Leave Approved

V is working very hard to get the new Mcity site up and running in the next 2 weeks. He hasn’t had much time to look into the volunteer situation so it’s been my pleasure to do so. Today I got a second email from Michael Hess, an American who sold his Florida property and now spends his time running an orphanage called Papa’s Home, a school and volunteer program in a small village just outside Kathmandu. He has offered us some interesting placements, and I spent this evening looking at his websites, www.volunteernepal.com and www.nepalorphanshome.org

I fell in love with all the smiling faces of the 34 orphans at the home. We have seen those same faces, on the beautiful children we met on our treks. Those children had next to nothing, but welcomed us everywhere we went with the most heartbreaking generosity. I shall never forget the offer of two snotty-nosed children just outside Tikhedunga, who cried out to us, “Namaste! You want stick??” and one tiny girl, who yelled out “Namaste!” then scurried over to the hedge, plucked a few miniscule flowers and held them out to me with a beaming smile on her cherubic face.

It is difficult to find time to do the right thing. Life seems so full of things to do – 2006 flashed past before we knew it. We seem to be forever striving for an even better career – V and I have worked so hard over the past year, with exams to pass, research papers to write, new websites to launch, and new projects to be finished. We have put off doing the right thing for so long – always waiting for “the right time”. There isn’t going to be a perfect time, and something is telling us we have to go now. Even so, we are only finding 2 weeks to do this. I feel a little guilty about this. I also feel apprehensive – Will I really make a difference? What if I am not good enough to make a difference? Will I be out of my depth there?

As I write this, our website isn’t even up yet. I’m writing this on a Word document. Poor V has been working so hard he has not had time to set it up for me. But we plan to, very soon. Our plan is to have a website that informs people about what we are doing and why we are doing it. It’s a way of bringing attention to a needy and worthy and absolutely beautiful country that we fell in love with some four years ago, when V proposed to me on at Ghorepani, after we had climbed Poon Hill at sunrise, the highest part of our short trek. We spent two wonderful weeks in Nepal and left with knowledge that we would be back. Perhaps these 2 weeks of volunteer work will be like thanking the Nepalese people for the memories of our first two weeks there.

I have to end here with a funny story from our 2002 trip. V and I were born in Malaysia but are Chinese in ethnicity. We do resemble the Nepalese people a little, and being Asian we look far younger than our actual years. We had arrived in Tikhedunga early one afternoon and went to explore the village. We ended up at the top of a tiny waterfall/stream, which was under a long suspension bridge. I remember sitting on the rocks folding paper boats and sailing them down the waterfall. Not many of them made it down intact! Some trekkers may know this bridge as the one that you cross at the end of a steep descent from Ghorepani, near the end of the Annapurna Circuit trek. We took to waving to the trekkers crossing the bridge and yelling out “Namaste!” They were quite charmed by this and waved back and greeted us in return. I have no doubt that they thought we were a pair of delightful Nepalese children instead of two trekkers from Australia!

Depa, one of the orphans from Papa’s Home