In 2010, her Eugowra beef and sheep farm was in the grip of drought, and running out of water.

“Any farmer can tell you it’s one of the worst things a farmer can go through because you just never know when that rain is coming,” Ms Gibby said. 

So, the tough decision was made to sell off all the property’s sheep.

The buyer arrived two weeks later with a truck to pick them up.

And that same day, it rained.

The hardships faced by villagers in the tiny south Asian country of Nepal are very different, but it’s their cause that has seen Ms Gibby make the trip to Nepal four times in the last decade.

A former school teacher in the United States, her interest in the Himalayas was inspired by her mountainous home state of Montana.

“We love climbing mountains and the whole mountain atmosphere,” she said.

She had joined the Australian Himalayan Foundation while studying her masters degree at the University of Montana.

“I get an email . . . asking if I was interested in doing a teacher training program that November and December in Nepal,” Ms Gibby said.

“I thought oh, what a dream come true. I need a project for my masters and I’ve always wanted to go there, so that’s how it all started.”

Ms Gibby travelled to the country four times over the following 10  years, such was her fascination with the place and the people.

The quaint but raw beauty of the place is what struck her first.

“It’s just like stepping back into a fairytale kingdom, all the hillside homes and terraced farming.”

“[If] they’re herding goats, one goat will have a bell and you can hear the lead goat’s bell. It’s just an enchanting place.”

Training teachers, what struck her was the sheer amount of walking  villagers - particularly students - have to do, just to get to school or other institutions.

“If you’re at the hospital, a nurse, it might be two hours away. A lot of walking,” Ms Gibby said.

“It’s not a safe thing for young girls to go back and forth on trails as in any country. Often it’s at night.”

It was this dilemma that is seeing her planning to return at the end of the year, this time with a US-based non-profit organisation called Edge of Seven, which focuses on the needs of girls in developing countries.

She approached some of her friends and neighbours in Eugowra about the prospect of joining an Edge of Seven project to build a girls’ school dormitory from bags of earth, which are easier to make than bricks, and can be produced locally.

There are six people travelling over on November 30 this year.

They’ll spend a few weeks working with local tradespeople to construct the dormitory in Salleri, in the eastern region of Solukhumbu. It’s close to Mt Everest, but in the lower Himalayas rather than the higher peaks.

“Most of us are between 50 and 65, so we’re not a young group but we’re very motivated,” she explained.

Nevertheless, the trip will be more demanding than Ms Gibby’s previous work in Nepal training teachers.

The weather in the region in November and December tends to be friendly to travellers experienced with winters in inland NSW.

“Salleri is low enough that it stays fairly moderate,” Ms Gibby said, with temperatures reaching 10 to 15 degrees during the day.

The volunteers will also get a hefty dose of the local culture, staying with Salleri villagers during the weeks they are there.

Even today, as western influence grows and technology in the country develops, it can be a simple life. Wooden stoves are used for cooking and heating, and women wash their clothes in the river.

But Ms Gibby is keenly aware of the inherent conflict in her volunteering - by giving the Nepalese villagers aid and building assistance, westerners are developing a reliance on their help that will be hard to shake.

“That’s a discussion every time we have a teacher training program,” she said.

“A lot of programs actually pay . . . the teacher’s wages just to help them out, and so they’re hugely dependent on western money.”

Volunteer programs like the one run by Edge of Seven are sometimes criticised because they encourage volunteers to do feel-good work which can cause long-term problems with funding and training sustainability once the volunteers go home.

But Ms Gibby doesn’t shy away from the fact she finds helping out in Nepal hugely satisfying.

“People just usually say it’s such an altruistic thing. Well, everyone gains from it,” she said.

For now, at least, Jeanine Gibby knows the earth bags they’ll be filling up and carrying to the dormitory site are going to do a lot of good. From one group of farmers to another, a helping hand can go a long way.