Nepal – Willow Mann

NEPAL TRIP 2013

This year, at Easter 2013, I was invited to go with the Pahar Trust on a trip to Nepal. The itinerary was to travel to different parts of Nepal, sometimes we had to use aircraft as we were travelling to a new area in Nepal but usually we travelled by bus, (Charabanc), between distant outlying villages. We would, on occasions, be travelling for most of the day, getting shook up rocking and bouncing up the very rough tracks that zig zagged back and forth slowly gaining height. This would continue until we reached our destination often a small village clinging to the side of a mountain.

I had been invited because, in 2006, when I first went to Nepal to trek, I organised with a Kathmandu jeweller to have some copper bangles embellished with a “Three Legs of Mann” motif for each member of my family. These were highly regarded by a great deal of friends and neighbours who all wanted one. Initially I refused but I then had a brain wave, I could have some made in Nepal by the same jeweller and sell them with a mark up on the price and the profit could go back to Nepal and be used by  the Pahar Trust to carry on their good deeds, building schools and creating medical facilities and many other wonderful things. This I did for around five years, passing on the profits and getting more bracelets every time my good friend Mike Quayle, who is part of the Pahar Trust team, visited Nepal to climb mountains!

People of the Island over the years have contributed to the spectacular sum of £9,000. This paid for half of a school that had only just been constructed in a village called Danda Bazaar. It was this school that I was invited out to open, which I duly did at Easter 2013. I was out in Nepal when my home village of Kirk Michael was covered in snow and I missed it all! 

My trip was fantastic and I was in tears on a number of occasions but I did have a problem when I was out there, I caught what the doctor, whom I visited straight away at Nobles on my return, called a ‘tummy bug’. I was not well out there and I couldn’t eat or sleep and lost well over half a stone in weight. The travelling didn’t help but I soldiered on and during the trip I visited Ghamrang which is twinned with my home village of Kirk Michael. I became the fourth Kirk Michael resident to visit Ghamrang and I was treated like Royalty. I couldn’t face the banquet but it was a great experience. I presented them with a large metal Three Legs that had been painted up in wonderful bright colours.

This visit has inspired my next project that I will channel the bracelet money towards. The funds that I collect when doing Curragh walks and slide shows will go to “Water for Ghamrang”. Ghamrang needs a new water supply and it is going to cost around £1,700 so I am going to organise presentations showing what happened on my recent trip and let people of the Island, including those who have bought a bracelet see how the money had been spent. These (slide shows) presentations will take place in halls around the Island.

If you would like me to come and do a slide show for your group please contact me.