In summation

I left Nepal on Sunday night on a Qatar airways flight bound for Doha, Qatar. It took me some 33 hours to fly home. I can say that I am glad to be back in Michigan but I also miss Nepal and all the people that I met. In the three short weeks that I spent in that amazing country I grew really close to the staff and other volunteers and the kids that I was working with.

While in Nepal I saw a country which was vastly different than ours. Nepal, while a wonderful country is stricken by poverty in many areas, and I saw this poverty up close. Previously i had not been exposed to so many people in need and so many people that we would consider below the poverty line. I would say that many of the people were far below our "poverty line", especially those who I saw living in the country-side. Then there were the slums by the rivers, and the communities of "river children", kids who have no parents but make a living together by a polluted river on the outskirts of Kathmandu. I can only guess that there are more communities such as this elsewhere in the country.

Besides this I also saw the amazing working spirit of the Nepali people. In the country side I saw farmers planting rice. I also saw men, women and children hauling tall grass, and other loads on their shoulders; or on a sort of backpack which was slung to their head, walking up a mountain road to their home. In the city or even on a roadside community on the main highway, which led through the mountains, there were small businesses everywhere trying to sell what they could to make a living. There is something to be said the the entrepreneurial spirit of Nepali people. They will set up a shop almost anywhere.

Something also has to be said for the rickshaw drivers. These guys(I say guys as I didn't see a single female driver)work HARD. It may seem easy to drive what looks like a bicycle with a seat, but try doing that on 90+ degree day. Not to mention if there are two people sitting on it there could possible be over 300 pounds, and to top it off some of the roads are unpaved adding to the difficulty. But they do it, they charge you more as a westerner but at times it beats walking.


How can I talk about Nepal with out mentioning the scenic beauty. The mountains are breathtaking and the country side is gorgeous. The Himalayas are amazing, and from where I saw them mystical. On most days the mountains were concealed by large thick clouds. But when they came out last week it looked as if these enormous mountains were floating on the clouds, and I for a while couldn't take my eyes off of them.

Now to talk a bit about the amazing organization that I worked with, the Esther Benjamins Trust (EBT). I of course knew that they rescue children and help them until they are old enough to help themselves. But when I got to the childrens home the kids seemed to me to be your average kids. I knew they had stories but I wasn't going to pry and ask them. It was only until one of the staff members at the house told me about them that it really clicked with me about what amazing work that the EBT does.

Many of the kids were rescued from the streets and the and the horrible condition in-which they had to live. The street kids in some cases have parents but they cannot take care of them so they have to go to the streets. Other kids are called "jail kids", these are kids who have to go to jail with their parents as the kids have no other relatives who can care for them. So these kids languish in a filthy jail cell on account of their parents. There were a brother an sister at the kids home, ages seven and nine years old who had to sit in jail because their father was a drug dealer.

Down the street there are girls who were rescued from the circuses, not only do they have to do dangerous acts which leave scars but they are also abused while there.

So when I learned all this i was able to get a true picture of the amazing work that the EBT does. All these kids, weather four years old or 19 and above, on account of the EBT are safe, given a home, a bed to sleep in, fed regularly, educated in public or private schools, given vocational training and looked after medically.

With all this in prospective, it is an amazing thing that the Esther Benjamins Trust does, and has been doing for years now. For me it was an honor to work with them and I want to go back again next year for two months if possible.

In closing I would like to say thank you for following this blog, and I hope that you enjoyed it. As I really enjoyed Nepal and sharing my experiences with all who read my posts. Now that this trip is over I don't really know what to do with this blog, I guess I will think of something...