Where It All Began: The Letter from Pawakhola

We had been in the valley for a month by then, working on the “Light for Makalu Valley” project. A project born from Daniele Foletti, former president of the Ticino-based association “Mani per il Nepal.” A project that, without exaggeration, not only changed forever the lives of the local communities — people who, until then, had never seen a lightbulb — but also changed ours profoundly. I knew it would be an intense experience, in many ways: physical, cultural, and above all, human. But I never imagined it would be the beginning of something much bigger. Something that, at least for now, I hope will stay with me for the rest of my life. After a month, we had adapted to that reality, with all its hardships and its wonders. And by wonders, I mean above all the people. In the end, it was they who shaped everything that happened next. During the day, we worked on the systems in people’s homes. We learned to communicate without a common language, to share silences that in Europe often feel more difficult, or at least less natural. There, instead, they were simple, spontaneous and often accompanied by a smile. In the evenings, we gathered around the fire, surrounded by total darkness. It was as if the outside world disappeared, and everything existed only within that circle of light. After about a month, something happened that, in hindsight, marked the true beginning of SEED of LIGHT. Ganje Sherpa, the headman of Pawakhola — an isolated village outside the cluster of eight villages covered by the project — came down to our camp to leave us a small piece of paper written in the Sherpa dialect. At first, we couldn’t understand it. Only weeks later, with the help of engineer Bahadur, with whom we had by then built a relationship of trust, were we able to translate it. It was a request. He was asking for help for his village. They wanted to be connected to the electrical grid. The problem was clear: it wasn’t possible to connect them to the existing system. They were too far away. But the real question was different: how could we say no to them? So we didn’t. We hiked up to Pawakhola on foot, hours of climbing uphill, carrying a hand-drawn sheet of paper. A simple diagram, an attempt to explain that we wanted to help them, but that we couldn’t promise anything. We would go back to Switzerland, look for funding, and do everything possible to build a system for them. At first, they understood that we would return the very next day to begin the work. We celebrated together with them in that remote village among the Himalayan mountains. We didn’t have the heart to dampen that enthusiasm.A few weeks later we returned with Bahadur, who explained the situation more clearly. We would go back to Switzerland, raise the funds, and try to complete the project within a year.

Two months later, SEED of LIGHT was born.

Four months later, in Pawakhola, the first lightbulbs were switched on.