Our Volunteer Family

We've had a busy week at Kay Garnay for Nepal and Star View Guest House. We even had to shift people around and even had to refer guests to friends in the village with home-stay accommodations. It’s great to see tourists coming and going and supporting Nepal‘s economy. Particularly after a disaster, the people need to move forward with a good tourist season and export businesses. If you wonder how you could help Nepal recover from the earthquakes of 2015, we hope you’ll use your consumer power to help. You can enjoy our thangkas from our on-line store or another website that promotes Nepali products. http://TraditionalArtofNepal.com

We are so pleased to have Mark Goddard, Donor/Volunteer, and his family at the guest house for the week. Mark and his family came from England to help Nepal. Mark’s mother, Stephanie, has many years of quilting experience and brought supplies to teach quilting.

We do things a bit differently at Kay Garnay. When we find a person, or in this case a family, who wants to come to Nepal to help we take care to design something that will both enrich the village and enrich our guests‘ experience. In this case we were able to enlist the entire family, including Claire, Mark’s wife, who enjoyed supporting the activities.

First, we had a lovely, quilting workshop. About 20 women showed up on the first day. The women are really excited about learning new skills. We went to Kathmandu where Stephanie bought some fabric, needles, and instruments for the training. Not only are the women busy with the rice harvest, but they managed their time for the quilting class and even more women came on the following days. There are many directions the women can go from here to help themselves economically. Skilled women are in high demand in the handcrafted, export industries. We will continue to work with the women, by providing the work space and creating outlets for their work.

Nepali kids love sports and they have the great passion for football. Even on the rough ground of the make-shift football field, one can see enthusiasm and their determination to kick the ball to the goal post.

Mark and his son, Tom, brought footballs and football Jerseys for the kids. We went to two schools for the distribution. Having their own jersey made the kids feel like real players for the game. We had a small competition between schools on the big grounds at the bottom of the hill. We are yet to distribute more jerseys to the kids at the Happy Kids Recreation Center in Bhaktapur.

Tom, Mark’s 11 years old son, gave some tips to the players and they all got along so well; they were like old friends in no time at all. Almost 50 students were there to enjoy the game as an audience, which added to the excitement. Students from Champak Vidhya Pith and Dolagiri Higher Secondary School played and after the game we distributed medals and chocolates.

After the games and work were finished the Goddards went to Nagarkot to stay for a night and see the sun come up over Mt. Everest. They were rewarded with the best view of the Himalayas in over a month. We are so grateful to the Goddard family for their time and efforts to help our village. This is the same family with the exceptional youngster, Tom, who did a fund-raiser for us and brought us $1,700 earlier in the year. Thank you, Mark, Claire, Stephanie and Tom for all your kindness and hard work.

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