16/05/2026
Dedication
For the children of Ama Ghar. Each and every one of you.
For the Aunties, house fathers, gardeners, cleaners and administration, the house that holds you, and the mountain that watches over you all.
Author's Note
This book was written for the children of Ama Ghar.
Ama Ghar, Mother's House, is a real home in the village of Godawari, Nepal, just below the green hills that rise toward the high Himalayas. Real children live there. Real Aunties care for them. The forty-eight children in this book are, every one of them, real, and the small details that make them themselves on the page (Aarati's grin, Aruneema's notebook, Bipana's voice, Pasang's footprints in the wet garden, Rojina's dance, Sabin's guitar, Soniya's dream, Subash's seventeen rocks, Sushan's foam ball) are real too. The yeti, regrettably, is not. But everything else, the rhododendron forest, the sisnu growing wild beside the trail, the new bridge built after the September 2024 monsoons, the long row of shoes at the door, the smell of Dal Bhat drifting out across the courtyard at the end of a long day, all of it is exactly as it is.
Ama Ghar exists because of the work of people who believe, deeply and practically, that every child deserves a home. Forty-eight children currently live there, in different stages of school, training, and early adulthood. Some are very small. Some are at college or in cooking school or art school. Some have moved out into an independent life and come home for the holidays.
If you have read this book and been moved by it, please consider supporting Ama Ghar. The proceeds from the sale of this book go directly to the home, to school fees, to medical care, to the daily dal and rice on the long meal rug, to the prayer flags strung between the upper windows, to the warmth of the kitchen on cold mornings, to the small steady fact of forty-eight pairs of shoes lined up at the door.
You can learn more about Ama Ghar, and donate at:
Ama Foundation supports Ama Ghar, a home for at-risk children in Nepal, providing care, education, and opportunities for a brighter future.
