{"id":24862,"date":"2018-04-28T19:17:16","date_gmt":"2018-04-28T23:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=24862"},"modified":"2018-04-28T19:17:16","modified_gmt":"2018-04-28T23:17:16","slug":"april-28-2018-the-long-voyage-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=24862","title":{"rendered":"April 28, 2018 – The Long Voyage Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

What day is it?\u00a0 What month is it?\u00a0 What year is it?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I\u2019m in a fuzzy haze of cold medications, sinus infections, and dehydration.\u00a0 The latter grew exponentially worse post-marathon without my even realizing it and is a prime example of how even when we THINK we know what we\u2019re doing, we\u2019re probably not drinking enough water.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m flying back to the States as I type this, having already endured two legs and a long layover in China at an overpriced hotel where I slept for a few hours.\u00a0 I\u2019ve finally gulped down enough glasses of water that I no longer feel light headed, clammy, cold, blazingly hot, and wishing I could just collapse onto a tile floor and hope that it would cool me down enough to survive the day.\u00a0 This feeling was never greater than when trapped in the backseat of an SUV driving a group of us from the hotel in Kathmandu to the airport, a distance of no more than 7 kilometers that took in excess of 85 minutes.\u00a0 I felt trapped, nauseous, and concerned the Chinese with their health inquiry screening procedures might not let me transit for fear of an outbreak of some heretofore unknown malady that would henceforth be known as Kevin\u2019s Folly.\u00a0 But I bluffed my way through and here I am in the closing 10 hours of travel to get home.<\/p>\n

TEN HOURS.\u00a0 Good gravy, Marie.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I thought it would be a good time to mention the last bit of the Nepal adventure.\u00a0 We caravanned out to the 150 bed care home that is one of the projects supported by Stichting 112 Nepal<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 That\u2019s the charitable foundation started by Gerte and a few of his friends to fund various recovery and relief efforts after the 2015 earthquake.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/a>\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I used to be heavily involved in residential adolescent psychiatric care homes so I\u2019ve seen more than a few of these types of places.\u00a0 This one felt well run and the kids we encountered seemed happy and healthy.\u00a0 Some were orphans and wards of the state while many were children of single mothers incarcerated in Nepal jails, victims of an unjust system of \u201cjustice.\u201d\u00a0 Apparently in this country if a woman is raped, she\u2019s the one who goes to prison.\u00a0 It was one of those gut wrenching, stomach turning, infuriating facts that makes my skin crawl even as I type the words.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Amongst the various projects, a large playground was redone, and a larger block of residential areas were under development to expand the home\u2019s offerings.\u00a0 The group also purchased a trailer-ful of food and supplies from the local \u201cwarehouse store\u201d which was just a storefront in the town with a large backroom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was only 20 kilometers from our hotel in the city center but it took over 2 hours thanks to bumpy, unpaved roads that bounced, jostled and scrambled my aching bones and body.\u00a0 But I was really glad to see the countryside, to see outside the urban and view the rural.\u00a0 There\u2019s still so much to be done to recover and rebuild from the quake; so much to be done to help Nepal grow and develop.\u00a0 It was a humbling experience, a reminder of how lucky and fortunate I am just in everyday life.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of problems in the USA, seemingly moreso now than ever before, but it\u2019s still a land of hope and aspiration and on the whole justice.\u00a0 It\u2019s a place of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.\u00a0 While that may be applicable to Nepal as well, the circumstances and environment seemed and I believe are so much more hostile to the individual than what we have to work with in the States.\u00a0 I\u2019m embarrassed at the riches we have and ashamed I haven\u2019t done more to help those in need\u2026 not just abroad but in my own home country, my own neighborhood.<\/p>\n

If there is one thing I can take away from this trip, it\u2019s that we all should strive to be better.<\/p>\n

Given the pollution in Kathmandu, we need to do better by our planet.<\/p>\n

Given the devastation of the earthquake of 2015, a disaster that at best has seen 15% of homes rebuilt in the ensuring 3 years, we all should do better by those who have lost so much.<\/p>\n

And given the social injustices of women imprisoned for being victims, we all have an obligation to fight for those that have systematically been denied what can only be viewed as inalienable human rights.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What day is it?\u00a0 What month is it?\u00a0 What year is it?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I\u2019m in a fuzzy haze of cold medications, sinus infections, and dehydration.\u00a0 The latter grew exponentially worse post-marathon without my even realizing it and is a prime example of how even when we THINK we know what we\u2019re doing, we\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}