Nepal - Travel Diary No. 7

The account of the trip to Nepal by our Distance Adoptions Manager. A mission whose main protagonists are the members of the ASIA NEPAL staff, the coordinators of the various schools where the Distance Support project, but above all the Nepalese girls and boys … Including those of the 4 schools we built and inaugurated last December in Rasuwa.

Today is Friday 8 February and, after two days of intense office work, it is finally time to meet two important local NGOs and, in the afternoon, to visit the Triten Monastery, where the Distance Support project has been active since the late 1990s!

In the morning I go out with Riccardo, the Country Representative of ASIA Nepal, and Debendra, the kind driver. Both meetings with the two local organisations working on children’s rights and education give me enormous food for thought, help me get to know the local reality better and allow us to exchange ideas and proposals… in short, they are a great success and I hope they lead to future collaborations.

Once the second meeting is over, we head just outside the city, along paved and unpaved roads, muddy because of the rain, crowded, colourful, full of life and also of much misery. As we drive along the river I see some slums, of more or less size. After half an hour by car it is time to meet the young Abbot, or Khenpo, of the Triten Monastery, together with Dawa, the Sponsorship Secretary, and Nabaraj (Project manager of ASIA Nepal), who in the meantime has joined us there.

To reach the hall where we will hold a small meeting, we climb many steps, since the various buildings that make up the Monastery cling to the slopes of this hill just outside the city. We hear the melodious prayers and mantras coming from the main temple, where many monks are gathered for a puja (reverence, prayer). After the interesting meeting with the Khenpo and Dawa Norbu, we go back down to visit the School of Tibetan Traditional Medicine included in the Monastery (where young students study for 9 or 10 years to become doctors and also learn to select, gather and process medicinal herbs) and the primary school. There are no lessons today but the children are all present to learn some prayers and rituals linked to Losar (the Tibetan New Year), which has just passed.

Many of these children and some of the older monks who were in the temple are supported from a distance by ASIA and Dawa Norbu, knowing that I was bringing with me a letter from a supporter, calls little Sonam out of a classroom to allow me to hand it to him.

He translates it accurately from English into Tibetan for him and escorts him back to class. I take a few photos but it is already late and unfortunately I have to say goodbye… This day too has been rich in experiences, emotions and many lessons.

Read what happened in the previous days PART 1, 2, 3, 4