The childrens wheelchair project

A Japanese donor, himself with a cerebral palsy (CP) child thought it would be a good idea to collect up some used childrens wheelchairs and send it to Nepal. Mark and I one day were very surprised to see a shipping container arrive at GPH Nepal - a long way from the sea. The info emerged that in this container were 90 different wheelchairs of different sizes, shapes and colours to give out to children.

The donor was also coming the next day and we wanted to be able to say thank you in nepali style - have a program and hand over flowers and say thanks.

We went around to a near by CP school and bought 7 students back to the hospital and due to the tight time frame we pulled the first 7 wheelchairs out of the container and placed the children in them - some of them took us a little while to work out how they worked!

Some of the wheelchairs really didn't fit very well at all but the children were excited to have something compared to nothing.

 Himalaya Sir, the head of the Kaski program extended thanks to the donor Hirokazu Morita...

 photos were taken....

 and then assessments were done to find wheelchairs that fitted the children best. This child is 2 and is soo cute (it is me sitting behind trying not to destroy the photo!)

 

 And the seven children, very very hungry after a long day, left tired but very happy that they had wheelchairs that fitted them well.

 And some big boys just have to play as well!

 

We have had huge demand for the wheelchairs and have distributed on average 4 a day! We have distributed over half of them and the hope is that when the children grow out of them they will bring them back and receive one of a bigger size.

Monsoon happenings

Really sorry - we have  been really slack about keeping up to date with the blog lately. It is mostly due to the fact it is the monsoon. The monsoon started on time this year and we have had a lot more rain than last year but when the sun has been out it has been really sticky. However, it doesn't give us lots to fill you in on as everyone just puts they're heads down and survives!

We have both been really busy with work and delightfully we can say that the OPD building that Mark is supervising is now moving ahead well - finally. Mark will keep you posted on that.

We also got a new Nya Gaun road. For those of you who have visited us or lived here you know how exciting and how long in the making that has been. Here are some photos.

The government approved the money for this a year or more ago but didn't actually release it until about 4 weeks before it needed to be spent, if it wasn't spent then the money was lost and so was the 60% contribution the local residents put in. However, the money was released at the same time as the heavy monsoon rains started. One day 1km of tar was laid only to be washed away with a heavy rain storm all night long. The next day everyone walked in ankle deep water/oil spill to work and then walked black tar through the offices! Prayers were then sent heavenward for 1 week of good weather so that it would be finished. The did one lane at a time and the thought was that if the money rain out only one lane would be finished and the nepalis would only drive on that side of the road - both ways!
Fortunatley our prayers were answered and the road is finished.

 The preparation area.

 This year they had a machine that mixed the tar and gravel together instead of it being done manually as it was last year.

 The tar was heated over a fire in 44 gallon drums....

 Then put into the mixer....

Put onto a tractor.....

And put onto the road where it was brushed smooth manually - no the people walking on it didn't have steel cap boots, cloth shoes.

 And it was rollered flat.

 

Our new road - some parts have already started breaking down!

OPD Building Progess

I just realised the other day that I haven't written anything on here about the OPD building progress since April so here's the latest update.

We had quite a major set back with the construction about 8 weeks ago when I carried out some concrete tests on the foundations, the concrete was supposed to be 20 MPa concrete and the results came back at 11 MPa. For those that don't know what that means the concrete that the building contractors made was of really poor quality and only about half as strong as it should have been. We discovered that we had made a few minor mistakes when making the test cubes for the concrete test so spent a couple of weeks trying to find other ways to confirm the strength of the concrete only to find that no other useful tests are available in the country so we had to rely on the results we had. We then had a dilemma, do we knock the building down and start again at the risk of having the contractor walk out on us or do we compromise. I wasn't too keen on compromising too much as this region is well overdue for an earthquake, the Himalayas a few kilometers are a constant reminder of the fault line that passes through here. In the end we decided to change the roof design from a concrete slab design to a corrugated iron roof design, this reduced the load on the foundations by about 60% which meant that our weak foundations would still be strong enough to handle a pretty reasonable earthquake. We've also carried out tests on half a dozen different brands of cement available locally to determine which one we'll use for the rest of the building, this has been quite a learning experience for me having never really used the stuff before this project.

So finally a couple of weeks ago construction started again, we're now just about finished compacting the fill under the floor slab. It has been a slow process which hasn't been helped by the fact that the compacting machine the contractors are using is so old that it was also used by the Egyptians to build the pyramids and as a result breaks down at least three time a day. The original schedule would have seen us pouring the roof slab about now so we've lost quite a lot of time but thankfully we should be able to claw most of that back with the new roof design which will be much quicker to build.

Found this sign

Occansionally we find signs that one really just has to share.

This one was found at the swimming pool that we go to. It's the latest himalayan experience!

Trip to Burtibang

I (Mark) recently got invited on a trip to Burtibang which is a small but rapidly growing town about 8 hours jeep ride from Pokhara. Richard Odell from the INF office in Kathmandu was contacted by a school in Burtibang a while ago and asked if he could help them with a project they were working on to build a computer lab at their school. Richard is an amazing man who has been working in Nepal for a long time and has an amazing ability to get things done. Richard and Mike Chisholm from New Zealand (who has also been involved in the project) asked me to tag along.

We left at about six in the morning and arrived in the early afternoon very eager to get out of the landrover. The first two hours of the trip arn't too bad, the road is sealed so its pretty smooth. After you reach Baglung the seal finishes and the road gets bumpy, six hours lately you arrive in Burtibang a little worse for wear.  Richard and his wife Joyce lived in Burtibang for several years many years ago so he was able to provide interesting insights into the village and how it has changed over the years. It used to be a walk from just outside Pokhara which took several days.

After arriving we went and checked out the computer lab, I'd been given instructions by one of the expat engineers in Pokhara to check the backup system to see how it is coping. The power supply provided some interesting challenges when he was specifying it so he was interested to see how it was coping. Apparently the power to the village comes from a couple of micro hydro turbines, as with most services like this they quickly end up very overloaded in Nepal. The school happens to be on the same line as the local town center where there are a number of workshops which spend a lot of time welding up broken trucks destroyed on the road to Burtibang. Every time someone fires up their welder the voltage drops considerably, a voltage regulator has been installed but there is only so much variation that these machines can handle and that doesn't normally include 90 volts to 220 volts in a few seconds.

The new computer lab

The room next door, this is what the lab used to look like

 

We then went out to dinner with a lady that used to be Richard and Joyce's home help when they lived there. They were a lovely family who feed use a great dahl bhat.

Burtibang from our dinner spot

This building used to be the INF office

Rabbits, which I don't think they were breeding to cuddle

The next day we spent a while walking around the village, a lot of the people on the street recognized Richard despite not seeing him for a very long time. We managed to keep ourselves busy until one o'clock which was when the official opening of the computer lab began, this was the reason Richard and Mike were visiting the town. We arrived at the school in time for the opening and immediately had dozens of garlands draped around our necks and were whisked off to be paraded around the town. This was somewhat embarrassing as I had only come along for the ride and hadn't really had anything to do with the project other than checking a couple of batteries and voltage regulator, unfortunately for me it was one of those moments that you can't really get out of. Despite being extremely embarrassed it was really encouraging to see how the whole town had got behind the project, Richard later told us that he felt that the town was thanking INF for all the work done in the town many years ago, he said that some of the locals contribute a huge amount of the development in the town to the work that INF did even though it was a distant memory for many.

Richard on the left and Mike in the middle, the other guy used to be the headmaster at the school but is now living in Kathmandu

Site of the new campus being built

One of the micro hydro schemes in the area

School kids parading us around the town

The band that lead the way, I think its called a junkti

Richard lost amongst his garlands

Richard on the left and Mike on the right

A rather embarrassed mechanical engineer from New Zealand

Very well behaved school kids listening to long speeches

All the important people

School kids using the computers, I didn't see any playing solitaire

Despite the embarrassing parade I had a great time, we had planned to stay two nights in the village however a bhand (or strike) had been called for the next day which meant that the roads would be closed. Since Mike had to catch a flight out of Pokhara we jumped in the land rover as soon as the opening ceremony was over and bumped our way back to Pokhara. I crawled into bed at about 1am.

The wedding

Last week I told you about the engagement ceremony of the neice (almost a daughter) of the family that we did our family stay. Bobita, the bride, met the man for two hours the week before the engagement party. They barely spoke a word at the engagement party, had a few phone calls over the last week and today - they were married.

It was a great day. Caterers were bought in as it worked out cheaper and easier so all the ladies got glammed up and we all enjoyed ourselves. I was asked to make the cake. At the last wedding we went to a flash cake was made and never seen so I thought I wouldn't go to too much effort. However, it was eaten for dessert and everyone was really happy with it.

 Rodra weds Bobita

 The vows were taken which translated were the same as English ones including the bride and groom being given away and the church being offered the opportunity to object

 I found out today that both the bride and groom should have an attendant but they can't be married!

The wedding day for the bride is really difficult. They leave their home, church and everything and move into the house of their husbands parents and become the house help. There are a lot of tears shed.

The officiant forced the unwilling couple to hold hands and walk down the aisle after the wedding. They were most awkward doing this.

Myself with two Nepali friends Mariam and Sushmita and the girl in the green sari is Celinda,  another expat from Brazil.

 Myself and Kamala with their youngest son, Sumapan.

After the wedding dahl bhaat was served. It was a very hot day and there was no wind in the tent so while we were glad for the shade it was still very very hot.

 The grandmother (R) and Kamala eating.

 The bride and some of her sisters.

After dahl bhaat there was a ceremony where the bride introduced her family to the groom and the groom did the same thing. Presents were given from the brides family to the grooms family.

 Sisters of the bride.

 Friends that I am now teaching an exercise class to....

The bride then leaves with the groom and his family and friends and goes off to her new house - she, her sisters and her mother were very upset.

We then got home and it started pouring with rain in a typical pre monsoon storm. Thanks goodness cos the heat was terrible. However, the wind initially came from the north and the well engineered nepali windows on the north side leaked like a sieve. The wind then came from the east and we had a river coming through the front door and we struggled to close it due to the force of the wind. Once that was sorted the wind changed and the windows on the south leaked like a sieve! The water is now cleaned up!!