I’ve already shared about visiting Nepal shortly after the 2015 earthquakes, but one particular incident stood out.

On arrival, DOP Gaz was not feeling at all well, so we all felt it was best for him to rest at The Salvation Army’s Sisters Café, the location which had become the hub of the disaster response. So it was left to just John Murray and me to shadow the emergency services team (headed by the wonderful Carol Telfer) as they went out on a food distribution to one of the several communities they were supporting.

Although not a huge distance away, the journey was complicated by damaged roads. In fact, even loading the truck required a human chain, as it wasn’t possible to get close to the makeshift warehouse.

By the time John and I arrived at the site, the combination of the two previous weeks in India, heat, altitude and the effects of the ever-present dust were starting to affect me. Lugging the filming equipment around took me to the edge of my exertions, and I was pretty much a spent force once we’d done a single piece to camera.

I don’t think I actually expressed my exhaustion (and certainly not in Nepali), but I do remember just sort of pathetically clinging to the tripod for support. And then, from literally nowhere, came a kind-faced lady with a chilled bottle of Fanta. This was the most refreshing drink that has ever passed my lips. Cool, fresh, revitalising.

I thanked the woman fervently, trying desperately to remember the local phrase for expressing gratitude (dhanyavada, hopefully). But I was struck quite deeply by the ‘otherness’ of the situation. Here I was, the other side of the world, part of a team bringing relief to communities who had lost pretty much everything in a terrible natural disaster. And somehow, even though we were feeding them, the tables had spontaneously turned, and this woman had somehow noticed a need and found the only bottle of refrigerated Fanta in greater Kathmandu. And was now offering it freely to me. Of course, in reality, there is no ‘them and us’. It is all ‘us’.

The holy Fanta had its intended effect, and I was back in action a few minutes later. Gaz also made a speedy recovery back at Sisters, so the rest of our visit went smoothly. We were able to witness the loading of a MAF helicopter at what remained of the international airport, filling up with USAID supplies for distribution in a remote village in the mountains that had been completely cut off. Given my recent experience, I wondered how the villagers would receive the airborne stranger bringing them kindness, carbonated or otherwise.