Bria Fast
After growing up in Minneapolis, I moved to Nepal in 2011 to work for a Nepali NGO working in Southern Lalitpur. I moved to Seattle after returning back to the United States and began working for The Mountaineers in January 2015.
Being born in Minnesota, I grew up in a place filled with water. I spent summers with my fingers and feet in rivers and lakes, creeks, and ponds. I fell in love with the sound that water makes. Dripping, crashing, flowing, rushing—even the sound water makes when it is still. When I moved to Nepal in 2011, it was water that I missed the most.
Yet, I quickly learned to love other things. I moved to Nepal to work with a small Nepali Nonprofit based in Lalitpur, a hilly region south of the Kathmandu Valley. My job took me to homes and farms, schools and community centers. I worked with agriculture and small businesses, entrepreneurs and youth. I learned to love milky tea and roasted corn, long bus rides and dusty hikes.
I lived with a family. They adopted me. Taught me how to speak, how to dance, how to cook. They took care of me when I was sick and were patient with me during a long process of re-learning how to live in a place where what we ate was truly based on the season and where electricity was rationed. They became my best friends, and greatest teachers.
I trekked three sections of the Great Himalayan Trail. I watched a red sun set over the flat muggy Terai. I dodged buses and livestock cycling around the city, and watched the birds hover in the dry air from the roof of my office.
I tell these stories because Nepal is so much more than a place to climb. Often, the tales people bring back from this place are of harrowing ascents and dramatic summits. But to me it feels like home, and to around 30 million others, it actually is home. It's where people are born, learn to ride bicycles, watch cartoons, and hang out with friends. It's where they play sports and go to school and celebrate festivals. It's where they get married and start a family and cook meals and do laundry and grow old.
And now, it's also where people are fighting to rebuild their lives. Where they are still searching for the people they love. Now they are banding together as communities to clean up their neighborhoods and sacred places. They're using social media to get out the word about missing persons and blood types most needed for donations. They are becoming even stronger than before through sheer will power, courage, and innovation -- working to find normalcy once again, and continue life as it was before.
Nepal Seattle Society Fundraiser
I encourage you to attend the Nepal Seattle Society's Earthquake Fundraising Reception at the Mountaineers Program Center on May 16, 2015 from 5-8pm. The reason we are coming together on Saturday evening is a somber one, but we hope it will also be a celebration of the diverse life and culture that is beloved and called home by so many. Please visit the Nepal Seattle Society's website for ticket information. I hope to see you there.
Can't Attend But Want To Support?
The Mountaineers have identified number of partner organizations need relief funds to support their immediate and on-the-ground aid efforts. Each organization we recommend is currently providing lifesaving relief and using your donations to directly support survivors of the earthquake and gather resources needed to rebuild affected communities. These include Mercy Corps, UNICEF,International Medical Corps, and the 7 Summits Foundation.
Read more about The Mountaineers support in our Nepal blog.
