Kalyan Gurung (right) and Raju Gurung taking a break in 2008.

I met Kalyan Gurung in 2008 during a trek in Nepal with my wife and a friend. He had been assigned to be our guide; his young cousin Raju Gurung was our porter, carrying three overloaded duffels in a wicker basket suspended from his forehead with a tump line. We started our trek in Solu, in the hilly farmlands five days’ walk below Lukla, where most Everest treks begin. Half a day to the east was Meidel, Kalyan’s childhood village. 

Kalyan had grown up tending goats in a steep hillside pasture. Before he was a teen he loaded a basket and began portering, the only way for boys and young men to earn hard cash in the area. But he also stayed in school. Kalyan was smart and driven—he saw portering as a path to a trade.

Kalyan leading a trek around Manaslu in 2013.

Tent city in Kathmandu where Kalyan, his five brothers, and their families took refuge. Because of damage in the second quake, many residents likely will spend the entire monsoon season under tarps.

Characteristically, Kalyan was not sitting still. With various groups he had helped organize relief efforts in the harder-hit towns around the city. On May 1 and 7 he was in the ruined city of Khokana, south of Kathmandu, where, he wrote at his Facebook page, "we put some drops of water in burning fire," distributing food and supplies to 1,300 people. On May 10, he and a team delivered 750 sacks of rice to Nuwokot District, northwest of the city.
 

Delivering supplies to Khokhana, south of Kathmandu, six days after the first earthquake.

Three of us who had done treks with Kalyan, along with a couple of friends, collected a substantial amount of money and wired it to Nepal to help him and his family rebuild. He thanked us from the bottom of “my terrible, earthquake-broken heart” and said he thought he might be able to return to work soon.

The second major quake struck on May 12. This one was centered northeast of Kathmandu, very near the Solukhumbu District and Kalyan’s home. “The latest earthquake mostly affected the Everest region,” Kalyan said. “Ninety percent of houses are destroyed; most of the schools are damaged.
 

Ruins in the architecturally important area of Bungamati and Khokhana, May 7.

Kalyan’s Facebook posts yesterday reflected the profound psychological blow of the second quake, a phenomenon many working on relief efforts have observed. “[The] survivors are staying living dead with low heartbeat. Pale, depressed faces, self-questioning: What is happing here? God want to kill all of us?”

Repeatedly, in emails and Facebook messages, I’ve urged Kalyan to stay strong. Last night he said, “I am strong, Dai, not much scared. If it happen, it happen. Nobody can stop it.”

Kalyan will be OK. He’s got the drive and capabilities to rebuild his life and business. He’s a doer. Raju, the porter on our first trek and assistant guide on the second, has flown to Korea to work. But many in Nepal are far less fortunate. More than half a million have been displaced from their homes. Weeks of persistent monsoon rains are about to arrive. Remote villages are cut off by landslides, and some still have not seen outside help. It is likely many people will die this summer from their injuries and disease.

There are many ways to support the people of Nepal. One respected clearinghouse for community-based relief and rebuilding efforts is Global Giving, which is halfway to a $5 million emergency fund-raising goal for Nepal. Kalyan frequently volunteers with The Small World, an organization founded by his longtime employer, Karma Sherpa, who organized our treks. My wife and I have supported this organization, which builds and maintains schools and girls’ homes in the Solukhumbu district. We also have long supported the Colorado-based dZi Foundation, which has an extensive staff in Nepal and works directly in the areas hardest hit by the May 12 quake. Ben Ayers, dZi’s Nepal Country Director (and a 15-year resident of the country, now rendered homeless himself). 

Short-term relief is urgently needed. But among the most important things Western trekkers and climbers can do to help the Nepali people is plan a trip to Nepal. In 2013, tourism accounted for about 4 percent of Nepal’s GDP and directly or indirectly employed more than 1 million people. A visit to Nepal would inject much-needed cash directly into people's hands. Much of Kathmandu was spared serious damage, and the splendid Buddhist stupas at Boudhanath and Swayambhunath, along with the sacred Hindu temple at Pashupatinath, were largely unharmed. Pokhara and the southern and western areas of Nepal are undamaged and ready for visitors. And the mountains abide. Plan a trek. Climb a peak. Buy food in the villages, hire local porters and guides, and pay them well.

Kalyan’s next plan is to help rebuild the schools where he studied and laid the foundations for his career. “I went to three schools in Solokhumbu, one in Meidel,” he told me. “I am just observing which is worst [damaged], and then I am going to help.”