This morning Shahzad & I headed off first thing to the Humanitarian Staging Area to oversight the pick up of two containers that have been donated to us to assist with the response. This took some time as we were waiting for a crane to arrive to lift them on to two flat-deck trucks. It then took the guys quite some time to ensure that the containers were well secured, before heading off to Dhola in the Dhading district, which is almost three hours away.
We stopped off for lunch at the same place we did the other day when we were in Dhakre. Then we met up with Dinesh to make sure he had a suitable place for the containers to go.
We ended up trying to go to the village which is located ‘over the hill and far away’, through forests and along a dirt track. But the track ended up being impassable in the vehicle we were in due to it not being a four wheel drive. We ended up stopping for tea along the way which was really sweet and refreshing.
Some of the homes in this area have not been affected by the earthquake, while others have damage ranging from severe to what I would call medium.
However, most are constructed using rocks and mud and the little place where we stopped for the cuppa tea was made out of a combination of timber cut direct from the forest and rocks, it also incorporated the canopy of one of the trees as the seating area.
We waited for the trucks to arrive and were waiting for a couple more hours for the crane to arrive which was the same one that loaded the trucks in the first place. By the time we got to 6 o’clock the light started to disappear, so we called it a day and left the truck drivers with Dinesh and his party waiting, waiting waiting. But the location is very picturesque, nestled among the hills and with the river in the valley floor.
On the road about 30-40 mins back into town we passed the crane so it was approx. an hour away. That is going to be fun unloading and positing them in the dark. But I guess it has been done elsewhere plenty of times. By the time we got back to Kathmandu for something to eat it was just after 9 and we tried a couple of places that were just closing so we were not welcome. Then we located a place that was just a tad seedy and Shahzad made sure that all we wanted was something to eat.
By the time we got back to our new digs it was 10 o’clock and we had been out for about 14 hours and hadn’t really accomplished a great deal except how to wait, Nepalese time is not much fun for someone who likes to get stuff done reasonably quickly – another learning curve me thinks! Thanks God I think I got that one…
The life and times of Perry... 