Everest Starfish Promise

I would like to share a story with you about an experience that profoundly affected my life.

It was October 2005 and at 23 years of age I sat staring at the billions of stars with tears swelling. I was trekking in the Annapurna region of Nepal with breathtaking views of the snow capped Mountains surrounding me perched on a rock. For most that night, the images of malnourished children and their dire living conditions kept playing like a slide show in my mind. I had been in Thankot nestled in the kathmandu valley for the previous 4 weeks where I had been volunteering in an orphanage with an organization responsible for the sanitation, welfare and health of 30 so orphans of differing ages and conditions.

At the beginning of September I traveled to a rural village with new found friends to live with a host family for a week to learn more about their culture and language. By now I had already realized that my father was indeed right when he told me the people of Nepal live in one of the poorest countries in the world, but are emotional millionaires. I was taken back by their smile, which speaks a thousand words, overwhelmed as we arrived and welcomed like family in a village with no previous contact with the western world, here we were family. I will never forget the smiles on the children's faces despite the rust colour of their hair which indicated the lack of essential vitamins to help them grow and develop as they should.

The images of the first few days of the orphanage played heavily on my mind as I reflected on what I had seen and heard. Although we had recently moved the children to a bigger house, it still had left much to desire. It offered just slightly more relief from the crammed, unsanitary conditions they had just moved from. Still no running water, one small bathroom which had no ventilation. There was a young didi who would feed 30 children in a kitchen which resembled more a garage. Children were sleeping 5 to 6 to a bed barely big enough for an average westerner.

Before I could even put my bags down on the first morning I had children coming to me in severe pain. Most if not all the children were infected with sores and skin diseases from the filthy living conditions. One young boy had just returned days earlier from the hospital after being treated for cholera, infected from an unknown water supply.

The second morning I awoke to find a strange boy unknown to me in one of the beds. He refused to show his face for it was hidden under a thin sheet. It was only a matter of time until he showed me. I could only feel immense sorrow when later, after much waiting and arguing with the owner, the poor young man had leprosy and would spend the next week or so in hospital and a further two years on medication. The owner, unwilling to help, just said that the boy has done bad by the gods and he is getting punished. This comment was not surprising coming from a man who was under investigation for child trafficking.

Although I did not realize it at the time, my commitment to underprivileged children in developing countries is due to my memories from that night. I remember, as I wiped away the tears flowing down my cheek, that I began to focus on what I could do to help create a world where all children, regardless of their race, colour, or location had the opportunities to grow and develop as intended.

Recently, I picked up a small stone and tossed it into the pool of water in front of me. I watched the ripples get wider and wider and larger and larger. It was at this point I realized that by myself I could do very little to bring about a long term change, but with the help and support of other like-minded people willing to make a difference, then things could significantly change. The importance of this idea gripped me through speaking to others. Imagine it, an ocean of people who wanted their life to matter. People who want to leave the world in a better state than when they entered it. Even if it is to make one persons' life easier and more bearable. Just to make one person's life more happy is to have succeeded. That's when I decided I wanted to run the Everest marathon to help raise money for the children through donations.