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Photos by
Tom Roberts ’79

Magazine
Summer/Fall 2002

Postcard from Nepal

Tom Roberts returned to the Shechen Clinic in June 2002. An excerpt from his correspondence:

Greetings from Nepal,
I wish you all could have been here last night. What a magical evening. It started with a huge downpour an hour before the candle lighting at the Stupa. We were a bit worried it wouldn’t happen, but the sun came out (Buddha must have wanted things cleaned up a bit first) and the wind died. It was incredible to watch 100,000 candles being placed around this massive shrine. I felt a bit funny sponsoring an event that is a very important thing to devout Buddhists, but the staff of the clinic showed up and everyone in the community participated.

During the day we saw several severely disabled people and I met and treated a beautiful woman in a wheelchair whose body is withered into a knot. We had her light the first candle. I’ve never seen a face beam like that before. It made it all worth the effort.

It is impossible to describe the magic of this scene with hundreds of people lighting these candles, kids running everywhere, dogs barking, bells ringing, and lots of laughter.

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