Purna Tamang, runner
Purna Tamang is a Nepalese trail runner who lost his house in the first earthquake on 25 April. He is travelling to the Blue Mountains in Australia for the North Face 100 ultramarathon.
Fate gave this opportunity to me and I am very happy to come to Australia and take part. As an athlete, I want to win – but I will be happy if I can give it my best, no matter what the result. I haven’t been training for the 100km distance and the disruption due to the earthquake meant that I couldn’t train for two weeks.
It was a hard decision to travel and leave my village as I lost two family homes. My wife is looking after the family, though. But as a man and an athlete, sometimes I have to make sacrifices even during hardships like this. I thought me coming [to Australia] and taking part would bring awareness to the tragedy in Nepal and hopefully it will bring support and goodwill.
I am very grateful to Trail Running Nepal for this opportunity and providing everything that is required. In Nepal, ultramarathon running is a new sport and we do not have coaches or expertise for it. We have come up with a training program that we use for the five runners in our group.
I have no plans after this. There is another small Nepali organisation in Hong Kong that sponsors us for races. Maybe down the track something might come up in Hong Kong or Malaysia. My workplace has been kind enough to give me some time off so, when I get home, I will be concentrating on my family and the rebuilding of my house.
Nepal is a beautiful country that is perfect for trail running and I hope this sport will pick up there. I hope the problem we are facing right now won’t stop people from visiting.
Richard Bull, founder and operator, Trail Running Nepal
Nepal is a mountain country with a unique attribute that those mountains are generally populated. This means it’s great for people to be able to run, then show up somewhere and find basic bed and board. Additionally, when we set up Trail Running Nepal, in 2008, we wanted also to try to give opportunities to some of the most talented runners. It’s worked a little – just slowly and in an unstructured way.
At the moment, it’s difficult to do much to help other than give cash that can be distributed. People are fishing through rubble to find possessions that are not crushed. Many people are working as groups of friends: pooling money from whomever they know, buying supplies and transporting them to more-remote villages that have not been reached. That kind of help can only go so far and slowly the government and big agencies will be able to reach them more fully. But still, it is immensely welcome as people are out of food and are desperate. So I’m trying to help in this way, too, for the moment. Later, we’ll have to work again to encourage people to visit Nepal and spend money as tourists.
The people I have met are so stoic. Every taxi driver’s village house is flat; cows or buffalo dead; food and seed stores ruined by rubble then rain. But unless you ask specifically, no one will tell you that. There is no moaning, more a rational acceptance and mulling over for solutions to the seemingly impossible. But a million or so people are in the same boat, so perhaps that is partly why, and losing a house is nothing compared to losing family members. “What to do? We have to work,” says my friend. There is a vast amount of work to be done and it will take time.
It looks like a drone has passed by firing targeted missiles and leaving piles of rubble. If anyone wants to donate, I can recommend the Himalayan Development Foundation Australia, which runs a very tight ship and is working on practical relief right now.
Trail Running Nepal has compiled a comprehensive list of marathons, trail races, ultras, and multi-day events in Nepal as well as good runs around Kathmandu and Pokhara. The goal is to encourage runners to come and test the trails in Nepal.
But right now, it’s a big, tragic mess. I’m sat in a car going to a village some three hours away. I am going with Ram Puri, who is a guide and has run ultras in France several times. We were planning a 29km trail race there on 27 June. We were going to check out the route and how we’d accommodate people. Now he is going to see how many of the 800 or so houses in that farming area are actually still standing. The report is about 25. So we’re in a couple of jeeps with tarpaulins, solar lights, some bags of rice, medical equipment and a couple of doctors for him to see how he can help and what else needs to be done.
Menen, the Nepal team manager in Melbourne
As we have all heard, Nepal has suffered another big earthquake. Just when things couldn’t get worse, it has got a whole lot worse. The situation is desperate, especially in remote towns and villages where there are no roads and help has been slow to come.
I have been in contact with Samir Tamang, another Nepalese runner. A group of friends and well-wishers have been supporting him and another person’s village that has been devastated with the earthquake. Samir is himself helping his people and has been making the trips to the city to get supplies from NGOs. We have also been helping him with buying food and transportation costs. Up until recently it had been tents, tarps and blankets, but after the second earthquake there have been reports of people’s harvest and food supplies being buried in the rubble. People are in desperate need of food.
Unfortunately, it’s a similar grim story everywhere and I wanted to highlight the plight of the people in Nepal. There are aid agencies as well as many others doing some amazing work right now. I would ask you humbly if you can to support a charity that is close to your heart.
Follow Purna’s race at thenorthface100.com.au
Donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Nepalese earthquake appeal at dec.org.uk
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