This morning it hit me: I will be in Nepal a week from today! This is a strange truth to absorb as I sit in my home in Connecticut writing this entry. Yet it is certain to happen. Or as certain as anything can be in this world.
"Why Nepal?" you might reasonably ask... It started last year, as I was approaching my 50th birthday and felt a need to set some personal goals for the coming years. I decided that two of my priorities would be to travel as much as financially possible and to participate in humanitarian projects/efforts as often as I could. So in that vein, I decided to sign up for a Habitat for Humanity trip in Nepal to support Habitat's committment to building 20,000 houses in Nepal after the catastrophic earthquake in 2015.
Like most travels, this trip will offer many firsts for me ~
- First time in Asia (Nepal & Qatar)
- First time being part of an international humanitarian project (hopefully not the last!)
- First time building a house
- First time getting vaccines to prevent food-borne illness :-(
- First time working with a team of complete strangers to accomplish a major goal (build a house) in a finite time with limited resources
- First time seeing the Himalayas
- First time traveling for 24 hours (18 hours of which involve actually flying) to get from point A (first airport) to point B (airport in Nepal)
I know there will be many other firsts that I can't even imagine at this point. This is why I love to travel ~ there are always unexpected experiences that make the journey unique.
I decided to keep a travel journal for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to share this trip with people in my life who made donations to Habitat for this specific house project. I hope you will see what an impact your donation has had on the family who will ultimately live in this house you supported :-) I also wanted to share this trip with people in my life who have supported me in my aspiration to travel to Nepal, even when they indicated that it was not something they would/could consider doing for various reasons. Maybe (hopefully?) this travel journal will spark an interest that might grow into a plan.
So this is where it starts. More to come as my travels get underway...
~ Kate
