original article Trekking, working for wellbeing of Nepalese [ 2006-11-20 ] By Arun Ranjit The Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal lies quite far away from the United States situated in the another part of the world.. But both the countries are gradually coming closer. Not only the topography and location between Nepal and the USA, but the culture of Americans is also totally different from that of Nepalese. Diverse cultures have been sources of creation and priceless legacy of historical and traditional assets. Every country has its own culture and observes it in its own way. A country's rich and ancient cultural heritage will not be recognized unless it is made known to the world at large through publicity. As many people have studied and are interested in Nepalese age-old culture and natural scenic beauties and challenging adventure provided, many tourists are flowing into Nepal to experience the real taste of Nepal and Nepalese harmony and many others have been doing research. Nepal is the birth place of Profounder of Peace?Lord Buddha, the country where the world's highest snow-covered peak? Mt. Everest and the capital city Kathmandu is well known as the "City of Festivals and Temples"is situated. In this regard, a wide traveler US national Ben Parks was in Nepal in 1998 for the first time and was very much impressed from Nepalese high Himalayan adventure, traditional culture, harmonize social life, to be lost musical strings, unthinkable tourism and many more and has been working to promote and assist the Nepal and Nepalese in the US. An engineer by profession 68 year-old Ben Parks who was born and educated in Florida was active in electronics, tourism and worldwide electronic consultancy career. He has been helping Nepalese through the established of the Parks Foundation. A chief of the Foundation, Parks has been promoting wide aspects of Nepal not only in the United States but also around the world. Ben experienced Nepal in 1998 for the first time and till now he has been visiting culturally rich and adventurally challenging scenic beauties in Nepal several times. Talking with this scribe recently in the capital, Ben was saying that "Thinking of the need to be strengthen the cultural, social, economic and intellectual's ties at the people's level, I founded Parks Foundation in order to improve knowledge about Nepal and make it more familiar to the Americans.? With the impression of invisible scenes and sophisticated level of god gifted natural scenic beauties to rich art and culture, adjustable weather to kind hearted people, engineer and wide traveler Ben is thinking that cross-cultural activities should not be limited to history or tradition but also be broadened to identity, respect, learn and incubate new trends of culture emerging from changes. "People sometimes ask me how I went from an elderly trekker to a passionate advocate of a Prison Exchange Treaty between Nepal and Thailand,"said Ben about his turning point affected in this life. "Sometimes I am even surprised at the way events have unfolded and still follows from my family and childhood,"he said. "I met many interesting peoples especially in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rice, Peru and so on. But I love mountains and trekking. I love Nepal, coming here for trekking?a backpackers' dream?, he informed. "I make friends easily and quickly became involved with my guides and porters and their neighbours,"he said. "Years went by with travel to many places. In the fall of 2000 I found a note on the bulletin board of our Bangkok hotel. It invited travelers to visit the Thai prisons and especially Nepali prisoners. I began writing to two of the men and soon had a web-site with 20 inmates. I began writing news paper articles and got more involved in the problems. I discovered a lot about poverty, work contracts, corruption and more. I decided to get a Nepal-Thai Prison Exchange Treaty to bring them home. Approximately there are 80 Nepalis in Thai prison who have been innocent victims. Years went by, and I was spending thousands of dollars,"he said. I founded www.ptet-nepal.org to arrange the information and planning. I worked and worked and set up offices in Nepal, Thailand, USA and Europe too. So slowly prisoner families began to see that they must work together. He has also been helping the children form Mali, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Nepal. The goals of the (Prisoner Transfer and Exchange Treaty) PTET-NEPAL Committee are to urge the Nepali Government to write and implement a prison exchange treaty with Thailand. "In this regard, family input is essential in pressing the Nepal Government to take action?, he said. Nepal is among the last nations to implement a prison exchange treaty with Thailand. Nigeria, USA and even Estonia have brought their people home to a quick parole. The other aim is to provide support for the men and women serving sentences in distant prisons which include letter writing, money contributions and sale of prison handicrafts, political contact and health. Also the foundation has aims to support the family of prisoners, suffering from loss of their family members that includes job training for family, school support for their children and to provide support for returning prisoners through schooling, job-placement and psychological support. PTET-Nepal is effortful to complete the Prisoner Transfer and Exchange Treaty and has been usually providing a minimum of US $ 11 per month for food, toiletries, medical, cooking and postal fees and also to help in transit guarantee papers. "Nepal is a land of different religions, people are tolerant to one another; they are living in prefect harmony. Nepalese hearts are known for social goodwill, tolerance. Thus, I believed that I will get full support from them and will be committed to work until the PET between Nepal and Thailand is complete and they return to Nepali soil"he said. Now it is times to show mutual harmony, cultural solidarity, religious goodwill and fraternal feelings among all the Nepalese for the sake of humanity and the country.
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