Marysville grad’s Nepal trek turns into relief work after earthquake

‘Big earthquake here. We are fine.”

Those reassuring words came quickly, by email, text and through Facebook.

Rob Stiles, a 1996 Marysville Pilchuck High School graduate, and his wife, Kari Killian Stiles, were in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital city, when a massive earthquake struck April 25. The magnitude 7.8 quake killed at least 8,000 people.

They were safe and let their families know it.

“We knew they were in Nepal when the first quake happened. We actually heard really quick from them, they posted on Facebook,” said Robert Stiles Sr., 62, a retired Everett police officer who lives in Marysville.

Nepal was hit by a second killer quake May 12.

By email from Nepal this week, Rob Stiles, 36, said they rode out the first quake by staying in a door jamb in the first-floor room of their guesthouse. “We saw an 8-foot-high brick wall come crashing down. We saw the ground toss full-grown men,” he said.

Afterward, they walked the streets of Kathmandu, “seeing piles of rubble, bodies being pulled from them,” his email said. “We saw the streets fill with people, fleeing their homes in search of open space — anywhere away from buildings. It was chaos.”

Stiles Sr. said his son and daughter-in-law delayed travel plans to stay and help in Nepal. They are providing food and shelter to people left with nothing. With other travelers, Rob and Kari Stiles founded Nepal Grassroots Recovery, a group now delivering bags of rice and other supplies to villages and building temporary homes.

The retired police officer, whose email to The Herald was signed “A proud dad,” admires the couple’s spirit of giving and adventure. Nepal is just one stop on a multiyear global tour they started in late 2012.

After graduating from Washington State University in 2001, Rob Stiles moved to Los Angeles. The couple worked in the TV industry, Rob as a post-production supervisor. “We found we were living to work rather than working to live,” he said by email.

So the couple, who don’t have children, went off to see the world. They spent almost seven months in Australia, living in a car. Both certified divers, they explored shipwrecks off Australia, said Rob Stiles’ mother, Marysville Police Officer Emma “Tiki” Stiles.

She said both her sons have traveled far from Marysville, where they grew up. Rob’s brother, Adam Stiles, is a meteorologist at City TV in Toronto.

Emma Stiles, who said Rob was interviewed by CNN after the big quake, follows the couple’s travels via Facebook and Instagram. “They’re great photographers,” she said. And she’s not surprised they’re lending a hand to the monumental task of earthquake recovery. Kari, she said, helped at an orphanage in Mexico years ago.

On this trip, they worked for a winery harvesting grapes on the Australian island of Tasmania. They went to New Zealand, but by June 2013 had taken jobs as English teachers in Cheonan, South Korea. They stayed 15 months in Korea, traveling to Asian destinations during school breaks.

In the fall of 2014, they were in Canada for the wedding of Rob’s brother, then visited family in Washington and California’s Bay Area, where Kari is from. Last October, they set out again, and have visited Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.

The next stop was Nepal, with plans to go on to Malaysia and Indonesia. “We planned to spend our time trekking, rafting, bungee jumping and taking in the Nepali culture,” Rob said. And then, the big quake hit.

Rob Stiles said that the night before the earthquake, they were at a rooftop bar in Kathmandu. He remembers looking at ancient brick buildings and narrow alleys. In his email, he said he told his wife “I wouldn’t want to be in this city during an earthquake — seriously, I said that.”

After the first quake, they stayed at a camp set up by the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu for displaced travelers, rescue teams and the military. They survived on military MREs, meals ready to eat.

With other travelers, they started Nepal Grassroots Recovery and a crowd-funding website. “We’ve provided immediate aid to 10 villages (over 700 households, approximately 3,500 people) as well as to the orphanage,” Rob said.

The next phase, as monsoon season approaches, is providing shelter beyond tarps and tents. They are learning to build makeshift houses out of rice bags filled with dirt.

The second quake in May, which killed about 200 people, was especially frightening because of the enormous loss they still see from the first. “I think our time in Nepal is coming to a close — for now,” Rob said.

Soon, they will resume their travels. Emma Stiles expects to see them home by mid-December. Grateful to donors who have helped their efforts, they hope people won’t forget the needs in Nepal.

“Devastation halfway around the world may fade from our news and our thoughts,” Kari Stiles said by email. “But Nepal will be recovering from this for years to come.”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.

How to help

Rob Stiles, a 1996 graduate of Marysville Pilchuck High School, and his wife Kari Killian Stiles are among founders of Nepal Grassroots Recovery and an online fund-raising effort to help people affected by the April 25 earthquake: www.crowdrise.com/sahayetafornepal/fundraiser/robstiles

See their work in Nepal at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lmd74-AXvs