OPD Floor Pour

We finally poured the floor earlier this week on the OPD building, it all went pretty smoothly I took a few photos throughout the day and made this little clip. I'll add a few more photos when I've got some more time.

OPD Building Progress

Time for another update on the OPD building progress. I said in my last update a month ago that we were just about to finish the compacting of the fill under the floor slab. The contractors managed to nurse their compacting machine along and finally finished the job in the first week of August (a week later than planned but not too bad considering the machine they were using). After compacting the soil we put together the reinforcement for the tie beams that tie all the columns together. The original plan was to cast the concrete for these tie beams then pour the floor on top (this is the usual process in Nepal) but I managed to convince the contractor that it would be quicker (and more importantly stronger) if we pour the concrete for the floor and the beams in one go. They initially were a little reluctant but I eventually managed to get them on-board. We've just about finished putting all the stone soling in (closely packed stones) under the floor. A thin layer of concrete is poured on top of this to provide a flat surface to lay out the reinforcing bar before the floor slab is poured. We've laid out half the rebar where we've finished the soling and had it not rained constantly for a couple of days we might have been pouring the floor slab tomorrow.  There is also a transport strike on at the moment which has meant that most of the laborers cannot get to work, hopefully this will be sorted out soon so we can get back to a full crew.

For anyone interested heres a few photos:

Fortunately this concrete isn't structural!
A different concrete mix a vibrator and mixing machine
will be used when we pour the floor slab and it better
 look better than this.

Measuring out gravel to make concrete

I'm pretty sure the toilet drains would have been forgotten about
had I not pointed out that now might be a good time to put
them in

A little tweaking to get everything straight before the pour
but its all looking pretty good. Normally I don't think this much steel
would be required but since our foundations are weak
we've had to stiffen the floor and change the roof from a concrete
slab roof to a corrugated iron roof to compensate.

Dhampus Retreat

In June I was asked to organise a retreat for the Pokhara team. We jumped into jeeps adn went up to Dhampus for a night for a mixture of spiritual input and just hanging out together. After a really hot few weeks in Pokhara to be cooler in Dhampus (twice the altitude of Pokhara) and to wear sleeves made us all rejoice a little!

 

 Getting ready to go in the jeeps...

 The pagoda under which we had the sessions.

 The view in the morning from our bedroom...

We went for a walk up to another town for lunch - the leeches weren't too bad but we were keeping our eyes peeled.

 The rain didn't fall but we thought it would so we all took our umbrellas and had to do something with them!

It was a good weekend had by all, a mixture of relaxation and spiritual refreshment and time spent together.

We were brave - went with Australian's to Australia Camp for two nights!

We were invited by our Australian friends to join them for a weekend away in Australia camp which is a short drive and walk from Pokhara. After work on Friday we all jumped in a van and ask the driver to drop us of in Kunde a small town about an hours drive from Pokhara near the edge of the Annapurna conservation area. From there we climbed for a couple of hours up to Australia camp.

 Our friends Leigh and Tamara have a girl - 2 years old and another 1 year old. Here is Miki at the roadend.

 Yep - we're in Nepal - so there is climbing.

 But then we really quickly reached Australia Camp and stayed in some nice accomodation with a great lawn complete with balls, cats, dogs and leeches!

 We stayed there two nights and went for a walk on our day off but we were always walking due to the high presence of leeches...

 All the waterfalls were really pretty as there had been so much rain around.

It even rained while we were walking and Mark had someone to carry his umbrella as long as she could hold her flag as well!

 After a walk where the leeches were EVERYWHERE we got to the nearest concrete pad and covered ourselves in deet and and salt. Leigh got the most, Miki's bleed the most, Mark got the award for the most awkward spot and Jo got the least!

 Mark and I left the others and walked down on the Sunday through the rice fields which was lovely.