Like everyone else, we were shocked and saddened by the news from Nepal. Lindsey spent most of the day after the quake reading news sites online. Fortunately, the people who we spent time with all appeared to be okay. Obviously, though, many others were not.
We made friends in Nepal, and now these people are involved in relief efforts. We have given money directly to two of these friends’ efforts, and you can do the same for one of them via the link below.
Amrit Ale, from Nepal, works for NOLS and the experiential learning program Where There Be Dragons. He also runs his own trekking company, Himalayan Quests, which, in addition to taking tourists to beautiful corners of Nepal, also runs ‘health camps’ in remote villages every year. We had a great time grabbing a beer with Amrit in Kathmandu, and then we hired a guide from Himalayan Quests for what might have been the most visually stunning part of our 10-month journey in Asia.
Amrit is now raising money to do direct work in some of the communities that are not being helped by the international aid agencies. He knows the mountains well, and I trust that he will use our money as well as if not better than any other group we could contribute to. Right now he is in the mountains building sanitation facilities for communities that had theirs destroyed in the quake. You can donate below:
Also, back here in the Bay Area, I recently attended a talk by Sandeep Giri, the founder of Gham Power, a solar company that works in Nepal. Following the quake, Sandeep started giving solar panels to communities that had lost electricity, helping people light their homes at night and charge their cell phones so that they can communicate with friends and family. He showed us pictures of people of people waiting for hours to get their phones charged, and told us about how terrified people were at night because they had no lights and were living in makeshift shelters anticipating aftershocks. Images of Gham Power’s work are on their Facebook page.
They are doing their best to respond to requests for energy, which are on this map. However, they need your help. Click on the image below to go to their IndieGoGo campaign.
It’s strange to think that the temples we visited in Kathmandu and Bakhtapur just a few months ago are in ruins, or to see pictures of the tents in Nepal and think about how many people are now forced to live in them. From Kathmandu, one of my strongest memories is going up in one of the city’s tallest buildings, a tower built in the 1830s. We gained a beautiful view from the top, and as you can see, we were laughing and enjoying ourselves.
The tower is no more, destroyed by the quake, and about 180 bodies were found among the rubble. It is scary to think that we could have been among those. We’re lucky to still be here. Nepal was one of our favorite countries, largely because the people were so friendly. Now they need our help.