Our Impact

Tonight, I sat in the middle of a number of children in front of our library.  The children were playing cards, Go Fish/Crazy Eights, chess, playing with stuffed animals donated by my friend Spring Raymond​ from the US, pretending to cook with a plastic stove donated by my friend Pragya Mishra​  from India, reading books from the US rounded up by my dad Norm Rosenkrantz​ and Nepali books donated by the Asia Foundation in Kathmandu.  One adult was teaching children how to fold paper to make birds.  Other children were playing with legos, focused so intently like  other children anywhere in the world. There were a number of other adults just looking, some playing with the children. Other children were playing jump rope. Inside the library more children were playing with legos, drawing pictures, just being children.  There were almost 60 children of various castes, ages, gender just being kids.  I have come to realize that the children and I have created this amazing space that has grown to become a very safe hang out for anyone that wants to be part.  I realize that in 10 months I have had some impact for the better in a little village in Nepal.  I also realize how much this experience has become part of who I've become only because I've dared to be a little different and pushed my boundaries and not settled into a routine in my birth country.  I may never truly come to know how this experience has impacted me, the village children and adults who I've come into contact with, but from my vantage point I do see positive changes from the people saying hello/namaste to me with a big smile, on my morning bicycle rides to Bastipur to the way in which some staff have changed the way in which they work. I will always worry, be a bit anxious about sitting in uncertainty, wonder why people do things a certain way.  The differences in me ares small but never-the-less I can see them.