So first, the background: the organization that I'm working with, Next Generation Nepal has been working for quite some time to move some of their children who were living here in Kathmandu back to their home district of Humla. The kids were brought by traffickers during the civil conflict who promised good living conditions and a good education for the kids. None of that ever materialized and the kids were rescued by NGN and have been living in Kathmandu ever since. Humla is one of Nepal's most remote districts, and can be reached only by plane or on foot. The travel is long and as you can imagine, hard to manage and organize for close to 20 children. The kids finished their school exams on March 23rd and we left Kathmandu on the afternoon of the 24th. Our route can be seen on this map:
The numbers are as follows:
1) Kathmandu
2) Nepalgunj
3) Surkhet (approximately)
4) Simikot
5) Martadi
For this first leg of the trip only numbers 1, 3, and 4 matter. We left from Kathmandu on the 24th around 3:30 headed for Surkhet. Surkhet and Nepalgunj are the two places from which its possible to fly into the high Himalaya of western Nepal. We chose to fly from Surkhet as it was better for cargo and all the things we needed to take for the new home. The bus ride from Kathmandu was around 17 or 18 hours. We arrived in Surkhet at about 10:30 or 11 the following morning. We stayed there for 2 days and waited for our plane which was scheduled to fly to Simikot on Saturday the 27th at 7am. All went smoothly with the plane and we arrived in Simikot as planned around 9:30 on Saturday morning.
For the next 2 and a half weeks I stayed in Simikot with the rest of the staff and the new house staff while everything was slowly put into place for the new house and the kids. The kids had one week holiday and then started school. Routines and menus were created, rules were made, trips were taken and new places were discovered and lots of wood was varnished.
As the two weeks drew to a close it was time to start looking ahead to the second part of the trip which was a field trip that would end ultimately with our picking up another NGN child who was spending time with his family in his village and take him to his new school in Martadi (#5 on the map). Since his family lives much closer to Martadi than Simikot it made more sense for him to go to school there as opposed to living in the new home with everyone else.
Here's a map of the trek part of the trip:
The numbers are as follows:
1) Simikot
2) Raya
3) Sarkeghad
4) Piplang
5) Jaira
6) Garbaghad
7) Buri
Each number represents one day of walking (ie: 1 day of walking from Simikot to Raya, etc). Most days were 7-8 hours through the high mountains, up and down up and down. After reaching Buri we had two more days, one to Kolti and the final to Martadi (not on the map). These two days were probably the hardest of all, ringing in at a whopping 12 hours each in the blazing sun. To be truthful the trip was probably one of the more difficult physical endeavors I've undertaken which is saying a lot considering all the crew throughout college.
After reaching Martadi (#5 on the first map) we stayed for two days while everything was taken care of at the school and he got settled. When it came time to return to Kathmandu we took two busses, one for 17 hours and the other for about 3 to reach Nepalgunj (#3 on the first map) and from there we took another bus another 13 hours back to Kathmandu.
This was a pretty quick rundown but gives a good idea of where I was and what I was doing. I'll be in Kathmandu for the rest of my stay editing my photos and finish up other projects that I've been working on. Check back for more images as I continue to work through stuff.
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