Powerful Moments

By Madeline Mahnick

For our final product and presentation at Tribhuvan University, each person on the team put together a photo essay of about four to five sentences to capture the moment that impacted us the most. I thought I would share mine as one of my final blog posts. One year has passed since a ferocious landslide swept through the village of Lumle ruthlessly claiming 28 lives and multiple homes.

Each brick that sits on the ground is the cry of a life lost; a child, a mother or father, a husband or wife, a brother or sister, a grandfather or grandmother.

I stand next to an elderly man and his sister-in-law who tell their story: he points to the right… an elderly couple used to live there…he points to the left…my cattle used to stay here.

The resiliency of the village shines through the connection of the community as they care for one another like family. The elderly man now must care for his infant grandnephew who lost his mother and baby sister in the landslide.

His story is more powerful than a landslide.