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Helping orphans in Nepal

I once read a quote on Nepal by the famous author Jeff Rasley, who said that it was the place to go for ‘those chasing Angels or fleeing Demons’. But I never really understood what he meant by that until I chanced upon my own opportunity to explore what the Swiss Nobel Laureate Richard Ernst called the place that for him ‘started an insatiable love for art’.

Before visiting Kathmandu and the Sagarmatha orphanage, other than these two quotes, the Nepal I knew was one whose image had been morphed by a plethora of images and headlines and articles that television and social media amalgamated. Many pieces of the country’s culture, people, and history went unsaid as the world had watched the earthquake disaster unfold. It’s easy to leave the country on that note. It is, however, shortsighted.

The brief 12 days that we spent in Kathmandu showed me how it was much more, how every building, every neighbourhood, every adult and every child had a different story to tell. Yet all the diverging perspectives and identities seemed to converge at a singularity that portrayed a people more beautiful than the mountainscape. A people that welcomed us with cheerful namastes and showed unfazing optimism and buoyancy in the deepest and choppiest waters of life.

Even now, as I sit on the balcony of my house in Geneva and drink a glass of tapwater, things I would’ve been unable to do in Nepal, I feel the lack of something. Something that only dynamic Kathmandu could provide with its unique blend of fumeveiled traffic disorder, smells of food and temple offerings, drifts of incense and the occasional sound of Om Mani Padme Hum emanating from shops, taxis and every other nook and cranny of the ‘City of Glory’. All of it a boisterous assault on the senses. This was immortalized in the words of our teacher Mr Revaz who, when asked about our plans for that day, remarked at some point in the trip ‘You never know what’s happening from moment to moment in Nepal. One minute you’re here, the next you’re there’.

At Sagarmatha, whether it was drawing with the kids, or bombarding them with Holi paint and colour or simply exchanging Justin Bieber songs with them, it was apparent to me that we were sharing an invaluable experience across countries and cultures. In a visit to a monastery, a Buddhist monk in flowing robes spoke to us with uplifting potency about the secrets to contentment: love, compassion, acceptance. Stop looking for the next thing and be happy with the here and now, he had said. At that moment his words made me feel guilty about being frustrated that the hotel breakfast that morning wasn’t up to par or that I had packed the wrong toothbrush.

This brief but impactful sojourn to Nepal, thanks to our teachers, supervising staff, the Sherpa family and most of all the children of the orphanage, gave me an indelible experience. I would

like to think that I have some insight into what Rasley and Ernst experienced and what compels many to return to this mystifying and exciting land time and time again. I also feel that even though I left Nepal and its people, they never really left me because I believe that some places we stay in, others stay in us. For me, Nepal is and will always be the latter of those. 

Abdullah - student

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