CHS grad in Nepal’s 7.8 quake





TRAGEDY—Alyse Speyer and her traveling companion, Tiago Pereira, in the aftermath of Nepal’s disastrous earthquake.

TRAGEDY—Alyse Speyer and her traveling companion, Tiago Pereira, in the aftermath of Nepal’s disastrous earthquake.

When the earth shook shortly before noon on April 25, Alyse Speyer knew something terribly bad had happened.

Speyer, a Calabasas High alumna, and her traveling companion, Tiago Pereira, had been in Nepal for four days when the disastrous earthquake struck.

They are now working with monks, a Dutch woman and several Nepali locals to fund and organize a relief effort—bringing tents, blankets, first-aid items and other necessities to remote villages in northern-central Nepal.

“The depth and breadth of this quake is catastrophic,” Speyer wrote in her blog at www.toldbyalyse.com two days after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the small mountainous country in south Asia.

The natural disaster killed more than 8,000 people, and another earthquake, magnitude 7.3, struck near Mount Everest on Tuesday, killing dozens more.

Speyer, a yoga teacher, and Pereira, a life coach, came to Nepal on April 21 to learn more about the local culture and Buddhism. They also hoped to find some work in the country.

They had crossed the border from India a few days earlier and were in Bardiya National Park when the earthquake occurred in Gorkha, about halfway between the cities of Kathmandu and Pokhara.

The park is about 300 miles from the epicenter. Even at that distance, Speyer said, she felt the initial tremor and several aftershocks.

“We were leaving Bardiya to catch a tourist bus to Mugling and then a second bus to Pokhara. The bus was taking quite some time and stopped a lot. I believe it was because of the conditions of the roads and the aftershocks,” Speyer wrote two days after the quake.

At nearly every stop they saw groups of people watching the news on TV.

“The images were horrifying. I didn’t need to understand the language to know that the numbers on the screen were death counts,” Speyer wrote.

The quake knocked buildings, homes and world heritage sites to the ground. Many Nepalese holy sites were demolished. The aftershocks were continuing more than a week after the quake, she said.

Speyer, 29, left her marketing career and apartment in San Francisco about three months ago to travel around the world and teach yoga.

She and Pereira, 30, traveled throughout India and plan to continue their journey through southeast Asia and Latin America for an undetermined period of time.

“As of now, we have no plans to return to the U.S. to live,” Speyer told The Acorn.

After the earthquake, Speyer and Pereira went to Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha.

They are staying at a Japanese monastery, where they follow a regular schedule of morning, day and evening chants and prayers.

The day begins at 3:30 a.m., when they clean the prayer hall, then the residents beat a hand drum and chant for two hours.

“Some days we beat the drum and chant walking to the village to offer prayers to the town people, and other days I stay in the prayer hall and make offerings to the various statues and relics around the monastery and pagoda,” Speyer wrote.

The residents are given blocks of free time between prayers.

Outside of the monastery, the aftermath of the earthquake is still being felt by the Nepali population. Though early relief efforts have provided sufficient food, shelters have been destroyed and people have to deal with the cold and rain, Speyer said.

“Men, women and children are sleeping outside to avoid getting hurt by collapsing buildings,” she wrote on her blog.

Eager to help the earthquake victims, Speyer is gathering monetary donations.

“The more funds we get, the more villages we can help. We plan to buy the items locally to help support the economy, to quickly attain goods and to prevent blockages at the airport. This is a grassroots effort,” she said.

As of May 10, Speyer said her group had delivered 100 packages to families in eight different villages, though they’ve come up short in helping the mountain district of Rasuwa, which hasn’t received aid because the roads are blocked.

“We have a way to get through, but only enough money for 25 percent of the families there,” Speyer wrote on her Facebook page.

All donations in whatever form are tax-deductible. Information on donating is available on Speyer’s blog in the post titled “Donate Earthquake Relief to Nepal through Japanese World Peace Pagoda.”


AIDING VICTIMS—Alyse Speyer and traveling companion Tiago Pereira, in a selfie below, offer supplies to Nepalese victims, at left, after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the region on April 25.

AIDING VICTIMS—Alyse Speyer and traveling companion Tiago Pereira, in a selfie below, offer supplies to Nepalese victims, at left, after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the region on April 25.

 

 

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