Nepal – Day 23

Again this morning was spent working on filing and getting some of the paperwork brought up to date as much as we can at the moment. I was able to confirm that the supplies required for Runchet were being ordered so that the toilets at the school can be built as soon as possible. Also Basanta was able to give me a price for the locally supplied C.G.I. which hopefully, I’ll be able to approve later this afternoon, so that the villagers can put the steps in place that are necessary to organise the transportation of the bundles.

In the afternoon we were made aware of the escalating political & religious tensions surrounding the Nepalese constitution which the Government is going to be announcing where to next on Sunday. As noted yesterday these tensions could escalate into violent protests and confrontations, so we need to be wary over the next few days.

Later in the afternoon Andrew called the team together for an urgent team meeting. He advised us that due to the potential escalations of violence, and a few threats that have been posted both online and to Christian groups, I.H.Q. has made the decision to withdraw the team, as soon as flights can be made avaiable, from Nepal for a week until things have settled down again.

The rest of the evening the whole team had mixed feelings about the upcoming withdrawal and waited for confirmation of flight details. In effect we will all be out of the country within 24hours. Which is obviously disappointing but it is good to know that The Salvation Army takes our safety and security seriously and do not want us to be in any danger what so ever.

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Nepal – Day 22

After the past couple of long days it was good to have a day at home doing paperwork and taking it a bit easier. I still need to get a couple of reports completed over the next few days so maybe this slight break will make that possible.

Today we were made aware of potential upcoming major strikes and protests over the constitution changes that subsequent governments have been working on for at least the past four years. These protests it has been muted may turn ugly as different political & religious factions come head to head. If that is the case we have been advised to hole up at home and wait for things to settle back down again.

In the afternoon Andrew, Sanga & I went shopping again for supplies and saw the 1st and only (apparently), what I would call, large format retail stores that is on one level. We have been to a couple multi story ones that have checkouts on each level but this was like a Deka of old (New Zealanders will know what I mean here!)

Later on in the afternoon it was great to catch-up with Annette over a Facebook video call. Before having a sit down meal at the house this time prepared by Heather, with some assistance from Andrew.

After dinner we introduced Shahzad & MJ to Uno, which was great fun and by the time we had played a few open handed rounds they seemed to pick the game up reasonably well. At some stages of the game the competitive natures of everyone involved came through loud and clear, and it was funny to watch the reactions of the team when they got landed with pickup cards and din’t have a response 🙂

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