They took gifts for the villagers — soccer balls, Frisbees, Slinky toys, Uno — symbols of friendship and appreciation for their host families. But they got something so much greater in return.
A group of East Hampton High School students who traveled to Nepal several weeks ago to work with the organization buildOn, laying the foundation for a new school in a rural village, told the East Hampton School Board recently how the trip had changed their lives.
“I was taken aback when I realized how fortunate and lucky we are,” Cate Wicker told the board on June 4. “It’s not just them who benefited. We were benefiting so much.”
For months before their trip during the April school break, they raised money for the travel expenses and building supplies they would need — thousands of dollars each. Then, for 10 days, they traded their everyday lives as students on the East End for days in Dhakaniya filled with labor under the hot sun, nights sleeping under mosquito nets, drinking and bathing in water from a fragile filtration system, and navigating a completely new social structure with host families.
“We mixed concrete, shoveled, broke rocks, dug out an eight-by-eight latrine,” said Vincenzo Salsedo. “All the work was pretty strenuous.”
Vincenzo said it was a humbling journey. “I got to meet people and see situations that I could never imagine,” he said. “It took my breath away . . . to see the way they lived and how I live. To see how lucky I am is quite beautiful. I think people need to go and do things like this in their life to experience that kind of thing.”
The cultural lessons were plentiful. Before they broke ground on the new school building’s foundation, villagers blessed the land with incense. There were food and flowers and dancing. A covenant was signed.
“On their end, they promise they will continue to work after we leave,” said Billy Barbour, an East Hampton teacher who led the trip along with Robin Jahoda. “We can’t build a school in 10 days, but we can get the foundation started.”
On this trip, the group had the chance to visit a Nepalese village where East
Hampton students had been on a
buildOn trip before. They saw firsthand that the school their predecessors got started was thriving, and even had begun offering some adult literacy classes.
At the closing ceremony, on the last night, everyone sang “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” by Journey.
Claire Hopkins, who plans to do further work with buildOn when she goes to college next year, said the trip to Nepal was “the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life.”
“Every morning you got up and nothing felt like a chore,” Claire said. “The genuine love you felt in that community was so real and so true. The bond you were able to form with these people without understanding the language was incredible. And these guys” — she gestured to her fellow students — “are my family forever.”