SEQUIM — It’s been 50 years since Jim Dries of Sequim first laid eyes on Nepal, the “roof of the world.”
A Peace Corps volunteer who had just completed his service in the Philippines, Dries was traveling across Asia in the mid-1960s.
Nepal’s beauty — its people — enchanted him, staying bright in his memory as he returned to the United States.
Dries, originally from Sioux City, Iowa, became a school teacher, devoting three decades to the profession.
After retirement, he went back to in 2001 to teach English in Chaurikharka, a Sherpa community in the shadow of Mount Everest.
Before making the trip, Dries had met Carol Swarbrick, the actress and singer who’s now his mate.
They decided to go together to Nepal, where they worked with elementary and middle school children, teaching them vocabulary, grammar and songs, which they soon heard them singing as they walked home.
“The kids are so interested in learning,” Dries said, adding that some have an hours-long commute to school — on foot.
“The Sherpas know the value of English,” he said: Key to a livelihood in Nepal’s tourism industry, it helps many out of deep poverty.
Through his teaching, Dries got to know Sally Hunsdorfer, now director of the Himalayan Project, a nonprofit organization partnering with the native people in villages such as Chaurikharka.
For the past 15 years, the project has sought to preserve the Sherpa community, renovate a monastery, construct a Sherpa cultural center, create a scholarship program for youngsters and expand a school built in the 1950s by Sir Edmund Hillary, the climber who summited Everest in ’53.
Dries heard from Hunsdorfer last month after the world turned upside-down for the people of Chaurikharka.
Earthquake damage
The massive Nepali earthquake of April 25 destroyed many homes there, but it was the second quake of May 12 that brought down its school.
Students, seriously hurt, had to be carried out and transported on stretchers to a health clinic an hour away.
In the village, “everyone is living under tarps or in makeshift tents for the foreseeable future,” Hunsdorfer wrote, adding that the monsoon season will soon come.
Hunsdorfer is determined to work with the villagers to rebuild their homes and school.
But the aid coming from international charities is going to the most seriously damaged communities around Kathmandu — “which of course is wonderful,” she wrote.
Chaurikharka, however, “has been both cursed and blessed to be a week’s walk from Kathmandu . . . and therefore the possibility of aid isn’t blinking bright red on anyone’s radar screens.”
Hunsdorfer asked for prayers and donations, adding that she plans to return to Chaurikharka in July to distribute relief funds.
“There is absolutely no pressure for anyone to respond,” Hunsdorfer wrote.
“But to those of you who are inquiring about sending in relief aid, please know that your donations to the Himalayan Project will be directly delivered to Chaurikharka and its recipients.”
Himalayan Project
Information, including the project’s mailing address and a link for contributions, can be found at www.HimalayanProject.org via the “Giving” heading.
Would-be donors will be directed to the project’s umbrella organization, the nonprofit Marion Institute. The Marion, Mass., organization supports sustainability and social justice programs around the world.
This fall Dries, in addition to supporting the Himalayan Project, may embark on a whole other effort in Nepal.
In November, Habitat for Humanity plans to build 100 homes in the Nepali community of Pokhara.
Dries, 73, is applying to join the project, which will last just one week.
Former first couple
And as they have done since 1984, former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, plan to travel to the build, which is scheduled to begin Nov. 1, a month after Jimmy Carter’s 91st birthday.
“The entire project is being reviewed after the earthquakes,” Dries notes, while according to www.habitat.org, plans are still progressing for it, and volunteers are encouraged to apply.
“In the meantime,” the site continues, “please keep the people of Nepal and our Habitat staff there in your thoughts and prayers.”
________
Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
