Help Ashish to rebuild his home in Nepal
Hi everyone, my name is Greta Diaz and I am here to get some help for my friend Ashish Bishwokarma. He lives in Manang, Nepal, a beautiful and isolated village at 3.000 meters above the sea level.
For you to pictured it, is the best known place to acclimatize the body and not have altitude sickness and thus be able to continue the circuit route in the Annapurna Mountains, being able to cross the well known Tohrung La Pass at 5.400 meters high in the north central part of Nepal.
From the capital Kathmandu, it takes 3 to 4 days to arrive by car to his village, is a remote place and right now they need some urgent help.
The infrastructures of Nepal are really unstable and poor, every year the monsoon strikes and floods destroys roads and houses, leaving many people stranding in the open or having to evacuate because of the danger.
This year wasn't an exception and the damage is stronger than past years, that's why I am calling for help in such a hard moment for him and hopefully rebuild his house.
In a country like Australia, which always suffers from bushfires the sensitivity towards situations like this is high, because many people lost their homes from fire they know how other parts of the world feels, this fight is a never ending one as the elements will always create difficult situations for the world inhabitants.
Now that we are strong and they are weak, that is why I ask for your support, together we will safe at least the lives of a Nepali young couple.
I met Ashish when I was doing the Annapurna circuit in August 2018, he is a tourist agent who works for the government on the check point in Manang, these check points are the only way for the Nepali Government to assure safety to all the millions of people who goes to Nepal and hikes their mountains.
They provide a hiker's passport and you need to stop at the different check points for them to be able to track you, as the wifi or internet is rare and expensive, you are isolated for weeks and if you get lost, the only way to look for you is checking where you were last and that's thanks to this system.
He helped me a lot finding a good place to stay that day in Manang, and also gave me many good tips for my adventure as I was travelling only with my partner at that time, with no Sherpas (locals who you pay in order to get around), he speaks better english than anyone I met there and is a really charismatic and honest person.
In a country where few people speaks english is really easy to get lost or someone taking advance of you, I had some bad experiences with some locals, but he is the only one who became my Nepali friend, although I only met him one day he made a great impact on me.
He always keeps in touch with me and waiting for me to come back to his place, he insisted me to visit them and stay for a while in Manang along with his family and friends, because of the pandemic I couldn't keep up my promise, now he needs someone as his english skills stills limited and from Nepal is hard to manage an action like this one.
At the moment he has no home, his house has been washed away, like many others of his community, realistically I cannot help all of his community but I really want to help him as I know for a fact that the Government is not going to be able to offer any help, I was in the monsoon season as well and many times I had to get out the bus and help locals to drag big stones in order to fix the flooded roads and continue the journey.
Nepal is a beautiful country but quite poor and sometimes with really hard weather conditions, despite of their natural resilient spirit and how well they manage to survive in the worst conditions, sometimes is needed some extra help. This is one of these times.
He asked me for imminent help but I also need help in order to give him a hand, he and his wife just manage to arrive to Kathmandu through eroded roads and they have enough to survive for a week. They need urgently to eat and buy a proper tent and a tarp for this monsoon season, to have somewhere to live until the weather and the money will allow them to rebuild their house.
They need the basics to eat, as an example a 20kg of rice costs 3,000 Nepali rupees which allows them to eat for maybe a week, and so on...as for the world situation because of the pandemic doesn't allow him to work as usual, he and his wife really need a minimum of $2,000 Australian dollars to at least survive almost for 2
months and let the rains be gone.
Once we reach this amount and help them to breath for two months I look forward to raise as much money as we can in order to rebuild his house, but first things first, they need to eat and be sure they will have food for a while, also they really need that tent and tarp.
Because of the monsoon all the machinery that is in Kathmandu cannot go to these isolated villages as practically all of the roads are washed away, that gives us some time to recollect as much as we can for this big project. Every cent count, all your input and support is really valuable in this moment.
If you have ever been to Nepal, you would agree that their spiritual vibes are unique and their sense of karma is strong, the power you feel walking through timeless villages is priceless, like being in another planet, is the most mystic experience for the spirit.
That is the main reason for me to help them, I have not much on my own, but together we are an aware and privilege community, this investment will bring a great retribution for our souls and will bring us back this help whenever we will be in a similar situation, this is the real karma.
Please consider that helping my friend you will also help yourself, because your action here is considered a good part of Dharma, by having an altruistic and selfless action, you create good Karma.
From Ashish and from me, we really thank you for any help you will be able to give us, blessings to all of you and namaste.
