helen cousins
The beginning...
Content Welcome! Helen, Rob and baby Josh are soon to leave murky, cold blighty and head off into the Himalayas for 6-12 months! madness? Maybe... or maybe the beginning of a great and wonderful adventure that may inspire others to leave the realms of drudgery and everyday life, and get out and do something different. Or maybe not. Up to them, but for us, this is the start of a wonderful experience for us as a family, and we hope to learn so much along the way, and do some good as we go.
First up is Nepal, a beautiful, gentle-peopled place that Helen happily spent last October and November working with street dogs for a charity there. Lulled back by the culture, lifestyle and lovely people of the land, we are heading to Pokhara, in the western region of Nepal, nestled by Lake Fewa, under the shadow of the majestic Mt Annapurna. Having sold almost all our worldly goods, packed 20kg each and headed off to this wonderful place we will be starting our new jobs in March 2010. Helen is working full-time for the brand new animal charity 'HART' (www.hartnepal.org), where she is contracted for a rolling 6 months in a teaching/nursing role. The charity deals with a 200km sq radius of animals, including the various Tibetan refugee camps scattered along the stetch; so its a fair amount of work this one little charity has on its plate! Not being government funded means starting with little and hoping the donations keep coming in order to maintain the good work HART wants to do. In fact, the goal is to expand HART to other regions if possible, Nepal is a big place after all! Primarilydealing with stray dogs and carrying out neutering, health and vaccine procedures for the canines, HART also works with the donkeys/mules/horses that are used for the mountain treks, summit attempts for the big peaks (Annapuran, Everest etc), tourist rides, manual labour and farming. Not unheard of though is the cry for help from ox, water buffalo, cows, pigs, goats... yaks! No creature is ever turned away.
Meanwhile Rob is looking forward to being a fulltime dad to Josh, and is set to help the Nepali long distance running team.... that sounds like the start of a joke, but actually they're bloody good. I'm looking for sponsors to fly some of their best over to compete in some of the Alpine marathons - looking at the finishing times in Nepal and of Europeans in the Alps, I think they could do wonders! I've also got a meetiing with the Nepali Olympic Committee when we land in Kathmandu.....
As for little Joshua, he has a lot of growing to do. I think this will keep him busy for a few months. We look forward to his first words, which will be something like 'where are we going next?'
