Our Cracked Fate - Part 2

I felt the vibrations, like a subway car coming in beneath the airport. I have felt earthquakes before – a couple in Ottawa, one in Nepal – never anything too big. Each and every time I have felt an earthquake I hadn’t recognized what it was until after it was over. Not this time. For some reason, I knew within a split second. My first feeling was that a train was approaching from my left side, but in less time than I could have even thought the words, I knew it was an earthquake. There is no subway in Nepal after all. 

“Come,” I grabbed Louise’s arm, standing beside me, as I turned abruptly, pulling her the several steps across the arrivals hall to the nearest pillar. I do not know, to this day, how it happened that I did that. If I had subconsciously risk mapped the room and stored it away in some disaster activated part of my memory over the many, many occasions I have moved through that room. If I knew that pillar was there. Or if I have been so well conditioned working in disaster risk management that my brain knew what it was looking for, identified it and instantly reacted. Either way, I dragged Louise directly to that pillar without a single moment’s hesitation. Like a choreographed movement. In the two to three seconds that it took us to arrive, everyone else knew what was happening too. The vibrations had turned into an all-out shake.

“Cover your head. Get down.” I instructed calmly, assuming the drop cover and hold position myself; bringing both arms up over my head to shield the most vulnerable, and valuable, part of my body. She did as I did. The ground rocked and bent furiously beneath my feet. This is a good one, I though, believing it would stop in a mere moment.

It continued. Screams multiplied. I saw nothing but the floor. Not daring to raise my head to survey the room. The earth growled and roared up at us as it tore apart and slammed furiously back together, again and again. Like a clashing cymbal of brick and concrete. Pieces of the ceiling began to crack and fall around us. Shit. Other bodies piled up next to the pillar around us. I had no idea where Carole was. Panic and hysteria lay thick around us. Oh my god. Maybe this is it. I heard Louise begin to pray beside me.

“It’s okay,” I tried to reassure her calmly. She reached out and wrapped her right arm around me, continuing to pray. “It’s okay.” I was telling myself as much as I was telling her. I wouldn’t waste that arm around me when it should be protecting your head, I thought. Chunks of plaster and ceiling tile crashed to the ground. I considered and accepted that the entire building might come down around me. On top of me.

I had always known this day would come. I came here to work in risk reduction. I had known the hazard potential since day one. But still, I never truly believed I would be here to see it. I had imagined myself, back in Canada years in the future, turning on the morning news while I drank my coffee, seeing the breaking story that a massive earthquake had struck Kathmandu. I had imagined the panic I would feel at that moment, the grief, the feeling that the world was falling apart around me. I did not see myself here. With the earth actually falling apart around me.

The joints of the earth slammed together, and the shaking continued. I kept waiting for it to stop, and it didn’t. It occurred to me that I might be buried alive, or worse, that I might die in the Tribhuvan Airport, and I wished I had taken a flight a day later. Then I felt a body fling itself onto the pillar, over top of me, shielding me from the falling debris. In that moment I was filled with hope. I didn’t, and still don’t, know who it was, but I was silently and selfishly thankful to them for protecting me – likely unintentionally. Thanks friend, because whatever falls is going to hit you, not me. Suddenly it seemed possible that I might have to be buried beneath a dead body, but that I could possibly survive. I tucked that hope away inside and just held on.

Then, it stopped. It just stopped. I couldn’t believe it. The earth ceased grinding us in its fist and opened its palm for us to escape. I have not yet been able to summon the words to qualify, or describe the enormity of that feeling. The opportunity for survival. It was like seeing a gun pointed at you, hearing it fire and then finding it had somehow missed.

Oh my god. It stopped. We can get free. We’re still alive. I stood, bringing my arms back down to my side. For a second I was frozen in amazement.

“Ugh, I’m covered in plaster dust,” Louise stated beside me. Also standing up straight.

“We have to go!” I realized Carole had made it to the same pillar on Louise's other side and the three of us were together. I turned to my right and noticed two people, standing surveying the scene, obviously paralyzed by shock. “You should leave the building now,” I commanded firmly. “There may be more coming.” They listened. I turned my attention back to Louise and Carole. “We have to get out of the building. Now.” I spread my arms to usher them towards the exit. The three of us strode quickly across the small arrivals hall.

“Really. We should move fast,” and I broke into a trot. Making my way around broken ceiling panels, chunks of plaster and metal bits that lay strewn across the floor. Debris from above. I knew it could start again. That this could have been just a foreshock. That something worse could be moving towards us, and I didn’t know how long we might have if that were the case. I just knew that I was alive, and that if I wanted to be sure to stay that way I had to get to an open space.

Outside hordes of people milled around in various states of shock and devastation. One foreign couple in particular stood directly outside the entrance with their arms wrapped around each other, starring up at the building in terror, crying uncontrollably. I paused for them only a moment.

“I would very much recommend that you move away from the building. If it collapses, it could fall on you,” I stated in a calm and direct voice before continuing to walk away from the airport. I did not wait to see if they moved or not, or to encourage them further. That was all the time I was willing to take away from myself to give to them.

It wasn’t until we reached a spot in the parking lot, far enough away from any structure to be completely safe, that I began to take stock of the situation. I looked around and saw that all the buildings around the airport were still standing. That was a surprise to me, as many of those structures were built to shocking standards. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it felt. Maybe it was just a small one. I certainly didn’t have any frame of reference for what big earthquakes felt like. My legs and arms trembled, full to the brim of adrenaline, but I forced myself to remain calm, speak slowly, take control of my body.

I pulled my cell phone out of my bag and noticed I had reception - another reason to think this probably wasn’t a serious quake. Since my first day in Nepal I had always understood that when the ‘big one’ came all communications infrastructure would be knocked out, the airport would be destroyed, 60 percent of the buildings in the Kathmandu Valley would be destroyed, nothing would get in or out and misery would reign supreme. That was what we had been preparing for, and all evidence pointed to this not being it. My phone was working!

Lama wasn’t my first priority to call. I already knew his phone was off. And I was more worried about the city than anything else. After all, that was what we had always considered to be the most vulnerable, and the most likely to be devastated in the case of an earthquake. He’s probably better off outside the city. And for the time being, I was actually relieved that he was not in town. Instead I dialed his brother, Raju.

Despite the fact that things looked like they might not be so bad from where I was standing, I have always been sceptical of the seismic resilience of their family’s house. I wanted to make sure they were okay, because when I did get a hold of him I needed to be able to tell him that his family was safe. And because he would do the same for me.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Raju?”

“Yes, hello.”

“Hi, it’s Bronwyn calling. Are you okay? Are you safe?”

“Oh yes, yes miss. We just experienced earthquake here.”

“Yes I know. I am in Kathmandu. I felt it too. Are you okay.”

“Yes, yes. We are safe.”

“And your Mom and Dad? Are they with you?”

“Yes. We are all safe.”

“Oh good. Thank you. I’m so glad to hear that. Please stay outside okay. Please stay safe. There may be more coming. Please be careful.”

“Okay miss.”

“Okay, I will talk to you soon. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

Thank god.

After that I flicked on my 3G to send an iMessage to both of my parents. ‘We had an earthquake. I’m fine.’ I quickly fired off to them before switching the 3G off again. I only had 300 rupees of credit left on my phone at the moment, and I assumed I might not have the opportunity to re-charge any time soon.

Malaysian airline stewardesses sobbed in a small group beside us.

“The poor things. They’re probably so on edge already this year, having so many of their colleagues lost in horrible circumstances,” Carole very rightly pointed out. I felt sorry for them. This wasn’t a calculated risk they had taken ahead of time. I hoped they would be able to go home soon. But I assumed the runway was badly damaged, as it has a history of cracking under the heat of a hot summer’s day. Close above us in the sky a low flying jet on its final approach veered sharply to the left, changing course and heading south to India. Above us in the air traffic control tower, the only people who hadn’t evacuated the building scurried around, turning all incoming planes away.

Well, we’re all stuck here now, I couldn’t help but think to myself. It didn’t scare me, it didn’t excite me. It was just a fact. All I saw and all I could think were facts. Not emotions.

I tried to dial Lama one more time before my phone lost signal completely. “The mobile you are calling is switched off.” And then even my reception dropped out. Probably because the networks were completely jammed. Maybe because a couple of towers were compromised. I switched my phone back onto airplane mode, not wanting to waste battery searching for signal because I didn’t know how long I was going to have to rely on this current charge. I just hoped that I was right in my assumption that he was safer, and better off, in the mountains.

The only thing that niggled the back of my conscious was a concern that the shaking could have triggered landslides. I remembered my friend Jwalant telling me, a year ago, when I was preparing to go trekking in Langtang region myself, that the area had always been bad for landslides.

Even from where I stood, in the middle of the city, as I looked up into the hills to my left, I could see a fresh landslide opening up the face of the mountainside above. 

Our Cracked Fate - Part 1

“The mobile you are calling is switched off,” chirped the recording on the other end of the phone. Sitting in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport outside my gate, waiting to board a flight to Nepal, I sighed and hung up. I had been getting the same message for almost a week now, but it hadn’t yet deterred me from attempting to call Lama a few times a day. Ever since he entered the Langtang Valley with his clients six days earlier, his phone had been unreachable. Mobile reception is not exactly reliable in Nepal, and having been in the Langtang region myself in the past I know that outside of cities you’re pretty much on your own. Must be one of the things tourists love most about it. But I wasn't a tourist, and I didn't love it. I wasn’t worried; just missed hearing his voice.

Across from me two older women were attempting to take an airport selfie, chattering excitedly about their trip plans. Dressed in hiking shoes, quick dry pants and laden with fancy, brand new, back-packs it was clear they were also off to Nepal. I smiled, thinking of my first trip to Nepal, almost two years ago. The photos my friend Taryn and I took at every step along the way, documenting the whole immense pilgrimage – or so it seemed at the time. Today it’s just another long flight. After a nerve wracking trip across the Indian Ocean with Malaysian Airlines from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur, I hadn’t slept much and was just looking forward to (hopefully) surviving the next short flight and getting home to take a nap. But I am still a Canadian, and so I had to offer to help with the photo.

“Would you like me to take it?” I offered.

“Oh, yes. Thank you!” They cheerfully accepted my offer.

“One, two, three.” I counted down before snapping then had them check and approve the photo before returning to my seat. “Off to Nepal are you?”

“Yes! Are you as well?” (In a black leather jacket, fashionable top and black tights, I don’t exactly blend in with either crowd that you would generally find waiting for a flight to Kathmandu – I’m not a Nepali woman wrapped in a brilliantly coloured sari, nor am I a foreigner decked out in the latest trekking gear.)

“Yep,” I smiled at the thought. Looking forward to getting home and beginning the new start in Nepal that stretched before me. On Monday I was about to start a new job, on a three year contract, with an organisation I had been trying to work with for almost a year. We chatted the rest of the time until boarding away. Their names were Louise and Carole, they were going to stay with a friend who had lived in Nepal for many years and do a short, off the beaten path trek near Pokhara. I gave them some advice on things to see and do and eat while in Kathmandu. And more importantly: advice for the dreaded immigration process.

As we filed on board and I got settled in my seat I took a deep breath and silently hoped for the best for this four hour flight. I was almost there, but I had a lingering feeling that I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I’ve made it this far, I thought, if I can just get through the next four hours, everything will be okay. I didn’t want to get on the flight. I hadn’t wanted to get on the last one. Driving to the Sydney airport the night before, I felt like I didn’t want to go. Then again, I had the same bad feeling a week ago on the flight to Australia; this irrational fear that something terrible was going to happen. The strangest part was that my anxiety did not stem from the possibility of dying, it was rooted in the idea that if I died I would never see Lama again. I chalked it up to my growing nervousness of flying.

Three and a half, relatively turbulence free, hours later and we were almost there. Finally this whole flying ordeal is almost over! I peered out the window hopefully, but couldn’t see the massive snow-capped peaks, just a few specks of houses far below. Crouching precariously at the feet of the Himalayas lies my poor, poor Kathmandu. Like living in the shadow of any great giant, it exists under the constant threat that at any moment the giants may squash it with an off-hand motion – rolling over in sleep or swatting a pesky insect. My Kathmandu. When did it become mine? I don’t know. The moment I stepped off the plane? Maybe not so soon, but not so long after either. There’s something about this dilapidated city, worlds different from the “normal” I had always known, that still makes it home.

Two years after landing in Kathmandu for the first time, with no idea about Nepal, or even Asia, here I was: coming back again, and this time to sign myself up for the next three years. Something I never would have expected when I accepted that first, six month contract in what feels like a different life.

When I arrived in June 2013 I was as bright eyed and bushy tailed as they come. I was ready for a new adventure, wherever it might take me. After the previous years in Ottawa, having spent time unemployed, spent time in bad jobs, spent time waiting for someone else, being let down, I wanted to make a major change in my life, get out and try something new, take control of my life and finally steer it in the direction I wanted it to go. Funny now, isn’t it? Because we all know life doesn’t really like to be steered, nor do we often know where it is we want to go.

Through countless ups and downs, hard times at work, and even harder times in my personal life, I had struggled to stay in Nepal. I can’t rationalize why. I had just felt that it was where I was meant to be, that the reason would eventually present itself.

Then, as the plane broke through the turbulent clouds and the city came into view below, I was happy. I was going back to finally have some stability for the next years; to be able to really start my life with the person I wanted to be with. Finally, it seemed, the struggled had paid off, had made sense.

When the wheels touched down and the engines slowed us to a taxi I was gleeful – it was over! I made it! I was back safely now, and soon I would be at home, resting in my comfortable bed, emptying my suitcase back into my closet, taking a refreshing shower in my own bathroom, going for a run and meeting my friends for drinks later. It was all set to be a great weekend.

When we were allowed to turn our phones back on I dialed again, just in case he picked up, just to tell him I was home. No luck. I wasn’t surprised. I had already calculated that, based on my assumptions about how quickly his trekking group would move, when they had entered the valley and where they last had cell phone reception, that he should be coming out of the valley on Sunday – tomorrow – and I should hear from him then. But that didn’t deter me from trying an extra couple of times, just in case I got lucky.

I found Louise and Carole in the immigration hall and pointed them in the right direction. I had to go to a different line to collect my gratis visa, which my new employer would turn into a working visa after I started on Monday. I have so many visas from Nepal in my passport that I am always nervous going through immigration now; irrationally worried that they will think I’m suspicious and won’t let me in. It took some time, but finally I got that beautiful blue stamp of legitimacy in my passport. I tried to call again as I bounced down the stairs to baggage claim. Guess what honey? I’m legal! No such luck.

After locating my flight on the arrivals board to see where my luggage would come out, I patiently went to stand by carousel three. No one else was there, and nothing was moving. It always takes forever to get luggage in Kathmandu. I am convinced they bring it from the plane by hand, one piece at a time. I went to use the washroom. After exiting the rest room I located Louise and Carole in the throng of people crowded around carousel one.

“Hi ladies,” I approached them. “Our luggage is actually coming out on carousel three, over there.” I pointed to the empty baggage carousel across the room.

“Oh, thank you! I don’t know why, we didn’t even check! How did you know that?” I pointed to the small dilapidated screen displaying flights. “Oh silly us, we just went where the crowd was.”

“No worries. It will probably take some time, but it should be coming out over here.” We crossed the small arrivals hall together, taking a place near the belt and continuing to chat on and off about Nepal and the interesting things to do on vacation.

And then, as I stood, impatiently waiting to see my small blue suitcase appear through the black rubber flaps of the luggage carousel, wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I felt the ground begin to vibrate through the soles of my feet. 

Why Nepal

People sometimes ask me: “Why Nepal? What is it about Nepal that makes you want to stay there? Why not somewhere else?" It took me a long time to put my finger on it myself. After my one-year contract with UNDP in Nepal came to an end in July 2014, I stayed in the country, despite not having a job and amid a very difficult personal time. I stayed for months, looking for some job leads, believing they were there, believing there was a reason I should stay. Amongst all logical signs that I should go, I stayed. By November, it was time to start thinking about booking a ticket home for Christmas and I couldn’t do it. I knew that I couldn’t justify a return ticket if I didn’t have something to come back for. And I wasn’t ready to go. By that time, I knew why:

It’s simple: potential. Seemingly endless potential on the horizon: in terms of both my own personal growth, and Nepal’s growth. It’s palpable in the atmosphere. It’s exciting.

Since I first arrived in Nepal I have completed my first triathlon, won my second triathlon, conquered my fear of cycling (in the craziest traffic in the world), learned to rock climb, and designed a new project during my time at UNDP, seeing it through implementation.

My project provided business-centred training to micro-entrepreneurs on disaster risk management. When I looked for training packages amongst other development organisations to modify for the Nepal context, I found nothing. It had never been done before! I also co-organized the first ever obstacle race (think Spartan…baby Spartan) in Nepal.

Where else could I have been the first ever person to do anything? Only Nepal. And there are so many other firsts that I get a chance to lead, be part of, or witness happening. It’s a drug: pushing yourself, achieving something new, making something happen that wasn’t there before, creating something, making a real change in someone’s life. And I’m a full on addict. 

Yet, with no means of supporting myself, I didn’t have much other choice but to try to move on.

In the last days, as I began to prepare myself mentally to depart, I got a call from a former UNDP colleague to come in to talk to the boss. She asked me to come work for them for a couple of months starting in January. I had my reason to return, and Nepal kept its grasp on me. Almost simultaneously, I got three other requests for work from different organisations, and suddenly I was busy!

So I went home for my best friend’s wedding, Christmas, and skiing with the family. All the while doing work from abroad on Nepal time, getting up in the middle of the night for interviews, and even completing a written test for a job I had applied for months before. I returned to Nepal in January and got to work for UNDP right away. During the time there I had two, successive interviews for the position with a regional NGO based in Kathmandu that I had done the written test for over the holidays. Things were starting to look up. But within a few weeks I was almost back to square one. Persistent visa problems seemed to plague me, making it impossible for me to accept some jobs that otherwise would have been mine, and even preventing me from being able to access the money deposited into my account for work I had done. Add to that, weeks after being told that I would hear about the job shortly, it was still radio silent from the NGO. I had finished my work for UNDP by this point, and had been jobless again for about a month. I had come to the decision, finally, and somewhat painfully, that if this job didn’t come through, then I would have to go, because I could no longer stay in relative “illegal” status (at least for work). I had come up against enough walls to realise when it was time to thrown in the towel. And it certainly hadn’t been for lack of trying. I started sending out some feelers through my network in Canada.

The NGO had advertised for six programme officers, and I knew someone else who was also waiting to hear. On the night that I found out from her that she had learned a few days earlier she was selected for one of the positions, I thought that was officially it for me. My boyfriend and I made a plan that night for how we would manage the next months, or year, living across the world from one another.

The following evening, as I made dinner, I got the email offering me the position – a three-year contract. And Nepal pulled me back from the brink of leaving again.

Many weeks later, in mid-April, reference checks had all gone through, the official offer had been sent, and though it was a smaller salary than had been advertised, the job description was exactly what I had been looking for, and I figured out how I could make it work. The final step was that I had to leave the country and return with the right type of visa, as it was impossible to transfer a tourist visa into a working visa. So a flight was booked to Sydney, Australia for one week – an opportunity to visit Dad, Pia and Claire, considering my relative proximity (when compared to Canada at least).

The day before I was set to fly I got a call from human resources to let me know that they had decided to change my role – considering that I had been quite set on the job description I had applied for, and already accepted, I did not take this as good news. Regardless, I felt I was pretty much stuck at that point, and I boarded the plane to Australia, with the intention of starting my new job, the following week, on Monday, April 27th.

In advance of my start date I landed back in Kathmandu on the morning of Saturday, April 25^th at 11:15am. Forty-five minutes later I was waiting for my luggage at carrousel three when the earth started to shake, the ground began to crack and pieces of the ceiling began to come down around us. And here I was, almost a year after all logic told me I should have gone home: still in Nepal.

Every time I almost left, Nepal pulled me back, and it pulled me back the last time just before the big earthquake. I can’t help but wonder, at times, if the reason I stayed all this time is so that I could be here now.

And so, I said goodbye to my nice, secure, three year job in a field I hadn’t set out to work in, and now I’m back in an incredibly uncertain, unsecure job with the UN. But maybe, after all this, now isn’t the time for security. It’s the time for using your skills to do what you were meant to.

I thought I was done with the UN. And happily so, actually. I was ready to try something else, and after my experience, I just wasn’t sure that it was for me. But as it turns out there’s this other UN body, that hadn’t been in Kathmandu before, called the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and their job, basically (in layman’s terms) is to make friends with all the actors who rush in after an emergency, and get them to work together. Now that’s something I can do! I don’t know if you, reading this, know my father: Glen Brooks…I expect you do, even if you and I have never met. If you do you know that these skills are inherited directly from him, maybe the best gift I could ever have gotten. It is not the first time I have been thankful for the fact that, as a result of being his daughter: I was born for this job.

And yes, Nepal needs help now, but it still has that potential that I have always loved about it. As horrible as this has been, it is also an opportunity for Nepal.  I don’t want to fix Nepal, I don’t want to save it. I just want to help along the path to realising this potential and taking advantage of this opportunity.

Le Trek

With only a month left in my contract with UNDP Nepal my boss pointed out to me that I had barely taken any of my allotted leave time. After one particularly frustrating meeting I marched directly into Sean’s cubicle and proclaimed that I would go trekking with him. Hell, I had been in Nepal a year and never gone trekking! It was time. Work wasn’t so urgent after all. I basically left all of the planning to Sean – he’s a better planner, and his contract was over before mine, so he had more time to do it. After our year in Nepal together, I trust him enough to blindly follow him into the mountain wilderness. What could go wrong?

Just kidding. I didn’t follow completely blindly, and I did help (by proxy) in some ways. I have a very good friend, Lama, who’s a trekking guide here, and runs his own freelance trekking business: LaMa Walks. He’s a very good guide, and I would have gone for my first trek in Nepal with him, had he been available. Instead, we settled for having him approve our planned route before he left the city for a mountaineering course. The original plan was a walk from Sundarijal, a village at the edge of the city, straight through the Shivapuri National Park, up into Langtang National Park, past holy, glacial Lake Gosaikunda, down into the Langtang Valley, to the end of the Valley and up a small peak at the end Tserko Ri (4984m). Lama was mostly fine with our plan, but told us he was worried about us ascending too rapidly between our last stop in the Langtang Valley and the Tserko Ri peak; however, if we acclimatized properly and had no problems over the 4600m mountain pass near Lake Gosaikunda, then we should be okay. We were warned to be careful at these two points. 

In the end Sean even recruited another friend of ours: Quintin, who had also been working for UN for over a year was finished his contract and wanted to do a final trek. So, equipped with clothes, cameras, coffee and trekking permits, the three off us set out early Saturday morning to begin our adventure. I took the notebook that Sean gave me for Christmas and wrote a little bit at the end of each day. I thought the best way to recount the events of the trek would be to transcribe the contents of those entries here, along with a few photos from along the route.

Trek Day 1: Saturday, June 28, 2014

Sundarijal, 1462m to Chipling 2170m

Stopped in Chipling for the night after about seven hours of walking. Guesthouse is absolutely shocking…[cold] bucket shower, wooden plank bed in a dusty room wallpapered with peelings newsprint from 2011. All located in a mud hut…beside which they are currently barbequing a goat they just beheaded…off to a great start! 

 * * *

 

A good hard walk today…so so so so so many stairs! I consider myself to be in good shape, but that was a long day of walking. I am completely exhausted. I also managed to do something painful to something on the inside of my left ankle this morning. No idea what, but it hurts a lot and walking is not so good. Hoping it leaves as quickly as it came on, overnight.

Trek Day 2: Sunday, June 29, 2014

Chipling, 2170m to Mangangoth, 3220m

Stopped for the night in Mangangoth, at a much nicer guesthouse than last night. Still only bucket shower, but they heated the water and had an indoor toilet to clean ourselves in…as opposed to an open field beside 15 men and boys roasting a goat, like last night. I did some interesting bucket yoga to get my head into the water. Hips and shoulders getting sore and bruised from my bag, and my ankle is definitely messed up…not sure what will happen over the next couple of days. Will see what tomorrow brings.

Hard and steep climb today over wet, slippery, loose stones. At least it’s one more thing we don’t have to do tomorrow though. Weather is getting much chillier too. Spent most of the day walking through clouds, but when the sun did shine it was pretty spectacular – deep, lush valleys, and we even managed to see the real mountains for a few minutes this morning. Another positive is that we haven’t had much rain to contend with – a bit of wet mistiness every so often, but nothing too heavy. We never got drenched, not even in sweat, unlike yesterday. Now we’re just sitting in the dining room in front of the fire that’s warming my back, as well as drying out damp clothes while waiting for my daal bhat. Life = not so bad. :)

Trek Day 3: Monday, June 30, 2014

Mangangoth, 3220m to Gopte, 3440m

Noon: stuck in a rainstorm in Gopte. Everything soaked. The rain cover I bought for my bag has not proved itself to be the most valuable investment ever. I officially have to dry pants. We want to make it on to Phedi today, but we’ll need a drastic change in weather to see that happen (and soon). It’s apparently a three-hour walk, and we’ve been warned by two people not to go in the rain. Apparently there are many streams that cross the path and in heavy rain they can become violent and have washed people away in the past. So for now we’re going to have some lunch, wait a bit and see what happens. If it doesn’t stop by 2:00ish I think we’re stuck here for the night. This morning’s walk was great though. Beautiful trail. Not too difficult a climb.

* * *

Now wearing a pair of extra boxers of Quintin’s (unworn)…a bit weird, but the only dry thing. Rain is just getting harder. Seen Desmond pissed. I’m feeling about the same.

With every day comes a new reason why we won’t make it where we originally planned to (Tserko Ri). Not enough time, short on money, messed up ankle, and now: rain delays. A part of me just wants to get through this as quickly as possible so I can get this ankle checked out. I think I may have sprained it at this point. Also, I have started to reason with myself that if I get back to Kathmandu earlier than expected it just means more time I can use to try and network myself into a job – also worthwhile at this point. If I have a job I can come back and trek again… hopefully with a fully functioning body.

* * *

2:00pm: Rain still going strong. We’re officially here for the night. The guy at the guest house is young…super annoying, and seemingly completely incompetent. Sean is directing/supervising his attempts to start a fire…and chop wood. We tore a few pages out of my notebook to use a kindling, then, as we were lighting them and placing then under logs the guy says: “I have idea.” Wanders off, returns with a small pot of gas and throw it in…safety always: dead last here in Nepal. Sean has now chopped some proper kindling with a big kukri knife and the fire seems to be catching. Hopefully: dry things to soon follow.

* * *

So basically we’re perched on the face of a large, rocky mountain, nothing but sheer up and sheer down on either side, waiting for torrential rains to let up. At least it’s pretty. When the mist lifts we can see massive waterfalls gushing from the side of the slope just above us. I’ve tried to capture it in a photo, but I can’t do the scene any true justice.

* * *

4:00pm: Drying is going only so-so. I managed to melt the back of Sean’s long-sleeved, Marmot trekking shirt. Not on a great run after burning two pairs of my own socks on last night’s fire. Quintin’s things are next…

Contemplated trying to dry the map by the fire for a split second…then decided we really needed the map.

It’s times like these though that I am thankful for Sean and his survival skills as well as his domestic training. He is much more pro at this fire drying business thing than I am. He’s totally channelling Super Dad right now…Super Wilderness Dad. I put my shoes by the fire to dry and when I turned around to check on them he had removed the liners and repositioned them to dry better. Wilderness Dad to the rescue!

He does not seem to like this new name…

Trek Day 4: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Gopte, 3440m to Gosaikunda, 4380m

Happy Canada Day! I feel like I want to die. What a brutal day. From Gopte early this morning we made it to Gosaikunda by 2:00pm – over a 4610m mountain pass…I have such a raging headache and feel so nauseous that it could very well be the day after Canada Day and I could be madly hungover. I feel like I might vomit. I felt that way most of the climb up to the pass. I almost wanted to cry going up that hill today. After tea at Phedi (3700m): 1000m straight up.  So many times I didn’t think I could keep going. I didn’t want to. My throat was bone dry, my lungs were burning, my head was pounding, my stomach was angry and seriously contemplating rebellion, my ankle was throbbing and unstable and I was dizzy, picking my way up a steep slope of wet, slippery, loose stones. I thought it would go away once we came down…so far: no such luck.

Had a terrible sleep last night too. Second night in a row. The first night I had a bit of an upset stomach and a hard time sleeping. Last night I drifted in and out of sleep battling intense nausea, a pounding headache and feeling short of breath. It was so weird. We weren’t even up that high…and it got better the closer morning came. The night was miserable though. This morning I woke up and still didn’t feel wonderful, but I was determined to just make it through today – the toughest day. We had a plan to order breakfast from a guesthouse in Phedi, owned by the brother of the guy whose place we stayed last night in, and eat it when we arrived there at 9:00am, after departing Gopte at 6:00am. However, of course…that didn’t work out so well when he came into the dining room at about 6:00am with our entire breakfast order…20 minutes after I asked him for water that he still hadn’t gotten. With my head pounding I almost snapped. So we asked him to pack it. This entailed him rifling through a magazine rack for what felt like hours (but in reality was probably about five minutes) until he found an old dusty book, tore a few pages out of it and proceeded to wrap it around our food…not very effectively, I might add. I gave Sean a startled look, but he just laughed it off, so I didn’t say anything. Still no fucking water!

Anyway…we packed our food, finally got some damn water, and then ate and had tea at his brother’s place in Phedi when we arrived…refuelling before tackling Laurabina Pass (4610m). Now that we’re in Gosaikunda I’m eating some garlic soup for lunch…a natural method of combating altitude sickness…and vampires.

5:00pm: I still have a throbbing headache, and feel a bit like I need to barf. I’m not really hungry, but feel I should eat, so I ordered my nightly daal bhat anyway. Sean has finally worn me down on taking the preventative dose of Diamox, and anti-altitude sickness drug. I think I must just have a bit of flu or something from getting a chill yesterday, but I’ve relented nonetheless, mostly because we’re making plans to try and climb a nearby peak tomorrow (Surya, 5125m), and I don’t want to end up really sick. Also, considering my ankle is still all messed up, it’s probably wise if at least some part of me functions.

I had really wanted to avoid using any drugs for this. Makes me feel a bit weak…considering we’re really not going all that high (for Nepal). And who knows…it’s probably just a flu/cold from getting drenched yesterday. But, I guess it’s better safe than sorry. I really wish I had Lama with me today. He would know what to do. The rest of us are really just playing a guessing game. I don’t think I’ll do this again without a guide. There are really so many ways things could have been easier…food, lodging, language, important sites…the list goes on.

* * *

7:00pm: I’m having an internal battle with myself. My headache is not going away. If anything: it’s just getting stronger. And even though I managed to eat, that also didn’t make me feel any better. Still nauseous. I have no idea what’s going on. It’s the most frustrating thing. I feel terrible, but I don’t know why. No one gets sick from altitude this low! Especially considering this started at barely more than 3000m. I must just be regularly sick. But, on the other hand, if it is altitude then it could be serious, and I really do not want to end up a name on a stone along the path with a scarf wrapped around it, like all the other graves we have seen along the way. So I don’t want to die – obviously; but I also don’t want to be that person who ruins everyone’s vacation by being a drama queen about catching a cold! What to do...

I just wish I knew what I was supposed to be feeling, what’s normal, what all these different symptoms add up to…but I really only have a rudimentary understanding of altitude sickness. I guess I just never considered that we could face this problem on such a simple, straightforward trek. But none of us really know anything; we’re all just making guesses, and assumptions, and assuming it’s not the worst case scenario. I don’t want to, but I can’t silence the little voice in the back of my head that keeps asking me: “what if it is the worst case scenario?” If we had a guide, our guide would know.

* * *

I talked to the guys about my internal battle. Quintin borrowed the Lonely Planet of some French guys who are also staying in our guesthouse and used the Langtang-Gosaikunda section to plot out our route, with altitudes, so far. When we arrived today at 2:00pm we had enough time to go on, but it was raining, I felt like I was ready to collapse, and our map listed the altitude of Lake Gosaikunda at 3480m. Considering how I was feeling, I told the guys I would prefer to stay here rather than at the next town, Laurabina, 3900m. The lower the better, just in case it was the altitude making me feel so terrible. According to Lonely Planet, however, Gosaikunda isn’t at 3480m, it’s at 4380m – meaning that we’re about 1000m higher than we were last night, and have officially blown our safe climbing and resting heights right out of the water. But what can we do about it now? It’s already dark, so moving on isn’t a safe option. We’ve decided to wait and see what the morning brings. They tell me to wake them up, at any time, if things get worse throughout the night – like if I start vomiting, develop new symptoms, or can’t sleep at all. It’s the only thing we really can do right now: play it by ear.

* * *

Lama would have a coronary if he were reading this. He would tell me to get straight down the mountain straight away. Maybe that’s the right answer. I said I wished he were here; maybe channelling his opinion is good enough for now. Maybe it will have to be. For now I’ll have wait and see what the morning, and tonight, bring.

Day 9: Sunday, July 6, 2014

Kathmandu, 1400m

Not so much trekking anymore...things went downhill very quickly after that last entry. Literally! And figuratively. Allow me to explain:

I woke up and it was still dark. Head pounding just as bad or worse than earlier. Laboured breathing. Suppressing the urge to vomit. Shivering under three blankets, even though my face felt hot against my hand. Impossible to get back to sleep. I lay in bed for a long time, maybe an hour, waiting for morning. I knew that Sean would knock on my door at 5:15am, and I would just have to tell him that I was sorry, but I couldn’t make it on today, that I would have to go down. I thought 5:15 couldn’t possibly be very far away. Finally, when the night and the pain felt so relentless that I needed to know how close the relief of morning was, I turned on my phone (I had been trying to save the 5% remaining battery). It was 10:45pm.

I did not want to wake them.  I sat cross-legged on my bed for several minutes, staring at the diving wall between our rooms, trying to figure out what to do. I really did not want to wake them, but I didn’t know what else to do, and I was starting to get scared. I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the morning in the status quo.

“Guys...” I tried calling softly through the wall. No sign of movement.

“Guys,” I ventured a little more loudly. Rolling over. No response. I contemplated for a few more minutes and then leaned over the bed and knocked on the wall. Definite movement this time.

“Guys?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I have a problem.” A minute of rustling around as they made their way out of sleeping bags and into shoes later and both Sean and Quintin appeared in my room, sitting on the second bed, opposite me.

Wilderness Dad and Mom did their assessment of the situation. Sean confirmed that I had a fever while Quintin checked my pulse and we all discussed what to do. Often when altitude sickness is suspected a helicopter is called in order to rapidly get the affected person to treatment in Kathmandu. In our case, that wasn’t an option. There was no cell phone reception, there was no land line, and according to Sean who had stayed up later the night before discussing possible options if I didn’t get any better with the owner of the guesthouse: the closest phone was a two hour walk away. Even if calling was an option, the thick fog coating the hills around us would have made landing a helicopter in the area impossible until morning. After some discussion Quintin and Sean decided I should take another half tablet of Diamox and Quintin mixed me up a litre of water with oral rehydration salts. I was in no state to question anything, even though I knew that none of us really knew what we were doing. They told me to drink the water and see how I felt in 45 minutes.

Within 30 minutes I started coughing. But nothing else got any better. When I went to bed a few hours earlier I didn’t have a fever, now I did; when I woke up I didn’t have a cough, now I did. Ailments just seemed to be multiplying. When Sean and Quintin came back our conversation went something like this:

Quintin: “Any change?”

Me: “No.”

Sean: “Okay, well considering you’re coughing now, you probably do just have a cold or flu, but the altitude certainly isn’t helping. So we need to eliminate the altitude factor as soon as possible.”

Me: “We still can’t go anywhere until it’s daylight though. It’s even less safe to be wandering around in the dark at altitude, not knowing where we’re going.”

Sean: “I already talked to the owner about this being a possibility. He’s not thrilled with the idea, but he’s agreed to guide us down to the next town at 3500m, about three hours walk from here.”

Me: “Okay. Are you sure?” They confirmed that they both thought it was the best option. “Then let’s get ready.” They had both already packed. Sean took all of the heavy things that I had off my bed to jam into his own bag, leaving me with just a sleeping bag and a few items of clothing. The boys went and woke up the old man who owned the lodge while I got dressed in my warm clothes and full winter jacket.

At 1:00am on July 2, while a light snow fell softly, crystallizing the grass along the path, we walked out of Gosaikunda.  It was eerie. I could hear water running, and I knew the giant mountains were all around us, but everything was black. I couldn’t see anything except what was directly in front of me, illuminated by my headlamp. It was clear that the trail dropped off abruptly, falling away for who knows how far into who knows what. All I knew is that there was a mountain on one side and a drop into nothingness on the other. I tried to walk straight. According to Sean, who stuck close behind me, I was only partially successful.

About 15 to 20 minutes after we set out we had to start climbing. The stairs up to the pass on the opposite side of the lake were not too challenging, or too long, compared to what we had traversed almost every other day of the trek; but, at that moment, for me, they became the straw that broke the camel’s back. When we reached the top I had to stop, I was practically gulping air, and when I tried to drink some water to sooth my dry throat I started to throw up. I had been trying so hard, for so long, to not throw up, and I just couldn’t stop it anymore. Until that moment I had been comforting myself with the fact that at least I hadn’t thrown up yet – it couldn’t be that bad if I hadn’t thrown up. Which was stupid – not throwing up because you’re using every bit of energy you have to stop yourself from throwing up does not mean you’re not dangerously ill.

Sean asked if I wanted to rest, but I didn’t. After that I was officially scared about what the hell what happening to me, and about how much time I had to get it fixed. I just wanted to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible, and get as far down as possible. I kept throwing up as we walked down, a few more times. Sean held me up by my bag so that I didn’t lose my balance and fall. But besides those quick pauses we didn’t stop walking. It was a bit like a drive-by vomit situation.

Mercifully, the rest of the walk predominantly a gentle downhill, and didn’t take much physical exertion. Regardless, after 45 minutes Quintin insisted on carrying my bag to make it quicker and easier for me. Moving forward himself in the dark with his own bag on his back and my back on his front, blocking his view of his feet on the path.

(For obvious reasons there are no photos of this part of the trek)

By 3:00am we had reached Cholangpati (3584m). The old man guiding us made it very clear that he did not want continue any further, and woke up the owners of one of the two guest houses in town. They opened up and let us in. Sean and Quintin discussed trying to get even lower, but after consulting the map they realized that the next town was at least an hour away, we would only lose an extra 200m by getting there, and the path was much more complicated. Without a guide any longer, it made more sense to wait for daylight.

At least this place had a phone. Sean used it to call the United Nations Security Focal Point, Roshan, to get his advice and make some arrangements for our next steps. I didn’t feel any better, but Quintin suggested that I should lie down and try to rest. The woman who owned the lodge showed me to a room and gave me a big blanket. I only took my shoes off, lying down on the bed still zipped up in my winter jacket and wearing my wool hat. Despite being tired, I was afraid of closing my eyes...just in case I didn’t open them again. Maybe it was an irrational fear to have, but like everything: it came from all the things I didn’t know. I knew that altitude sickness could be fatal. I knew that the symptoms I had had come on quickly. But I didn’t know what exactly I was suffering from. I knew that I probably needed to get to a hospital, and that there was a reason why helicopters were the first choice to get there under normal circumstances. I didn’t know how much time I had to get there, and I didn’t know what the consequences of not getting there quickly enough could be.

In the end, sleep won out for at least a couple of hours. When I woke up Sean was crashed out in his sleeping bag on the bed beside mine – probably to monitor me in case things got any worse. He had worked out a plan with Roshan a few hours earlier while I slept. We would have to keep walking out to Dhunche, the nearest city, where the road finally meets the path, and he would have an ambulance waiting there to take us back to Kathmandu. There was no vehicular access any closer than Dhunche, which Quintin estimated to be about 4 hours away, given our average walking pace. Roshan suggested that if I couldn’t walk there was a military post close by and he could have some of the army guys come and carry me down to Dhunche; however, I was fairly convinced that being bounced along on someone’s back down a steep, rocky trail would definitely make me feel worse than walking, so we politely declined that offer.

Can you see the path? Look for the backpack.

We left Cholangpati at 7:00am, descending basically straight down 1500m along a very steep path. Knees? Nah! Those are useless now. Of course, at the very last minute, there was also some precarious uphill, over a set of uneven stairs carved into a rock face – because why not? Finally, at 11:30am we came out on a road navigable by a four wheeled vehicle. The ambulance met us not far from that point. We loaded our bags and ourselves into it and decided to skip the Dhunche hospital and head straight for Kathmandu. I assumed that if I was still alive at this point, that I could probably survive another few hours. The wisdom of that decision was confirmed when we drove past the Rasuwa District Health Post – basically a small tin shack. Sean made my sleeping bag a pillow and I laid down in the back of the ambulance, drifting in and out of consciousness for the next few hours.

Now when I say “ambulance” I know the image that springs into your mind is one of a properly medically equipped vehicle with trained professionals. But do not let the cross-cultural homonym fool you. That is not what is meant by ambulance here in Nepal. Here, ambulance means 30 year old Mahindra jeep with a bed in the back driven by a teenager who likes to play with the siren for fun, stops to chat with a number of his buddies along the way and tries to take pictures of you on his cell phone camera. It’s basically just a slightly more expensive private vehicle…that gets you noticed right away when you pull up to the hospital, which in this case was what made it all worth it.

* * *

At Norvic International Hospital I was taken directly to a bed in emergency. Zero wait time. They didn’t even waste time ensuring I was registered first. They asked if I had medical insurance, but didn’t bother with the details until later that evening. I gave Sean my wallet as I got out of the ambulance and the guys took care of paying the driver and having him provide a receipt, so that I could claim the costs through insurance (considering that he had to write out this receipt by hand, in my notebook, in Nepali, I would say the chances of me getting any money back for that are pretty much non-existent). By the time Sean and Quintin got everything sorted outside and found me in Emergency I had already talked to a couple of doctors, they had checked all my vitals, given me a chest x-ray, had me fill in a form to get me registered and provided a diagnosis. Dr. Pande, an older man who would become my regular doctor during my stay, told me that was suffering from the early symptoms of high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE), an advanced form of altitude sickness. He justified our decision to walk down the mountain in the middle of the night by telling me that it was a very good thing I came down, and that if I had not done so I would have ended up with full blown HAPE and HACE (high altitude cerebral edema).

* * *

After quickly strategizing how we would stay in touch, Sean and Quintin took my things home as they were shooed out by a nurse who needed to give me an ECG and stick me with an IV. Later that evening when my roommate Alex and friend Sibylle showed up with the change of clothes and charged cell phone I had requested Sean ask them to bring, I was resting in a private room with a bag of fluids dripping into my arm.

Alex and Sibylle stayed for a couple of hours, and other friends (Dan and Nikola) came to visit as well. I slept early, and by the following day I was feeling much better – almost back to my pre-trekking self. I had an appetite again – Sean brought me breakfast and a latte from the café downstairs in the morning. When Alex and Sibylle came for their daily visit Dr. Pande was there and said he would discharge me in the morning. As I went to sleep that night there was just a faint, dull ache in my skull.

Of course, nothing can be that simple. At 3:00am I was woken up by searing pain in my head. The nurses gave me an Asprin. Obviously…that did nothing, and I couldn’t sleep. At 6:00am: another Asprin. Still nothing. When Dr. Pande came in at 8:00am he was shocked at the difference from the previous night. A CT scan, examination by a neurologist, numerous (and various) pain killers and another night in the hospital later and the pain persisted; the diagnosis was that I had a migraine. Three different doctors told me that this was not uncommon as a sort of after-effect of the altitude, it could be brought on by stress, anxiety or other strong emotions. There is no set prognosis for how long it might last. As with altitude sickness, it varies from one person to the next. Despite the fact that they wanted to keep me admitted for longer, I insisted that if there was no risk of anything more severe and they were just going to treat me with oral medication that I would be more comfortable at home. I was discharged Saturday morning “on request” and Sibylle came to the hospital to collect me and my things and take me home with codeine infused analgesics, anti-anxiety drugs, anti-nauseants and strict orders for two days of bed rest.

Alex and Sibylle acted as wonderful nurses over the next couple of days, attending to me through more headaches, fever and a little extra vomiting thrown in for good measure. Finally, four days after returning from what was (in the end) about a four day trek, I am starting to feel like a normal human being again. I still have a headache, but it is allowing itself to be medically controlled fairly effectively.

People keep saying things to me like: “Ahhh wow, that’s a really bad experience. At least you’ll know more for next time now!” And I keep thinking: Next time? What next time? I think my enjoyment of mountains from now on will be limited to what I know: getting a chair lift to take you up to the top at a safe altitude and skiing down!

When I look back now over what happened, and what I wrote up there I realize that I was crazy to think it could have been anything other than the altitude making me sick. But I guess that’s why hindsight is always 20/20. At the time I really didn’t think it could be the culprit, considering how low we were when I started feeling sick. It seemed impossible. I also didn’t want to be overly dramatic and ruin everyone’s trek if it was just a bit of the flu. But no matter how I think about it – as it was happening, and now, in retrospect – it always comes right back to the same thing: we should have had a guide.

The worst part about everything that happened was not being sick, it was being scared, and completely in the dark about what was going on. It was realizing that I might be playing a guessing game with my own existence. That was when I recognized that having a guide wasn’t about bringing someone with you to show you what path to walk up; it was about bringing someone with you that you could trust to make a potentially critical decision about your life.

When everything goes well you don’t think about these things. But things don’t always go well, and when they don’t you don’t want to be playing WebMD based on the little you can remember from pre-trekking reading.

Just having a guide doesn’t necessarily check those boxes though. When you hire a guide you should go with one that has a good reputation or has been recommended to you, if possible. Like I said: it should be someone that you feel you can basically trust your life to.

To be perfectly clear: Sean and Quintin were amazing! They did everything they possibly could to help me, and I will never be able to thank them enough for that. But, in the future, if I ever do trek again, there’s at least one more person that I’m going to make sure is with me.