This was on the Saipan Tribune May 4 edition. Written from a distance, it was short on tears, but affirming Nepal's capacity, like many human disasters, to overcome. It did not mean to negate the assistance extended from outside towards the suffering. I did my share, though hardly enough, with the local gatherers of aid. Anyway, sharing this again (if I did not send it the first time), with the listserv. ICA-USA's efforts are much appreciated. Jaime Vergara, Saipan and Shenyang Gurkha Nepali I was in the Deccan plateau in Maharashtra late 70s aiming to segue northeast into the Ganges down to Calcutta and the Brahmaputra-Ganges delta that is famous for its monsoons, the former East Pakistan of the British Muslims in India at the partition before they decided that the dominant Bihari of West Pakistan keeps the “one nation” dream, and the East be Bengali in Bangladesh. Dhaka was where I planned to head, wearing my sando, cutoff undershirt, in the wet heat of Bengal Bay. Gaia intervened with the fierce winds of the monsoon so I went back to Mumbai, touched down on Theravada Sri Lanka on a flight to Singapura where I watched Hakka Lee Kwan Yew discipline folks to plant trees and refrain from spitting to keep the city cool and clean! I had another chance in the 80s to head for Dhaka and mosey over to the mists of Kathmandu some 600 miles away. By then, India’s Sikkim by Bhutan’s monarchy took mystical airs, and the old Pagan Empire across the Irrawaddy that became Myanmar in our time (and where our own Pagan might have derived its name) took on the magic of a forbidden land. I did not make it up the hills where folks traverse the Mahayana path and follow the practice of yoga. It was more than twenty years later that I got to the other side of the Himalayas, and a trip to Lhasa in Xizang loomed more as a possibility while residing in China. I made it to Sichuan on the foothills of the Himalayas up towards the Garze Autonomous Region, learning to liuliude in Kangding before the rains started washing down roads chiseled on the side of cliffs, carved by rivers that carried the waters from upland downpours. I took time to watch pandas nibble on bamboo shoots on forests at lower altitude while hightailing it down the plains. A blue passport trekking up to Lhasa turned up to have limits on mobility as I was to told to join foreigners, occupy foreigners’ hotels at foreigners’ rates, a price not exactly conducive to a backpacking budget. I said, “thank you”, but “buyong xie”. That it would take this far to get to reflect on Gurkha land testifies to the sensitivity of the subject matter. Nepal was visited by a 7.8 tremor on the Richter scale (7.9 some claim, 40 percent more devastating) as India’s plate burrows under the Himalaya. The devastating earthquake was not unexpected; geologists talked about its imminence a week before the actual event. Mount Everest is majestically up there and still heading way up. The inches of gains through the years since the last major shake-up in 1935 added up and really rattled the place big time this time! This is like San Andreas Fault’s on the Pacific side. That the land mass will slide into the sea someday is not a matter of whether or not but a question of when. SF is the alternative option to mainstream rational American life and it operates with a laidback but realistic comme ci comme ca attitude not unlike that of Mexico City further south, which sits on an island in a crater lake of an extinct volcano, que sera sera. The Aztec culture that built Tenochtitlan knew life to be interrupted by volcanic explosions, and the fiesta was invented to schedule the event to vent pent-up emotions. The devastation that recently visited Nepal caused extreme hardships and tears. Initially, it was estimated to be a loss of 3,000 lives but is now at 6,000 expected to reach 10,000. A loss of one life is enough for tears! The region has roots in a life understanding of profound acceptance, mastered meditation, and deep tranquility, but the physical devastation, and the loss of life remains a shock and assaults victims’ consciousness outside the bounds of ease. In today’s world, lard inhabits girth, flesh and bones resigns to aches and pains, but the anxiety level throttles the blood rush to extremely high pressure and consciousness pacified into quiet despair strips ancient certitudes and securities from equilibrium. We are not used to finitude and temporality; we escape to false comforts of momentary pleasures, dreams of paradise, delusions of heaven and illusions of forever. The only comfort we can offer Nepal is objective truth. Earthquakes are stronger these days, and preliminary musings has the loosening of tectonic plates as more water is added to oceans from melting polar caps, no thanks to carbon emissions. Stronger earthquakes are expected, and human settlement will deign to live on the lid of the cauldron before it brews over. We empathize with the brokenness not because we can crawl under people’s skins but because we share in the brokenness of life itself. That brokenness is its wholeness, the spiritually astute claims. As Schultz’ Lucy asked Charlie Brown: “Do you see any other life?” Charlie answers: “No.” Lucy bellows: “Well, live in it then.” For which she charges Charlie a fee of five cents! One who is not afraid to die is either lying or a Gurkha, is an old saying. Inflation has since hit Lucy’s five cents’ stand, now easily five dollars! Send yours to Nepal! Make no mistake, though. Nepal shall overcome! -----Original Message----- From: ICA-USA <csarro@ica-usa.org> To: earth2031bound <earth2031bound@aol.com> Sent: Fri, May 22, 2015 3:58 am Subject: Extended Deadline: Accepting ICA-Nepal Donations Until May 31st May 2015 | Special Announcement ICA-USA Accepting ICA-Nepal Donations Until May 31st ICA-USA would like to thank those who have donated to ICA-Nepal in the past few weeks. To date, we've raised $10,000 together. In response to the secondary earthquake and the damage it's created, ICA-USA will be extending the deadline for donations until May 31st. The funds raised will be used by ICA-Nepal for relief, recovery and rehabilitation activities for earthquake affected people in Nepal. You can read more about their work here or at www.ica-nepal.org/. The values and methods around participatory planning and engagement in cultivating change that all ICAs share will be at the center of how ICA-Nepal assists in renewal. Many of us got to experience the greatness of Kathmandu in the 2012 Conference on Human Development. Let us help get this amazing place back on its feet. If you would like to help with the restoration and donate to ICA-Nepal, the ICA-USA is willing to accept these funds and send them to our sister organization in their time of intense need. Your gifts will be tax deductible and the entire amount donated will be sent to Nepal. You can donate by sending a check to ICA-USA (4750 N. Sheridan, Chicago IL 60640) with 'for ICA-Nepal' written in the memo/note, or you can donate online by clicking here. (http://www.ica-usa.org/donations/) Read the latest report from ICA-Nepal by clicking the image below: Forward this email to a friend This email was sent to earth2031bound@aol.com by csarro@ica-usa.org | Update Profile/Email Address | Rapid removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy. The Institute of Cultural Affairs in the U.S.A | 4750 N. Sheridan Rd. | Chicago | IL | 60640