Project Pude Kudo

• We conducted our first eco-trip sucessfully, though our participant contracted viral pnemonia
• We decided to incorporate both in the U.S. and Nepal and change our name from The Red Panda Project to Red Panda Network and Red Panda Network - Nepal. This means that we are instead a Network of people committed to the conservation of red panda and preservation of its habitat through the empowerment of local communities by adaptive community-based research, education, and sustainable development.
• We created a new strategic partnership with WWF-Nepal and will contract with them for 3 years of long-term research and monitoring of 2/3 of Nepal’s red panda population.
• On Christmas day we kicked off Project Punde Kundo by hiring 16 local “forest guardians” to monitor red panda and educate local forest users on the importance of red panda to their forests.
• We also created strategic business alliances to conduct our future eco-trips and for the sale of Meghma locally grown, organic Oolong tea

6:00AM. Hotel Northfield. Thamel, Kathmandu.

Today is our last day before I leave for Ilam and the field and I am feeling overwhelmed. I have many things to do and feel that I do not have the time to finish them all. It seems that I have to be in integrity with my work and this is having me loose site of my goals for being here…Today is a very different feeling than yesterday….I am nervous to go into the field and I am anxious and feeling attached to what I am about to create.

Yesterday, I realized that we are on the verge of making The Red Panda Project’s first goal a reality. This year in partnership with TMI we will be able to begin the process of creating the community-based conservation area in Eastern Nepal. We will be able to start the conversation with the people and make this a reality. Through my conversations with Brian, I realized that I am the powerful one in my life. I do make all of my decisions and I am living the life I have chosen. I wanted to work in international conservation and I am doing this through The Red Panda Project…

7:30AM. Hotel Northfield. Thamel, Kathmandu.

I woke at 5:40 am…roughly 3:40 pm California time. My body thought I was just taking a long nap. I love the first day in Kathmandu. I wake up early and go for a “morning walk” as they call it. I wanted to watch the sun rise over the valley. This is my favorite time of the day, I am able to greet it with new eyes and today is no different.

I walked my favorite route along an old temple trail down to the Bagmati river. This path has glimpses of the old-Kathmandu, trees, earthen path, grass, an openness not found in the building infested city…I get to the first temple and women are giving offerings to the gods, this one has a dog statute at the front of it and it looks newly built with red brick and dog images all over it. I don’t know much about this god in terms of Hindu mythology but I would imagine it is one of the countless reincarnations of the God Shiva..

I look up and see Swayambunath the monkey temple, all aglow on the western horizon, the sky is lightening and the silhouette of the of the valley peaks are highlighted in pink.

I feel calm, comfortable and relieved to finally be in Nepal. It truly is my second home.

I walk down to the river to gain some strength from it. At the crematory, young boys are practicing Tae Kwon Doe, their grunts and screams fill the air, everything is alive and people and animals are everywhere. I soak in this feeling of being in a familiar place and question what it is that I love about it…What keeps drawing me back? The familiar smiles, the beautiful mountains, amazing diversity of nature. It all calls to me, it is part of who I am. I walk along the river with Indian ravens making their morning commute. Then I hear a raptor’s call and I know I will have the strength to complete this journey.

I stand above the important Bagmati and look into its trash-filled water and realize that what happened to us is in the west has happened here. With the introduction of materials humans loose sight of where those materials come from Mother Earth. We have done this over and over, we disrespect the one thing that gives us life. Many of us live by the principle that we do not “bite the hand that feed us” in our daily lives, yet our actions do not follow this simple rule. Everyday we are “biting” that hand by throwing out trash or slowing depleting the Earth without letting it heal on it own time.

I walk by some of the last fields at the edge of Kathmandu and realize that some of us still do understand where we come from….

Midnight. Hotel Northfield. Thamel, Kathmandu.

I am tired, excited, scared and anxious. After a 3 hour delay in Oman we finally arrived at around 10 p.m. I met many men on the plane and I got to practice speaking Nepali, most were college students coming home for the holidays…The plane was empty…I think Nepal needs to get back to marketing and get more people into the hotels and on treks…

The country is ready to get back on track and get onto its feet and create new avenues for growth and opportunity…Now is a time of renewed hope. I can see it in the fact that the army aren’t everywhere…

I know I’m back in Nepal when I can’t perform basic communication functions like make a phone call or use the internet. I tried to send a few emails and couldn’t connect. Then I tried to call Naveen and the hotel couldn’t get the phone to work. Welcome to Nepal and what it means to be in a “developing” country. It is more important to be able to play chess or hang out with people than it is to ensure that a phone works or stay open all night for one or two customers.

It’s kind of nice…

5:53PM. Somewhere over the Arabian Peninsula? Saudi Arabia…

I have not felt like writing up until this point. The weight of this trip and the amount of responsiveness and thought that is needed were overwhelming to me. I have been traveling for 27 hours been in two airports and in another 3 hours will arrive at my third stop, Muscat, before arriving in Kathmandu…Overall this trip, halfway around the world, will take around 40 hours, with a total of 23 hours flying time and 17 hours of layovers. Being in one place, I should be able to accomplish a great deal but I needed sometime to get into the trip and mentally adjust to this open routine. I had to create a new way of working and this weblog is one way of doing just that.

I am writing this as a memory to the ups and downs of my life mission, relating people to nature, in such a way that they take action to preserve its balance.

Everyday, I read a mantra written by George Bernard Shaw, and today after reading it. It got me into action to fulfill upon the goals and objectives of The Red Panda Project.

This is the true joy of life.
The being used for a purpose
Recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
The being a force of nature
Instead of a feverish, selfish
Little clod of ailments and grievances
Complaining that the world will not
Devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life
Belongs to the whole community
And as long as I live.
It is my privilege to do for it
Whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly
Used up when I die.
For the harder I work the more I live.
I rejoice in life for its own sake.
Life is no brief candle to me.
It is a sort of splendid torch
Which I’ve got hold of for the moment
And I want to make it burn
As brightly as possible before
Handing it on to future generations

As I embark on this latest adventure to Nepal, working to preserve red panda and their home for future generations to study, experience and enjoy, I am honored to do whatever I can for red panda and the people of eastern Nepal I want to make their torch burn for future generations…. This is the legacy I wish to leave my sons and daughters…