Nepal Trip
Kaz Murray | kmurray25@dtechhs.org
Halfway across the globe and twenty hours of flight away, Nepal has much to offer in terms of iconic land features and culture. And thanks to senior Ethan Zettler-Bray, ten students have the opportunity to visit the country for more than three weeks in a unique and immersive trip.
“The goal of the trip is to reintroduce a new form of experiential education,” Zettler-Bray says. He was inspired to create such a trip after hearing about d.tech’s India trip in 2016, which was the passion project of d.tech alum and Nepal trip chaperone Julia Green. But after the Seva travel program – Sanskrit for ‘selfless service’ – disbanded in his freshman year, he wasn’t sure if the trip would be possible. “I don’t know why [the club leaders stopped the trip],” Zettler-Bray says, “maybe they lost interest or didn’t have younger students doing it.”
But thanks to former School Director Melissa Mizel, the Nepal trip found a second life. “My sophomore year, I was talking to Melissa… and she was like, “Let’s make this happen.” Zettler-Bray credits her with giving him the spirit to keep going, and he and Mizel spent over thirty minutes talking to Green over the phone to come up with a plan to continue the trip. Attendees will be gone from December 19th, 2024, to January 14th, 2025, and will be in partnership with a design thinking school, Adhyayan School, from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.
“Adhyayan is going to host us, and I’m really excited for that,” Attendee and junior Carina Ongpin says, revealing what she is most excited for about the trip. All ten students and the chaperones will be staying with host families and two monasteries along the way and will determine what they’ll do each day when they’re there.
“[Responsible travel] is a priority with this group to travel to a place where they are aware of the impact,” d.tech Administrator Nicole Cerra says, “whether that’s environmental impact… and also your impact on the people where you are and if you’re respectful.” Zettler-Bray and the Design Tech admin are determined to make trips of similar nature happen every year or two so that everyone can have a chance at expanding their awareness of their impact around the world. But Zettler-Bray states that “you don’t have to travel across the world to really experience this. You can stay in your own county and experience so much difference.”
More details about the trip and its contents will be explored once the group arrives back from Kathmandu. For now, we say farewell and pheri bhetaula – ‘see you soon’ in nepali – to our fellow travelers!