A Trip Which Changed my Life

Alright everyone!

If you do not know me, that is probably expected as most people do not. Apologies for being so late to the party with blog posts, but I am back with another one, although something a bit more serious for today.

Let me reintroduce myself: I am a 22-year-old country bumpkin based in a small county called Devon in the South West of England. Normally I can be found in a field, a pub garden drinking cider or adventuring in my little blue fiat panda. 

However, in October of 2019 I decided to step completely out of my comfort zone and spend 10 weeks living and working in a rural village in the Gorkha region of Nepal as part of government funded agricultural business development programme.

Was I completely crazy?

Without a doubt.

Did it change my life?

Without a doubt, apologies for the cliche.

Now, shall I just set the scene for you all. The aim of our programme was to create a tomato market in the Gorkha Region of Nepal. In 2015 the Gorkha region of Nepal was the epicentre of the Nepal earthquake and thus the region has experienced stagnated economic development and growth. By providing instruction on how to grow tomatoes and building nursery beds, polytunnels and providing tomato seeds we would help to create rural business within the region which would attract government investment to improve the roads, schooling and access to water and sanitation within the region.

By the time we left, our team had built 7 nursery beds, 20 polytunnels and provided invaluable training on how to run a successful agricultural business for profit. We kept in touch with the families we lived with and I am happy to report that the tomato plants are thriving in their polytunnels and the subsistence farming which characterised the region is being slowly phased out.

However eye-opening and successful my time in Nepal was, it was only a small part of the life changing experience I had. What was really life changing for me was my change in attitude when I got back home.

The small county of Devon in England may seem like a million miles away from rural Nepal. I certainly thought so when the plane landed just before Christmas in a bustling Heathrow airport covered in Christmas trees with 'All I want for Christmas' blaring out of the speakers. I could drink the water from a tap, have a hot shower without needing to walk to the stream and could drive across a smooth road without dodging rocks or being overtaken on blind corners by lorries nine times the size of my little panda. 

However, I was a completely different person than the girl which had left for Nepal in the Autumn. My time in Nepal showed me how similar we all are. We might live thousands of miles apart, in different climates, eating different food and living at different stages of development but we all inhabit this earth and thus we all have a duty to protect it.

It would be so much less expensive for developing countries like Nepal to develop using renewable resources. For example, through the use of solar panels. Solar Panels offer an opportunity to power homes and towns across the world. 

The technology is there, we just need to use it. 

With solar power, villages like those I stayed in in Nepal could become self-sufficient. With solar power, pollution levels in cities across the UK would be reduced exponentially. 

It is clear now more than ever how similar we all are. 

In a time where a global pandemic has forced everyone into their homes, destroyed the global economy, leaving us vulnerable in many ways, there is also a beacon of hope. The environment has begun to recover, we could have added years if not decades to the ticking time bomb of climate change. Dolphins in the Venice canals, blue skies over Beijing and cleaner air in London.

The climate is thriving, not just in this little county of Devon, but everywhere.

As we start to emerge from our homes, I think it is time we started to work together to achieve important change as one. We could rebuild our global economy in a new way.  Investing in renewable energy to power our cities, subsidising companies which pollute to reduce their pollution levels would be small steps in ensuring the suffering we are all enduring across the planet was not for nothing.

Considering this new and strange world we all seem to find ourselves in during this new decade I think we have a duty to give ourselves, and to our planet, to give us all the best possible chance at surviving and thriving following this pandemic.

Its time to start working together, as one population and as one world.

Please enjoy some pictures from my trip!