(Note:  Please go to http://www.ecta-international.org/  for up-to-date information, including a new blog, projects, and more!)

Original Vision: 2001

The desire to serve the people of the Himalayas had already been roaming around our hearts for a few years. That is why less than two weeks after our wedding, Amanda and I found ourselves in Asia, trying to figure out how we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. We traveled through the cities and villages of China, Nepal and India. Our actual desire was to reach Bhutan. But that had to be put on hold due to a meager budget and expensive visa restriction.

One morning as we had breakfast in a rooftop restaurant we began to concoct our original vision. The remote communities in the Himalaya completely depend on trails for everything they need. All farm goods and produce are loaded into 150lb sacks and strapped across the porters head. They are then carried hours and even days to market. With the money they earn rice, oil, spices, sugar, vegetables, etc. are purchased and carried back. When people are critically ill they are loaded into baskets and again strapped across someone’s head. They are carried like a sack of potatoes across rough mountain trails to the city. Trails affect every realm of Himalayan life from health, to commerce, to education.

We hit the trails and hiked through some very remote villages in Nepal. As we trekked we slowly refined our ideas. Our desire was not simply to improve infrastructure. We had noticed what a social point trails were. The true Nepalese greeting is “Where are you coming from?” or “Where are you going?” as usually meet when crossing on paths. Of course the project would improve infrastructure but we also wanted to use the work as a medium to exhibit something new.

Amongst Hindus and Buddhist there is the belief of karma. Many of the poor and disenfranchised feel that “Oh, this is our karma. We are destined to be poor and ignorant. There is nothing that can be done.” First, we wanted to show that there is something that can be done. If underdeveloped communities want to see change, they need to spring into action themselves… and we will lend a hand.

In South Asian culture the ideas of class and caste are still very strong. A person of higher class or caste never serves someone below himself. We are considered very high class here because we are educated, rich (relatively speaking) and have traveled the world. For us to wash the feet of those below us is to defy local culture and tradition. So secondly, we wanted to show a new model of love. A type of love that would sweat, work and get dirty for the ‘least of these’. Trail work seemed like the perfect medium. To build trail is low class in everyway. Of course there is the brutal physical labor that a respected person would never agree to. But more than that is the Asian concept of head and feet. The head is the crown and most holy part of the body. The feet represent all things low and defiled. To put your shoe/foot on something is to defile and degrade it. In trail building you are working below people’s feet. All of your work and sweat is being trampled on by the community. What chain reaction might it cause if local people saw ‘high class’ people working in such a way?

Just a year after our marriage, Amanda and I had to spend 3 months apart during the fall of 2002. Amanda stayed back at CCU working on her science degree and organizing a team of volunteers. I traveled back to the Himalayas for a study abroad program through Naropa University. It was in the Indian state of Sikkim, which is smacked between Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan. I wanted to learn about the local culture, language and religion from the horse’s mouth. Some people found it odd that I was attending a program through a Buddhist university…but I didn’t.

The last month of the program was for an “Independent Research Project.” One of my main intentions was to travel to several remote communities and observe the conditions. I wanted to talk to local people and see if they felt that trail construction would make a valuable impact on their community. Through interviews I found that the government had done next to nothing to develop the remote communities. They had been completely forsaken. Later, when interviewing the officials in charge of rural development, it became apparent that those in charge knew little to nothing of the plight of the villagers.

Those from the community gave a strong positive response to trail construction. I ran across the village of Daragaon during my travels and chose it as the best candidate for trail work. I met with the local councilman and he approved the project. In all actuality he gave us approval because he was hoping to leech off money from a foreign NGO. Back in the states Amanda had organized a team of 8 volunteers for May of 2003. Our vision was getting much closer to a reality.

Trail Construction: 2003 – present day

To be added soon

Red Star Academy: 2004 – present day

At the end of our second trail construction project in the village of Daragaon, W. Bengal, India we were having tea in the house of Nehruman.  His son Uday was sitting with us and asking all kinds of questions. “Now Sir, where will you and Miss go to?”

            Amanda and I had planned to spend 1 ½ years in Nepal and India.  We had a schedule written out involving many destinations, the last of which was volunteer teaching in Sikkim.  During our stay in China, we had received training in TESOL English teaching and thought we should put it to work.

            “Sir, actually… if you are going to teach…please teach here in our village.  In Sikkim it is very nice and the education is very good.  Here there is nothing…absolutely nothing.  Everyday, I walk 2 hours going and 2 hours coming to attend class 8 in Rimbic.  But it is almost worthless.  My primary education was so poor.  I learned nothing at the school here in Daragaon.  The head master for the school comes everyday and drinks raksi (moonshine).  Most of the other staff will come only 4 to 5 days a month.  The rest of time they are relaxing in apartments in Darjeeling.  Now I will have to pass my exams and I don’t think I can.  I can’t compete with those students from better schools.”

            While passing by the Government Primary School, the standard was easy to ascertain.  The walls are literally falling off.  New comers to the village often mistake it for a cowshed.  During heavy winds the building shakes and creaks violently.  Recently one of the teachers broke through the floorboards and fell down into the godam.  The drunken headmaster daily screams at the children, “I want to hear that counting!!!”

            The children mechanically fall into chorus of “One zero, ten. One one, eleven. One two, twelve. One three, thirteen….” and so on into the hundreds.  Their bodies rock back and forth like students of the Koran being inculcated in the mosque.  Dull Eyes and fidgeting fingers reveal that internally no learning is occurring.

            Based on the advice of a 15 year old boy we dropped a year and a half of plans and moved permanently to a remote village in the Himalayas.  Starting in July of 2003, I (Ryan) began teaching at the government S.S.K school.  My classroom was a potato cellar called a godam.  It was a space which included a dirt floor, broken bamboo walls, a black board suspended in mid-air to separate two classrooms, worm eaten benches and no doors.  When it rained water would flood the floor.  One day a goat ran into the room and brought havoc.

            I taught 60 students for five months and can’t say that it accomplished much.  My presence actually made the other teacher’s absence easier.  Some days I would be alone with four different class rooms to manage.  The students were so accustomed to an environment of mis-education that my attempts to create actual learning were met with dumbfounded stares.  Neither rewards nor coercion nor threats could make the children complete their work.  On test days the children just didn’t come.  The children preferred the system where a rehearsed song and dance quieted their indifferent teachers.  Thinking, processing, experimenting, exploring and learning took much more energy.

            During those months in the village we began to know people more intimately.  We were living with a Bantawa Rai family and participated in all of the farm work.  Amanda was cooking on a fire and I was cutting grass for the goats everyday.  By  December we knew that we had to stay several years to see any true changes in Daragaon.  But the thought of returning to teach another year at the S.S.K made me cringe.  It was at this point that I was approached by the guys from the Red Star Social Club, specifically Binod and Arjun.  “Ryan, we have always wanted to start a school here and change things.  We are college educated but found no work.  We want to put our degrees to work and improve education.  If you say that you will help us, we would have the confidence to build and start a new school.”

            There was no chance of reform in the government schools.  They are token buildings to quiet a demanding public.  If we wanted to see true education in our village we would have to start from scratch.  A donor gave a piece of land.  The guys from the club cut 900 kg. of bamboo and drug it from the jungle.  It was woven into walls.  Wood was ‘borrowed’ from the forest.  Corrugated tin roof was carried the 3 hours from Rimbic.   Together with the volunteers our four room school building was ready by early March and we opened our doors.  That first year (2004) we had 50 students in Nursery, Class 1 and Class 2.  Children that had graduated Class 4 in the government school were put in our Class 2.  They couldn’t properly read or write even in their own Nepali language.  The first several months of class consisted of ‘unlearning’ all of the bad lessons they had accumulated in the government school.  At some point that unlearning switched to learning and the slow process of change began.  3 years later we are still in process.  This year (2007) we have 80 kids in Nursery, Kindergarten, Class 1, 2, 3 and 4.  We have seen phenomenal changes…sometimes through laughs and smiles…sometimes through gritted teeth.

            Our local staff have taught for 3 years, fulltime, voluntarily.  Ian Kile has also joined us in the village as a fulltime English teacher.  It has been amazing to see what a little dedication and compassion can do to change the futures of so many kids.

Daragaon Samajik Swasta Kendra (The Hill Village Community Health Center) 2006 – present day

There are no singular problems in India, and as a result no singular solutions. Why are people sick? Why do people die of easily treatable and even more easily preventable diseases? When people have no concept of germ theory, how long will medicine sustain them? Why should people trust an odd looking white tablet over the traditional healer that they have known since birth?

Four years ago, we had no medical experience and no intention of starting a primary healthcare movement in our remote Himalayan village. We were building trail and starting a primary level school. During the opening ceremonies for the school, a flu bug was passed around the event. Many of the new students were absent for 5, 10 and even 15 days. As the other students began to recover their health, the condition of a four year old Nursery Student, Sujan, deteriorated. He was malnourished and unable to fight off this simple illness. His father called the traditional healer…the mantras and incantations had no effect. His sisters sent for medicine from the bazaar. They gave him double the adult dose of a strong cold medicine out of ignorance. It is a tradition amongst the Rai to leave a few common, everyday articles next to the graves of the recently deceased. The school pencils and notebooks, which he never got a chance to use in our new school, were left next to Sujan’s.

The 50 students in our new school were keeping us busy. In mid-spring many students started turning up absent, so we went on the hunt. It was a measles epidemic. There are free measles immunizations available for all children in India…but there was no one to deliver them in our region. If dealt with properly measles is not deadly. The Nepalese believe that illness comes from the cold itself. When children get high fevers they begin to shiver. The mother believes that more cold is entering the child making him worse. So, she bundles him in warm clothes and blankets. The child’s fever climbs, he has febrile convulsions and later dies. During the epidemic, we were running from house to house treating children with simple, 1 cent fever medication. The mothers protested in anger as we stripped the shaking children and wiped them with cool cloths. Many children were saved, but several died needlessly.

Uday was a 15 year old boy and the reason we moved to Daragaon. He was the one who made us aware of many of the issues of the roadless, undeveloped mountain community we would soon call home. Everyday he walked two hours to high school and another two hours back. The reason he wanted to study was so that he could use his education to change village he lived in. His thoughts, actions, and behavior were exceptional in every way. One day after the long hike home from school he fell ill. In the middle of the night his appendix ruptured. After casting a handful of dirt on his grave I went into talk to his grief stricken father, Nehruman. I was angry and bitter. Through the tears welling up in my eyes I told him, “I’m going to pray and then build a health center in this village so there never has to be another Uday. I promise.”

That fall we returned to the U.S. for the birth of our son Asher. Immediately after reaching, we received a call from “America’s Funniest Home Videos”. They informed us that a video (sent in 5 years early) had been selected as a finalist on the show. Second prize brought us $3,000. Our prayers for the health center were answered and the needed funds were in hand.

Amanda had a difficult labor which led to an emergency C-section. Our beautiful son was delivered but my joy was slightly tainted. The thought passed through my mind, “If I were a villager my wife and first born son would be dead…and I’d be alone. Why do I have a ‘right’ to healthcare and they don’t?” As the anesthesia wore off, the memory of several women and children from the village that had died or almost died in childbirth came into Amanda’s heart. Sitting there, holding our healthy newborn, we knew without speaking to each other what we had to do. After another stint in India and 7 months later, Amanda was in training to become a Midwife and I to become a Primary Healthcare Worker.

Ground was broken in November of 2006. Land, labor, and four large trees were freely given by local donors for the construction of the Daragaon Samajik Swasta Kendra (Daragaon Social Health Center). Little did we know at the beginning that it would take 1,300 man days to complete our project. There were no power tools, no mill to cut wood, no earth movers, no Home Depot or vehicle road to deliver needed supplies.

There is no flat land in the Himalayas. None. It took three months to construct a retainer wall and move the dirt (by hand) so that there was even a flat spot to begin construction. 250 bags of gravel were broken by hand. 400 bags of sand were carried 800ft up from the river. Thousands of rocks were broken with a sledge hammer for the foundation. Lumber was made on a rig with a two man saw. All supplies (including 70 fifty kilogram bags of cement, rebar, paint, toilets, steel pipe, etc.) were carried hours into the mountains on our backs.

During the construction process, medical work was conducted everyday from a half-finished house nearby… before breakfast. Abscessed teeth, worms, scurvy, pneumonia, obstructed labor, snakebites, and sickle wounds took no holiday while we built the health center. After breakfast, there was mixing cement, moving dirt, hand sawing wood beams, joining pipe and nailing down tin roofing to do. Many local men gave 50, 60, and even 90 days of labor free to see the health clinic finished. Prakash’s wife cooked massive lunches for the work crew everyday. Volunteers came from every village (up to two hours walk away) to lend a hand.

And now, seven months after starting, we are finished. The labor room, treatment room, waiting room, kitchen and feeding room, toilets, septic tank, biohazard tank, water tanks, running water, self generating electricity system, and even sod in the front lawn are done. The shelves are stocked with the necessary medicines and equipment (minus one oxygen tank). A semi-truck battery runs a 12 volt fridge for immunizations. There are three local women trained as health workers to keep the place running… and we are just under our $3,000 budget.

So it is time for a toast and a holiday right? Unfortunately, NO. There are 40 kids on our malnourished children list that need to be fed in our kitchen. There are 10 -15 potential Tuberculosis cases we need to acquire medicine for. Total immunization coverage needs to become a reality. The sick and injured are coming daily to our doorstep. Our health workers need to be trained in midwifery. Health messages need to be communicated to the community to PREVENT disease in the first place. Trust in medicine needs to be developed. A famine has just struck our region and thousands of kilograms of rice need to be distributed through our “Food for Thought” program. The Swasta Kendra is a valuable tool in our hands, now it is time to find the true solutions to the ills that plague India. This is the first step in a long, long road.

Last week I returned to visit Nehruman. After two years of hard work I could honestly tell him, “God has answered my prayers and the promise I made you has been fulfilled.” But if we settle at just having some building, if we neglect the deeper needs of the community, if we calcify by ignoring new problems, if we think that a tablet is enough to heal or if we search out comfort and rest instead of continuing on in sacrifice… that promise will quickly wither and die. I pray that God will not allow that to happen. I don’t believe that He will.