A baseball story with saffron stitching

Sep. 6—From Mount Everest's peak you can see the curvature of the earth, high enough for the atmosphere to unveil stars to spite shining sun. You can peer east and you'll see the Himalayan mountains spearing over the cloud line for hundreds of miles, all the way into the Kingdom of Bhutan.

On a clear day, a young saffron-robed monk might be gazing back, his mind on his breath and posture, his eyes on the pitcher.

And then the crack of the bat, sending the baseball piercing through the thin air.

The ball's flight, in this distant region which is 98% mountainous, has a connection not just to America, birthplace of baseball, but also to Baker City.

"The ethos of the game of baseball is truly simpatico with Bhutanese character," said Kathleen Kiefer, an anthropologist, writer and filmmaker from Baker City. "It has a meditative quality to it."

Kiefer operates the nonprofit Bhutan Cultural Exchange in Baker City, a program she's been running since 2015 when she chanced to meet the Venerable Karma Namgyel. Namgyel, a resident Buddhist monk, lives in Colorado and was hosted in Baker City for 10 days by the Crossroads Carnegie Art Center.

"I asked while he was here for 10 days to photo and video his whole deal here in Baker," Kiefer said. "I suggested we go on this hike, I know he's from the southern Himalayas. I thought he'd appreciate a hike, and he did. He was out there in his flowing orange robes and sandals!"

The experience, which she filmed and published, compelled Kiefer to visit Bhutan for the first time.

She's since returned four more times, ceasing her trips only during the pandemic, but she's planning a sixth visit, this time staying for a year.

"I fell in love with the country, and everything about it," Kiefer said.

Her relationship with Bhutan led to the baseball connection.

Kiefer is raising money to provide the youth of Bhutan with the equipment, training and travel expenses to form a permanent baseball program.

The landlocked country, which is almost five times the size of Baker County, has no ports, and while the other countries focus on their economic output as relative to the good it creates for its citizens, Bhutan adopted a model that, instead, focuses on the happiness and sustainability of its people, young and old.

And from the videos and accounts of everyone connected to the baseball program, the kids aren't happy, they're ecstatic.

"What it is is that they're running out of funds," Kiefer said. "They rely on funding."

Baseball is a material import for a country that doesn't pursue material gains. Kiefer's fundraiser, which has a $50,000 goal, has brought in more than $5,000.

Bhutan maintains a capitalist democracy, one embraced by the royal family and established as recently as 2008. But a typical retiree in America has a net worth comparable to royalty in Bhutan.

Bridge Between Worlds

Though Kiefer says she didn't play baseball in her youth, the connection between the sport and Bhutan started with another American, originally from Connecticut, whom she met in her travels abroad.

"One of my trips I met this gentleman, Matt DeSantis, the guy who originally brought baseball to the country in 2013," Kiefer said. DeSantis was eager to discuss how it all got started.

"Myself and my three brothers played baseball outside day and night, which is how I built friendships with my brothers and my father," he said in an interview with the Herald. "It was an integral part of my life with family and friends and integral to the community."

DeSantis was himself an accomplished player, competing for Choate Rosemary Hall, the Connecticut boarding school he attended.

It was there that DeSantis met Prince Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuck, who was also attending Choate and is the brother of the current Bhutanese king.

"We met on the basketball court, we had a very competitive relationship that turned into friendship," DeSantis said.

After the 2008 vote to change the government in Bhutan, DeSantis said Jigyel phoned him.

"They were transitioning from monarchy to democracy, he asked if I could build some systems for the government for various ministries," DeSantis said. "I showed up for what I thought was four weeks, and eight weeks later I'm still walking across the jungle!"

The connection ultimately inspired DeSantis to found a travel design business in part with the prince, MyBhutan.com. On his first foray into the country he'd expected only to stay a short while, but, "Bhutan became home. I'm one of the longest residing foreigners in Bhutan."

DeSantis' skills in computer science helped him set up the infrastructure of the Bhutanese ministries and departments following the new democracy. During all this, DeSantis found himself with a lot of free time in the evenings, so he set out to establish some of the pleasures of home.

"Originally I'd only planned to hold a few sessions, at the time the plan was to have 5 to 10 baseball sessions, we posted it in the city center on a concrete slab between track and field," he said.

He could never have anticipated how Bhutan residents responded to baseball.

"Within a week we had 400 kids, in two weeks we had 500 kids," he said. "We decided to keep running the sessions, within a month 700 kids were showing up to camp."

Since then Thimphu, Bhutan's capital, has started its own baseball club, the Thimphu Red Pandas.

Every new club has subsequently chosen an animal mascot, using some of the proceeds from games to support wildlife conservation.

The program came to be so successful that a national poll recognized baseball as the sport with the most public interest in development, and at one point Bhutan opted to send an adult team to Japan for an invitational.

Unfortunately, that same year, 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake shuddered through Bhutan's neighbor, Nepal, and consequences were felt as far away as the western side of Bhutan, damaging homes.

"I think we would have made an impressive appearance, that plan folded and so did the adult league following the earthquake," DeSantis said.

Since then the focus has been on bringing baseball to Bhutanese children.

The Ground Game

As DeSantis and prince Jigyel eventually sought out and found outside support in several venues, Jigyel ultimately enlisted fellow Olympic committee member Karma Dorji, who worked to help establish the official Bhutan Baseball and Softball Association.

Dorji, currently working in Australia, gave perspective especially on how the children have been affected by the sport as it grows, one community at a time.

"It's been a revelation," Dorji said. "I've seen firsthand the impact of sports, especially in truly young kids. It's been a very, very interesting observation to see changes in kids' behavior, in mindset. Most of all, kids who participate in it in the capital city come from rough backgrounds, the coaches and I noticed they're being very proactive, coming to training on time, bringing food, they have to travel a distance of about 25 minutes to get to a field."

Even with the luxury of a bus, the kids often have to do some intense hiking to board it, as many towns all but clinch to the steep hillsides that make up so much of Bhutan.

"During the lockdown, kids were practicing in their back yards!" Dorji said. "It was so encouraging to see kids sending us videos practicing, they were doing it on their own."

"A big requirement is equipment, it's expensive and not easy to come by," Dorji said. "We've been very fortunate to have guidance from Desantis, Pitch-In, and Baseball Without Borders."

Pitch-In and BWB have been supplying the organization, and the World Baseball-Softball Confederation has made it possible to officially certify Bhutan's coaches and umpires.

"Don't mean to brag, but we turned a high school soccer field into a baseball field," Dorji said. "We did everything as per the book, we were dubbed as the highest altitude baseball field in the world, very neat."

The program was further bolstered by Texas coach Marvin Moore, who has donated his time and enthusiasm to the kids there, pushing them to competitive levels they'd never anticipated.

If you would like to support the Bhutan Cultural Exchange's initiative or know more about the program, visit the gofundme at https://gofund.me/2d5dc824, or visit Kiefer's facebook page www.facebook.com/BhutanExperience, where you can see some of her footage and learn about Bhutan in detail.