19-year-old Nzuzo Mnikathi returned to sunny South Africa on Friday, 27 January as the youngest black person ever to have reached the South Pole! He set out as part of The Unlimited Child South Pole Expedition team on 9 January.
In spite of unforeseen challenges and a near emergency evacuation, The Unlimited Child South Pole Expedition team reached their destination in the early hours of Sunday, 22 January having covered an astonishing 111km in six-and-a-half days.
Prior to the expedition, Nzuzo has never been away from home for longer that two days and his family was overjoyed to see him again. The welcome party at King Shaka International Airport included Ivy Ndlovu (Nzuzo’s Grandmother) and an entourage of family and friends from Oribi in Pietermaritzburg, 20 kids from the Mbalenhle Edu Centre in KwaMashu, a contingent from The Unlimited, as well as the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Health, the Honourable Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo and eThekwini Deputy Mayor, Councillor Nomvuso Shabalala.
According to Iain Buchan, founder of The Unlimited Child, who is expected back in the country early in February, Nzuzo showed great character under trying conditions and truly proved to be an inspiration to young South Africans. He lost both his parents at the age of nine and is no stranger to adversity, but could never prepare himself completely for the challenges of the harsh Antarctic environment.
“It was an amazing, but tough experience and I found Antarctica the most beautiful and most awful place at the same time. This journey reminded us just how vulnerable we are in nature and that such a desolate place as the Antarctic can cost you your life if you don’t treat it with respect,” said Buchan during a telephone conversation from Chile.
“The toughest challenge is the cold. Nothing can prepare you for it and it’s impossible to imagine how cold it really is until you are actually there. The coldest temperature we recorded was -50°C on our last day. It was bitterly, bitterly cold. We were walking for stretches of up to nine hours with a 10 minute rest every 90 minutes. We’d stop for some food and a drink, which means you have to take off your gloves, but the mind-numbing cold makes your hands ache by the time you’ve managed a quick bite and a gulp of water. Even when you get going again, it takes 30 minutes before the pain begins to ease,” explains Buchan.
“If we hadn’t had the skidoo, a motorised snow mobile, with us, we would have been in serious trouble. Nzuzo’s frostnip would have been much worse. He would have had to abandon the attempt and evacuate. We were just really fortunate that we had the back-up available.”
According to brothers Zack and Barney Buchan, who returned with Nzuzo, the team relied on humour to make it through.
“The memory that I am going to carry with me is the laughter. When things got tough, we all laughed and this just made the hardships much easier to bear. The last day was a long, hard 20km march. It was bitterly cold due to the driving wind. But every time we had an opportunity to chat with each other, we just laughed at our predicament, breaking the tension and making it much easier to carry on,” said Zack.
On reaching the South Pole, Nzuzo exclaimed that it was the best day of his life. “Even though I really struggled and am totally exhausted, I am so grateful to be here with the rest of the team. Without their support and motivation, I don’t think I would have managed to hold out till the end, but I am so glad that I did,” he said shortly after reaching the most Southern point of the planet.
According to Cassy Healey, CEO of The Unlimited Child, the team are absolutely delighted with the interest that the Expedition has raised for The Unlimited Child.
“We exist to ensure that preschool children are not limited by the environment in which they grow up. What a great example Nzuzo has been to all 13,500 children we work with – that they can achieve their wildest dreams! We’ve had brilliant support from all over South Africa and to our great excitement even from as far afield as the UK and the USA.
We’ve had classes in primary schools tracking him and church youth groups sending messages of support. He is a star, a true South Afr-I-Can-do- it hero and we are all extremely proud of him!” concluded Cassy Healey.
Congratulations to everyone involved!
Find out more about Nzuzo’s journey here