With Chris working seven days a week and it being monsoon in Lucknow, Chris suggested I might take a trip to Dhangadhi (Nepal) for a few days. I could travel with Aparna and Tayosha who were visiting us in Lucknow after delivering Aparna’s daughter to the airport for a flight back to university in Chennai.
This plan turned out to be a splendid idea. Aparna (Chris’s line manager last year while volunteering at SPA college, Nepal, far right below) and Usha (program director at SPA, who made up our foursome climbing to Api Base Camp last November, far left below) have taken on the responsibility for being the Nepal partner of our new scholarship fund. They have just completed the selection process for this year’s students and I was able to attend the awards ceremony to present their scholarship certificates.
Sunil and Samjhana are both from rural hilly areas north of Dhangadhi (Samjhana is from the Api mountainous region we visited on our hike). They become the first grant recipients from our new Api Education Project trust, having come top out of 20 applicants. Without the scholarships, their families could not afford for them to continue in further education. (See more photos and a write-up from the SPA college Facebook page here).
It’s been such fun being back in Dhangadhi, seeing so many friends we met last year, drinking cappuccino in the Bread Box cafe, and lassi yogurt in what has to be the best little dairy in the world (served by ‘pujari’ the priest from last year’s production of Romeo4Juliet).
Since we were last here, the Dhangadhi city council has made amazing progress on paving the roads and planted so many trees and flowering shrubs, the city is becoming more green and beautiful day-by-day. Shame Chris couldn’t make it, but no doubt there’ll be opportunities to visit again in the near future.
