Children of the Snowland

by Mimi Yates (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Nepal

They call Snowland Heaven. A refuge for crimson-cheeked children battered by the high Himalaya winds, the frail wooden gates creaked open as my taxi swerved back into the blended metal mayhem of Kathmandu. I stood before this dust-smudged plot fresh out of a fortnight of solo trekking through the Nepalese peaks, apprehensive of my reintegration into any form of community. Returning to the city from the mountains felt other-worldly; I now felt somewhat more fragile amongst the chaos. Stepping forward cautiously, I edged through the gate. I faced a smaller-than-usual basketball court with faded lines and a net-less hoop. Screeching voices cheered as one boy ran a lap of glory, lassoing his t-shirt in the air as he did. Then I was noticed. The younger children dropped their toys and with their small palms pressed together greeted me with giggles and a chorus of ‘namastes’. ‘Namaste’. A slight, barefooted teenage girl with long braids and beaming eyes appeared behind me. I cleared my throat, explaining that I’d spoken to the principal earlier that day and that I was here for an interview. She asked if I was a journalist. Strange. I have to admit, I had done little research on the Snowland Ranag Light of Education School. I had heard from a fellow traveller that a school just outside of Kathmandu was looking for volunteers. Thinking I should give back to a country that had let me delight in its beauty for the past three months, I scrawled down the name on the back of a spare postcard unsent to friends back home. After an alarmingly short telephone call, there I stood. I was handed a milk tea and told that I was to be given a tour immediately. ‘Father brought us all here. We love Father.’ Pema was sixteen years old. She had been apart of the ‘Snowland Family’ since she was four, when a Buddhist Monk (I soon came to understand that this is who they affectionately called Father) came to the Tibetan Dolpo Region of the remote Himalayas where she and her twin sister were born. From her village, Pema told me that she would have to take a dangerous trek for up to twelve days to get to a nearby school. I thought back to when I used to complain about my hours car journey to and from my school in the mornings. We walked across the basketball court and up a flight of stairs to a large room rammed full with bunkbeds barely inches apart. ‘The villagers in my region cannot read or write. Father wished to take some of the children from Dolpo to Kathmandu to give them the gift of education here at Snowland. Savi and I were the lucky ones’. She picked up a little girl chewing her fingers who had followed us upstairs. The child leaned towards me with open arms, reaching for my hair. She laces a strand around her dusted fingers and turns to Pema, eyes wide. Her cheeks were especially crimson. ‘Sorry Miss. Yangchen came from Dolpo a few weeks ago only. She has never seen blonde hair like yours before!’. My mind raced. If Dolpo is so inaccessible, will these children ever get to see their families again? Did Pema and Savi’s mother have to choose between seeing their children grow up and an education? My fingers traced over a wall with lines and scribblings etched into it. Height measurements. I later found out that Pema and her sister have not seen their parents in thirteen years and they have two younger brothers that they have never met. I looked around to find that I was now surrounded by more crimson-cheeks staring up and me; playing with my hair, undoing my laces, tugging at my coat. I could feel my eyes sting as a single tear formed. The children laughed. ‘Miss, you should not be sad. This is our Heaven’. Heaven. I looked up from my milk tea that had now gone stone-cold. I studied the dust cloud that hung above the basketball court. The towering piles of rubble. The sparks flying in all directions from frayed cables. But above all that, I saw crimson-cheeked children smiling.