Article and photos by Sarah Winterburn 2016.
Late one evening in July, I found myself descending rapidly in an airplane over the Kathmandu valley. The city looked totally unlike any I had seen before. Walking out onto the heated street, the life of the place struck me. People everywhere. No surface seemed untouched. As I travelled south, rural farmland replaced crowded cityscape – rice paddies and dirt tracks.
WELCOME TO NEPAL
How did I end up here? After a lifetime of hearing stories about Nepal from my parents, who spent the first years of their married lives there, I had been given the opportunity to visit. I would be staying at Lalgadh Hospital – the busiest leprosy hospital in the world – set up by Nepal Leprosy Trust (NLT), a Christian organisation inspired by Jesus’ compassion to serve the poor and sick. Their aim is to empower those affected by leprosy and other disadvantaged people.