himself where does it go? And only that child one day will try to find the answer.  I like to think I am that child.

-Since I was a child I ask myself the same question: What am I looking for? I am still looking for an answer. Sometimes I feel like I got it, but then I have doubts again and the question arises again in my mind.

I hope you can understand me. And deep in my heart I know that even if from a different experience… you understand me. You had always understood me. I know it. For this reason I asked you to join me to climb the Everest, and for this reason I am hoping you will agree to come with me.

So many times I saw you “climbing” the mountains of your life, so many times I tried to follow your steps. I always admired you and I always knew you where looking at me when I was “climbing” the mountains of my life. For once let’s climb together and let’s chose the highest: the Everest.

Will we finally see the “other side” when we will have reached the top? Will we see what is hiding in the other side? Will we see where the boat comes from? I am afraid not, but maybe, maybe yes. And it is that possibility: the hope to see finally where the boat comes from and where it goes that will give us the strength to climb, as it always did.

Love, Luciano

So Mount Everest will be!

             Rome, 2006 - My family: Luciano, Tom, Luciana, Giorgio, Cesare e Mamma Rosa