Nepal - Travel Diary No. 8

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.

And here we are, 14 February: the last intense day of the mission before the return flight. Before today I spent two intense days of meetings in Kathmandu and two more days in a remote area north-east of the capital, a few kilometres from Tibet, in a village called Chhagam (in the Sindhupalchok district). Here ASIA intervened during and after the earthquake of 2015 with projects to rebuild the water system, distribute seeds and provide training.

The inhabitants of this village and of the nearby Sapukhane have asked me to intervene now to support their little primary school and the 42 enrolled children… I could not promise anything, except that we will do everything we can to make it happen!

Back in Kathmandu, with my eyes and memory full of beauty but also of much suffering, I get ready for this last day: the meeting with Yeshi (the first Tibetan student supported thanks to the Enrico Dell’Angelo Fund) and the visit to the Manasarovar School!

Yeshi is waiting for me with her mum at nine in the morning right in front of the Institute where she studies, which is located near the Boudhanath Stupa, in the part of the city most inhabited by Tibetan refugees. I reach them easily and when they see me they immediately offer me their khata (scarves) and a small gift. I ask their permission for a brief hug, because that is what my instinct tells me (and certainly my culture). After the greetings, Yeshi leads me and her mother through the buildings that make up the Institute: the classroom building, the canteen, the dormitories, the kitchen… as we walk I ask her to tell me how her studies are going and what her next goals are; she answers me with emotion and does nothing but thank me and the donors of the Fund for this opportunity she has been given. Her mother too thanks me in Tibetan and I see in her eyes sincere emotion.

We manage to spend a little less than an hour together because, not far from there, Bijaya and Tsultrim are waiting for me to finally show me the Manasarovar School (one of the very first distance support projects of ASIA). Already happy about the meeting with Yeshi and impatient for this last visit, I reach the school and am immediately “swept away”. From the first step beyond the entrance gate to the last one before leaving, in the late afternoon, beautiful emotions overwhelm and shake me. The welcome of the staff and the students is indescribable. Bijaya and Tsultrim have called together all the students supported by ASIA both inside and outside the Manasarovar. Many of the graduated, university and high school students who were in the city came punctually to their former school, ready to welcome me with their khata and their splendid smiles… one by one they come towards me, they thank me, some hug me… I am almost literally submerged in white and yellow scarves and all I can do is cry with emotion.

After this long moment of welcome and greetings in the courtyard, we enter the school and I can talk a little with these young people, answer their questions, listen to their stories… I then meet with Tsultrim and Bijaya to discuss management issues and needs, and then conclude the day by visiting every single class (from nursery to fifth grade).

What a wonderful school!
And how much commitment and effort these two women and all the staff must put in every day to make it so!

It is a great honour for me to represent ASIA and all the distance supporters here today… I could not have wished for a better way to celebrate the world day of love.

Read what happened in the previous days PART 1, 2, 3, 4 , 7