The Village of Ulleri
Introduction
Life was very simple in our village. We grew our own food and lived happily. We shared what we had and lived with the kindness around us. Growing up in the village I learned to respect all forms of life by watching the nature change her colors throughout the year. While the monsoon's rain poured, I smiled and walked up and down our village with rain all over my body. I believed that the rain was part of my own spirit. According to the season I ran around our village mountains and ate wild fruits with respect. That's how I learned that everything I needed to live in this life was all around me. As the rhododendron flowers bloomed throughout the mountains the bees hummed, dancing from one flower to the other in joy. Those people, who walked through the forests of our village, have smiled observing a piece of heaven on their journey.
Eduction for Children
Growing up in the village my mother couldn't afford to buy school supplies for me, so I started begging pen and pencils to the western tourists who walked through our village. When I had no pen I wrote with stone on a piece of charcoal board. Still today, most parents are unable to buy school supplies for their children. At the harsh of life, children today walk bare feet carrying their school bags with holes on them, loosing their existing pens.
With their faces full of smiles, little boys and girls sit on the benches eager to learn. Unable to have warm clothes, they sit in the cold classrooms, singing out loud to keep themselves warm throughout the winter. Since the government of Nepal has always lacked in helping many of the remote villages around the country, it is my goal to support our village school. I would like to improve on the existing school building as well as build a community library where children and our village people can learn about different cultures from around the world.
Environmental Awareness
Geographically our village remains on a steep hill at almost 80 degree of an angle to the stream. Since the terraces all around the village are built all along the hillside for farming, because of very little amount of trees the erosion has been of one of the biggest problems. Every year, the heavy monsoon rain washes down the top-soil from our village, leaving less and less fertile soil. My dream is to educate our village people how we can plant more trees and protect the terraces from landslide and from any kind of natural disasters that we may yet face otherwise.
Health Program
Whenever people get sick in our village, we have to walk almost a day to Pokhara, the closest town, in order to get any kinds of medical treatment. Most of the families can not afford to pay the hospital bill to begin with. So most people have to remain in silence to get healed by our village shamans and by the will of our own spirits. I am interested in building a little local clinic, - medical shop - for our village people where they can be treated in case of emergency. And I also like to protect our old way of healing people through shamanisms and through other herbal medicine that have been used for many years.
Village Culture
As the years have gone by more people have left our village in search of better life in the city or outside the country. Though many of them don't return back, leaving poor and uneducated people in the village. This has been one of the most well known problems in other villages as well in Nepal. Every year we have many little festivals in between different crop seasons. We sing, dance, laugh and celebrate our festivals, which give us hopes and joy in life. By having more people leave the village, I see a great risk in loosing our cultures as time goes by. More western influences and technologies have brain washed villagers affecting simple course of their peaceful lives. Therefore: I like to support our village people to keep our old culture so we can share with others.
Need Your Support
I have deeply realized that: my dream to help our village people will not come true unless I get the support from you. I would like you to become part of this positive and inspiring mission. It is time for us to build bridges between our spirits. I truly believe if we can smile through our help we can make others smile too in a positive and healthy way. We need to teach others how to respect life in all forms with our example and show more kindness around the world.
Experience Life in our village
Come to experience our village culture through love and respect. Every year I will be taking small group of people to our village. I will arrange place to live for you, provide fresh and healthy food and most of all you will get to sing, dance and laugh with everyone in our village. You will be part of us. For more info, please contact Khakendra