Thursday 14 May 2015

Nepal


I come into contact with five semi-retired Gurkhas on a regular basis (a security team) and this morning I thought I would mention the elephant in the room, since I was alone in the room with one of them.

He told me that none of their families back in Nepal had been too badly affected by the earthquake, which was a big relief.

They are such happy-looking, smiley people, and this probably contributed a great deal to their reputation in battle as fearsome, dedicated and ruthless.

With a beaming face, he said that the people of Nepal are no longer asking for food and shelter - all they want, he told me, was to be prayed for.

"My country could be sinking," he said with an incongruously cheerful disposition, "I don't know."

I knew he was talking metaphorically, but I couldn't help thinking that he was wrong. The massive problems are being caused by the fact that his country is rising - Everest grows inches a year.

Let's hope it rises metaphorically in the very near future.

5 comments:

  1. Yes, I agree Tom. The videos I've seen of the devastation looked pretty horrendous.

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  2. My late father-in-law opened, and ran, the very first foreign consulate (British) in Nepal. As a keen photographer he also took lots of photos, which we still have in a tin box in the form of slides. No doubt a lot of the old buildings etc are now gone. and the pictures presumably would be of some interest. I must contact their embassy to see if they'd like them. A terrible tragedy.

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    Replies
    1. Good idea, they could even help with the re-building. That's the trouble with non-wooded areas - they have to use stones or bricks.

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  3. The Nepalese won't give up. It will rise again metaphorically or otherwise.

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