9 Nepali boys, 3 Dutch girls, 1 Nepali coach trainee, 3 Nepali coaches, 1 Dutch coach, 1 Dutch Camera lady, 2 porter guides and 3 guides. All brothers and sisters on a 6 days trekking through Helambu. Carrying our backpacks and loads of emotional baggage when we left, returning with only our backpacks and hearts filled with light. This is my story about the QuestTrek from MyQuest Foundation.

Day 1 Crossing the barrier of cynicism. Opening our minds.

‘Be on time!’ turns out to be a difficult concept in Nepal haha and it’s contagious because we were late! A bus would pick us up exactly at 6am at Labim Mall, we had to rush with our backpacks and hiking boots, in the rush we decided to grab a taxi and ended up being the first at the location after all haha. It was about 1,5 hours drive to the starting point of our trek. Never had I done a trekking before in my life. Hikes?, yes plenty of day hikes, but a trekking with backpack and all… I was ready for the challenge. The day before we had an introductory meeting with the Nepali participants but there was a bit of a line between the Dutchies and the Nepali boys. The boys were between 15 and 22 years old, the other two Dutch girls, Anne and Gemma were 28 years old. A nice mixture of ages and experiences. I was curious how the lines would fade and the group connect.

At arrival we opened the trek in a circle, positive vibes and energy were going around and everyone was ready to go. We would walk in silence while keeping the question “What are my 3 qualities?” open in our minds. One by one we left the little town to walk into the national park, up the hill. Very steep upwards, I was happy to feel my heels fall into my shoes. It took about half an hour until we arrived at the first stop. Time to share our findings using the talking stick. It was interesting to hear how important courage, strength, kindness and responsibility of care for their families was for the boys. My focus of qualities was more in life and less in surviving life. 

Time to continue the hike in our coach groups. Anne, Gemma and I formed the Dutch group of our coach Hedda, who is also the leading lady in Nepal for MyQuest Foundation. During the hike we were sharing our stories. What happened up to this moment and how did it influence the creation of person we are today? It was inspiring, hard, interesting and emotional to share and hear each other’s stories. Hedda asked questions in between so we’d share beyond the basic story in mind. I felt how some things in my life had more impact on me than I had realized before, and also how grateful I am with my life too. Sadness and happiness, lessons learned, and decisions made were all shared. Never had I shared my story to such an extent, before no one had listened either. The Nepali coach groups followed the same exercise but in their own language. A lot of opening up happened during this hike up the hill for 3 hours. The stories were finished and completed by a question; What was the red thread through my life? What was there in every step in my life?

Lunch time: thick white bread with super sweet jelly jam, honey and one boiled egg… mmm. Joking around that this was also dinner, the Nepali boys stuffed themselves hahaha. We continued our hike to Chisapani where hot tea was waiting for us. On arrival we walked by some building hanging diagonal as a result of the earthquake, it gave me shivers from being confronted with this reality that is also part of Nepal. The guesthouse where we stayed was very colourful and with a beautiful view on the mountains at the horizon. It was getting colder so the tea was very welcoming. Side note: Nepali peeps drink sugar with tea, and cultural as I am, uhuhm…, I joined in their tradition hihi oops. They got a real sweet tooth. After tea and refreshing (I skipped the cold shower) we all went into the tent set up by the porter guides, who btw seem to run up the mountains. The guides need introduction too here; they are fun and kind and needed haha, there was Him Dai, older guy- Dai and JD Dai.  JD Dai literally ran up and down the treks to help us cross difficult parts, make sure everyone went the right direction and I bet he just enjoyed running up and down haha. Anyway, we sat on yoga mats in the tent and did a visualization meditation. Guided by a coach we visualized a perfect memory. After the group session everyone went with their coach, by sharing this memory, the coach guided us to get to our core values. These values form our inner compass. Mine are love, amazed, free, life, grateful and vision. Might not say a lot to you, but very valuable for me! It was new and very powerful to put those into words.

Time for dinner: Dal Baht, the meal we all love and hate and fills our stomachs to the maximum, sooooo good. After dinner there was a final sharing with the talking stick and off to bed.

Day 2 Crossing the barriers of judgement. Opening our hearts

4.45am JD came knocking on our doors… “Good morning wake up” Nah uhhh! We have to wake up at 5.45am!!! “Oops”. So 5.45am we woke up, 6.15am we were ready outside in the cold to join the morning exercises… running, jumping, boxing omg, didn’t expect that and took some effort to join on my 600gr each hiking boots haha.  All the Nepali boys were late hahaha, but they all came in the end and after the (long) warm-up we sat in a circle on our yoga mats in the field to do a morning meditation. It is amazing! Feeling present and aware following energy flow through my body from toes to top. Starting the day right. Breakfast was served inside the guesthouse, a new favorite: Tibetan Bread (tastes a bit like churros/donuts) and egg. And here comes the Nepali & Dutch mixture of sweet tooth’s: eat the egg on the side, break the bread open, put sugar in and dip it in the tea mmmmm!

Today was all about trust, which meant the first exercise was trusting someone blindly while walking, literally blind. I walked together with Bejee. We were such a great team! It wasn’t a race but… we WON haha. It was easy to surrender, I trust people blindly all the time and all the boys seemed more than trustworthy! I was happy that Bejee felt the same way about me. The hike continued upwards again. The views became more beautiful and impressive the higher we got! We had a short break on a platform where the theme of trust was further introduced. Leaving us with the questions “What does trust mean for me? Where in my life could I create more trust?” The way was steep and only going up, I enjoyed the hike and walked in the front with Him Dai. In my own pace I reached the next guesthouse in Chiplin. A cold shower to freshen up and a chance to wash the sweat of my clothes. Hanging them to dry on the fence in front of beautiful flowers and a million butterflies. Lunchtime with Dal Baht and some free time to play volleyball with the boys.

The balance between exercises and free time this day was needed because the afternoon was filled with heavily loaded exercises. With heavily loaded I mean emotionally. Both for the youth and for the Dutchies, there were challenging moments with insights and tears. However, the outcome, the completion was happy. It wasn’t scary to get emotional and ‘real’; the surroundings of the mountains and the intercultural connection provided an atmosphere which was safe. We dived into new trust and contexts for our lives. Leaving old stories behind and stepping further into the process of opening ourselves for endless possibilities. For me the insight is that I may also be soft! A very powerful visualization exercise one on one with my coach, left me covered in a soft, calm state of acceptance. And a hunger for dinner… which of course was Dal Baht, served in the freezing cold. To feel real Nepali (and warm our hands) we decided to join the youth and leave the spoon clean; time to learn how to eat dal baht with our hands.

Day 3 Crossing the barriers fear. Opening our will.

No words in the morning. After our usual start of the day we got out first exercise, a creative one. Once finished, individually we could start walking, following the arrows drawn by the guides. The hike would be long and fully silent, hear the silence. And there were of course more questions to think about. The process of combining a trek with an internal journey worked perfect for me although I sometimes think that the beautiful landscape distracted me to the outer world more than within. Luckily this is also okay haha. I enjoyed the hike very much. At times I felt like the only person in the world. If I saw movement or heard a sound, I could stare into the forest looking for life. The sounds of birds or water were like music in the absolute silence and I would stop hiking every now and then, just so I could hold my breath and hear absolutely nothing. At one point, after a climb, I saw the white peaks stretched out closely before my eyes for the first time. I can’t explain why exactly but it was so beautiful, I got tears in my eyes. Little did I know that our hike would end at an even more beautiful spot haha. We could talk again to one another although my voice had left me almost because I was suffering from a cold.

That day we connected intercultural for the first time on a new level. The boys were my friends and brothers. We had fun, and were still in the process of the QuestTrek. In the evening we danced, just for fun outside with Nepali and Mainstream music on. The theme of the day was about fear, What fear do I leave behind in the mountains? From this question a very powerful play showed me the duel that sometimes plays in my head. We did this in our own coach groups, everyone was faced with their inner voices. I learned that I fear that not everything is possible, which is also a truth I denied to accept. I saw how I tried to push myself to always be the example, in everything I do and, I needed to keep on moving keep on doing, keep on growing. This is not something bad or good, however, I now know that my life was out of balance. And I realized this affected my connections and relationships with people around me, people who are very important for me. The Nepali boys, my brothers taught me the most important lesson, I am not alone, I don’t have to know it all, figure it all out alone, I got brothers and sisters everywhere. Now that I’m aware I can change it/create it differently.

I noticed that even when the boys talk about their own insights they always talk about ‘we’ and not ‘I’. I think that is something very valuable in this culture, the connection, the WE.