Education: The Most Powerful Weapon

As mentioned in the last post (the Phaplu Snafu), on day 7, the team split up to spend time at the Zeke O'Connor (ZOC) junior and senior schools. In this post, we describe in a little more depth the activities of the day. But first, here are some things you may not know about ZOC: …

Welcome Program

(Today we hand the blog over to Mary Kaye from the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation, to describe day 5: our first visit to the Zeke O’Connor junior school in the morning and the senior school in the afternoon.) Honored. Humbled. Bursting with joy. Allison, one of our travelers, said, “I’ve never known what it feels …

Ancestral Home

Day 4 saw us head out early from the hotel in Phaplu hotel for the hour-long drive to Mopung, where the principal of Zeke O’Connor School has his ancestral home. Principal Lhakpa Sherpa was kind enough to host our group and a couple of the ZOC teachers. On the way, we stopped at two beautiful …

Market, Monastery, Music

After settling in at the Everest Hotel in Phaplu, we had lunch (boy, you are well fed in Nepal!) and then split into 2 groups for the afternoon. Half the crew set off down the hill on a walk to visit the nearby town of Salleri and its market, basking in the gorgeous hillside and …

Reunions!

On day 3, we flew into Phaplu to visit the Zeke O’Connor School, at last! That’s a lot of World Expedition duffels The crew — still minus Justin and Roy… but they’re coming! When we arrived, we had an amazing surprise: several of the teachers and many of the students came down to the airfield …

Temples and Thangka

On day 2, most of the travellers (other than a couple who weren’t feeling well, sadly!) set out into Kathmandu to visit 2 iconic sites: the Pashupatinath and Boudhanath temples. Pashupatinath is a vast Hindu temple complex, classified as a United Nations World Heritage site in 1979, where people come to worship and cremate dead …

Meet the Travellers! (Part 3)

Heather & Erica Mother-daughter team Heather, a physician, and Erica, grade 7 student, will be visiting their sponsored student at the Zeke O’Connor School in Phaplu, and revisiting Kunde Hospital where Heather worked in 2002! Shelagh & George Shelagh and George got hooked through SEHF’s online cooking courses during the COVID lockdowns and found their …

It’s Day 1…

… The day our adventure in Nepal officially begins: October 4! Over the past couple of days, the travellers have been trickling in from different locations (US! Canada! India! Greece!) at different times to meet at our hotel in Kathmandu, and as more people arrive, our meal tables are expanding and getting more raucous, in …

Meet the Travellers! (Part 2)

Here's a little more about the travellers heading to Nepal in early October to visit projects run by the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation (SEHF), and raise funds and awareness. Roy Roy hails from Canada. He got the idea to travel to Nepal from his dear friend, Vicky, who recently returned from Everest Base Camp and …

Meet the Travellers! (Part 1)

The travellers heading to Nepal in early October come from various parts of Canada and the U.S. Some know each other already; most don't; all are united by an interest in the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation and raising funds and awareness for its projects in Nepal! We asked some of them about why they decided …