Podcast Ep188 Ben Ayers
Didrik Johnck: Hello listeners, welcome to Erik Weihenmayer's No Barriers podcast, where he talks to people living, you guessed it, a no barriers life. Our guest today is Ben Ayers, and he joins us from the other side of the planet. He's a man whose life and work in Nepal have deeply influenced his understanding of resilience and community.
Ben has spent the last 27 years in Kathmandu, where he's become a fluent speaker of Nepali and an astute observer of the cultural and environmental dynamics in the region. His work as a journalist and filmmaker has shed light on the extraordinary lives of people like Maule, a Kulung honey hunter whose story is captured in his film, The Last Honey Hunter.
In this episode, Ben and Erik discuss the strength and adaptability of the Kulung people, the complexities of cultural preservation amidst modernization, and the profound lessons we can learn from remote communities. Ben shares his experiences ranging from the spiritual rituals of honey hunting to the challenges of implementing community driven development projects.
Prepare to be deeply moved and enlightened as Erik and Ben explore what it truly means to live a No Barriers life. Let's get into it. I'm producer Didrik Johnck, and this is the No Barriers podcast.
Erik Weihenmayer: It's easy to talk about the successes, but what doesn't get talked about enough is the struggle. My name is Erik Weihenmayer. I've gotten the chance to ascend Mount Everest, to climb the tallest mountain in every continent, to kayak the Grand Canyon, and I happen to be blind. It's been a struggle to live what I call a no barriers life.
To define it, to push the parameters of what it means. And part of the equation is diving into the learning process and trying to illuminate the universal elements that exist along the way. In that unexplored terrain, between those dark places we find ourselves and the summit, exists a map. That map, that way forward.
is what we call No Barriers.
Hey everybody, welcome to the No Barriers podcast. This is Erik Weihenmayer, and today I'm psyched because I'm talking to a good old friend of mine. It's not that you're old, Ben, but you're a good old friend of mine. And, and we've known each other for a while and done lots of fun things and projects together and, and climbed together, and, uh, you were instrumental in helping me to, bring home my son Arjun when we adopted him from Nepal.
So thank you for all the amazing stuff that you've given to my life.
Ben Ayers: No, I really appreciate it, Erik. I mean, it's great to be able to talk with you today and. I appreciate all the inspiration, you know, he gets to call you a friend. And that's been a big thing for me as well.
Erik Weihenmayer: Nice. And where are you talking to me from today?
Ben Ayers: From my home in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Erik Weihenmayer: All right, rad. And where's, like, if anybody knows the Kathmandu area, you don't have to pinpoint your exact address, but what area are you in?
Ben Ayers: I'm in the southern part of the city, in a neighborhood called Sanipa. it's a little more, it's a little more residential, a little more green than some of the downtown, the chaos of the downtown, but, uh, Yeah, it's a great place.
Erik Weihenmayer: Cool. And so, you've spent a ton of time in Nepal. probably more time than 99. 9 percent of Westerners. And you speak fluent Nepali, and you really understand the culture of Nepal. you have tons of, you know, I think your life is more in Nepal than in the U. S., I would say, right?
Definitely. and yeah, it certainly is. And I think also like my, I've been here now 27 years, something like that. And I've been in Nepal, I've been living and working and fascinated with Nepal longer than I haven't. And I think that's crept into my DNA.yeah, it's very much a part of who I am now, and I feel very blucky, to have had that chance in my life, And I've heard you speak Nepali, and were you just blessed with a gift for languages, do you think? I mean, obviously you must be, because you speak so, hardly any, Americans speak Nepali fluently.
Ben Ayers: No, I'm actually terrible at languages. Really? Yeah, horrible. I'm a writer and a filmmaker, you know, so I'm based in words and thoughts and stories. And when I first came here to learn Nepal, there's a lot of very funny stories around this, but I couldn't remember Nepali words to save my life. And, I was doing a lot of research on, mountain porters. I was my first obsession here was, you know, I came to, to climb the mountains and then I think part of it was as a young man, I was, trying to understand, my place in the world and my masculinity and climbing seemed like a great way to do that.
It's very concrete, very hardcore. And I realized that all the people carrying all the stuff up to base camp were like 10 times as hardcore as any of the white dudes that were climbing above base camp. And it really, I was really intrigued with them. So I went and started doing a lot of research on porters and realizing how difficult their lives were.
But within that, how. Inspiring and amazing they were, but anyway, the whole time I was doing that research, I couldn't remember the word for Porter, which is, and I kept calling it, which meant sick because I was always getting sick. And I remember that word. So I was studying sick for many years. but my language, you know, the thing about it for me is that I'm a natural mimic, like I, I feel like I, I want to be accepted by people that I'm around.
And I tend to sort of listen to things. And so the reason my Nepali is good is because I just haven't given up and I've been working on it now for 27 years and I'm here and I learned it from the people on the street. I didn't learn it from a book. So, you know, what, one thing that I'm really proud of is, when I call someone on the phone and they don't know me, they think I'm a Nepali.
And, That's just because I've been able to, I've done it all by ear. And it's just been honestly a slog for me. I don't know if I could learn another language if I tried.
Erik Weihenmayer: And it's pretty cool though. Like if somebody tells some jokes, some nuanced kind of cultural joke, you get it right? Like you get the joke.
Ben Ayers: Yeah, no, I actually, yeah. Yeah. And I'm actually famous for very bad puns in Nepali. My friends all want me to do a standup routine, but I won't bore your podcast. Okay.
Erik Weihenmayer: Okay.Ben, you mentioned Porter's Progress. And that was your first organization that you conne I think you founded it in Nepal. Run through, your history. You know, like your history in terms of the different organizations, and projects that you've been a part of.
Ben Ayers: Sure. When I first came, I'd be, I just kind of became obsessed with porters. And I think what about it, about them that really drew me to them was, you know, in Nepal, porters and, People who are carrying loads in rural areas use these tumplines, which are strapped across your head and these porters that were working, on climbing expeditions, but also just ferrying goods, they would carry up to, 250 pounds on their head.
And for me, growing up as a well educated white kid in New Hampshire, our heads were these sacred things. And seeing them used as a muscle is what really transformed the way I understood human labor and the human body. And so I got into...
Erik Weihenmayer: because we just think that's amazing. we're like, look at what they can carry on their heads, but Come on, every human has got to have, commonalities, and that is, that's gonna crush your neck and your spine over time.
Ben Ayers: Which, but interestingly, if you're carrying heavy loads, it's, a bit more efficient because it's using your whole skeletal structure. Yeah. what's interesting for me is in America, and I'm sure you experienced this, Erik, with your family. Like we had to have helmets on all the time, like skateboard helmet, you got a ski helmet, like our, and if anyone falls and they hit their head, everyone freaks out, right?
Like there are these. Sacred things. And here in Nepal, they strap a ton of weight to it. And for me, I don't know, intellectually, that was curious to me. and I think that there's an idea in, and, forgive my digression here, but, I believe that there's an idea in the Western world that's implicit that somehow, because we live in a more prosperous society, that we are somehow smarter, better, faster, sexier, greater.
And. I think for me, seeing somebody whose labor is reduced to a rope on their head is the most basic form of labor. And when I started spending time with these porters, and the way I did that was I wanted to see what it was like. So I picked up an anomalo or a tumpline, And went out and started working as a porter, mostly carrying good, you know, commercial goods.
Cause obviously no foreigners wanted to hire me. But spending time with these guys, I, it was a huge realization in my life that these people who had some of the fewest material resources and did some of the most difficult, literally backbreaking labor were some of the most insightful, funny, intelligent, poetic people. That I'd ever met. And I know that we all know that, right? That sounds really like cliche to be like, Oh wow. the poor are amazing, but I think experiencing that in a felt sense completely changed my life, and it helped me have perspective on what mattered, and it helped me have perspective on a way to find fulfillment in life, so I felt I needed to give back, and so I started in 1999 an organization called Porter's Progress that was looking at trying to help,workers in the climbing industry, in the trekking industry, basically have better working conditions, have fewer fatalities.we were helping them organize, that kind of stuff, and I ran that for about 10 years.
During that time, that was all through Nepal's civil war. the porters were some of the only people that could travel back and forth into the remote villages that they were coming from, which were controlled by the Maoist rebels, and the, the trekking areas, which were which were controlled by the government and the army.
And I was able to raise some money to do work back in those villages, which were basically had no external assistance whatsoever. They were trapped in the conflict. They were terribly poor. And the only way we could do that was to teach the porters how to do it. So when I learned about international development, when I learned about how you build schools or how you help a community, I was forced to not do it myself, and I was forced to be a little less of the savior, maybe than I would have been inclined to be.
And instead I had to teach the porters, how do you go out and do an assessment? How do you make a budget? My task was to translate that into something that people could understand and do to make the donors happy. And it worked. In that model then, after the conflict ended and I wrapped things up at Porter's progress, I partnered with an organization called the dZi foundation spelled DZI out of Colorado, which you know, well, Erik.
And, I helped the Z Foundation build an office in Nepal and they were able to really fully resource that model of working in these very poor and remote communities, doing poverty alleviation in a way that the communities were the ones who were deciding what happened. And I did that for another 13 years.
But on the side, I was always writing. I was always doing journalism and film. And so then, when we all had our kind of big life moments during COVID, tried to figure out what was next, I had been working on a documentary film about snow leopards or working on a concept. So I devoted myself fully to that project, and it's just about done right now. And I'm working full time now as a journalist and filmmaker.
Erik Weihenmayer: That's fantastic. Yeah, let's talk about that project as well as the Last Honey Hunter in a moment. I want to keep working with this theme of the development work that you've done in Nepal. I've heard you write and speak about, these cultural and these socio economic barriers, sometimes, in terms of, like, coming into a country and figuring out how to navigate, you know?
How to, do work that actually is meaningful, rather than it backfiring, or that white savior, thing, which is hey, I'm just, I see problems, I'm just going to hammer head over and try to fix them all, and it almost disregarding the local people. So and so tell me about like the learnings there. I know you've just we're talking about that, but tell me even more about the navigation of that.
Ben Ayers: Yeah, I appreciate the question, Erik. I think it's something that I've spent the majority of my adult life trying to think about and trying to put into words. I think at the end of the day, the moral of the story is to be an effective agent of change, you have to be really good at putting yourself in a position to need help. You can't help someone else if you're not humbled and if you're not aware of what it's like to need help. And we all need help in different ways. You know, none of us, we're all just making this shit up. Like, none of us know what's going on.
And I think unfortunately nothing strokes the ego more than Then somebody who's in a position of power to help somebody else out, right? you become the savior and it's intoxicating. And I think for me in the beginning, I was drawn to that, but I just was so sort of like Nepali language. I was just so bad at development that I had to start asking for help.
I had to start asking the porters, well, what do you actually need? how actually can I figure this out to help you get what you need? And thankfully my, mediocre and then improving language allowed me to understand what the answers to those questions were. And I think that's what it is when you're a person not even just in a different country, but in a different community or even in your own community, like we know that in our relationships and my marriage, it's taken me a long time to figure out how to ask my partner, how to ask my wife what she really needs and to hear it.
And to not run it through that filter of my own stress and anxiety and my own fears and my own wants. Right. But to actually just be a good listener, just shut up and listen. And when you can do that, both on an individual level or on a community level, that power of listening immediately bonds you to that person or that community.
It builds trust. And that's the foundation then of actually getting something done. But a lot of people, I think, want to save the world because they want to be the person that saved the world. But if you go into it from the perspective of being, of actually wanting the world to change, you start to get curious and you start to look at the mechanisms of it.
And that's when you start being effective and essentially the development work that I did in Nepal that worked. I was very proud of the fact that, working with these communities in one of Nepal's most remote forgotten areas.in about 10 years, we lifted 40, 000 people out of poverty.
And that's a we. I was one, one of 40, 000 people that did that. And I was so proud to be a part of that community. But the key to it was just, we structured our fundraising so that the donors didn't have, we went to the donors with ideas that were created by the community. We didn't go looking for money.
And then found a community to spend it in. And unfortunately, a lot of foreign aid is based on, predicated on that model that I have an idea and I need to find somebody to execute this idea upon. And that just simply isn't effective.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, it makes sense to do it the other way. and that, I've obviously I have a lot of experience with the dZi foundation that you were mentioning that you led for a long time and were part of that community.
Um, you know, the model there is this deep service work, right? Where you, the local people, the elders, however they make decisions in that community, you sit and you listen to what they need. And it's all, and then, sure, we, you come in with some expertise and resources, but they do the work, right? They lead it.
Ben Ayers: Exactly. and those resources and those expertise is predicated upon the ideas that they create. And what you have in that is, Is then they're invested in the outcomes. It's their idea. You're helping them accomplish their idea. So they're going to contribute time and labor and expertise.
And they're going to tell you when your ideas don't work because they want it's for them by them. And that's, I think how you become an ally is really truly by, by listening, by looking at, for me as again, American, white dude from New Hampshire, like I, I was, I won the birth lottery. I'm blessed with a lot of privilege and it's, it can be confusing to be in a position of such good fortune to know how to use it to the best end.
And I'm very, and again, I think these communities taught me how to do that. And it was about. listening to what they needed and then figuring out how I could make that happen.
Erik Weihenmayer: But that sounds so obvious now, but in the beginning, it must not have been obvious. You're, as you said, a white kid from Vermont, come over to Nepal. You must have blundered and into some things and just made some massive like assumptions. You know what I mean? like all of us might have done. And, you know, hopefully, not to be cliche, but you learn from that stuff. So yeah. Tell me about one of the blunders that you might remember.
Ben Ayers: There's so many and they continue. That's the thing too. It's like none of us actually like you, you just do it less or you're more uncomfortable, you're more comfortable being embarrassed and being wrong. The best one, Erik, was probably the greased pig contest. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you've heard that story.
That sounds like a good story. No, I haven't heard this. So I'm going to try to not take up the whole podcast with this story. We were working in this village called Goodell, which at the time was probably seven days walk away from a road. And this village was really at the end of the valley. It was very poor, very isolated, you know, materially monetarily poor.
And, at the time, that village was sort of, uh, Kulun Rai, the ethnic group. And this is actually where The Last Honey Hunter was filmed.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
Ben Ayers: And, so this is a community of indigenous, animistic, shamanistic, practitioners, this ancient culture that lived there. And one of the ways that society lived is that they didn't have toilets, like even pit toilets, you know, a lot of communities in Nepal just didn't have toilets at that time.
But what they did was they raised pigs. Pigs were a sacred part of their culture and their community. They ate pig meat, they pork, but they also, the pigsty was the toilet. And unfortunately,that was a mechanism for, uh, Uh, tapeworm and strychnosis and other diseases that were really affecting the community's health.
That was exacerbated, interestingly, by the fact that when the community shifted from using earthenware cooking vessels that they made to metal cooking vessels, the problem got worse because it cooked at a higher heat and it didn't cook the meat as thoroughly. It just scorched the outside. It looked done. They would eat it. And then the mechanism came. So we worked with the community to help them become the first, what was called open defecation free. The first community where everyone in the village had a toilet. But to do that, we had to get rid of the pig toilets. So in getting rid of the pig toilets and trying to help people build toilets and subsidizing it and getting people motivated and excited, there was some pushback by all the old people thinking that the dZi Foundation was anti pig, that we were trying to destroy their pig culture.
And so. I had this idea when we were going to have this big fair and it was going to be a big fair celebrating agriculture and, and, and our whole approach to this was very positive. And we can talk about this in a minute. The positive, the power of appreciative inquiry, the power of positive thinking was a big key to our success.
But to tell the story, we had this big day where the whole community was gathering, everyone was showing, all the biggest pumpkin that they grew, and they had all these speeches and all this stuff, and I was like, hey, one of the things we do in America that's super cool that has to do with pigs is, we grease them up and then the kids chase them and it's hilarious.
And so I'm going to, why don't we do this? And the community is like, uh, sure. Okay. So we're really excited. And so then back then too, community radio was a big deal. So then they start, it was sort of like a monster truck rally. They start announcing and on community radio, there's going to be a slippery pig contest run by Ben.
And so hundreds of people came to this thing an hour before it the community comes and they tell me they're like listen pigs are sacred pigs are very valuable I know you've paid I bought the baby pig for it so we've decided that it can't be something for the kids. It's too valuable so we're gonna let the men be the ones participating in the Grease Pig Contest. And I was like ah that because these are the porters these are the guys that carry 250 pounds for weeks on end I mean these are like the toughest dudes on the planet I was like, gosh, you know, but I wasn't really given a choice.
So then it comes time to start the grease pig contest. And I hadn't really thought about the grease, right? So we got a bunch of cooking oil and we cooking oiled up a pig. Well, we, we were getting ready to cook an oil, cooking oil of the pig. And then they pull out the piglet. And the piglet, in Nepal, is a traditional pig which looks just like a boar.
And boars have hair, Erik.
huh. You can't make them slippery. So Oh no.
In front of 500 people, I let this little oiled up boar go. Immediately, two dudes grab it, one on each leg, they get into a fist fight over the pig. It was a total disaster. I had to run out, stop the whole thing. We flipped a coin, one of them won the pig.
Everybody hated every second of that event. And the lesson from that was like, Ben's ideas are not good ideas. Like there's a lot of things that can go wrong in the middle, but the amazing thing about Nepal in particular, and the amazing thing about that community was everyone was just like. Well, that sucked and they went on with their lives.
And they didn't hold it over me, right?
Erik Weihenmayer: Crazy pig.
Ben Ayers: Yeah, exactly. That's one of the beautiful things about Nepal is that I've been able to make mistakes here. And people have been forgiving. And I've tried to incorporate a lot of that into my life as well. With the people around me, right? That kind of patience and tolerance to let somebody else You know, grease the pig, as it were.
Erik Weihenmayer: There's the title of your next book. I love it. Um, I might, I want to just add to that, you know, you're helping communities to move from poverty to prosperity, but you're also helping communities to adapt to change because whether we like it or not, like Nepal and these developing countries are changing.
And, Kulung, is that the right? Yeah, the village. That was a week walk away from a road. But I bet you now there's like a road going right to it, right? So, and, and we always think like as Westerners, Oh, you know, keep the local people the same. don't, progress is bad.
We're, you know, and, and I've seen bad development work. When I was in New Guinea the missionaries were taking the locals who wore penis gourds and, and had local, customs and they were trying to change all of that, you know, and so you'd see folks walking around in Mickey Mouse t shirts and,and they got super reliant on that development.
But, um, anyway, I don't know where I was going with that. But the point being that, that. That you're helping these organizations, these communities to be able to embrace change and be prepared for it, I guess.
Ben Ayers: Yeah. again, it's, what do we need, you know, when you're climbing Erik, what are the main traits that allow you to succeed and overcome the changes that happen on a route when your life's at risk?
It's it's belief in yourself. It's reliant, it's experience, it's perseverance, right? And. It's having a really good team. And so again, by becoming, placing yourself as a part of that team, but not placing yourself as somebody who's sort of demanding a change, but instead of being in this process, that's iterative, that changes, that's all about agility and response and forgiveness.
And it's about making mistakes and learning from those mistakes and embracing that, that culture of being wrong. That's what allows you to respond and deal to change. And. I think it's something too that, we are going to experience now too, in the world, now that we're really coming to terms with a changing climate and, but also just like, like that village that I mentioned now, there's three hydropower projects in that community.
And their relationship to their natural resource is changing their relationship to the land. That was their whole cosmology and that their animism was based on is totally changing. And I think we also, it's very easy too, for us to look at the microcosm of these remote communities in Nepal.
But then when I look at how much my life has changed since I've been here, when I was first here, we were writing aerograms, there was barely any phone connection. And now, here I am doing a podcast with you in Kathmandu and our lives are also changing really quickly. And, and again, it's that basic human thing that we need is we need communities.
We need resilience and we need confidence that doesn't come from us. Confident the confidence that comes from curiosity, right? That comes from being inquisitive and learning and growing. That doesn't come from that kind of bullish, beliefs that, you know, all the answers.
Erik Weihenmayer: And, and just to point out,if a community isn't ready for those roads, then, it can become a disaster because they're not ready for it, right?
Like, they haven't thought about it, so it just happens to them. part of it's like, how do you get a community to be proactive and, like, understand, oh gosh, this change is coming, and how do we get ready for it?
Ben Ayers: That's the million dollar question, and I think it's one of those, To be totally honest, you know, the way that we ran our projects, my hope was that we saw this coming, obviously.
And I won't get into the details, but we created all, all these different ways of helping the communities look at the future and try to create a future that kept the best part about their original culture, right? Embrace the best part about technology. And one of the examples is, you know, road building.
You can build a road in Nepal with an excavator and just have them kind of free form it. And that road is an environmental disaster. it's washes out in the monsoons. It ruins the crops. It ruins the watershed. Or you could do it where humans dig it. People get paid the money that goes to the excavator.
The road's more sustainable. It's more durable. It's hardened, you know? And so I had always felt that would be the indicator if I had succeeded at what I was hoping to pass on to these communities and unfortunately, the excavators won, to be honest. So I don't know the answer of how do you prevent that, you know, these hydropower products, the excavators, the roads and stuff that are going into these communities, the mechanisms of those were the Nepali political structure and the greater structures of the state, and actors who are outside of the community that the communities didn't necessarily have the power to overcome.
And a lot of that, then, are these bigger questions that, that we're all facing in America, as America's struggling to figure out its political identity moving forward. It's figuring out to, it's trying to figure out its place in the world, like, how do we do that right? What I've realized in all of it is, We may not be able to save that community from what it was.
But what we can do is to try to keep people empowered to be able to make the best of it, right? And I feel like, I mean, I hate to be um,I'm a very idealistic person, but I think that there is also a pragmatism to, you know, you can try your best and then, but the reality is, we can't predict how things are going to go.
And sometimes too, the things that look terrible end up being good in the long run. You know what I mean? It's hard to know.
Erik Weihenmayer: So you've talked about, this work with these communities, but you place a lot of value in what the modern world, what the global world can learn from rural developing communities and marginalized people, right?
Ben Ayers: Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: What do you think we learned from that?
Ben Ayers: It's one of the things that I've always been fascinated about. If you look at American foreign policy, or if you look at American foreign aid, there isn't, and I know this, there's me being idealistic here, Erik, but...
Erik Weihenmayer: Go for it.
Ben Ayers: There isn't a wing of USAID, of the U. S. State Department or the U. S. government that, that is looking at cultures that are different than America and seeing what we can learn. How we can improve our society by learning from other communities. Instead, we're trying to export our ideas around the world, thinking that's the model that needs to be replicated.
And it's a tremendously missed opportunity in the communities. like we'll just take that community of Goodell for an example, and the Kulung Rai, like it's one of countless and countless communities in Nepal, where young children are not supervised. The communities are built in a way, architecturally, the houses are close enough together, but also there's a level of trust amongst the community where the kids are just sort of feral in the best way.
And today they're at Jungmu's house and tomorrow they're at Milo's house and they lit... It's so incredible to watch what it's like to grow up in those rural communities because the kids create their own little society, but they also have responsibilities. The eight year old takes care of the six year old.
The six year old takes care of the three year old. They work in the fields. They get firewood. They're very focused, but they're also still children and they're playful. And I think that to me, that's really inspired me to think about how you train people to be in the world. And I think, and I'm sure you've experienced this, Erik.
I mean, I'm sure it's tied to your relationship with, uh, with Arjun is sort of people in Nepal have a certain integrity, they have a certain quality to them that makes it very easy to get in, get along with them and to have adventures, to accomplish incredible things with them, be it from climbing Everest to, becoming a part of your family.
And I think a lot of that has to do with the way that they're brought up and the way that freedom and that trust, whereas in America, how many of us don't know the people that live next door? And I think that's something that we're, we really suffer from is our prosperity and our individualism.
We don't need each other in the same way. And that robs us of an opportunity to have really fulfilling relationships and trust.
Erik Weihenmayer: That's, gosh, that's really insightful. I agree. Yeah. So,I want to move on, but I just, this is such a fascinating discussion for me. so cell coverage is everywhere now, right?
And so do you see that changing? Like you can get, you could call like on your cell phone from like the summit of Everest nowadays. I don't know about the summit, base camp at least camp too. And Yeah. Like a village like Klum, do they have, does everyone have a cell phone? Do they have coverage?
And is that changing the society like it is? And so many other places in the world.
Ben Ayers: It is, you know, but in ways that aren't tearing the fabric of the community that we love, that I love personally, an example is this, the film that I've been working on about snow leopards is in Nepal's Dolpo region, which is even more remote than the Kulung communities.
One of our locations is 10 days away from the nearest road and most of that's on a horseback. And one of our characters there, this young woman, Tenzing, they have cell coverage. She has a little phone and little, Chinese smartphone and the kids there... What's really interesting though, is the internet connection isn't very good, but there's an a Chinese app they all use that creates like a local network over Bluetooth.
So they have in this, in their community of a few hundred people, they have their own Tik Tock and they have their own little viral moments, yes, of them dancing to their local songs that get shared around. And it's very much a part of their entertainment world while they're out herding goats and,cutting firewood and living these very, these lives that you and I would look at and think it was like going back to the 16th century.
And I, so I think the cell coverage here, honestly, Nepalis, are not as addicted to their phones as we are, as I am. I feel very self conscious here because I definitely am like, trying very hard to manage my relationship with dopamine and my, yeah, Whereas people here are you they're much more utilitarian about it. And it's actually amazing to see how phones and that communication has also led to a lot of really innovative means of commerce and means of trade andpeople now are using phones to like, in Kathmandu, they can call the village and be like, Hey, we need a goat, right?
And the goat goes onto the jeep and goes onto the bus and shows up at the person's house in Kathmandu. It's actually, they're actually have embraced
Erik Weihenmayer: their Amazon.
Ben Ayers: Yeah, 100%.
Erik Weihenmayer: you mentioned this new film. So let's just dive into that because another whole piece of your work in Nepal has been telling these amazing stories of people and communities.
so this new one is these two women who are trying to save the endangered snow leopard. And they're local women, they're not,they're not you and me, right? They're, so that's a really cool story. when's it gonna come out? And, Do you have a title or anything or
Ben Ayers: The working title right now is the snow leopard sisters, but I am guessing it will change when it hits the, when it hits the market. Uh, we've just finished. We're on picture lock now. Um, so the film is done and we're now applying to festivals and trying to see if we can find a home for it on one of the big, one of the big streamers. It's a very tough time to sell documentaries, but the film is something that I am and the team is very proud of.
Very much like all the work I've done in Nepal, the film started with a friendship, and it ended up changing all of our lives profoundly. So we've all, for me and my local team that's helped me on the film and, many of the people in London who have supported the production, we've all had, all of our lives have changed pretty profoundly because of it.
So it's been a success, and it's a really intriguing story. I'm very excited to see what the world thinks of it.
Erik Weihenmayer: One of your goals, one of the great outcomes is to empower local people and communities, right? So in a way, this film is an illustration of that, right? These two local women... Did they, come from money or like, you know what I mean? Like, how did they get the bug to want to change something that you just... it's not expected, you know?
Ben Ayers: Yeah. so the story is... I'll give you the very brief log line. There's two characters. None of them came from money. Our first character is this woman Tsering Lamu Lama. She was the first woman from Dolpo to get a master's degree.
And that's because she got a scholarship from an American kayaker, who she just happened to meet when she was a very young girl and her father sort of arranged a scholarship for her to study outside of the village. She went back to the village as a wildlife biologist and started studying the snow leopard population, realized that the snow leopards were dying out because they were being killed in retaliation for killing the local livestock and they were being poisoned by the local herders.
This was something that the national park in that area and the Nepali government and the development, the conservation organizations were turning a blind eye to. She was very frustrated, wanted to do something about it herself. There was a mass killing. There's an unfortunate habit of the snow leopards where when they get into a corral of goats, they'll kill every single goat in the corral.
So there was a family up by the Tibetan border in this little village called Koman that lost basically their life savings overnight. And Tsering knew that family was likely to be the one to kill the next Snow Leopard. And there's so few of them that every one counted. So she immediately went to that village and got in touch with the family.
And they had a young daughter, an only daughter, their only child, their only surviving child, was a 17 year old girl, so named Tenzing. And, Tsering took Tenzing in under her wing. And the whole story was about Tsering, trying to traveling with Tenzing, trying to teach Tenzing why conservation is important and to try to help Tenzing convince her community and her family not to kill the snow leopard.
Many other things happened in their lives along the way. Uh, Tenzing, Tenzing's life became in great peril and it'd be, the story really is about the two of them. and we just. Happened on it. we ended up filming for well over a year nonstop and this incredible story emerged of truly how these two women helped each other change both of their lives and both of their approaches to save to conservation and being a woman and Dolpo and to finding their voice in a very patriarchal society. So that's it just came about very organically, Erik. and I felt very fortunate to be able to be embedded enough and trusted enough and my team as well. , We were all really fortunate just to be able to capture this moment in, in, in both of their lives.
Erik Weihenmayer: It's so interesting. I can't wait to check it out. That's going to be so cool. and it's such a. good example of like how complicated it is to make change in the world. Like it's so messy and nuanced and you're sometimes going to make enemies along the way. And you're going to have such pushback.
it's a, it's a story that needs to be told. So psyched to check that out. And, all right, let's talk about this crazy ass movie, The Honey Hunt, Last Honey Hunter.
Ben Ayers: Oh, sure.
Erik Weihenmayer: Oh gosh. I couldn't even see it. I watched it at, in Telluride. And it was like, Watching a dream. It was like, you're like, is this reality or is this a dream?
And so you went, you made friends with this guy, Mali? Mauli Dhan. Mauli Dhan, yeah. And, and he's a honey hunter. And he's in this remote village of Kulung, and what is he like, ordained in some way through a dream with the spirits that say, Mali? You can take honey from these bees, and you won't die, right?
You tell me, I'll explain, I'm butchering your film.
Ben Ayers: Well, so, yeah, The Last Honey Hunter, was my first sort of major film. And, I was very fortunate, too, with that one, to work with National Geographic, and Renan Ozturk, and Ben Knight, and I, and Taylor, Renan's partner, Taylor Rees, and a whole great team.
The story there was that Mauli Dhan, in the Kulung cosmology, the, they believe that their world and their environment is dominated or is controlled by different spirits of the world. And there's this cliff honey that's the bees that form it are the largest honey bees in the world.
Apis laboriosa and their hives are high up on these jungle cliffs and one, one beehive will be six feet across. And when it's in the spring, There are certain plants, that are flowering in the spring that have different chemical properties. and so the honey that's harvested in the spring is somewhat poisonous, somewhat hallucinogenic, and there's a huge market for it, in Chinese medicine and across Asia.
So there's quite valuable, but to be able in the Kulung belief, to be able to go onto the cliffs, which are the domain of this, One sort of forest spirit called Ronkemi. You have to have a very specific dream. That spirit needs to come to you in a dream. And if you don't have that dream, traveling into that sacred space will bring a curse upon you and your community.
So Mauli Dhan was the person in the village who had that dream. He wasn't an upstanding member of society otherwise. But he had this special connection to that spirit. And we went with him as he got older on his very last honey harvest. And the film is about the community, him and, but also his community and his team trying to figure out what's going to happen next when he's done.
Will the other people go without the dream, will they not, and what it means for them and their life.
Erik Weihenmayer: So, my western brain here, I know this is like, I'm not trying to throw a monkey wrench into it, but you can't verify that he's had a dream, right? He could have, you know, there is a chance you just make it up, right? but,that's not a part of the culture really, like just somebody trying to
Ben Ayers: Right. And, and, and that culture, there The way that the shamanic and animistic connection to the spirit world is very strong, and it's very much a part of everyday life, and so for them, the fear of, I think that, if you were to say, Oh yeah, I had the dream, I'm going to go out tomorrow, the real fear of the consequences of that lie are enough to deter anyone, and honestly, having spent so much time in those communities, I saw a lot of things that I have a hard time understanding and explaining.
There's something about the fabric of reality there that's a little different, and I can see why they have those beliefs. It's a very spooky and deep and, the, those shamanic cultures are very difficult to describe in ways that don't make me sound like I've totally lost it.
Erik Weihenmayer: But it's beautiful because it's unexplained, right? You want to keep some unexplained things in the world. I think what I got from the film was that their mystical and religious life in some ways are more real. than, what we perceive as like our daily reality. And of course they have to grow food and animals and eat and survive.
But in a way, yeah, their faith life is like, is more real.
Ben Ayers: Yeah. 100%. 100%. and that.
Erik Weihenmayer: And you were part of a, yeah, you were part of a ritual. Like you were part of the ceremonies. I'm sorry to interrupt you though. Go ahead.
Ben Ayers: No, no, absolutely. Yeah. We were a part. We. That was, part of the reason why it took me 10 years to make that film is that Mauli Dhan never really wanted me to go on the cliffs.
I think he was a fearful for me.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
Ben Ayers: And we finally convinced him, on his last trip that we would do all of the rituals, that we would make the sacrifices. We would go through all of the blessings so that we could at least be, near him while we were filming. And,I, yeah, those are the moments where,we experienced things that are very hard to explain.
And I think that, that energy and that spirit, it's nice to, it's nice to have things in life that are a little bit unexplainable.
Erik Weihenmayer: Alright, now, I don't think you're crazy, so go on the premise that I don't, that, that I don't think anyone's gonna think this is crazy, but you actually had some specific things, like, that I remember you telling me, your camera's just not working during the shamanic ritual, or just, like, really strange things that you go, Oh, I don't understand it.
Ben Ayers: Totally. 100%. And like, Yeah, I mean, there was a truth like when we were filming the first blessed sort of ritual where the whole team that goes on to the cliff gets blessed and protected and asks for RonKemi permission, it's involved, you know, the shaman who's running it is in full trance.
He's channeling the gods. He's not very, he's not acting very human. But as soon as the RonKemi was called in to receive the offerings, every bit of our electronic equipment just stopped working.
Erik Weihenmayer: Oh my gosh, that's so wild.
Ben Ayers: So it's totally weird. and then
Erik Weihenmayer: You must've been just like this goosepump moment or whoa.
Ben Ayers: Well, and what's interesting too, is you start to try to rationalize it. Yeah. Oh, maybe it was a pulse or maybe the batteries were down or,and, but then that kind of thing kept happening the whole time we were out there and. At some point, you reluctantly, sort of, in the back of your mind, start to wonder if you don't understand everything in the world. But they're still a part of our minds and the way that we're trained is you start to rationalize it and then you know, And then over time you're like did that really happen? But I mean, I know it did and there were many of us that experienced it.
Erik Weihenmayer: And in a film you're not really there to solve the problem or trying to figure it out. It's not like you're a detective. You're just exploring this really interesting thing that most Westerners wouldn't understand or have any contact with, but one of the wild things is that this Honey Hunter, he climbs these cliffs and gets the honey, and he gets stung.
He doesn't have any protective gear, I believe, right? He gets stung a lot, and if, like, you got stung, it'd be a, they're really poisonous, right? yeah, I mean, yeah, and he just, how does he survive it? Do you think he has, like, an immunity? Just, like, yeah, how do you explain that?
Ben Ayers: Those guys are just, they're just so tough. I mean, I, I, I wish I had a better explanation But they're so tough, the Kulung and people who live, the lives that they do, subsistence farming, living in the jungle, surviving all of that, they are physically capable and strong in a way that we in the western world have completely lost touch with.
We just don't know that kind of strength anymore, but yeah, Maule every day, you know, we, we were with him for six, seven harvests, and every harvest he got stung between 80 and 100 times. I got stung like four times and I looked like a football.
Erik Weihenmayer: But that could like, that could kill you, right? Like it should kill you in a way. yeah,
Ben Ayers: 100%. And that, this is the stuff that gives them faith too, right? Is the, is understanding that, you know, he was okay. I mean, I, every day at the end of the harvest, we'd be back in camp and they'd borrow our headlamps and the tweezers I had in my first aid kit and just be pulling the stingers out of them.
That was like Tuesday for them, you know? For us, it was one of the most incredible. feats of human strength and passion that we, I had, any of us had ever seen. And for them, it literally was just like another day in what is a very rugged and beautiful life and hard life.
Erik Weihenmayer: I was having, I said, describe like the,a picture of him. And, they said he looked a little like disfigured, but I don't know as a blind guy, what that meant is he, do the bee stings disfigure you a little bit?
Ben Ayers: No, I don't know if I would describe him that way. I think he, to me, is a short, sinewy, very rugged man. Okay. He, during the harvests, his face would become very swollen.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
Ben Ayers: And his eyes would become swollen.
Erik Weihenmayer: Okay, so maybe that's what they were referring to.
Ben Ayers: Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. Wow. Amazing. and so what did you learn? What'd you take away from that experience?
Ben Ayers: From the last Honey Hunter, that, that was, like I mentioned earlier, that was a passion project from the beginning, from the first time that I saw Mauli Dhan go on the cliff from afar.
I,the other thing is there, he's free soloing for a lot of this. Yeah, Barefoot, 120 feet off the deck surrounded by a hundred thousand of the largest bees in the world. I just, it just changed what I thought it was much like with the porters, like I just saw Maule do that.
And it changed what I thought was, was possible for people to do. And I just wanted to be closer to that. And that investigation led to the film. And I felt, I think what I took from it now,five years out of, from making the film, I know I have a deep understanding of my relationship with Maledon and his story in that community and what it meant to both of us.
I think what surprised me was how much people around the world took from his story. And what was interesting to me was that wasn't relevant to him. That's so relevant to me, and to us. It's oh, isn't it amazing that so many people are so inspired by Umm Maledon and for him. It just didn't, it wasn't a part, it wasn't a priority.
It wasn't interesting to him. And I think to me, then I, I felt very grateful to have been just a part of being able to share his story with the world and to inspire people, because that's part of my value system. And I think that's, when I look back on that story, that's what stays with me. And I think also just the beauty of it and that.
That is all credit to Renan and Ben Knight who was directing and editing and Ben really, what was amazing was Ben's sensitivity as a filmmaker to be able to, having been on his first trip to Nepal and into that community, he had the sensitivity to build a film that was very true to Maule's character.
And, and I think that kind of storytelling from, that I saw is what inspired me now to want to do this full time and to try to achieve that level of craft. And I think that the current film, the Snow Leopard Sisters, I see this very much as a second film in a series, and I've tried very hard, and I hope that I've been able to maintain that level of beauty and intimacy and otherworldliness,and so I, I hope that people who see both films back to back can, can see that and, from both of them.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. And, uh, the last Honey Hunter, where did people see that film? Cause that's been out a while and it got tons of attention as you just mentioned.
Ben Ayers: Yep. That's on Vimeo. So if you just, and if you Google it, you can find it. I think someone's, ripped it off and put it on YouTube too. So I think just the old Google will get you to it.
Erik Weihenmayer: Cool. Hey, so Ben last question for me before I let you go. I think it's nighttime there, right?
Ben Ayers: Yep.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah So you got this young kid like 12 years old 14 years old. Let's call him Ben jr. He's a He's in Vermont. He's an idealist. He wants to change the world. He wants to make changes What do you tell this guy? What's your advice?
Ben Ayers: I love that question, Erik. That's another one I've thought a lot about. And if I ever do write a book, it's going to be for that kid. I think the thing to tell him, Ben Jr., is you're going to change the world whether you want to or not. That's how it works. It's your presence in the world.
No matter what you do is influencing and changing everything around you physically and otherwise. So you need to let go of the pressure to try to make the world in your image of good. You need to just go out there and meet people and make friends and find that spark within you that makes you the kind of person that other people learn from by example.
Because. In my life, the only people that have changed my life. In the way that you have, Erik, it's not because you've told me how to be. It's not that you've explained to me what, how to overcome the barriers in my life, but Erik, what I've really appreciated about our friendship and about your example and your books and the adventures that we've had together is when I'm hanging out with you, I'm like, I want to be a little more like that.
I want to be, I want to have Erik's kindness. I want to have Erik's fearlessness. I want to have Erik's, ability to not get bogged down by obvious challenges and minutiae. And the more time I spend with you that comes in by osmosis and my life changes and telling someone how to be different. It never works.
it's like when you're, when someone's really angry and you're like, Hey, relax, but if someone's really angry and you're calm and you're loving,that, that actually helps. and that's my advice is to really the way that you change the worldis by allowing yourself to be yourself and to find yourself and to believe in yourself. And the rest will sort itself out.
Erik Weihenmayer: Awesome, Ben. Well, I believe in you and your work and it's a mutual fan club because you've done such amazing stuff in the world. It's just completely unique. And so many people can learn from your work and your life. And, I hope this last, hour helps that along a little bit.
Because,yeah, we need more of you. And the good work that you're doing in the world right now. It's kind of scary out there, as you know.
Ben Ayers: Yeah, but you know, Erik, we're going to be okay. I think that one thing to remember, one thing that I've learned in Nepal is sometimes adversity is the blessing that we never wanted.
And when things are going to get harder for us as a society, as a species, we're going to come together. We're going to, we're going to find certain qualities in our lives that right now we're isolating ourselves from. So I think we're going to be okay, Erik, but I appreciate it. I'm glad you couldn't see me blushing back there.
Erik Weihenmayer: Ah, thanks, buddy. Well, thank you so much. And No Barriers to everyone.
Ben Ayers: Thanks, buddy.
Didrik Johnck: The production team behind this podcast includes producer Didrik Johnck, that's me, and audio engineer Tyler Kottman. Special thanks to the Dan Ryan Band for our intro song, Guidance. And thanks to all of you for listening. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, share it, and hey, we'd be thrilled for a review.
Show notes can be found at NoBarriersPodcast.com. There's also a link there to shoot me an email with any suggestions or guest ideas for the show. Thanks so much, and have a great day.
