Nepal – Day 9

This morning was a bit of a slow start as we didn’t really have anything booked, so we took it easy. Andrew, the team leader, had a meeting mid morning to look at a house, which we will be looking to move into for the duration of our stay here in Nepal. This will serve as the base of operations for the recovery team who will start arriving mid October.

This is about the sixth house that members of the team have looked at over the past couple of weeks, a few days ago we thought we had one lined up, but the owner decided at the last moment, after saying yes mind you, that we couldn’t have it as he was going to stay due to family coming back from oversees. But it looks like this one that was viewed today is all go, and we can move in tomorrow…

In the afternoon MJ & I went back to Liwali Camp to catch up with Ratna as they were having their celebration march, which is part of the ongoing celebrations for those that have passed away in the last year. MJ was invited to wear a traditional wrap around skirt (sari) and she was very obliging getting kitted out by a few of the ladies of the camp.

The march follows a centuries old path around the city and includes a stick dance through the streets which was accompanied with a group of drummers. It certainly drew a crowd, along the way people lined the streets to watch, in some places the people were hanging out of windows. As we approached Durbar Square the amount of people gathering around was astounding, as other community settlements also took to the streets.

The celebrations go well into the night, we were told that after they get back from the march they have a number of dramas and songs, over food of course!

It was great to be a part of their culture, rather than continually giving out we were able to just be with them which I think they truly appreciated.

It was a bit of a shame that we couldn’t have continued well into the night with them, but the reality was that after a few hours of pounding the streets we were had it and needed to get back to Sisters Cafe & Beauty to catch up with the rest of the team.

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Nepal – Day 8

Shahzad & I headed to the hub at Benepa to pick up the last of the tarpaulins that we had received from India.

On the way we stopped off to take some photo’s of the Kailashnath Mahadev Statue which according to Wikipedia is the world’s fortieth-tallest statue, four below the Statue of Liberty.

The statue depicts the Lord Shiva, which is one of many Hindu gods and is 144 feet tall. It is made of copper, zinc, concrete and steel, and is located on the border of the Bhaktapur and Kavrepalanchwok districts, which is about 20 km from Kathmandu.

There is also a water park called Kathmandu Fun Valley at the foot of the valley which would normally be packed with people but at the moment lies dormant due to some repairs that are obviously being made after the earthquakes. Construction finished in 2013 and on opening day it had over thirty thousand people turn up to experience the first of its kind in Nepal.

After we had picked up the tarpaulins we headed to Sana Byasi Camp to drop them off for future use as temporary shelter and water proofing for the many tents that are starting to deteriorate due to the inclement weather. Nepal is almost at the end of the monsoon season, when it rains it really rains!

While the tarps were being unloaded we made a quick visit to see one of the celebrations that were taking place close, by that honors those that died during the earthquake.

Much of the afternoon was spent reconciling databases while Ralph (the second Kiwi deployed) packed his bags in preparation for his flight home that night back to Auckland. Obligatory photo’s were taken at Sisters Cafe & Beauty and then we saw him off at the airport.

Now the International team is down to four. However, Heather joins us from South Africa on Sunday.

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Nepal – Day 7

This morning Dave headed off to the airport, while MJ, Ralph & Shahzad headed out to a few of the camps. Meanwhile I headed by taxi to Bagiachia Restro & Bar in Jawalakhel, for a Shelter Cluster meeting. The Restaurant is located near the Alka Hospital and Central Zoo. The taxi driver was able to get me into the general vicinity but from then on in I was on foot (just as well I had bartered him down from 300Rs to 200Rs).

After walking around for about 20mins or so I finally found where the meeting was being held and made some notes before heading back to Sisters Cafe & Beauty on foot just so I could get an idea of the sights & sounds, as well as an idea of distances etc. Also I wanted to see how I fared on foot amongst the hustle and bustle of people everywhere.

3/4’s of an hour later I arrived back at Sisters for a lunchtime meeting with representatives from International Organisation of Migration (IOM) who had also been @ the cluster meeting. (Don’t you just hate that!) The outcomes from this meeting were that I had a bit of work to do to get some reports completed as soon as possible as they had been waiting for information for quite some time.

So the rest of the day was literally spent in front of a computer looking at databases and figures (Joy!) trying to get distribution lists to balance – note to self, if ever I am on an initial emergency response team make sure all the correct information is loaded where it needs to be in the standard template…

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Nepal – Day 6

This morning David, MJ & I headed across the city to the airport hub for UN so that we could attend the Logistics Cluster meeting. Travelling in the back of a small truck sitting is not the most ideal way of travelling around town but it gives you a different perspective of the cities traffic. Cars, trucks, buses, motorbikes, tractors and bicycles all clambering for road space and then the people who literally have to play chicken to cross the road is definitely an eye opener. Drivers & riders seem to be more concerned about the livelihoods of animals than they do fellow human beings.

After the meeting Dave took me to the office of Fishtail Air so that I could sign the necessary paperwork, this was so that I can organise any flights out to the remote places for members of the team that need to do monitoring and further assessments of needs, as well as organise transportation of goods i.e. non-food items (NFI), possible corrugated iron (CGI) etc.

In the afternoon David spent time packing up to get ready for his trip home and providing me with as much information as one can about the operations of the team over the past few months and what computer databases, reports etc. that I need to get accomplished in the remainder of my time here.

This image taken from google images: ‘fridayweekly.com.np’

In the evening we had a beautiful meal with Majors Sanga & Manum and their two daughters @ The Bakery Cafe as a farewell to Dave who goes tomorrow morning. The meals were very nice and appreciated by all, although the Nutty Professor drinks seemed a bit off.

The Bakery Cafe is known for accepting and employing deaf staff who are otherwise not considered eligible for work in most professional settings.

Shahzad was able to communicate with one of the waiters very well and was joking and laughing along with him for quite some time explaining what The Salvation Army is doing in Nepal.

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Nepal – Day 5

This morning we headed out for a 2 hrs drive to Thakre which is one of the most affected villages in Dhading District. According to a report by Raksha Nepal: over 700 people died, 1500 are severely injured and thousands others are directly affected including pregnant women, children and old age people. There is massive loss of property, houses, animals and other infrastructures which not only made villagers miserable but also made it difficult to replenish essentials for their normal lives. (abridged)

One of the first things that struck me again was the friendliness of those that we met and the appreciation that they had for any assistance that we were providing. In this instance it was 285 quilts for those in the worst affected ward. While Ralph & Shahzad helped with the distribution, MJ & I headed up into the hills to see first hand the devastation, ably assisted by Kumar who is a local social worker & Razan who helped with translation.

I was amazed once more by the resourcefulness of the local people and their resilience as they had started rebuilding their homes with anything and everything that they had available. In some cases they had just shored up the sides of houses or covered them with a tarpaulin and were still living in part of the room. While others had chopped down some trees and were using the trunks for framing and then suspending corrugated iron and or tarps across as a roof.

Now just to set the record straight when I say a home they are little more than a room approx. 3 meters X 4 meters if you are lucky / in effect no bigger than my daughters bedroom and this allows space for a sitting area, bed and in some cases kitchen facilities. I’m not sure how Christina would cope if she was also sharing her space with in some cases 5 or more people in her room.

After spending quite some time looking around the various family encampments / settlements that make up the village MJ & I came across a scene which literally knocked the stuffing out of us. We were told of this elderly couple who had lived in the area their whole lives and had lost absolutely everything. (He was 106 yrs old and his wife was 95). And when I say everything I include their dignity as can be seen in the next image. All they had was in what I call a bivouac, the clothes they were sitting and lying in and a pallet on the ground. Other family members were doing all they could to ensure that they could continue leasing the family plot of land and feed their aging relatives.

Even as I write this and post this image it brings tears to my eyes. To think of all that I have sitting idly in my drawers or in my cupboards, as far as food and clothing, and theses guys have next to nothing. But with what they do have they make do. What’s more they seem content and smile and greet us affectionately as if we were part of the family.

One question and only one springs to mind: Where is the justice in this?

To make matters worse this is one of hundreds of families here in Nepal that are struggling just to survive and I know that there are many more places in this fallen world in which these kinds of images are repeated over and over again.

After a prolonged trip back up the mountain pass which in some places is no wider than 6″ wide if you’re lucky (which for those of you that only know metric is about 15cm wide) we headed off to see how the school was affected. As can be seen in the following images they had lost the second story of pretty much 2/3rds of the school and even though they had in place some temporary learning centres were struggling to house just over 600 children that studied there.

MJ lightened the mood considerably by teaching the students in two of the classes a song and as we were leaving we could hear students from other classes singing the song as some of the children had come to peer in windows and doors to see what was going on. With everything that these children had been through they were smiling and genuinely happy, and you could see in their faces the joy that one simple song could bring.

Around the school they had quotes such as; “Plants are developed by cultivation and men by education“, “The child is a book which the teacher has to learn from page to page“, and for all those school teachers out there I’m sure you will love this one “My Favorite House: School is Temple, Teacher is god, Friend is Friend, Not enemies.”

After catching up with Ralph & Shahzad at the distribution point we headed to one of the local eating places “truck stops” and had a beautiful lunch that was laid out for us as a thank you for our contribution to the community. My dear wife would be struggling with most of the food as it consists mostly of vegetables, rice and is spicy.

By the time we got back to Sisters Cafe & Beauty it was early afternoon and we all crashed for most of the remainder of the afternoon until it was time to go out for dinner as a farewell to Dave who leaves on the 2nd and Ralph who leaves on the 3rd.

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The Leadership Challenge…

It has been quite some time since the last ‘Leadership Challenge’ but as I sit here in Kathmandu after spending some time contemplating the first few days of my International Emergency Services Deployment I’m reminded of the resilience of people when faced by adversity and what they are prepared to do to help those around them, forgetting at times the risks and just doing what they can to survive and help others to do likewise.

John Ortberg in his book Soul Keeping: Caring for the most important part of you says; “Sin is not just the wrong stuff we do; it’s the good we don’t do. It’s the starving children we don’t want to look at, the volunteering we avoid, the poor we don’t want to serve, and the money we don’t want to give. How can good church folk turn their backs on the people Jesus called ‘the least of these’?”

Hiding behind man made rules and regulations that sometimes prevent us from doing the stuff that we know is right is no excuse either. Just because we might get a bad wrap or even have to work through the risks, doesn’t mean we should attempt to make a difference in the lives of others. Accepting that by doing nothing is safer than doing something and that we don’t have to be held accountable for something that may just be difficult is a far cry from what Christ is going to be holding us accountable for.

The thing is rules and regulations are put in place to protect US, yes in some form they also protect those that we are trying to help but all too often they end up preventing us from doing what we know we should do until we have ticked all the boxes.

We need to do whatever we can whenever we can to provide the kind of love that Jesus expects of us and that may even mean opening up our own houses to those that don’t deserve it. Risks yes, but it may just save a soul. What I have experienced thus far shows that as humans we are very resilient and we will do whatever we can to survive. At times putting ourselves at risk to help others.

Sin is not just the wrong stuff we do; it’s the good we don’t do.

So lets not get bound up by the rules and be afraid of what may happen because we haven’t quite got everything worked out, instead lets look at the lost soul that needs a bed for the night or the hungry blighter that needs some food in their belly and do what we can to lift them in their situation but more importantly in the spirit, sharing with them why it is we do what we do.

But the question for us especially in the western world is how do we overcome the fear of retribution for doing good?

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