When I heard about the earthquake in Nepal last April, I wondered what I might be able to do to help. I thought that if I could go to Nepal maybe I could do something useful. It quickly became evident that I could not arrange things in my life fast enough to get to Nepal to be part of the emergency relief response. I started to focus on the reconstruction, about these damaged communities and how they might get back to some sort of normalcy, to function as they did before the earthquake.

As I talked to people and looked around I found the Gorkha Foundation and I was impressed by what this all-volunteer, zero overhead non-profit had been able to achieve over twenty years, especially after it received IRS recognition as a US-based 501(c)3.  Another page of this blog describes the Gorkha Foundation in more detail.

I was able to re-arrange my business and family responsibilities to open up a two-month time period when I could spend time in Nepal. Since I turn 70 in March and will be retiring in July, two months in Nepal turned out to be a perfect transition period. When I get home in May I’ll have enough time to close down my business (OK, I am keeping open my involvement in a couple of great projects) and set the stage for Becky and me to retire together and start the next phase of our long lives together. We will be going to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route for a couple of months in the fall.

This blog is intended to tell the story of this trip. I hope to be able to report not only on my personal experiences, but also to tell the story of what we, the Gorkha Foundation team, are achieving in the task of building new earthquake-proof schools to replace those destroyed in the quake.