Five years ago, prospective high school senior Ellie Huizenga took a tour of Oberlin College. Little did she know that after choosing to attend Oberlin to study anthropology and play soccer, her semester abroad experience as a third-year would change her life indefinitely.
 
"One of the specific reasons I chose Oberlin was the ability to be a member of a varsity soccer team and still study abroad," said the soft-toned, well-spoken native of Seneca, Georgia. "Other schools didn't offer the chance to be a varsity athlete and travel abroad, and I knew I wanted that to be an important part of my college experience."

Her first year, the Yeowomen struggled to a 1-15-1 finish. Entering her sophomore season the program transitioned into the hands of current headman Dan Palmer.

"The summer before Dan arrived, I really took it upon myself to improve my personal skill and fitness to prepare for the upcoming season and a new coach. Being at that low point my first season and working to get where we are now as a team has matured me in ways I never anticipated," said Ellie.
 
On the pitch, Ellie is a smart, fierce competitor as a forward in the Oberlin front. As a four-time varsity letter-winner, she is a key piece of the offensive puzzle in Coach Palmer's starting eleven.
 
"Ellie is very coachable and has been a proverbial sponge soaking up everything," said Palmer. "She dramatically increased her physical strength, and has developed a strong tactical understanding of the game, which has greatly elevated her play."
 
As a junior, Ellie played in all 18 matches and tallied three goals to help guide the Yeowomen to a record-tying 10-8 season. In her final year, Ellie helped the Yeowomen to a 7-7-3 finish, closed her career making 69 appearances in the Crimson and Gold and played a pivotal role in changing the culture of Oberlin women's soccer.

"Finishing over .500 junior year was really exciting, and I never anticipated growing as much as I did as an individual and as a player. I would not be the person I am today if not for my experiences as an Oberlin College student-athlete."

Following her junior season, Ellie finished the fall semester on campus, and was about to embark on a remarkable, earth-shattering adventure across the Atlantic. Her unthinkable journey began in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, in the early spring of 2014 during her study abroad experience through the South India Term Abroad program. She stayed with a host family, the Sridhars, and experienced firsthand a beautiful and wondrous culture.
 
"It was an amazing experience. My host brother got engaged and I was involved in the engagement ceremony. Although it was an arranged marriage, experiencing something like that firsthand was really fascinating."
 
While she speaks fondly of her time in India there were some simple cultural differences that a college-aged, American female has to adjust to. In a considerably conservative, male-dominated culture, Ellie was subject to an 8 p.m. curfew.
 
"Growing up, I never really had a curfew, but in India I kind of had a nightly curfew. It wasn't because the Sridhars were strict, but because it was a cultural norm that women didn't go out after dark, so I had to be in around 8 p.m. every night."
 
Along with an 8 p.m. curfew, not having nightly family dinners was another adjustment Ellie had to make.
 
"Eating meals alone was the greatest adjustment I had to make. You don't eat together as a family, and family dinner with my parents and sister was 'family time' growing up. In India, there is no family dinner. I would eat by myself, then my host mom would eat by herself and so on."
 
The transition into a foreign culture was made easier with a little motherly love.
 
"In the beginning, my host mom would stand with me because she knew that it is normal for me to have someone to talk to during dinner. It was an interesting dynamic, but I loved my time with Sridhars.

The culmination of her semester in India was set to be a hiking trip through the Himalayas with three close companions: her father, David, former Yeomen basketball player, Jesse Neugarten '15; and Jesse's dad, Larry. Her Indian semester concluded in mid-April, when Ellie boarded a plane in southern India bound for Kathmandu, Nepal.

"We were on a two-week trek, hiking from Kathmandu to the base of Everest. Usually, what people do is fly into Kathmandu, then fly to Lukla further up the summit, and from Lukla, hike up Everest. We weren't going to be that intense, so we essentially were hiking the lower part of the Everest trail."
 
On the sixth day of hiking, Ellie, David and Jesse, accompanied by Prakash (pronounced: prakaash), their guide, and Keshab (pronounced: keshav), the porter, were en route to meet with Larry, who arrived in Nepal that morning.

"The day the first quake hit, Jesse's dad was flying in to meet us and hike the rest of the way. That night we were supposed to meet up with Larry."

At around 11:30 a.m. NPT, on April 25, 2015, Jesse, Ellie and Prakash were together on a six-foot stretch of trail ahead of David and Keshab.
 
"Normally, Jesse, Prakash, and I would walk ahead and Keshab would hang back with my dad. The trails are not just hiking trails, but the paths that connect villages in the valley. Some would vary from three to four feet to ten feet across depending on where you were on the mountainside. When the quake hit, Jesse, Prakash and I were walking inside the valley, on a trail about six or seven feet wide. Relatively, we had a lot of space. Immediately, I had no idea what was going on and I never suspected an earthquake. It was the first quake I had ever experienced. Puzzled, I turned back to ask Prakash 'what was happening?'. Although we were on a wider stretch of trail I was shaken and had to step into the mountain for stability."
 
Even Jesse, a San Diego, California, native, didn't know they were all experiencing a 7.8 magnitude earthquake.
 
Meanwhile: "My dad and Keshab had a completely different experience. They were on a narrower part of the trail, which was jutting out of the mountain, so what they felt was very different and more violent."
 
Not fully understanding the true magnitude of the tremors, the five hikers kept toward their first destination, the town of Bupsa, on top of one of the ridges where they planned to stop for lunch.
 
"We could see Bupsa, but it was a 30-minute straight, vertical hike up the ridge. When the three of us [Ellie, Jesse and Prakash] got to Bupsa, and my dad and Keshab caught up, my dad was visibly worried, but trying to stay calm. I had my back to one of the buildings, resting, and people began shouting at me, 'get away from the building!', fearing it could collapse. We had the first big aftershock within five minutes of my dad and Keshab reached us in Bupsa. That was the first time I realized the extent of what was happening. The aftershock felt just as severe as the initial quake."
 
The quintet's rest in Bupsa marked the end to the morning. It was still a five-hour hike through an earthquake-stricken landscape with virtually no available communications.
 
"We got to Bupsa and briefly rested. That's when we began thinking things were a really big deal. We thought 'where was the epicenter?' 'What is happening elsewhere?'. We found out later that all communications were down in Kathmandu so we had no idea what was going on in other parts of the country, and still needed to get to Larry. We immediately kept hiking because we had hours left to travel."
 
As they made their way towards Larry, Prakash and Keshab were making desperate attempts to reach their families that lived east of Kathmandu; close to the epicenter of the April quake.
 
"Throughout the course of the day Prakash and Keshab received intermittent phone calls from family, but the connection wasn't good. They were slowly realizing their villages had been destroyed. Tragically, Keshab discovered his sister-in-law had been killed, and his brother was paralyzed from the waist down. At that point we all realized that things around Kathmandu were really bad and it was clear that Prakash and Keshab needed to be with their loved ones."
 
After reaching Larry and finding him unharmed, the group altered their plans.

"The next day we hiked into Lukla, which was a six-hour trip, but it took twice as long because many trails were broken due to the quake and aftershocks. We walked through damaged villages and around landslides, continuing to feel tremors. About every four hours we felt an aftershock. We reached Lukla, made contact with our families back home and figured out the best thing to do. Everyone was sleeping in tents. We were stuck in Lukla for six days."

The first couple of days only relief efforts, supplies and water were being transported in to the area. Only the injured and deceased were being evacuated. The group was temporarily stranded in a disaster-ridden area with little communication, half a world away from their families.
 
Fortunately, the group was able to fly out of the area and return home a week before the May 12 quake struck.
 
The events that unfolded in the shadow of Mt. Everest on April 25 and May 12, were natural disasters of truly tragic proportions. On Everest's slopes, an avalanche was triggered claiming a record 18 lives, while a total of over 7,500 schools were destroyed and 2.8 million people displaced following the May tremor. 

The quakes and residual aftershocks claimed over 8,600 lives and injured a staggering 16,808 people in Nepal. Three other countries in the region suffered multiple casualties. Hundreds of sacred, ancient monuments were reduced to rubble as villages became piles of debris and ash.
 
Escaping the region unharmed is nothing short of miraculous and experiencing a natural disaster of that magnitude firsthand impacted Ellie greatly, strengthening the humanitarian values that are an immense part of who she is. An anthropology major with an international studies concentration, Ellie has always held an interest in cultural anthropology.
 
"I enjoy studying human interactions. I always wanted to go into public health and work in disaster relief, but my experiences in Nepal completely solidified the notion that it's what I am meant to do with my life."
 
Her passion for anthropology, coupled with her experiences in Nepal, made a lasting impression.
 
"I think about it everyday and it is something that instilled a sense of appreciation in me. In the days after the quake, you saw the worst in people, but you saw the best in people. Simultaneously, you saw people being extremely selfish and overwhelmingly kind. It re-instilled my belief that there is genuine good in the world and that I want to be a part of it. And I think it starts now and here, wherever you are."
 
Ellie and Jesse still communicate with Prakash and Keshab weekly. Since returning stateside the two have been working to figure out ways to support Prakash and Keshab through their struggles and the rebuilding process. Even as both Ellie and Jesse work towards establishing themselves as young professionals the two still plan on returning to Nepal as soon as possible. From afar, Ellie and Jesse are currently in the process of helping Prakash rebuild his village's school.
 
Outside the classroom, Ellie has worked as a public health intern at the Cleveland Clinic; a teacher aide at the Community Hope School in Katatura, Namibia; an intern at Broken Walls International in Hunedoara, Romania; and a relief volunteer in Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake.

After returning from Nepal, she took a summer job in Philadelphia, as a health intern at the Nationalities Service Center, a refugee resettlement agency. She helped refugee families navigate the complicated American health care system and get the coverage they needed based on their immigrant status.
 
"It was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. Refugees are one of the most stigmatized groups of people, but some of the strongest, most giving and beautiful people. There is an unfortunate, but necessary, need  for the relocation of hundreds of millions of refugees around the world and many of them women and children."
 
As graduation approaches, she is searching for a position in humanitarian aid dealing with refugees or disaster relief. As an international refugee crisis continues to be a growing epidemic in the sphere of global politics, it is reassuring that people like Ellie are there to head toward the disaster area to give help to those who need it most.

To read previous GoYeo Storyteller features, click here.