Peaks & Valleys

By Steve Couchman

(The Ontario March of Dimes co-sponsors the first integrated team of Canadians to take on the highlands of Nepal – in a dream trip come true.)

On the bank of the aquamarine Modi Khola River below the Annapurna mountain range of Nepal, there is a small tea shop that serves sweet milk tea, Dal batt and Tibetan bread. Across the path from the tea shop, a Gurung woman has just laid our several reed mats of drying millet and mustard see. She sits quietly, checking her son’s hair for lice. Down the path frequented by porters carrying inhuman loads to and from Chandrung, a small water-powered mill grinds corn into yellow meal. A flock of teal-green parrots circles overhead.

Some people would say that it’s just like being on a movie set. The only difference is that it’s real.

It’s an unusual location to be having a discussion about integration, but these are unusual circumstances.

It has taken more than a year of planning and preparations and five days of trekking for the team of 14, including four with physical disabilities, four Nepalese students, their teacher and nine porters, to arrive on the banks of the roaring Modi Khola.

The unusual expedition – the brainchild of Maureen and Marc Langlois from the Nova Scotia-based Heartwood Institute of Health, Learning & Leisure, and Cathy Smart, Camping and Recreation Co-ordinator for the Ontario March of Dimes – would hopefully show that people with physical disabilities and the able-bodied could share in an adventure to one of the most beautiful places on earth.

From the breakfast table at the Langlois home in Lunenburg, Community Travels-Nepal sounded like an exciting challenge – the first-ever integrated Canadian party to trek in Nepal. What an inspiring example of people with varying abilities working together toward a common goal. But only high in the Himalaya Mountains was the true magnitude of the journey realized.

On November 18, the expedition team met in Kathmandu. Spirits were high. After all the preparations and a long flight from Toronto, the participants were excited about orienting themselves to their new surroundings. For most, it was their first experience in an Asian city. Around every corner in the labyrinth of streets of Kathmandu, there was something new and exciting to experience – markets, monks wandering the grounds of Buddhist stupas, a sacred cow lumbering down the main street, completely oblivious to the constant rush of no-lane “Zen” traffic.

Though a little overwhelmed by their new world, team members were quick to adapt their skills to their surroundings. Chuck Moult, who had polio as a child, became a “Zen” master at negotiating his wheelchair through chaotic traffic and Mary Lister, who is non-verbal from cerebral palsy, was quick to take on the “wheeler-dealer” Nepalese merchants, with pen and paper in hand.

“Clang!Clang!Boom!Hooonk!” It’s 5:00am on the third day. The group is roused by the crazy wail of ram’s horns, gongs and drums played by Buddhist monks in the monastery next door, as they begin their morning rituals. Team members wolf down a breakfast of sweet tea and vegetable omelets, and board a bus for the ten-hour, 150-kilometre journey from Kathmandu to Pokhara.

Ten hours! “Why don’t I just stay up here?” hoots Chris Neuman, as she is bounced skyward once again in the back of the rattling old bus.

Caked with dust and maybe just a little car-sick, the group arrived in Pokhara in relatively good spirits to meet the students and teacher from the Gandaki Boarding School, who would become an integral part of the expedition. Including nine porter, hired to carry the “dandies”, an aluminum carrying chair designed by Chuck to ferry the participants with a disability when they became tired, the team was now 28 strong.

“I’m doing it! I’m really doing it! I’m trekking in Nepal!” bubbles an excited Tracy Schmitt, a congenital quad-amputee, as she negotiates the rough terrain in her specially built prostheses.

It’s little wonder Tracy is so enthusiastic – WheelTrans doesn’t make it out here. Laying out before her is a magical Shangri-la. Terraced rice paddies stretch up into the clouds. Monkeys swing through nearby trees. Ageless women carry enormous bundles of hay and wood. Towering peaks stretch up to the heavens.

And everywhere the team went, people gathered to witness their progress.

“It’s the biggest thing to hit Chandrung since the ’88 earthquake,” stated a worker for the Annapurna Conservation Authority when she met the Community Travels-Nepal team.
She had travelled several kilometres down from the mountains to meet our group.

Sometimes the stories got a little larger than life.

Like a broken jungle telegraph network, the word went out to all the surrounding villages that a very different group of trekkers was on its way. “One of them doesn’t have a head.” And they came by the hundreds – men, women and children.

It was exciting for the participants to be confronted by a sea of smiling, curious faces. Their interest was something new for our disabled “trekkies”, who were used to people trying to ignore their crutches, canes and prostheses.

There were times when all the attention could become a bit much though, as Tracy found, searching for a quiet place to go to the bathroom with two hundred people looking on.

The group was expecting to encounter interest in their party, but not on such a massive scale. In Nepal, very few people born with physical disabilities survive beyond infancy, and those who do or are seriously injured later in life, are usually hidden away or are left to beg in the streets. Certainly the local perception of Westerners is that they are tall and healthy. No one has ever seen a North American with disability.

Early in the trip, the students showed what a great asset they could be. Having grown up near where the party was trekking, Susma was able to translate the local Gurung dialect. As well, Dawa Sherpa had been on expeditions before. He was eager to help party members – and makes the best Tibetan bread this side of Everest. For Negandra and Bindu, this was their first time in the mountains. Neganda is from a small farming village near the Indian border, and Bindu had been only on shopping expeditions before. Their own curiosity sparked several group members to share their personal explorations.

The journey had become an education for everyone involved.

Back on the banks of Modi Khola River, things were not going so well. Day five started off as a relatively easy day. Chandrung to Landrung is a mere ten-minute trip by hang glider. However, six hours later and just over half-way there, with a 400-meter climb looking the group in the face, people’s nerves were on edge.

Many team members began to wonder whether the months of preparation were sufficient for the task at hand. The 620-meter descent to the suspension bridge across the Modi Khola had taken several hours longer than expected. The porters were having a hard time negotiating the “dandies” down the steep, narrow trail. Gary Mulligan, whose motorcycle accident in 1978 had left him with poor, short-term memory and a weak left side, was hurting. His foot has cramped up again, making every step excruciatingly painful. A goodly number of able-bodied participants had been left waiting at the tea shop, tired but eager to complete the day’s journey. The tail end of the party hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The honeymoon was over.

The “Community Travels Nepal” team was not a group of world-class athletes or experienced mountaineers. The trip had been going well, but living in such close quarters, combined with the constant physical exertion, had pushed back the envelope of everybody’s personal abilities. The ideals of integration had momentarily been put aside for the much more immediate feelings of hunger, exhaustion and aching muscles.

The group was in the bottom of a valley, both figuratively and literally. The only place to go was up. At the ebb of team spirit, we tackled the most difficult section of trail thus far encountered – a 400-meter climb up a 50-degree slope. Several of the able-bodied team members went ahead to secure lodgings and start preparing food. Others dropped their packs at the top and returned down to help the rest of the group and the porters negotiate the steep, rocky trail. It was draining for everyone but, that evening, all the group members knew they had accomplished something very special.

Later, Cathy Smart, one of the trip leaders, would reflect on that moment. “What we’re doing here is redefining the definition of what an integrated group can accomplish. You can’t do that without there being some tensions. Thankfully, the community that we’ve developed held us together through hard times.”

Given the success of this venture, organizers hope to be able to provide integrated treks to Nepal on an annual basis. Not only will such expeditions provide people with disabilities an opportunity to travel in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, but they will provide an opportunity for people with differing abilities and life experiences to share in a wonderful adventure.

Though the “Community Travels-Nepal” team did not make any summit attempts, or traverse mountain ranges, or attempt new routes in winter without oxygen, they did accomplish the main goal of any major expedition – they pushed the limits of human ability.

During their time in the mountains, each member of the group found time to reflect on their own limitations. Whether their personal challenge was to climb a set of steps or to walk a few metres more without assistance, or to accept that great accomplishments are not always measured in miles and metres, each team member became a better person for their participation. When the last person arrived at the evening’s lodgings a great cheer would rise up from the group. Another successful day! Another Everest conquered!

On the final night of the expedition, the team gathered for the last time. Over ginger tea, by candle light, they shared the excitement of their personal accomplishments and their hopes that the expedition would have wider-ranging ramifications.

There was hope for people with a disability in developing countries, such as Nepal.

“Maybe if people see us working together and enjoying each other’s company, they will re-think the way they relate to people with disabilities,” reflected Tracy Schmitt.

Back in Canada, group members hoped their accomplishments would encourage both able-bodied and people with disabilities to rise to challenges in their own lives. “You can do anything you want to do,” said Cathy Smart. “You just have to have the drive, the desire and the determination.”

Concluded a determined Tracy Schmitt, “Just because I don’t have legs doesn’t mean I don’t want to climb the Himalayas.”

The participants of Community Travels-Nepal would like to thank the Ontario March of Dimes, Deacon Insurance, The Heartwood Institute of Health, Learning & Leisure, and Hikers Haven for their generous support. Each participant was required to raise approximately $2,700 per person to pay for their three-week trip. This covered all individual costs.

(For more information, please contact: The Heartwood Institute of Health, Learning & Leisure, R.R.#1, Rose Bay, Lun Co., Nova Scotia, B0J 2X0 or telephone (902) 766-4351)