Trekking and Teaching in the Himalayas

Since reading about the Himalayas in National Geographic magazines as a
young person, Jeffrey always dreamed of summiting Mount Everest. However,
she never found the right timing to fulfill her dream.

Then, at age 60, Jeffrey went to hear renowned American mountaineer Arlene
Blum speak and learned that Blum had space available on an upcoming
Himalayan tour that she was offering. Jeffrey jumped at the opportunity to
travel to the Himalayas. While she didn’t fulfill her childhood dream to summit
Mount Everest, Jeffrey trekked through the Himalayas for the first time in 2008
with a group of 20 other people.

While on the tour, one of the local guides learned that Jeffrey was a teacher
from the United States and asked her to come help at his village’s school. She
agreed, and in 2010, she returned to the Himalayas to trek to a remote village
with school supplies. This was the first of seven trips that Jeffrey would end up
taking to the village over the next eight years.

Each visit involves a plane trip from Kathmandu to the Lukla Airport, known as
the world’s most dangerous airport because of its very short runway, high
elevation, turbulence, and a runway that abuts a 2,000-foot drop on one side
and a solid stone wall on the other. From Lukla, Jeffrey must pack her gear and
school supplies and make a two-day trek on foot along a donkey train trail to
the village. The trail is slow going and must be made by foot because of the
extreme elevation gains and losses, rocky terrain, and mud that Jeffrey has
sometimes found herself up to her thighs in.

Despite the difficulty in reaching the village, Jeffrey finds her visits worth the
hardship of travel because of the village children. Due to its remote and
challenging location, children in the village had never seen a wheel or used
electricity. In her seven trips to the village, Jeffrey has helped bring
opportunities to the village school that have been transformative. She has
helped increase the number of schooling years for children beyond the five
years of funding provided by the government, brought school supplies and
curriculum written in the village’s Himalayan language, provided solar chargers
and tablets with downloaded curriculum for the local teachers to use, brought
handheld microscopes for the kids, helped teach English, and provided
assistance with a women’s farm co-op and leadership group that helps teach
kids the skills needed to find jobs in the city.