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.
As we approached the village we could see the devastation caused not only by the earthquakes, but also the subsequent landslides. The school toilets we found out had ended up down the bottom of a cliff. Meanwhile at the bottom of the cliff a couple of homes had been destroyed and the remaining two homes standing were occupied.
New Zealand’s housing crisis is having a devastating impact on our most vulnerable families and individuals. 
Originally posted as 
The life and times of Perry... 