Virtually all the buildings in the region have been destroyed. Some are piles of stones, some dangerously cracked and crumbling.

We served over 145 families whose houses were broken in the first earthquake, but who had received little or NO aid until more than two weeks after the first earthquake.

Peter Francon

thingS get very emotional when they get too close

I’ve mentioned this before. Neither me nor Annette had any plans of getting involved in earthquake relief work. It’s not that we don’t want to help – we do! We actually try to help as much as we can – that’s the whole idea behind Tings – but usually we keep our contribution private. When the earthquake hit Nepal we didn’t know how to contribute.

So the stories & photos we’ve uploaded the last weeks are very unusual to us – and some are even uncomfortable.

Like this one.

To most of you the pictures below are just-others-in-the-unconscious-stream-of-earthquake-photos-from-another-developing-country. 

And they are!

But after seeing them closely and after reading the photographer’s few comments I not only recognize faces. I also meet people I feel I’ve know for years, but never met. Like Mithun’s family.

Mithun has been with us so long, that he feels more like a son than an employee – that’s the same with the rest of the staff. Suddenly you see him give a helping hand to people he grew up with… and you meet his dad doing the same.

I know these are small things and that they may sound stupid. But until a few minutes ago Disasters, wars, relief programs, charity works etc have been too abstract to grasp. It has been something that happens in other parts of the world, far away from you. Something you watch on TV or read about in the newspapers.

This morning I found out that the stories and photos are actually about people we know and care for. And that is too personal. It’s too close. It doesn’t feel right…

The good thing is that the 145 families Peter mentions that they reached the last days now make sense. 145 families is NOTHING among all the Nepalese families that have been hit by the earth quake. But now that we feel that the families are related to people who means a lot to us, it all somehow makes sense.

 

Tings friends & guests donated 3,000 USD of the 4,000 USD this relief run costs.

That’s money we managed to distribute – throug people in Kathmandu we know personally and trust – in terms of food, shelter and medical aid directly to the people in need.

That’s money we managed to raise through stories about whats happening in our small universe. Stories on this blog and stories on various social networks.

That’s our way of contributing in this disaster.

 

After a nights sleep back in Kathmandu WE now got AN update from the 5th Relief Run

 

WANT TO HELP?