The villagers’ smiles had melted my heart

The beautiful Gorkha village before earthquake

­­Gorkha Dhale Bar on 29^th April

On this day, Amrit, other children’s home leaders and me bought some basic materials and rented two jeeps and one mini-van for the trip to a village called Dhale Bar in Gorkha, the epic centre of the earthquake this time.

On the way to the village near the epic centre

It took around 4 to 5 hours from Pokhara to Dhale Bar Village. When entering Gorkha, we had seen a number of houses damaged by the earthquake. We drove to the mountain area with a local’s guidance. Since the road condition was very bad due to the earthquake and rainfall, our jeeps got stuck in mud for few times and the trip was very bumpy making us bouncing inside the vehicles.

Our fleet driving into the disaster area

 It was 6pm when we arrived the first house damaged severely. After understanding the situations of affected villagers, we distributed the food, clothes, tents, mats and other necessary materials to the two most affected families. We also met a local police, who was in a navy blue military uniform, and he came here for acquiring more post-earthquake information. He had visited other villages before arrived Dhale Bar.

Houses severely damaged in Dhale Bar village

Near 200 houses damaged in Dhale Bar vaillage

We continued going up the hill, unfortunately, it rained heavier and heavier, so we stopped at a nearby school. A group of villager soon ran to us. One of them was quite agitated and kept asking us to see his damaged house. We walked to the place and looked around the houses, we have decided to gather the most influenced victims here for material distribution. Thankfully with the record made by the police, we delivered materials to another 23 the most affected families according to the list. Up to that moment, around 200 houses had been known as completely ruined. With the constraints to the remote area, we deeply believed that more villagers were awaiting for the aids and no one approached them yet.

A total of 25 families had basic emergency materials delivered

When I was taking photos for record, I saw a few curious children wandering in the crowds. A girl kept staring me with her big round eyes, I smiled at her and she smiled back. After knowing her name is Smita, she kept standing next to me. I put my arm on her shoulder, she sometimes looked up at me, a silent connection has then been built up. I was happy for her as she told me she had education with the help of Amrit’s translation. Smita was quietly playing my braid when another young villager, Hari, came for greeting and saying thank you to me.

The little girl, Smita, standing next to me all the time (The youth on the right: Hari)

I felt a bit embarrassed when Hari kept saying “Thank you.” to me but his smile has touched me. He showed some pictures of his beautiful village, Dhale Bar, on his mobile phone. “Have a look! This is the mountain range of Annapurna.” “Look at there! My house is on this small mountain.” He showed me the pictures excitedly, however, it was late and time to leave. Hari looked reluctant to farewell and say, “Please do come back!” and Smita just stood looking at me with her big round eyes.

Hari pointed to the mountain and said: “Look at there! My house is on this small mountain.” (Photo provided by Hari)

I gave some biscuits to Smita before getting on the car. I waved my hands to farewell them.  Their sincere smiles and on-going “Goodbye” had melted my heart.

This trip could be regarded as an inspection. The board of directors of the children home of Armit and I would keep supporting future rescue. We would buy all the necessary materials, depart for the village on the day after the following day in order to distribute the materials to whom did not receive any.

I, hereby, would like to thank to friends from all over the world with unconditional donations and many of them have even encouraged their families, friends and colleagues to support us. Morocco restaurant in Cheung Chau, Hong Kong, had also organised an all-day buffet on 5^th May (Tuesday) for fundraising. Now, there have been more than 100 supporters, whom I know or I do not know, giving their hands to Nepal. I feel so grateful for the lovely Nepalese people as I know they are not alone but with a lot of support from many of us.

I will keep update the real-time rescue information and publicise the usage of the fund on FB page “Light on Nepal” (www.facebook.com/lightonnepal).

Translated by: Sandy Chu