Nepal Quake...

[Lotte]

So I guess everyone is aware that parts of Nepal have pretty much been levelled by the quake from last weekend.

My fam and I have a bit of a connection to the country, with mum having gone trekking there twice, and my sister going last time. I was meant to go but ended up not being able to at the last minute. Mum and Chloe both have porters that they had on trek (both are ok, as are their families), and the woman who organises the trek was actually on the last leg of a trek with another group when it happened. They were stuck, but managed to trek over 20 odd rockslides to get to safety. Teresa is keeping people updated here

We're all praising who knows what above that everyone we know, so far, has survived.

Some before and afters. The first image, which you can slide over for the before and after, is of Langtang. This is where we were planning on going next time, it's as if nothing was ever even there.

The Nepali people are resilient as ever, mum's porter (and "god" son - she sponsors his kids through school, he calls her "didi", it's all very cute), came back to his village in Gorkha district almost decimated. Rather than do nothing, he is trekking straight to Kathmandu (I believe) to get supplies for people and he'll trek back with everything he can carry. We're currently raising money to get to him so he can buy as much food, shelter and water as he can carry.

Another person who I have the utmost respect for, Netra, runs a school in Kathmandu called the Bright Future Community Centre. He's also doing a lot of on the ground work in his community. Distributing food and supplies etc. He has links to RAWCS here, I've met the co-ordinator, brilliant woman. So money is being raised that way as well.

If you want to help out - I'm not kidding, even some loose change from the car will make a difference, but don't want to give to a bigger charity, there's a couple of ways.

If you want to help Purna, shoot me a PM, and I can give you bank details. I'll be posting a total next weekend of the total money raised for Purna. I've never met him, but I love him to bits.

If you want to help Netra, you can go to the RAWCS website (this is a tax deductible donation, just putting that out there), hit donate now, and you'll end up here. Project number is 15, and year registered is 2008-2009. It will be put to good use.

Cheers guys!