Nepal

High Tea

There are so many stories to tell, and condensing it into two pages worth of material is a devilishly difficult and frustrating job – give me a mountain any day! But here is one story that more or less sums up the atmosphere of both the trek and the team. On the last, long slog up to High Camp when the world was becoming one big, white, blur full of gravity, there appeared in the distance two strange shapes – the shapes themselves were easily recognisable as people but they were strange because, unlike everyone else we’d seen in the past 4 hours they were moving down-hill. And not a Nepali ‘down-hill’ either, which involves a lot more ‘up’ than you’d expect, but actually ,properly down towards the sporadic chain of trekkers carrying a…a…now, did my eyes deceive me? Was I hallucinating? Like an oasis in a desert, there, dancing in their hands was a large, shiny, very, very real aluminium kettle!!! They skipped down the snow-covered slope as though they were on a leisurely afternoon stroll, handing out life-saving, regenerating, inspiring cups of hot juice, and we thanked them as if we’d never seen a hot drink before. Refreshments at nearly 19,000 feet – brings the Hostess badge to a whole new level…

The Trip - Women With Altitude (Not Your Average School Disco)

So this is what we’d been building up to for the last year and a half; this is what we’d all secretly been aiming at, yet at the same time hardly daring to believe that it were possible; this was woman versus mountain and, for two of us, woman won.

For 16 others, woman came a close second.

This is the story of 23 Girl Guide Leaders, representing 16 regions and 9 counties in the UK, a mountain, and a country that stole their hearts. And all because one day, somewhere in Scotland, one Guider said to another “Do you want to see Everest?”

From conception to fruition it took 3 difficult years to put 18 Guiders on a mountainside at 4905m (16,090 feet), to get 16 of them up to the High Camp at 5800m (19,030 feet), 5 of them as high as 6250m (20,0510 feet) and 2 of them to the summit of Mera Peak, the Himalaya’s hardest, highest trekking peak at 6476m (21,250 feet), in the shadow of the world’s highest pinnacle – but boy, was it worth it.

This was the first part of the Girl Guide Leaders Nepal ’07 trip which took place 30^th March-29^th April this year. We were the most unusual group that our very experienced and knowledgeable Sherpa and Porter team had taken on the 18-day trek through hills, moors, jungles, valleys, ridges and, of course, mountains; not only because we were Guiders (and everyone knows that no-one in this wonderful organisation can be classed as ‘normal’), not only because we were constantly singing, talking, or eating – as our Surdha so eloquently put it, we had “very busy mouths” – and not only because we spanned 44 years between us (the oldest member being 63 and the youngest 19) but we were also the only all-female group they had had. Ever.

And we managed to surprise and confuse them even more by gathering in a horseshoe to renew our promise at 4905m, possibly at the highest point it’s ever been done…

Of course, we couldn’t have done it without our fantastic support team who performed tent-pitching, camp-cooking and fitness miracles on a daily basis. The Porters would carry twice the amount that some of us could barely lift and practically run up the inclines we could scarcely walk up; the Kitchen Team managed to produce the most delicious meals in the most awkward places, from traditional Mo-Mos perched on a rocky ledge to Pizza (!) in the middle of a jungle - let no QM ever complain of a tiny cook tent or lack of facilities again!; and we have video footage of the Sherpas putting up lightweight 2/3 person dome tents in less than 5 minutes, available as a teaching resource for Guides!

And this was just the first part. Climbing a particularly difficult mountain wasn’t enough for this team. We wanted to give something back, to say thank you to the country that had given us so many brilliant memories. Working with the International Scout Training Centre in Kakani, north-west of Kathmandu, we managed to put all our individual skills to work and gave a collective 814 hours of service. We had teams of medics teaching first aid to teachers, centre staff and anyone who would stop and listen and visiting a hospital and a health post; engineers organising drainage projects to make paths at the centre safer in the wet and designing fences to stop children falling down the cliff outside the local school; our community group laying paving slabs in the centre’s camp circle so that campers could do midnight toilet runs without sinking ankle-deep in mud in the rainy season and painting classroom walls; orienteers setting up courses over the centre’s 50-acres of land; and teachers giving English, Sports and Colouring-In lessons at 3 local schools.

We also managed to squeeze in Tea with the British Ambassador (and quiz him about Ghurkha pensions) and join in with a very, very wet rain festival – on the same day…

There’s something about being in Nepal that changes you. It’s not possible to go there and not be moved by the sheer scale of the landscape, to feel insignificant in comparison to it, to have your sense of perspective warped by it. The vastness and volume can both compel you to shout and dance and sing at the top of your voice in response, and humble you into silence.

“Gîte! Gîte!” (“Song! Song!”)

Where else would I find myself standing amongst all 150+ pupils of a Primary School who have miraculously managed to organise themselves for an impromptu school photo? And, when all the clicking and flashing has subsided, at the simple call of “Gîte! Gîte!” there is a sudden burst of song, a spontaneous band is formed as the school drum appears, a space is cleared and a dance-floor made! Not your average school disco…

But this was not your average school, nor your average trip. It really was the Trip Of A Lifetime, and I hope it inspires you as much as it inspired me.