INSPIRATIONAL STORY OF A TAMANG GIRL

A Daughter of Expedition Cook

Graduation Stories: Dawa Lama Tamang will be first woman in village to earn degree. In the foothills of the Himalayas, a Tamang village in Nepal soon will celebrate the graduation of a University of Kansas student — the first woman from their community to earn a degree.

The village is Gupti, Chimding in Solukhumbu, which sits in the shadow of Mount Everest. The student is Dawa Lama Tamang, who will receive a degree in management and leadership from KU’s School of Business on Sunday, May 16.

Although she was born and raised in Kathmandu, Dawa, like all children in Nepal, identifies with the home village of her parents. She is the daughter of Dhane Tamang and the late Ang Chokpa Sherpa-Tamang. Her parents are from mountain tribes with Tibetan origins. Her father is Tamang and her mother was Sherpa.

Dawa has visited her father’s village only once. She had finished high school and was preparing to come to Kansas. Her plans to study abroad required gathering passport documentation in the village. After years of hearing about the village of about 2,000 residents, many of whom are her relatives, Dawa looked forward to her first visit.

Within a few days, Dawa realized her life in Kathmandu had not prepared her for hardiness required for the rugged conditions in rural Nepal. Each home is now wired for one light bulb, but all heat is from wood fires. No homes have indoor plumbing. Yet her family’s welcoming reception was uplifting. They encouraged Dawa to become the first woman from the village to earn a degree. A cousin, now living in Oklahoma, she learned, was the first man from the village to earn a university degree.

It was through her father that Dawa found her way to Kansas to enter college. As a cook for a trekking outfitter, her father meets people from around the world on expeditions in the Himalayas. Such was the case more than 10 years ago, when KU law professor Ellen Sward made her first a trekking expedition in Nepal.

Hoping to give back to Nepal, Sward decided to sponsor a child’s education in Nepal. The youngest daughter of the expedition cook was the right age for sponsorship — Dawa’s sister, Pasang. Three years later, Sward made a second trip to Nepal and was invited to dinner by the Tamangs. She met all three children, including Dawa, the oldest.

“She had the best English in the family, and we talked at length. She had a spark that really impressed me. I asked her what she wanted to do when she finished high school, and she said, ‘I want to stand on my own feet,’ ” Sward recalled.

Dawa not only helped her mother with the two younger children but also helped her father translate correspondence from clients and friends around the world.

“Her father gave her the best education he could afford,” Sward said of Dawa’s private high school education, where English was mandatory. Sward noted that in Nepal, families often do not attempt to give girls an education.

Within a year of her second visit to Nepal, Sward learned Dawa’s mother had died from a chronic illness. Dawa was about to finish high school. Sward offered to sponsor her in college in the United States. In December 2005, Dawa arrived in Kansas, a little surprised at snow — rare in Kathmandu — and eager to enroll in college.

Sward suggested that Dawa begin at Johnson County Community College to get a feel for a U.S. campus and prepare for KU’s larger campus. Dawa graduated with honors and entered KU’s School of Business.

At Johnson County, she had adjusted to cultural differences in student decorum. “In Nepal, I didn’t talk at all in class. You only speak if you are asked a question,” Dawa remembered.

Casual greetings from classmates required more adjustment. In Nepal, school and family friends alike expect to engage in conversation with one another, especially outside of class.

“To say, ‘Hello, how are you,’ and move on, would be considered rude,” Dawa said. Yet she said she has become accustomed to casual greetings.

The distance from Kathmandu to Kansas remains great where travel is involved.

When she joins the Commencement procession into Memorial Stadium, her father will be in Nepal. She plans to send him photos of her graduation online. With cell phone connections, she arranges for her father to get help in navigating the Internet.

Dawa also sends photos of her brother, Raju, and sister, Pasang, who arrived in Lawrence more recently with Sward’s sponsorship. Pasang, whom Sward sponsored in Nepal for 10 years, arrived in Lawrence in 2008 and is completing her junior year at Bishop Seabury Academy. Their brother, Raju, 21, arrived in July 2009 and is a student at Johnson County Community College.

With her degree, Dawa plans to enter the international marketplace and eventually earn a master’s degree in human resources information systems. Her immediate goals include finding a job before entering graduate school.

“I want to get experience and earn enough money to help support myself in a master’s program,” she said.