Nepal Revisited – Day 8

This morning MJ headed to the Shelter Cluster while Heather & I went in to the Mission Aviation Fellowship (M.A.F.) booking office to organise flights for Runchet. The subsidized prices at the moment for flights, due to the fuel situation, works out cheaper for us to fly by helicopter rather than hire a driver for a few days and pay for fuel. It also reduces the number of days spent out of the office at the moment.

After this we went out for a spot of shopping as we are running out of a few essentials, including water. The water supply at the house (tank water) had taken a day and a half to organise. Thankfully by yesterday afternoon this had been sorted. Sanga (the local C.O.) had had to organise a second firm to deliver some water, as the first company would have taken at least a week to deliver some to us due to limitations on fuel.

In the afternoon Heather got confirmation that we will be flying to the Upper Gorkha region tomorrow, as Mountain Child have been able to schedule a flight up there and fit us in for a monitoring visit. Which is awesome!

We also headed across the other side of Kathmandu to meet up with Child Nepal, as their was a complication with the cheque that we had given them yesterday at the bank. We were introduced to the whole team and given tea which was very sweet and refreshing.

While we were there they showed us a sample of the bag and exercise book that they have had made, which is to be presented to each child at the Temporary Learning Centres (TLC’s) in Sindhupalchok. Also to be included are some other stationary supplies, such as pencils, pens etc. We suggested that rather than giving us the sample now, that it would be much better to do a presentation @ one of the TLC’s when we visit in November, which they agreed.

Sumita, Mohan and Heather discussing the next steps

We also spent some time getting introduced to the rest of the team that works at Child Nepal.

They are a small dedicated, friendly and committed team working in a rather confined space with limited office essentials such as workstations, office chairs etc.

Which shows that the majority of funding that they do get, goes directly to the resources for the children that they cater for.

As we were leaving we got drenched as the heavens opened, not only rain mind you, hail as well! But it was fascinating that within five kilometers of where we were, it was clear skies above and it looked like not a single drop of rain had fallen. By the time we got back to the house the temperature had risen by at least 10 degrees I reckon.

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Nepal Revisited – Day 7

We had a very productive day today as Heather & I started the morning off by having a meeting at Mission Aviation Fellowship (M.A.F.) to re-register our credentials with them, while MJ headed to the Logistics Cluster.

We were each amazed by the amount of motorbikes and cars that lined the road waiting for fuel and also the number of vehicles to-ing and fro-ing on the streets.

The traffic is the busiest it has been for days!!!

Heather & I then headed up stairs to have a meeting with Sarah @ Mountain Child, who has been doing work in the Upper Gorkha District, which is a very remote area of Nepal. They have been an implementing partner in the area of distributions to communities and Temporary Learning Centers (TLC’s) at the schools which have been severely affected by the earthquake. While we were out of the country they had tried to organise a monitoring visit. Now that we are back they will look at rescheduling one at the earliest convenience.

Obviously, with the transitioning from initial earthquake assistance through to recovery, the needs have been constantly changing for the communities, especially in isolated areas such as these. So if we do get the chance to head up there, we will do a pseudo evaluation and provide recommendations to head office so that we can continue working in the area.

We also had a meeting with Child Nepal (another implementing partner) at Sisters to discuss progress to date with the TLC’s that they have been working on. There assistance has been hampered by the landslides in the higher regions of Sindhupalchok, caused by the monsoon season. Also the current fuel crisis has had an affect on their progress. However, they have completed four centers and are looking forward to our monitoring visit in early November.

The latter part of the afternoon was spent catching each other up on where things are at with the different projects and us sharing information that we had each gathered today.

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