Corona has arrived in Europe and makes us stay in the houses. Whether we want to or not. WE are afraid our health system might collapse and might not be able to deal with all the sick people. Well.. this does worry me thinking of Nepal. Middle of Feburary this whole „Corona Tsunami“ was just something far away.. .slowly coming closer but… not anything to really get worried about. At least it‘s what people thought. Nima was just about to travel to Europe and I was getting slightly nervous about his being able to enter the country back then, because Nepal is closer to China than Europe. I thought they mighte not let him in. But NO problem! No checks anywhere, not in Turkey not in Stuttgart. He made it here without problems. What a weird time he has arrived in. It is definitely a „wind of change“.. rather a storm of change… Now we Germans/Europeans are the ones not wanted in other countries anymore, at least for now. Almost all countries have closed their borders. Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany everything has shut down. School is out for a while.. Well Nepal heard about it and is also scared shitless. They closed the border early, cancelled all tourist visas, Everest season is called off this year. The hotels in Namche and other tourist areas are closed for the season. Nepal hat its last flight towards Europe last night. Everything has closed from now on. The world seems to have arrived at the unwanted experience of a basejump. Being pushed off from some high cliff, not knowing what‘s at waiting at the bottom. We are all falling. Now this is already scary as hell to us. Here in a country which has got a pretty good health system, supplies and money for … at least a while and the feeling of … we do have enough toilet paper. (This seems to be the biggest fear or Germans .. running out of toilet paper).
But can you imagine what life in Nepal will be like? If the virus (un-?)expectantly crosses the border nevertheless? Illegally? Well, I don‘t even dare to get into it. If WE are scared… multiply the fears with whatever high number you can think of.. It doesn‘t matter, for Nepal it is once again already a disaster, we can‘t even imagine.. Nepal has been hit by economic catastrophies over the last couple of years! And every single time they started „crawl“ , then climb again (bistaaaari, bistaari = slowly, slowly). 2014 the Sherpa accident at Mt. Everest, then 2015 the earthquake, then.. finally a bit of hope lots of things had started to become a little bit better. There was hope for a good tourist year in 2020. Well..it is called off! Just like everything else. The world stood still.. Corona fears. And we are all waiting for the harm the agony and the pain that this virus will cause. The world will not be the same ever after. But… I am sure no matter how devastating it will be, for Nepal it will be worse. But I also believe in these people, they will not sit and lament, they will just get up and start anew.. I sure hope we will, too. And.. while Nima is here, we will think of the little things that can help some people along the way. Whatever there is to come. I try to be in touch with as many as I can in Nepal. Although the schools are already closed and most people have withdrawn into their villages (hopefully without the virus). I will try to keep you posted. It is always nice to get a response, so if you feel like writing or asking or commenting.. please do. Corona times also means.. we do have a bit more time to communicate!
