Major Dil Bahadur Gurung

Major Dil Bahadur Gurung

When the Major was a boy there was no school in his village. Getting to the nearest school from his home in Galem, Nepal would have meant a 2-hour walk down a dangerous foot path clinging to the side of a mountain, followed by a 2 1/2 hour uphill journey back. During the monsoon this narrow, exposed path is particularly treacherous, and there is always the danger of a rockslide (which are often started by monkeys higher up on the mountain). Not surprisingly, the children in Galem did not go to school. Not only was the nearest school too far away and too dangerous to get to, but the children were needed to help on the farm. So, the children's lives consisted of rising at the crack of dawn, feeding the animals and then going out with baskets slung on their back to collect heavy loads of firewood and feed for the animals.

The recently widened(!) path to Galem

Major Dil Bahadur Gurung would never have had a chance to go to school if it hadn't been for a very lucky break. In 1954, his cousin, who served as a Gurkha in the British Army, offered to take the boy with him to his posts around the world. And so Dilbahadur went to school for the first time at the age of 14. He went for three years, going to school in Hong Kong and Malaysia. He recalls this time as being difficult on the one hand, as he was trying to learn from teachers speaking a different language, but this was also a very happy time that was full of surprises and new experiences. Then, in 1957 Dilbahadur joined the British Gurkhas himself.

Namaste! A kindergarten student and her teacher

A little girl in Galem has opportunities her grandmother could not have imagined

Becoming a Gurkha is no small feat. The Gurkhas are an elite force, and each year thousands of young Nepali men vie for a handful of positions. Only the best of the best are selected, and they are paid well, receiving about ten times the salary of a soldier in Nepal’s military. Not only did Dil Bahadur become a Gurkha, but he rose progressively through the ranks: Private, Lance Corporal, Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Lieutenant, Captain, and finally, Major. All with only three years of schooling before joining the military. During his career, the Major served in Hong Kong, Singapore and Brunnei. He raised five children and put them all through school, including a son who earned a degree in law, and a daughter who finished a bachelor’s degree.

Wearing her finest, Galem

Villager with Tika

Meanwhile, however, little had changed in Galem. In 1958, the government finally built a primary school in Galem. It was a single-room hut and the first class had 15 boys; later, girls were allowed to attend. Nonetheless, continuing school past the primary level was still such a hardship that the children had few options beyond joining the military or growing up to be farmers like their parents. Moreover, by the time the Major retired in 1986, the school was leaking badly and unable to accommodate enough children.

The Major in front of the school he helped build

The Major and his "troops"

Though he now spent most of his time in the city of Pokhara, Major Dil Bahadur dedicated himself
to improving life for the people in his village. As education was not an option when he was a child, the Major decided that educating the children of the village should be the first order of business.
Major Gurung was able to enlist the help of the Gurkhas; he received a grant from the Gurkha foundation, and raised funds from his many colleagues and friends. A pair of Italian doctors also donated heavily to construct the modern, multi-room school that stands in Galem today. With more rooms, the school is now able to accommodate students through grade 8. However, the problem has remained that to continue their schooling to grade 10 (the grade that a student needs to complete to apply for most decent jobs) the students must still make the grueling 4½ hour round trip to the nearest upper secondary school. To continue to grade 11 and 12 (called “college” or “plus one” and “plus two” in Nepal), they have to go even further away. The Major is currently working with the Nepali government to get them to fund grades 9 & 10 in Gallum. As the outlook for that is not so good (they don't even fund grade 8 in Galem!), the Major has already begun raising private funds to pay the teachers’ salaries, and two new rooms two house these grades are already under construction.

Taking a break from exams, Galem

Other improvements that the Major has facilitated for the school include a library, kindergarten with a kitchen, toilets for the boys and girls, and sports facilities. He has also brought clean water to Galem, enabled the town to improve the path to the village, and recently helped the town to acquire a motherhood health clinic.

Motherhood Clinic, Galem

New classrooms being built to accomodate the addition of 9th & 10th grades

It was my great pleasure to be able to accompany the Major on a visit to Galem along with a group of NGO representatives and reporters. For a man who has every right to be proud, the Major is a surprisingly modest man who treats everyone with great respect. The village itself is a breath of fresh air from those that lie on the well worn tourist track. The people of Galem put on quite a welcoming ceremony for us; greeting us at the edge of town, festooning us with flowers and silk scarves, and performing music and dance for us. Such ceremonies are not always sincere, but it was clear that the people of Galem were not just being polite, or just performing for us; They were polite because they are polite, and they were enjoying themselves fully, singing, dancing and laughing even when the delegation was occupied inside with presentations. We were just an excuse to have a party, and as we started the long walk back to our vehicles, we could hear the music and singing fading into the distance.

Villagers celebrating while the delegation retires inside

The party continues as the delegation departs

Helping a student in Galem is not hard to do, nor is it expensive. The Major has set up a scholarship program for the best and most needy students. $100 will support a student for one year, and can make the difference between staying in school or dropping out.

If you would like to donate, you can make out a check to:

Shree Sheetala Nimna Madhyamik Vidhyalaya (that's the name of the school!) and make a note on the check that this is for a scholarship

And, send it to:

Major Dil Bahadur Gurung 'MVO' (ret.)
Chairman
Ganeshmansing Road
Block No. 418
Bagale Tole - 8
Pokhara, Nepal

I doubt that this donation will be tax deductible in the U.S., but I'm positive that it will be money well spent.

For more information, you can contact Major Dil Bahadur by email: galemdanda@yahoo.com

Bright eyes and a bright future

Woman with Bindi

Take my picture, too!

A moustache-proud fellow

Gentleman of Galem

Dressed for celebration

Terraced fields, Galem

Rain at Last!

Every year the dry season brings problems to Nepal, but this year has been exceptional. Depending on who you ask, there has been no rain in Kathmandu for 4 to 6 months. Of course this causes problems with crops and means that fewer wells have water. With terrible pollution from decrepit vehicles and slash-and-burn agriculture, lack of rainfall also results in a thick layer of pollution hanging in the air throughout the Kathmandu valley. As you might imagine, respiratory infections are common here.

Furthermore, all of Nepal's electricity comes from hydroelectric power, so the dry season also brings a shortage of electricity. The situation is so bad this year that electricity is only available for a few hours each day. To make matters worse, these precious "white-ins," as I call them, often occur after midnight. There is no real schedule to all of this, so everyone (including businesses that rely on electricity) has to play a guessing game. Ironically, it is Nepal's cities that receive the fewest hours of electricity each day. For instance, Kathmandu only had about 4 hours of electricity while we were awake; there was often another 4 hours while we slept.

Sadly, there is more to Nepal's electricity problem than just a lack of water. I am told that many hydro-electric plants are out of commission due to poor maintenance. Furthermore, during the recent Maoist revolution, insurgents destroyed power plants. Now that they are the ruling party, the Maoists are suffering from their own sabotage; they refuse to fix the problem, as they blame the previous party for not fixing it earlier. Lastly, part of Nepal's limited electricity is being supplied to India, as a method of repaying past debts.


For all of these reasons, people have been hoping and praying for rain, and you can imagine their joy when the first rain in six months finally came! Katrina and I were lucky enough to be in Patan's Durbar Square on our way to dinner when the lightning started. I hurried back to the guesthouse to grab my camera gear, and poor Katrina was left holding a box of take-away momo's while her obsessive husband ran around hoping to catch lightning flashes with long exposures.

The rain finally came down in force and we had to take shelter by squeezing against the palace wall with a number of other people. Then the hail came. Fortunately, this was not the baseball-sized hail that had caused fatalities last year, but it came in buckets! During a brief respite in the storm, Katrina and I high-tailed it for the shelter of a restaurant. We dined by candlelight (both romantic and a necessity!) while the skies opened up again and hail came down so fiercely that the restaurant's courtyard started to look like an ice skating rink.

After the rain stopped again, we quickly paid our bill (needless to say, I tipped our poor waiter rather heavily) and headed for the guesthouse. In the square, people were celebrating the coming of rain, and kids were excitedly splashing around and throwing fist-fulls of hail. The streets were now ankle-deep rivers of rushing ice water, but we were able to edge our way down the narrow raised sidewalks, and arrived at the hotel with miraculously dry feet. To top it all off, there was electricity waiting for us! (Talk about a trifecta.)

That was our last night in Nepal, and we are now in Thailand, where last night it rained for the first time in months -- just call me "Rain Maker!"