When I first decided that I was going to spend 3 months of my gap year in Nepal, the responses I got varied from “OMG that is like SO cool” to “Wait… is that a country or something?”
When I came back from Nepal a week after the 7.8 earthquake left the country in ruins, the responses I got were quite different.
Since returning, I have received a wide variety of questions regarding my experiences in Nepal. But most of these questions never received answers. Well, not real ones, that is. There was too much to think about, or I didn’t have the words to accurately convey a memory, or I didn’t think the person asking was looking for more than a generic answer.
But now I’ve had some time to think about these questions and organize my thoughts. So here are a couple of answers.
First, there’s usually a broad question: “How was Nepal?”
Nepal was… a lot of things. It was prayer flags scattered through the countryside. It was walking down the street and seeing women in traditional saris next to girls in mini skirts. It was drinking tea on rooftops. It was exploring ancient temples and architecture. It was listening to the sound of prayer rituals in the morning. It was eating daal bhat every day for dinner. It was having children tell me how much they loved school (seriously!). It was weaving my way around people and motorcycles and pollution in the cities. It was being welcomed in by strangers no matter where I was. It was the smell of burning incense and freshly baked chapatti. And it was mountains, and mountains, and mountains. If I had to describe it in a word, I would say indescribable.
Another question I’m frequently asked: “What was your favorite part about Nepal?”
Without a doubt, this would be the people I met. I was always blown away by the generosity of the Nepali people. No matter where you are, no matter the living conditions of a person, they will always invite you in for a cup of tea. I frequently found myself thinking of a line I had recited the morning of my bat-mitzvah … “my host had nothing and gave me half… and we both had plenty”
This line was proven infinite times in a day when I spent 10 days in a rural village, Belamchaur. My host sister, Ritu, was 30 years old, and probably the most hardworking woman I have ever met. She is left alone to take care of her two aging parents. The three of them live in a clay hut where the kitchen doubles as the bedroom. Ritu spends her days taking care of their chickens and water
buffalo, farming in the fields, going to the jungle to collect grass, working on her loom to make some extra money for her family, and cooking. But even with all these chores, Ritu always made time for me. She would share everything she could with me, making sure I got the best and biggest portions of food, making sure I always had a cup of fresh mint tea, making sure I was always happy. She shared her clothing with me and beamed at the way I looked like a “Nepali woman”. She took me to the field to work with her and beamed when another lady commented that I worked like a “Nepali woman”. We joked with each other through our strained language barrier. We exchanged pictures of our families and friends, trying to convey memories that we knew the other would never
have. We made our own memories—Ritu took me to the town’s celebration of the Nepali New Year! But that’s a story for another time. Ritu was the embodiment of the sense of selflessness that flows throughout the Nepali culture.
Then, people usually move on to the earthquake:
“So you know everybody says you’re the “Nepal Survivor” now. Were you scared?”
Yes, I was scared. The earth—the very mass we depend on for stability and grounding—was shaking. It was shaking for 3 minutes straight. My group was not all together and we were hiking in a canyon 25 miles north or the epicenter where there was minimal coverage. Quite frankly, we were incredibly lucky to not have any injuries between us and our team of porters. And testing fate is
always a scary feeling.
That being said, I don’t feel like I’m a survivor. I was by no means in an ideal place to be during an earthquake, but I never felt like my life was threatened. Yes, I was in Nepal during the earthquake. But I did not watch buildings collapse around me. My food rations never dropped to a frightening level. I always had sources of clean water. And, most importantly, I got to go home. I had a home to
go to. A home that was still standing on a strong, sturdy foundation. So when I think about my situation, and when I compare it to my Nepali friends who were still camping under a tarp almost 2 years later, I don’t consider myself a “survivor”. Because they are surviving every day.
One of the questions I’ve been asked has given me more to think about than the others:
“What was the hardest part? Of being there during the earthquake? Of the whole experience?”
Well, the hardest part was leaving.
It wasn’t watching boulders fall across the canyon as we were huddled together under an overhang.
It wasn’t hiking past landslides and hearing about the fallen bridges ahead of us and wondering what would have happened if we were a couple hours ahead on the trail. It wasn’t waiting for cell phone connection, for more news and information, each update bringing a rise in the death toll.
It wasn’t even trying to get back to Kathmandu, travelling for days on our own two feet, and then in the crowded back of a jeep over sketchy roads, and then by a bus, and then by a small plane.
It was getting on the big plane. It was leaving a place that had come to mean so much to me over the past three months in such a desperate situation. And it was leaving the people I had made strong connections with in that terrible situation after all they had done for me.
Because the Nepali people, they hadn’t stopped giving after the earthquake struck. Amrit Ale, our fearless leader, stayed with us the whole way. He didn’t know the condition of the village he grew up in, or his family for that matter. But he didn’t leave us. He coordinated our evacuation effort and travelled with us all the way to Kathmandu. He waited until we were on our plane and safely in the
air to go back to his village. And he immediately started organizing relief efforts himself.
The hardest part was leaving because, more than I’d ever wanted anything before, I wanted to stay. But that was selfish of me. It would’ve been selfish to stay and take up the limited resources that the country had. I would have been a liability. I realized that the best way that I could help was by coming home and spreading Amrit’s message.
After experiencing Amrit’s generosity, and Ritu’s generosity, and the generosity of so many Nepali people I will never be able to repay, it is time to return the gesture.
I am happy to have partnered with Amrit and his team at Himalayan Quests Foundation after returning to Nepal with my family less than 1 year after the earthquake. We decided to focus our effort on rebuilding the 30,000 classrooms that have been destroyed. One year after our trip, the first school has been rebuilt and 100 children are back in their classrooms. If you are able, please consider supporting our efforts and help me repay the kindness and generosity the Nepali people