navigating leaches Part 3

We are in the thick of Nepal’s monsoon season.  It really hit home when I was petting one of my favorite dogs in the village of Ghat.  I scratched his head, rubbed his back, and pulled on his ears.  He reacted with a shake of his thick black Tibetan mastiff mane.  A shake that shuddered through from his head to his back paws, throwing a spray of dust and something big and black that whizzed past my head in a gentle arc. 

I saw the object in flight out of the corner of my eye.  At first I thought a bird had dropped a good luck present from the sky. In Nepal it is a common belief that if you get hit by bird droppings it’s good luck.  I took a curious look toward the black blob only to realize that a leach had gorged itself to the size of a 3 inch slug, and as the dog shook, the leach heavy with blood, was to weighty to hang on. Welcome to the monsoon.

We flew in to the Mt Everest trail head and had started our walk toward Namche Bazaar.  Since it was going to take 4 days for the resilient structures to arrive in the porter’s village of Bung, 3 days by trail below us, we wanted to use the time to head North by foot. Our goal was to allocate a small percentage of the donations to a hard hit village called Khumjung and to Home Away from Home boarding school.  I had been coordinating with Urkin Sherpa who was creating a list of the people who needed aid the most. After completion of our round of aid in the area we would hop on a chartered helicopter to fly us to Bung because it would be impossible to cover the distance from Namche to Bung with the amount of time we had.  

I had never been to Nepal during the monsoon.  So far we have seen a total of three tourists.  I can understand why tourists do not come during this season.  I myself have heard a legion of leach stories and sheets of rain that continue for weeks and weeks.  The legendary horror stories of people waking up with a leach wiggling off their forehead like a small antenna, or the story of the guy waking up with a leach attached to his private part (true story told by my wife) screaming “oh my god, oh my god,”  play on my psyche.  We walk all day in the clouds.  

We are happy to be heading north toward Tibet and into the high country.  Here leaches do not dwell.  There is light rain and the gentle giant Himalaya dwell hidden above the cloud.  It is as if the great mountains have taken a vacation from putting on their show for the thousands of tourists who walk these trails in the spring and autumn season.  Maybe after some rejuevination they will lift their vail to share their grandeur and reopen their show.    

 Thats where we were at on July 10th.  

Four Winds Nepal Relief Part 2

We started our relief effort with a meeting in Kathmandu.  My head porter, head Sherpa, and 2 representatives from “Resilient Homes” met my wife and I in our hotel lobby at the popular Tibet Guest House.  

Jacob, the gentlemen who helped create “Resilient Homes” is from Holland, speaks Dutch, Nepali, and English.  Timothy is from Nepal and is Sherpa who converted to Christianity, spoke Nepali, Sherpa, and English, and was a rep for Resilient Homes.   My head Sherpa Gombu who speaks English, Nepali, and Sherpa was in attendance to translate and help with logistics and would be receiving aid.  Finally Asmit and Prakash who are of the Rai tribe, who spoke Nepali and Rai and were there to represent my team of porters, help with logistics, and actually carry the structures  (over 850 pounds) we were gathering to discuss, to their village 2 days from the roads end.  A group representing 4 different religions, 4 different languages, and 3 different countries, all gathered to give, help, and receive.

When I had planned the relief effort I had a vivid, beautiful picture of how the relief would be distributed, complete with a common sense progression, ending with happy smiling villagers, thankful for the help from compassionate Americans.  I was set on 10 structures which would provide shelter for 10 families, purchasing almost 2 tons of rice for the village of Khumjung, and supplying a years worth of school supplies to the “Home Away from Home” boarding school.  Seemed simple enough.  One of the beautiful aspects of life is its unpredictability.  Although I knew at the end of this project I would have photos of happy villagers full of gratitude I did not expect things to change with the first question posed by Jacob.

“Are you getting the most bang for your buck with the structures?”

Although I understood the American slang in the soft Dutch accent I was immediately confused.  I had just flown 24 hours to the other side of the earth to purchase the said structures that I had ordered 6 weeks ago.  I sat with $15000 in my pocket to pay for the structures.  I replied to Jacob “I don’t understand?????”  Gombu was translating to the porters and the porters scooted to the front of their chairs in anticipation of Jacob’s explanation.  I to scooted closer as if the answer to the great mystery was going to be divulged.

He then went on to explain the cost of the structures versus the cost of the actual damage and a huge discussion ensued.   We went back and forth with the porters and Gombu, Timothy and I, Jacob and Timothy, the porters and I, Dee and Jacob, exhausting every aspect of cost of structure, transport of structures, and damage of homes.  Basically Jacob was wondering if some of the homes would be cheaper to repair than to buy a structure to replace the home.  The depth of the damage I always assumed was total, homes flattened to the ground, villagers digging through rubble to find remains of the past.  

  Now we were a group of buzzing confused but focused bees.

As the discussion continued it became clear that yes, homes were damaged but some of them may be cheaper to repair versus buying the resilient structure.  My beautiful plan complete with a common sense progression was in shreds.  We hammered out different solutions for over 3 hours.  Magnifying and adding pressure to the situation was the tight flight schedule.  We had landed on the evening of the 8th, planned the meeting on the 9th, and would be flying to Lukla on the morning of the 10th.  It was now 3pm on the 9th and we had no clear plan.  

We finally narrowed in on one question for the porters and Gombu, “What would be best for you, a structure or the money to repair your current home?”  Throughout the meeting Asmit was calling the other porters in their remote village trying to figure out cost of damage and if they wanted a structure.  He was back and forth throughout the meeting with the porters. The answers were surprising.  Only 2 of the porters and Gombu felt that the structure would be best while 5 of the porters felt they could repair their current home with the money that would have gone toward a structure.  

We finally ended up purchasing 4 structures and agreed to meet all the porters in their village of Bung to see the situation and allocate funds.

That’s where we were at on July 9th...  

Four Winds Nepal Relief 1

I have been feeling a bit trepidatious about journeying back into the earthquake zone of Nepal.  I can remember the first moments of the early tremors and the split second decision to have everyone evacuate the dining room.  We were having a relaxed afternoon, playing cards, snacking on cheese and Salami we had carried from the states. Gentle laughter and jovial conversation drifted from the different trekking teams and tea house staff.  The first indication that something ominous was about to happen was a gentle vibration that gave pause for a few seconds and then began again.  At the pause I remember hearing several nervous laughs.  It was as if some silent invisible hand was playing a joke, we were responding with a nervous laugh not really knowing what we were responding to.  As the next vibration began I yelled “outside.”  First there was pause and curiousness on the face of my trekking team but as the vibrations turned to violent movement we all were on the move.  Our world was changing rapidly.

As we moved to the door, 20 feet away, the tremors turned into mass earth convulsions, the ground shaking violently accompanied by the feeling of ocean waves or sloshing of great expanses of earth.  Violence so fierce that I remember thinking this is it, the earth is going to split in half.  It surely felt as the end of the place we call earth.  Along with the movement was a deep wild audible that vibrated through ear drum and every bone.  

Within 10 seconds every building around us began to crumble, corners sloughing, rooflines plunging, a concrete wall easily powdered.  If we were 6 or 10 seconds later some of us would have been crushed.  The wall we were sitting next to had collapsed. 

My head Sherpa who usually naps at this time of day had chose to join us for cards.  If he had chosen to nap on this day he would be dead as his room was reduced to a pile of granite rubble. 

I and 5 clients huddled out side holding each other tight as the quake continued on.  Locals soon joined our huddle, shrieks, tears, and panic.  As a guide I tried to keep everyone huddled and calm but inside I realized any control we had was gone in the early tremors.  

Machermo sits below the East Face of a peak called Kanjo Ri.  I could hear huge avalanches ripping down the face and emptying into the valley.  The mountain is a good 2 miles up valley, at the time I thought no way could those avalanches reach the village.  How wrong I was.  Huge avalanches in the Lang Tang region and at Everest Base Camp had buried over three hundred people.  Lang Tang and Base Camp were situated very similar to Machermo with snowy faces of mountains miles away.  The avalanches easily covering the distances in seconds.  I shudder thinking back to those loud slides coming off of Kyajo Ri and how very possible it was that we could have been buried.

The relief effort was born out of need.  I and my trekking team had created this idea to help a group of porters, their village, and a school called “Home away from Home” in the village of Namche.  We created a website while in the mountains with the help of Paul Roy and Michael Petralia and the rest of the team pitching in ideas.  

Now as I head back on an aid and relief project thinking back to these moments forces caution.  The earthquake is still very real in my bones and the audible very loud to memory.

I am happy my wife chose to come along to assist. She has a love for these mountain people as her early travels had brought her through the area.

We checked in to Emirate Airlines on July 6th, I still with feelings of trepidation.  We asked at the counter if there could be any discount for the seven 100 liter expedition duffles were carrying explaining they were aid relief for Nepal.  RAB the climbing equipment company had donated 100 water proof jackets and we added a duffle bag worth of plastic tarps.  The woman at the counter explained that it was very difficult to give discounts at the counter.  She then whispered something in the ear of the  gentleman who was checking us in.  We moved on to the gate.

We went through the usual check in process, stood in line to board, passports checked and boarding pass checked.  As we neared the final check point the woman who could not grant us a discount on the overweight baggage was standing next to the person gathering boarding passes. We approached and she gathered our boarding passes and took them to a desk as we waited at the front of the line, not fully understanding what was going on.  She returned quickly with 2 new boarding passes and non chalantly said she had moved us to a better seat.  We thanked her and began to move down the ramp to the door of the plane.  As I glanced at the new boarding pass my breath was taken.  The woman had upgraded us to business class.  Both my wife and I ran back up the ramp and thanked the woman profusely.

Now as I sit it the Dubai airport I still have some trepidation. We are going back into the earthquake zone, back to unstable ground being pelted with monsoon rains.  However thinking back through the kindness that has brought me here is magnified and helps pale the trepidation.  

Thank You to all who have donated we have raised $27,200 with donations still flowing. Thank You to the YOBE community (my wife,s yoga studio) who had donated roughly $1300.  There are countless individuals who have donated of all ages.  A 5 year old girl had donated her birthday money given to her by her grandmother.  An amazing couple that had trekked with me a few years back and were slated for a Tibet trip that was canceled donated $5000 of their trip money.  People who had very little money would come into the store and donate $5, a huge amount when you have little.

As I head into the arena of providing help these acts of kindness carry me.  Also the comfiness, full horizontal seat capabilities, with down comforters on Emirate air was icing on the cake.

Thank You for your donations and all you have done.  Stay tuned for updates.