Beginning of the End
I'm currently in Vietnam. It's been a week since I arrived and am six hours away from heading back to Manila - a city that I've called home for the past six months. This was a quick trip, but it was also the first solo backpacking I've done since September. That's when I hit a wall and knew I could no longer travel. Something was wrong internally and that's what I've been working to figure out.
I came to see what it would feel like to be out in the world again. Back on the circuit of travelers and tourists. Last time I was here, I felt resentment and couldn't move past it. I wanted to go home and end this journey, but not for the right reasons. I was closed off to the world and desperate to make the emptyness go away. Something happened to me in Nepal. Something I couldn't fully understand until now. And so, after 10 months, it's finally time to continue this story.
So what happened after the earthquakes?
Perhaps I should start with where I left off...
Post Earthquake Blues
We spent three nights in that parking lot. When I returned to my hostel, I was uneasy and quite restless. I wasn't sure what to do, where to go, or if it was safe to stay in this building tucked deep back in a dark alleyway.
"You need to move." I thought to myself as I walked through a narrow walkway of fallen gravel. "A shifted brick could bring the surrounding buildings tumbling down..." At least that's what my gut was telling me. I was the only guest in the building and it was locked most of the time. Beats me why I decided to stay there. Perhaps it's because I had nowhere else to go. That and the allure of a bed and a pillow seemed to have masked the underlying risks.
It's difficult to explain the feeling of sitting in an empty building following the previous days events. Anxious I guess. Aftershocks would hit and I would run back to that parking lot. Helpless too. I didn't know anyone. At least anyone that would come looking for me if something did happen. I only knew a few people in the country and half of them were missing. I wanted to help, but didn't even know where to begin.
More than anything, I guess I felt guilty. I wondered endlessly why I had survived and others had not. Guilty that people at home were sending notes commending my bravery yet I felt I still had done nothing. Guilty for being there in a room with a roof over my head, a bag of chips in hand, and a bottle of water by my side when I knew others had lost everything.
How could I sit there with a clear conscience and consume resources that others needed? I couldn't. And so I decided to leave.
I didn't tell many people that I had made that decision. But it came after doing research and reaching out to a few of the larger relief organizations already established in Nepal.
"Thank you for your interest, but unless you have medical training, search & rescue and/or disaster relief experience, we cannot work with you at this time."
This was the barrier that stopped me in my eager tracks. It was disappointing because in a way things felt exciting. We were sitting at the center point of an international disaster. The world was watching and I was there. I could see how many would view this as an opportunity, but I felt differently. If the world was telling me that I had none of the required skills or experience to help, then it was time to move on regardless of what I wanted for myself or what I thought I could do for others.
It was one thing deciding to leave. Actually getting out of the country turned out to be another story.
"Hello, my name is Jeff. I'm an American citizen"
"Sir we can't take your call right now, things are extremely..."
"I know but I just have a quick question regarding my passport that I turned in for renewal the day before the earthquake.."
"Sir that department is closed and probably will not open until next week at best, can you call back on Tuesday?"
I had four days before I could request to have my passport delivered to another country. It seemed odd, I had followed signs leading me up to this very point and here I was being asked to stay put for a few more days. The world may have been telling me to leave, but the universe seemed to be keeping me in place and nudging me to try harder.
I decided to send a few emails out. Shots in the dark really. Three notes to people who I thought might have a connection into an organization that could use my help even if that meant doing manual labor.
I got a lead that an orphanage in Kathmandu needed help with shelter. I didn't know the city or how to find them, but there had to be a way. I had one contact, my old trekking guide who seemed preoccupied up until the moment I shared the news of the orphans sleeping outside. Before we could even discuss a plan of action, the story was up on a group website calling all hands to assist.
"Everyone mobilize! The children need us!"
Suddenly I found myself a part of something bigger than myself. An operation called Sahayoga.
Beginning of the End
I spent a week sleeping on the floor at our headquarters - a flat nested in a part of Kathmandu close to the US Embassy. It wasn't the healthiest of environments. There were makeshift ashtrays everywhere. The smell of stale smoke lingering in the hallways. Piles of supplies mixed amongst clutter and trash. A piece of plastic wrap taped up on the wall with notes scribbled on it. I was preparing to post my blog at the time, laying there in one of the rooms taking advantage of a laptop a friend had leant me for the night. I was emotional. Teary eyed as I was forcing myself to think back through the events of the earthquake and to type them out in detail. It had been 10 days since the big one hit, yet it was my first time processing the experience. I didn't realize how quickly one could pack away trauma in the back of the mind, but it was there waiting for me. Waving its arms in an attempt to grab my attention as I tried to stay busy helping others. That's when I heard it. A scream so loud and horrifying that it echoed through the flat like a whistle in an empty room. The mid pitched vibrato almost as haunting as the deep grunting gasp for air that followed...
That day was the last time I posted on this blog. Everyone was coping with the disaster in their own ways. Myself included. And events happened that day that eventually brought our newly formed organization crashing down.
I cannot tell you someone else's story so will leave things vague. But personally, I was holding on by a thread and was forced to walk alone with all the donations of my friends and family being held against me. It was a difficult situation since it was the first time in my life that I had asked for any type of financial support from my personal network. It shouldn't have been about me at all, but the responses were overwhelming. At a point I wanted them to stop. Seeing all those names and notes of encouragement was a source of strength when I had a group to partner with. But they were also what brought me to my breaking point when I felt helpless and didn't know who to trust anymore.
I started a separate effort called Helping You Help Nepal. I figured if people wanted to contribute, at least they could do it separately while I fought to regain access to what had already come in.
A few days later the next big earthquake hit. It happened during a delivery and I thought I was going to die. Again... I caught myself almost wanting it this time.. Stranded for a day. Missing in the eyes of my loved ones. Sleeping under the stars next to the sacks of rice we had brought. I listened to the woman I was working with open up in tears about her abusive husband. The next day I was fixated on the faces of the people we were working with. The government representatives. The villagers themselves. Empty. Angry. Something changed within me that day. I went into autopilot. I was doing things - buying supplies, organizing, delivering, and writing updates... But I was numb.
After a month of relief work I couldn't see the good anymore. I felt myself going to a place that I wasn't sure I could come back from, so I shut the campaign down and made plans to go home. I couldn't see past the mistakes of others. Blind to what my judgements were trying to tell me about myself. Nepal was my ultimate lesson in humanity and I hated what I saw and felt. Anyone who talked to me when I got home heard just that. About the selfishness, the discrimination and deception behind the scenes. It's the opposite of what I expected the environment to be like while attempting to help others. I chose to go home because I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't travel anymore. In a way I felt cheated. I had stood by the kindness of the people, but in the end it didn't matter what was accomplished or how many people we reached. The kindness was no longer there. I lost faith in humanity and faith in myself. As if I was living this dream where everything had a silver lining and I had just been backhanded back into the reality of our true nature.
There's the truth. This is where I stood the day I returned to the States in June. A shadow of myself with so much weight being carried internally. Guilty that the universe had shown me my purpose and walking away from it all because I wasn't strong enough to stay longer.
Heavy, I know. And perhaps quite hard on myself. But that's why I waited so long to write about this. I needed to make sure I understood the lesson before subjecting others to the darkness that surrounded me. In hindsight, what happened to me is actually quite simple to explain. I got activated.
I had never considered the possibilty that trauma could initiate an alternate version of myself to appear. A version enslaved by all the unhealed portions of my personality. An alter ego that would run my life for the following six months.
This is the beginning of chapter 3 - the road home.