Rice or money? I called Urkin in the afternoon of July 12th and finally came to the conclusion that money would help them in this situation better than more rice. Urkin Sherpa and Tsedam Sherpa had explained that getting the rice from the bazaar in Namche and portering it would be costly and less efficient. The families could make money go farther than we could and that made sense. We would walk to the village of Khumjung about 2 hours away to meet Urkin in the morning and work over logistics on how the money would be distributed and how much would be given.
Early in the morning sometime around 2am rain created a rhythmical patter on the tin roof of the tea house. I was awake with jet lag and within a few minutes the rhythm of the rain had me sleeping.
In the morning as light filtered into the room I could just make out the mountains across the valley. The gentle giant Thamserku and its south west aspect went from steel gray to light lavender with the slow rise of the sun, 22,000 foot wall of snow and ice casting a brilliant light show. The rain had stopped sometime in the night and the contrast of pattering to empty silence coupled with the Himalaya outlined in my window made my soul happy. Delivering the donated money to families in need made me even happier and I sent out a brief thought of thankfulness and gratitude to all who had donated.
We started out around 8:30 and had planned to meet Urkin Sherpa around 11. If you love walking this is one walk you may want to do in your life time. The section between Namche and Khumjung is short but contains multi faceted worlds. A typical thought pattern while on this walk might go like this:
“Oh look there the south face of Lhotse, the 4th highest peak in the world”
“Oh look there is a 300 year old Himalayan Birch grove”
“Oh look there an 800 year old monastery on the hillside of Khunde”
“Oh look there a 60 foot tall Rhododendron forest”
“Oh look there, it’s Mt Everest”
These are just a few of the hundreds of experiences on the short walk at 12,400 feet to Khumjung. On this day we would encounter something unexpected and inspirational as if the experiences above were not enough. The trail connects right into the center of the village which also serves as the school play ground. Unlike our play grounds it is worn tundra with rocks, sticks and an uneven, rolling pitch. There were groups of young adults taking down tents and volley ball nets. It was like they were disassembling after a fair. A familiar voice called out to me and there standing up from rolling a tarp was my friend Pemba Sherpa. He is from the village of Gokyo one days walk away for Sherpas or 3 days walk for us lowlanders. We greeted each other and I asked what was going on. He said they had just finished a 3 day volley ball tournament. Volley ball at 12,400 feet and the mountainous setting filtered through my mind. As we continued the conversation it came to light that they had planned the tournament months before and decided it was in everyone’s best interest to continue with the tournament even though the earthquake had just ravished the country. He said it was very helpful in relieving the current stress. All I could think was what an amazingly resilient people.
We continued on to Urkin’s house where we could see him waving from the front of his home way up on the terraced hillside.
The meeting went well and within an hour and the well thought out list that Urkin had created, we came up with a good plan. Urkin’s list contained 40 families and individuals who were the poorest of the poor, including elderly who had no family and handicapped. We chose to pick 20 of the families and individuals who needed help the most. For example one of the women on the list was living in a structure donated by the village. She had nothing and was probably in her sixties. The house she was in collapsed. Although she survived she had nothing but a hot plate, a cot pieced together out of scrap wood, a few containers holding food, and a dirt floor. The structure’s roof was open to the elements because the roof now lay strewn on the floor. I remember looking up into puffy clouds and a black crow crossing the site line as I stood inside the middle of the shelter. She put her bed against the wall where there was a section of the roof teetering over head giving her some coverage from the elements. The dirt floor was mushy from rain. This was one of the 20 emotional visits we made in the village of Khumjung.
Others included visiting the village healer who was blind and had no family, a deaf mom with 2 kids who’s husband had died guiding on Mt Everest, and an elderly couple in their nineties who were now living in a group of circled rocks with a plastic tarp spread over the top and sides. The husband lay inside the make shift shanty. Urkin explained to us that after the earth quake the husband had gone into a state of shock and had not moved from the bed since, almost 2 months prior. This was one of the stories that had me shattered inside. I plan to go back to them to make another donation.
We went to what was left of each house and visited 20 in need. We ended up giving $100 to 20 families. In April I hope to go through the other 20 families on the list with Urkin and see what we can do.
At the end of the day your donations touched so many deeply. When we handed the money over to each recipient the smiles creased every face from ear to ear and immense gratitude was shown in body movement and through eye contact. I noticed that even though the hardship, loss, pain and suffering was great, most of the people could truly smile and go about their lives and move beyond.
On this day the moral to the story that stuck with me was “When an earthquake or something tears your world apart, go and play volley ball”
That is were we were at on July 13th.