My adult daughters, in a strange turnaround, keep demanding to know my exact whereabouts these days, since the earthquake here in Nepal.
I am fine and I was nowhere near the epicenter. My teaching project here takes me outside the Kathmandu Valley about half the time, and I was in the Terai, teaching at a medical school, when this happened. It's the hot flat part far from Everest.
My daughter asked how to show some visible solidarity with Nepal, and then she asked me a question that made a lightbulb go off...... step over the orange piece of earthquake rubble to read what it was.....
"Would you bring me some more prayer flags when you return to USA?"
She told that she wants to show solidarity.....
Now, the best thing a concerned American can do, is to send money to a reputable aid organization that is working in Nepal. My favorite would be the American Nepal Medical Foundation.
But it didn't take long for the next idea.... why not ask every concerned American to put up some prayer flags as a gesture of solidarity and support?
You see prayer flags everywhere in Nepal. On each flag is a prayer, and when the wind blows, it reads the message and sends it to the universe. Boudhanath, the iconic temple of Kathmandu, is breathtaking for many reasons, but among them the colorful flags of Buddhist belief system.
The World will move on.
But Nepal will not. Sanjay Gupta and the other celebrities will parachute in somewhere else. The earthquake aftermath is still in the acute phase. Nepal has the attention of the world, but it is inevitable that the gaze of world media will move to the next crisis, at some future point. When that happens, the people of Nepal will still be there. Recovery from an earthquake of this magnitude is going to take decades of work.
For that reason, I think putting up prayer flags will help.
(disclaimer: I am not a manufacturer of prayer flags, I have no financial stake in this whatsoever..... I am not sure where to get prayer flags in USA, other than a Himalayan store or perhaps one of those countercultural shops....)
please share this idea.
Namaste!
PS - about me - I am an American RN who has been coming to Nepal since 2007 and I teach critical care skills to nurses and doctors here. any person interested in health care in Nepal is invited to contact me.....
PPS - normally I would ad some clever poll. Cutesy. But, my sense of humor eludes me when talking about the suffering here. next time maybe....