For 2 DM2008 Finalists, the Longest Journeys

Shree Krishna Updadhyay, Executive Chairman of the finalist Support Activities for Poor Producers of Nepal (SAPPOS-Nepal), and his colleague Govind Koirala appear to have logged the longest travel times to DM2008.

Koirala (at right in ajacent photo) started out Saturday, Sept. 13, by bus from his remote village of Dumja. It took him a day to reach Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. From there it was a five-hour flight to Doha, capital of Qatar, with an overnight layover. The last leg of his trip was the nonstop flight to Washington --14 hours -- where he arrived Tuesday, Sept. 16.

Updadhyay (at left in photo) had a less time-consuming but just as complicated journey. He started out last Saturday from Kathmandu, where he lives, with a one-hour connecting flight to New Delhi. After an eight-hour layover (in the airport terminal), he flew to Amsterdam (eight hours), then to Detroit (seven hours), and finally to Washington (a couple more hours), where he arrived Monday.

Updadhyay and Koirala's project, titled Packaging High Altitude Agricultural Solutions for Upland Farmers, wants to establish organic high-value farming to help 200 extremely poor upland Tamang households. The project, which seeks $197,035 in grant money, would use low-cost techniques like micro-irrigation.