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After a painful divorce I had come
to Nepal on holiday
to try and recover, maybe out here in the fresh mountain air, the emptiness
I felt inside would start to disappear.� On the train to Kathmandu, I
had the misfortune to eat a salad which gave me dysentery, I staggered
off the train and for three days I lay in a cramped hostel bed unable
to keep any food down and when I recovered I set off for the foothills
of the Himalayas.
It looked as if the world had been
tipped on its head.� Clouds swirled below me and above stretched a sky
so deep it could have been an ocean.� The sun beat down on my neck. �A
familiar feeling of sickness gripped me, my dysentery was back but much worse this time. �I looked
for a place to get a drink but there was nowhere.� Hours passed and my
footsteps grew heavier, I began to feel faint then in the very far distance
I made out a building, If I could just reach
it I could get some water.� Summoning every ounce of strength I had left,
I made it and collapsed outside.� Hearing me fall a man rushed out and
crouched beside me �I�m PK� he told me, �You�re safe here. I�ll look after
you�.� He led me towards a bed and poured cold water into my mouth, but
my head was burning and I was slipping in and out of consciousness.� PK
told me his wife was a nurse and would be home soon.
By the time she arrived a crowd
of locals had gathered, worried that a tourist was dying in their village.�
The villagers looked after me, feeding me tea and biscuits and keeping
my temperature stable.� Six of them took it in turns to watch over me
at night.� Three days later, PK said his father, Nogli, was returning to Kathmandu
and insisted that I should stay at the family home there until I had fully
recovered.� �At Kathmandu I followed
Nogli through a maze of streets until he stopped
at a plain door.� He knocked, it swung open and I stepped back in surprise.
A beautiful woman was smiling at me, in almost fluent English,
she introduced herself as Sita, PK�s 25 year old sister.�
She was at university and knew all about me, the Englishman who�d almost
died in her native village.� After a week I was well enough to go home
but on my return to Heanor I couldn�t settle.�
I realised I was missing Sita and a few weeks
later I returned to Nepal
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In
time I proposed to Sita and she accepted and
we were married in front of the entire village.� Afterwards we returned
to Heanor where we settled in.�
We later returned to Nepal for a belated honeymoon and
took some pens and pencils for the village school.� When I visited I could
see that it needed a lot more than that.� These people had saved me from
death and welcomed me into their lives when I married Sita, it
was my turn now to help them.� I started taking photographs and measurements,
next I ordered materials and tools then enlisted the help of my brother-in-law
and his friends to carry them up the mountain.� The Headmaster asked what
was going on and I explained that I was going to build a new school for
him.� He looked at me then turned away � I panicked, I was just a stranger
who�d been in the village five minutes, now I was trying to change everything,
perhaps they didn�t want me meddling � But then the Headmaster turned
round, his face was wet �What you are doing will help many children, thank
you� he said.� Back in Derbyshire I set about organising raffles to raise
money.� It wasn�t long before I had raised almost �1000.00 and had the
school completed.� Since then I have started other projects to help the
villagers of Nepal and to repay
their kindness, the current one is to raise �5000 to build an orphanage.
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