Jaymasih Sathi Haru 🙏 Hello friends!
Last week, I returned with my team to the land of real roads and cars and buses and buildings. I am sipping a real lemonade right now. I’ve had a Godfather’s pizza this week. I can walk 5 minutes to a chatpate stand, where the Dai remembers my Nepali name (Maya) and my usual order.
The past three months of my life have been the most surreal experience to date. I’ve eaten rat, various songbirds, snails, buffalo, goat, fish brains, and every possible part of a chicken’s anatomy. In December, two of my teammates and I were the first white people to stay in a hut made of manure in Rupatola, a village in the Saipal mountain range. They told us two whites had trekked through a couple years before, but nobody had ever climbed so high on the mountain to their village. Wherever we went, everyone silently stared, as if we were aliens. This week was probably the most personally impactful of our 2.5-month adventure, and I’ll post some journal entries from the time soon.
Right now, I want you all to know how honored I am to have come here, to go to the furthest places, to tell people who have never heard it that the Maker of their mountains loves them very much. This has been the greatest challenge and reward of my life. I have spent weeks without a shower, sleeping on dirt and eating snails a Nepali friend spent hours foraging in the jungle. I’ve washed my laundry in springs and rivers, and hung it up on bushes to dry. I’ve taught Nepali families about esteeming others before ourselves, and burning their trash instead of throwing it on the ground.*
Thank you to my wonderful friends and family for following along on this journey, and making it possible through so much prayer and financial support. I’ll post individual stories of this time in the coming weeks.
Before I come home, I and two friends I’ve made over here had planned a two-week trip to climb to Everest Base Camp. Due to the current political situation and civil unrest in Nepal, however, we have decided to spend the time in Thailand before coming home.
I am so excited to see my Americans again!
*Since there’s no trash disposal service in the mountains, nor an ability to have landfills, the most environmentally friendly option is burning their trash. Having it all over the ground around their homes is less sanitary, and more invitation to disease.
Devin Leigh Snyder 