Nepal – Day 21

This morning Heather & I were up and out of the house before the sun came up. We needed to be on the road by 5:30am so that we could get to Gorkha Bazaar to meet some people from Runchet to discuss what assistance we could offer them for the local school in the way of toilets, and how we could help the community with some materials to make temporary shelters.

Along the way we encountered a bit of a traffic jam of trucks, this was due to one of the trucks coming to grief on a corner and hanging precariously over the edge of a cliff.

Fortunately most of the truck jam was for the vehicles coming the other way so we got through relatively easily.

Although the image to the upper left is a bit blurry you get an idea of the queue. I was amazed at the number of trucks especially on the road before 6:00am and the fact that a lot of the roadside stalls and shops were already open for trade.

We stopped off for an omelette breakfast after about a couple of hours driving, which was welcome relief for Bhim I’m sure.

Then we got on the road again so that we could be in Gorkha Bazaar. Along the way we saw some beautiful hills, valleys and rivers.

Once  there we had to track down who it was that we were meeting and where and then discuss where things were at for the remote village and how we could assist them. This was always going to be an interesting exchange, as we didn’t have an interpreter, and although their written English may have been reasonably OK, their broken English was at times hard to understand.

At one point in the conversation we ascertained that we needed to go to the local Village District Committee secretary to get sign off for what we were proposing which made things even more interesting as he didn’t understand a word of English. In the end Heather wrote down what it was we needed to be written and then one of the teachers wrote it out in English in his own handwriting, on an official letterhead, translating as he went so that the secretary knew what it was that he would be signing off on.

In the end we got there though, and came to an agreement that we could only supply materials for four toilets to be built and that we would be coming back in just over three months to do an inspection and the job needed to be at least 75% complete. At this proposed site visit we will be confirming what we can do to assist them in the area of CGI (Corrugated Iron).

The issue for this community is the fact that they are so remote, it takes a two day trek for them to get to the nearest town and at the moment that is inaccessible due to landslides by car, and even a 4×4 would struggle. The last distribution that we provided for them had to be transported by 158 mules and took about 4 days. It will cost the community just as much for transportation than it does for the cost of the materials for the toilets. if we wanted to airlift the stuff to them it would cost at least double the price of materials.

On a personal level though this is a project that I would like to see us as a Corps, Rotary Club, City or even as a region pick up and help them, not only with providing the village with their own mules so that costs can be saved. But also assist them with the rebuilding of the school (which was only completed 2 years prior to the earthquakes) and the homes within the community as a whole.

On our way back to Kathmandu, we stopped off at the Manakamana Cable Car.

Completed in 1998 it is the only gondola in Nepal and goes from a height of 258 MT at Kurintar which is the bottom station, on the banks of the Trisuli River, and goes to a height of 1302 MT at the Top Station.

Once at the top you are greeted by the village of Manakamana which is famous for the Shrine of Manakamana, a temple to the wish-fulfilling goddess. However, this was destroyed during the earthquake.

Spectacular views include the deep valleys, terraced fields and the Manaslu-Himalchuli and Annapurna ranges. With views also overlooking the Trisuli River to the South and the Marsyangdi to the West.

After about 1/2 an hour of walking around looking at the stunning sights at the top and watching some dancers performing as part of the current festivals, we headed back down to the bottom to meet up with Bhim so that we could get home before dark.

Wishful thinking!

On the road back into Kathmandu we came across a massive truck jam. This was much larger than the one we had experienced this morning, as it traversed the complete hill climb and it took at least two hours just to get over the hill. By the time we got back to home, it was well past 7pm.

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Nepal – Day 20

This morning MJ needed to go to a meeting on one side of town, while Heather & I needed to catch up with Shahzad (who had left earlier) @ a distribution in Thaiba Community. The only issue was that we only had one car, and Bhim (our normal driver) had got his brother to take over for him for the day.

So we set off to Sisters to get some last minute supplies before heading one way with the intention of dropping MJ off first and then we would head across town… The best laid plans of mice and men, or something like that… The driver didn’t appear that confident finding the place where we needed to be and at least 3 times phoned the Volunteers Initiative Nepal (VIN) office up to get directions. This was beginning to wind Heather & MJ up as the time was ticking by… We finally got to our destination about 20mins late in part due to a traffic build up, in part because of the drivers uncertainty.

No sooner had we turned the car around the driver went back into VIN for a pit stop and when he came out a lady got in the car – which was like what the??? Heather by this time was getting just a tad brassed off because Shahzad had called a couple of times wanting to know where we were at – as had Andrew the Team Leader. We ended up dropping off the lady en route and headed down the main road. Only for the car to start showing signs of not wanting to go much further.

Eventually we came to a stand still in the middle of the road as the clutch just would not engage. After a few frantic phone calls from the driver to Bhim (we think!) we got out and headed towards one of the taxi’s close at hand. The first taxi driver didn’t really give us the time of day and wanted to charge us an exuberant price to take us to Thaiba. So we went with another driver parked right beside him and told him that we were only prepared to pay a fixed price. After a bit of haggling in broken English we were on our way. By this time we were about 3/4’s of a hour late.

We finally got to Thaiba (1 hour late) and Shahzad had started the distribution, but because of our arrival they stopped everything gave us the official welcome and after Heather shared a few words recommenced with the giving of food for the villagers.

While there I had the opportunity to see the amount of work that the community had done over the past couple of months clearing rubble from the streets.

Most of which they had had to do by hand.

Ralph in an earlier assistance package had organised for bulldozers to help clear a fair bit of the streets, but looking around the narrow streets I could see that they still had a lot of work to do.

It’s hard to believe that in almost all of the places I have seen while here, people are still literally living in homes that are partially or in this case completely destroyed as they have nowhere else to go.

Again as I walked around seeing the devastation I was struck by the resilience of the people, especially the children who were playing in the streets. Some were playing ball, while others were riding their bikes up and over many an obstruction in the road. These two where having such a blast and they were really adorable, they even wanted me to join in.

In New Zealand the local council and central government would have moved these people on and forced them to live in shelters or camps while there homes & streets were completely cleared of rubble before allowing people back into the area.

Here life goes on and the people have to cope with what they have left. No water, no electricity, no roofs and doors and in some cases a wall missing here or there.

After the distribution was complete Heather, Shahzad & I got in the back of the truck and headed home. This was a huge novelty for Heather and she had such a blast taking photo’s and videos on our trip back…

In the afternoon I headed to the markets with Shahzad to get some clothes for loved ones back home. The market was located next to the Fun Park, and was filled with stalls with traders trying to entice us with their wares. It was quite close and Shahzad was able to barter really well with the locals to bring the price down quite a bit.

By the time we had finished we had quite a few bags between us of stuff. Girls I hope you like your presents when I get back! You might just need to check out YouTube or Google though to work out how to wear them 🙂

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