Ben Ayers, director of the dZi Foundation in Nepal - Episode 10

Alex:

Hello everyone, welcome to the tenth episode of the kimkim podcast. Today I have Ben Ayers on the show and he's been living in Nepal for the past eighteen years and is the director of the dZi Foundation, which is a grassroots organization that works hand-in-hand with local communities in Nepal. Ben, thanks for taking some time to be on the show.

Ben:

Yeah and Alex it is my pleasure, it's good to talk.

Alex:

Great, so maybe we can just pick up with what we were talking about before we started and you were saying just a bit about your background.

Ben:

Yeah, no totally, we were just kind of chatting about Nepal and life in general. I've been here now for about, almost eighteen years. Nepal has pretty much consumed my adult life. I came out when I was a student in college and then basically fell in love and configured my life so that I could be here as much as possible ever since. The time has flown by, I can't believe myself that I've been here this long, but I think it's a real testament to the place and the country. That it's still just as new and exciting and fresh as it was the first time I stepped off of the airplane in ninety eight.

Alex:

In ninety eight when you first came there, did you just come as a traveler and stay for a bit? Or, what did you do when you first went there?

Ben:

Yeah, I came as a student on a study abroad program. I was in my Junior year in college and I was a climber. I was attracted to Nepal for the Himalayas and that kind of stuff. It was a way for me to learn the language and experience the culture a little more intimately. Also, a way to get out of New England for a few months and that experience completely changed my life. By the end of it, it was clear to me that Nepal was something that I very much wanted to devote my life to.

I guess at that point I didn't understand that it would take ... Occupy as much space in my identity and my being as it has, but it was obvious to me by the end of that first six month trip here that I had unresolved business here. I knew that I needed to come back, I wanted to come back and that return trip turned into another tip, into another trip and sort of organically, I've been here ever since.

Alex:

Wow, are you there for year round, or do you have to leave every once in a while? How does that ...

Ben:

I'm here full time and have been for the past nine years or so. Before that in the first years that I was working here and running a different organization that preceded dZi for me, I was back and forth trying to raise funds in the states and so on and so forth. Thankfully, with dZi and our registration and so on and so forth, I'm able to get a visa to live here permanently.

Alex:

Great and you said this last year has been up in the air since your ... In the earthquake your home was damaged and you've been sort of picking up the pieces since then?

Ben:

Yeah, definitely, In the earthquake the home that I lived in was damaged beyond repair. I lived out of the tent in the yard for well over a month, but a lot of us did back then. It's funny to say back then, it feels like a lifetime ago. Then we just had this crazy, kind of, I don't know how to describe it, the year was so full of energy, both in terms of working on the reconstruction efforts. Both trying to keep up with the media and also with the growth in importance for our work to try and capitalize on the fund raising opportunities that came up, that would allow us to do all the work that we've been able to do since the earthquake. Just all of that has been just incredibly time ... Busy, you know?

Alex:

Right.

Ben:

But, great as well.

Alex:

I'd love to hear a bit more about what exactly you guys do. I know you have a bit of a unique approach to development and sustainable projects. I'd love to hear a bit more about that.

Ben:

Yeah, totally. At the dZi Foundation our approach to development is different than sort of how we see the conventional approach. To development is, in the sense that our organization is structured for us to really be accountable to and to work in, what we see, is a true partnership with the communities that we focus on. So, kind of to ... I'll walk you through it in a ... I'll try to give you the three minute explanation, it will probably run into five.

Alex:

Sure, yeah.

Ben:

So basically we work in these extremely remote communities in eastern Nepal. These are communities that are ... When I first started working there were five or six days from a road. The roads are getting closer, but still haven't reached our communities directly yet. They're now about a day, day and a half out. These are areas that are neglected by the traditional aid process and by the government, just given the remoteness and the poverty.

Alex:

Right.

Ben:

That's there's exasperated because of that. The way that we work is instead of having a certain sectoral focus, or having a certain focus on a type of intervention and then trying to do that in a lot of places. You know a lot of NGO's, a lot of aid organizations put a lot of emphasis and weight on the idea of scaling. Meaning, you take one idea and you use an entrepreneur model that takes that idea and tries to do it in as many places as possible.

Our approach is actually quite the opposite, where we try to focus on one area and spend a really long time working with the communities and trying to respond to the needs that the communities identify, regardless of what those are. We try to really look for ... We call what we do like, deep development, we try to look at these really deep coverage over a long term that we really feel is the only way, or the best way to get sustainable. It's an overused term, but to really actually look at creating change that will last beyond our tenure there, but also change that will last for generations in those communities. To really change the actual situation there in a way that the communities have decided for themselves.

Alex:

Has this been an approach that has evolved over the years at dZi? Or, you've been there for many years, I guess this has come to be sort of the most sustainable approach for you guys.

Ben:

Yeah, It's totally evolved. dZi as an organization has also existed since nineteen ninety eight, it was founded by a gentleman and his wife at the time in Colorado who are Jim Nowack and Kim Reynolds they were mountain climbers that wanted to give back. In the beginning the dZi programs were all over the place, you know? Supported a lot of different projects that ranged from girls homes in Kathmandu to a bunch of different small projects all over the middle hills of the country and even some in India.

The way that dZi as an organization has evolved is over the eighteen years that dZi's been around, Jim and the board of directors and stuff we kept refining our methodology and I came ... I started working for dZi in two thousand seven. When we started working together we really started increasing our focus on this one area of eastern Nepal, even in the communities that we work at in eastern Nepal, we've also refined our ability and the way that we work with the communities. We've also built up our project expertise. In the beginning it was a lot of school buildings, but now we're really looking at much larger income generation projects. Looking at much more complicated projects like sanitation and those projects are tied into income generation and agriculture through using new technologies like urine recycling. Looking at school projects, the way that we build schools has changed tremendously as well.

Where as in the beginning we relied upon local engineering and expertise, but now of course we're looking at earthquake proofing, which is things that the communities don't necessarily have an indigenous understanding of, but are very excited about helping with. The whole methodology has kind of ... We've grown with the communities and that's one of the real benefits of our long term approach. Is that we've stuck around long enough to make mistakes and then to be able to learn from and correct those mistakes.

Alex:

Right.

Ben:

That's how as an organization I think we've really gained our effectiveness, or earned our effectiveness. You can't do that when you have a three year project cycle, or if your only focused on building libraries, or doing one approach, you know?

Alex:

Right. When you meet with these communities over the years is it easy to sort of target and identify what the main priorities are and what's needed? Or, is does that also take quite a bit of time?

Ben:

Yeah, no it does. The way that we work is we start very small. When we partner with a new community, even that process for us is initiated by communities. We only work in areas that we've been invited into. Then, we know that we have at least an eight or nine year commitment to those communities. So, it's a very serious things for us, in terms of our own fund raising capacity and our ability as an organization to really take on that long term approach. Once we start working, we start with projects that don't exceed five hundred dollars. We help the communities on a neighborhood level do a lot of these small projects and you build up from there.

The way that we help communities identify and propose and initiate projects is a learning by doing model. We start with projects that communities are really excited about, but don't have massive budgets. There's a low risk in the beginning for both us and the communities and it allows us to get to know each other and to work together and to correct mistakes before they get huge.

Then, also what you see as we work in more and more communities, right now we work in ... By the end of next year ... We're taking on two new ones this year, so by the end of next year we'll have nine different communities that we're working in with a population of almost forty thousand people. In those communities, they're all in a [inaudible 00:12:35] area, so the neighbors see, "Oh, Goodell has toilets. Goodell just did this really interesting open plastic free thing, where they banned plastic and littering." Those ideas catch on from one community to the other. There's an awful lot of sharing and an awful lot of collaboration as well. It has sort of a life of its own.

Alex:

Yeah, yeah it's organic in a way.

Ben:

Yeah, absolutely.

Alex:

Yeah. That's great, so are these the kind of projects that people get involved with? People coming to Nepal and joining when they get there, or is it something they contribute to from home and then they follow along? Or, how does that work?

Ben:

Yeah, our approach is very much ... We focus on really mobilizing communities to participate. Our whole belief, our whole structure is around working with community members themselves and really harnessing their expertise and their capabilities and their contributions. Last year, for example, we had like ... I'd have to look to get the exact numbers, but it was something in the neighborhood of fourteen thousand days of labor contributed by community members to dZi projects.

Alex:

Wow, that's great.

Ben:

Yeah and as a single group, if you look at local contribution to our projects valued at local rates, which is about five or six dollars a day for labor. The community members are our largest single donor. We really focus on being accountable to them. What that does, is it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for foreign volunteers. We feel that that's actually an important part of our approach.

I think a lot of times volunteer programs are structured, rightfully, for providing an experience for foreign volunteers and that's a great thing. For us, we find that foreign volunteers aren't really good laborers, they don't have the local language skills, they don't necessarily have what it takes to really work within our model. Where as local communities obviously have all that local relevance. We don't tend to work with foreign volunteers much. I think my perspective on that, the way that we do, when we do bring out supporters to see our work and in the communities, it's much more about having our donors and our supporters celebrate what the communities have done. Really it's more about just an honest exchange and conversation and it becomes more like a cultural experience and a trek, which I think myself is the greatest way that foreigners can contribute to Nepal. Is to simply have an experience there and to enrich themselves and to fall in love with the country and the way that I did on my first trip.

Alex:

Yeah.

Ben:

That wasn't volunteer base it was about really getting to know people on a human level and understanding and falling in love with the place. Contributing to the economy directly, so instead of having a one week volunteer experience, where you paint a school. You instead have a really incredible experience where you build friendships, you build relationships, you create Nepal, you kind of find the family or whatever. Then that translates into five or six trips over the next ten years.

Alex:

Yeah.

Ben:

That has a much more, in my opinion, a much more direct impact upon the country.

Alex:

No, it's a great point Ben and I can really relate to that as well. It's more of ... It's an attitude and forming a relationship and having an experience that just profoundly impacts you and brings you back to the place and makes you care about it and the people there.

Ben:

Absolutely.

Alex:

Practically speaking how do you, or how does someone go about that other than just coming with an open attitude and an open mind? There's the typical treks that everybody does in Nepal, I guess, you can still have that kind of experience on, I'm sure, in [inaudible 00:16:46], Everest and [inaudible 00:16:46], but there's probably other treks or experiences that those things are more likely to happen, or those relationships and those experiences.

Ben:

Yeah, no definitely. It's the kind of thing where I think ... I don't want to be totally like, knocking volunteer experiences, it's just what, in my perspective, a lot of time the voluntourism model becomes a bit token. I think the people who are interested in contributing shouldn't discount their own enjoyment as a contributor to Nepal. That's what the statement I would make and then it's a question of for a traveler, how do you find that enjoyment? How do you create that experience for yourself? That just becomes about good travel planning. Some people, the Everest region, the [inaudible 00:17:42] region, those are very developed areas, that are very popular. The experience you'll have there will be less cultural. Also those are areas that are less impoverished than most other parts of the country.

If you're going to go to one of the ... My advice for trekkers who want to go to one of those areas, is like that's a great first trip to Nepal because it's relatively ... Nepal can be challenging for travel. It's when you are stuck in [inaudible 00:18:12] waiting for an airplane to get to Kathmandu for three days, you know, it's just like the classic Everest experience. You can drink cappuccino and watch BBC there. That's kind of ... You can get some solace in that and that's cool. For your first trip, that's a great thing.

I would encourage people who are going to the more popular trekking routes to really hire porters. Work with the trekking companies and work with local guides and get over that sort of feeling that you have to carry your own stuff, or you're somehow not accomplishing what you set out to do. Get to know a porter, sing and dance and laugh with him, or her. Pay them really well, tip them like crazy. Tip them directly. Don't pass it through the guide. Just to be sure that you have that, that they're getting what you mean to give them and also you have that direct eye to eye exchange and way to say thank you. That's like the gateway trek, you know? After that a lot of trekkers want to do, or more ambitious trekkers want to do things that are more off the beaten path. There's a lot of those trips. There's a lot of like [inaudible 00:19:22] to Everest, route is still amazing. The [inaudible 00:19:26] from the east where you walk from [inaudible 00:19:27] you can tea house trek that.

It takes you up, you don't even have to go up into the Everest region, you can walk from [inaudible 00:19:36] across to [inaudible 00:19:38] and go back to Kathmandu, you still get great mountain views. There's a lot of, there's a lot of resources on the internet and out there about these other trips. [inaudible 00:19:47] is super cool, the west of Nepal [inaudible 00:19:51] those areas are still, more or less, unexplored. Those kind of real adventures that you want to have where you're out for thirty days, or you're out for eight days, you never see another foreigner. There's a lot of opportunities for those.

For that, the trick then becomes about choosing the right trekking company. Choosing the right partners on the ground and there's ways you can do that through the internet. If you know people who have trekked in Nepal before. Look for references, do your research and don't always go for the cheapest. Go for the company that has the best reputation and go for the company that puts the emphasis on treating it's workers well. Again, part of your objective for coming to Nepal is to help the economy there. You don't want to necessarily skimp on the price of your trip. You don't necessarily want to skimp on services either because you may as well enjoy yourself.

Alex:

Yeah.

Ben:

Have the ability to carry the extra jacket and the extra novel that you just want to hang out at base camp and read.

Alex:

Yeah, completely agree and often times it's not that much more expensive. It can be a matter of a few hundred dollars and you get that much more sort of safety, a great ... It just ensures a great experience with the agency.

Ben:

Yeah, exactly. I think that there is sort of this equation where, when people travel to Asia, they sort of become a little bit paranoid about getting ripped off. Everybody sort of feels that you have to bargain to the absolute bottom to be able to have an authentic experience or something and that's a dangerous perspective. I think that the reality is if the experience is being offered at a price that you think is worth that experience is worth, that's really where the conversation should begin and end.

Alex:

Do you guys offer any kind of trips that people can go on as part of the work that you guys do, or no?

Ben:

Yeah, we do. Something else that we're looking into more in the future. I lead these custom trips for donors and potential donors for dZi and for us. They are centered around a fund raising endeavor and that's another piece of the equation on how you help Nepal, is ... It's kind of like the least sexy, but the most important way, is to finding resource. One of the things that allow us at dZi to do the work that we do, to respond to the needs of communities, is having individual donors that understand our mission and are willing to contribute to our projects with an open mind and themselves being willing to trust the communities. To support a wide variety of projects. A lot of traditional donors grant writing and stuff is very much based around a very linear and a very singular approach to projects. Which doesn't allow us the flexibility to work with communities, so that being said, one of the ways that we raise those funds is through leading treks and stuff like that. Go ahead.

Alex:

These are treks to the eastern communities that you work in?

Ben:

Yeah, exactly.

Alex:

Okay.

Ben:

We do, I'll lead trips that go from seven to ten days. It's completely in the areas where we work. In the eight years that I've been leading these trips we've seen a few foreigners just by chance in those areas. Very, very remote, very cool, very integrated with the communities. We stay in peoples homes, we camp in tents in the yard. We basically just go and visit old friends and learn about what communities ... The community members themselves are very eager to show off all of the cool stuff they've done. It's a really different and interesting and a very uniquely integrated approach. Right now those are very limited, just because of our time is limited and we kind of, use them again as vehicles to raise really much needed funds for what we do. I'm pursuing looking at working with other trekking partners and other companies in the future so that we can also offer these to a wider spectrum of people. It doesn't have to be so focused on simply generating funds.

The areas that we work in, they're incredible, in terms of trekking. It's the best trekking I've done, anywhere in Nepal. The communities are really eager to see more tourism and to see more people coming out, both contributing to the local economy, but also just locals there are just pretty open and friendly and pretty psyched about having, sharing their world with other people. It's one of our objectives too in the long run is to try to develop those areas for sustainable tourism, but that's a much more complex process that will take us a number of years.

Alex:

That's great, this is a loaded question, but obviously as tourism becomes more into a region and tea houses get put up and eventually roads get put in. That must have a pretty big effect on the community and it must be a huge contrast between the communities that you're trekking through and the ones that are in the mainstream trekking areas in Nepal.

Ben:

Absolutely, the difference is night and day. One of the things is here when you go into the Everest ... The kids, they'll say [inaudible 00:25:33] to you, but they'll also, it's, "Hello, one pen." Or the kids, they ... This doesn't knock that experience, but from a trekkers experience you know, in the Everest region, you're aware that you are one of hundreds of people who have passed through, even that day. Where as out in our areas, you're one of a few dozen people that have passed through these communities ever. The relationship you can establish with the communities is very different. Part of it is the novelty of it. As you mentioned, with the roads being developed, that's sort of happening independently of trekking and tourism. That's just part of the general modernization of Nepal. The general march of time and progress.

Alex:

Yeah.

Ben:

As lodges and stuff get built, yeah the cultures they do change slightly. I think one of the things that's important for us to remember, is that the cultures don't necessarily become worse, they just change. They integrate with a global world. That's an inevitable process and it's a process that the communities have embraced, much better than we have. We kind of do want ... One of the things that we have to be careful about is ... And something that we've seen massively after the earthquake is disaster tourism. The volunteer process does become a part of that. You do want, there is poverty tourism, where people want to go and see things that are shocking and terrible. The communities don't necessarily want to show that off. What you see in the Everest region is a community, the Sherpa community there, has gone from being some of the poorest per capita income people in the country to some of the wealthiest per capita.

That's a great triumph for people. You do see the cultural institutions in [inaudible 00:27:14] the monasteries, the quality of life there is fantastic for people and the monasteries are more well preserved than they ever have been. That, for tourist it's also a great experience. The scenery is incredible and it's ... When I've gone trekking and when I do go trekking in the Everest region, I miss the authenticness, the strangeness of the remote areas, but I also don't really mind the cappuccino between you and me.

Alex:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more, it's pretty nice and I'm sure bizarre there to sit down and ... We were based out of there for three weeks this spring and we did some work. It's pretty surreal just having coffee and using WiFi from a view of Everest.

Ben:

I know, I know and it's one of those things where you can get into [inaudible 00:28:05] and all the old timers here, I'm still guilty of it, I'm like, "Oh, I remember when Kathmandu didn't have any traffic lights." You know what I mean? You get into this ... I've been here long enough now that you get kind of self righteous about how awesome things used to be. Everybody does that, everyone's talking about how awesome America used to be. One of the things is that you got to embrace the craziness and the wildness and the wonder of the world. That's what travels about, it's not just about going to a museum, travel is about experiencing a place that's in a unique moment of time. That's how you're enriched. You're enriched in a real way because, man our world is a place where [inaudible 00:28:46] has WiFi. It's crazy, it's wonderful, it makes us also think about our relationship to our devices. In a profound way that we wouldn't get otherwise. In New York it's no big deal to be looking at your phone, but when Mount Everest is looming over you, you kind of feel a little weird about looking at your phone. That's a good experience.

Alex:

Yeah, no it's true. So, living in Kathmandu and being for so long, what are some of the challenges, both personally and also with dZi, there must be some difficulties?

Ben:

Yeah, Kathmandu is like simultaneously the most beautiful and terrible place in the world. Living here, it's, I guess, part of what I really loved about Nepal and what has drawn me here and kept me here, has been the incredible energy that has come out of those extremes. The hardships are real, like the pollution in Kathmandu, is absolutely terrible. It's not the most polluted city in the world, but it's certainly amongst, a few very polluted cities. It's not a great thing.

The fact that there's not reliable electricity that the infrastructures terrible. That Nepal undergoes frequent political, moments of political instability and that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's a total drag. That kind of thing, getting typhoid fever is not an experience that I want to repeat, but might. That's, to me, part of the price of admission here. To me it's worth it. It's a choice that I've made with open eyes because on the other hand in Kathmundo there's always something crazy and wonderful. There's a sixteenth century chariot being dragged through the streets like you're late for work because there is some spontaneous [inaudible 00:30:56] festival in the old cobbled streets of downtown [inaudible 00:31:01].

I have more moments living in Kathmandu that I just think that I am so lucky to be here and to see this and to experience this because it's completely insane. Then I have those experiences in the states or anywhere else that I've lived. So, for me that's worth the challenges. Yeah, it's a choice that I've actively made, it is something that my Nepal friends, a lot of them thinks it's funny because a lot of people in Nepal are doing everything they can to travel abroad for opportunity and I've sort of given up that life to be here.

Alex:

Right.

Ben:

For me, it's ... I guess, one of the organizing principals in my life has been adventure. I have a base camp where adventure is always right outside my front door and often times even inside the front door. It's just a cool and wild and energetic place to be and I love it.

Alex:

Yeah, that's great. It's great to hear that and hopefully I get to come and meet you there in person. Do you guys have an office in Kathmandu, where people can visit and stop by?

Ben:

Yeah, totally. We have an office in Kathmandu and the southern part of the city, we have lunch everyday at one o'clock. We always welcome guests to come and just hang out, learn more about what we do and share a meal with us, and whatever. So, you can get in touch with me via our website and yeah, we're always, always looking to meet new friends.

Alex:

Great and that's www.dzi.org right?

Ben:

Yeah, that's correct.

Alex:

I'll share these few links on our show notes on the website on www.Kimkim.com/podcast after the show, so people can check it out, but yeah, thanks for taking some time to be on the show and it's been really interesting hearing about the work you guys are doing in the east and I look forward to catching up in person one of these days.

Ben:

Totally, thanks Alex, it's been great to connect and yeah I do hope to, I hope we get to meet face to face soon.