Theraputic Hospitality



A community member takes you to see his house and meet his family. You walk past toppled stone houses. Navigate the meandering arrangement of tied-up goats and water buffalos. Duck to miss a low hanging tin roof under which the displaced family sleeps in between days of field work. You are asked to sit on a wood bench next to grandfather as the rest of the family sits on woven ground mats.

 



On the right, remains of mud and stone houses. On the left,
a maze of shanty shelters made of tin and low stone walls. 

Whatever tin cups owned by the family are taken out and filled with room-temperature curdled milk. It has large lumps of fat and a probably some stray water buffalo hairs. A smoky scent comes off of it from the fire it was at one time heated over. Taking all that in, you can feel the family watching as mother insists you take part.

This has been a typical experience. First, it's humbling to be offered anything by someone who's lost so much and still wants you to be comfortable at their expense. Then, you wonder just what will happen to your stomach. It might have been a tough decision at first, but I've seen how much it means to families and what it can do for the relationship. It can be subtle, but I often notice a tension dissolve and a relationship begin once hospitality is accepted.

 

Hospitality is foundational in a South Asian culture. The saying goes that 'Guest is god' and its a shameful thing to not bring honor to a guest. It can visibly tug at a host when they don't have what they normally have to offer a guest. When there are road blocks to addressing a root problem in community development, sometimes the best way to start a relationship is to accept that cup of milk and help a family feel like they are getting back to "normal". To a westerner, it's profound to think that accepting hospitality can actually soothe a family in a post-disaster setting.

 

 









Fuel Crisis at 2 months

Overloaded busses lumber by throughout
 the day as I work in villages

For many villagers who's only felt effect of the fuel crisis is public busses packed to double capacity, life in general isn't being affected too greatly. If they went to the valley to find hospital care they might be turned away due to low supplies.

Down in the Kathmandu Valley however, the situation is getting more dire. Few private vehicles are on the roads, schools have started discontinuing busses and closing, hospitals have delayed some surgeries and started turning people away due to low supplies. Electricity feels no worse than normal for lighting and some cooking while many city dwellers are cooking with wood. When rumors of LP gas or petrol deliveries come up, people camp out in lines where their car or home fuel canister may have been parked for days.

Here is a good article for understanding a bulk of the situation. It doesn't specify the grievances of the Madhesis towards the constitution, but it does show where international camps stand on it. I won't attempt to list their grievances exhaustively, but two major objections on the constitution are the clauses on a more or less secular state as well as stricter law on the citizenship requirements of individuals running for certain public offices.

Time- India and Nepal Have No Choice but to End Their Border Dispute and Move On
 

Hill Pickin'

I came overseas with a banjo just to have something to learn besides language, but it's ended up being something to connect with nationals over.

As I entered the field, a seasoned worker impressed on me that, 'If you don't learn the songs of the people, you to should be strung up for malpractice.' I've done what I can to pick up local songs to gather people around and to put myself in a position to learn from them. I've seen how being willing to learn is a good way to be given the privilege to speak into lives.

Here is a cellphone-recorded song that is very dear to the Nepali people. It doesn't carry a clear meaning in translation, but there are little bits of a love story, old proverbs, and being free-spirited. It's recognized as just an old song which families sing as they walk along.

Grease Monkeys

How many 10 year olds do you know who can work on
rebuilding a bike?

Ok, it looks like child labor, but maybe this is just how trade schools work here. The boys are third generation motorcycle mechanics and work under their dads. Their grandfather was one of the first bike mechanics in Nepal.

The story goes that when grandpa opened shop 70+ years ago he had to forge his own files and pliers. A homemade lathe even served in the shop. He worked on BSAs, Nortons, and a few BMWs. When it was something like a busted piston or cylinder he would cast the replacement using sand, mud, and his homemade foundry. I can imagine the boys' grandfather saying, "When I was your age..."
 

By God's Grace

Look closely! What appears to be the ground floor was
actually the 2nd floor before the first earthquake hit and the
school building sat down one floor. Amazingly, no one was
present at the time.

When people ask, "How bad is the damage there", I don't have words to describe the power that reduced so much to rubble. My default however, is to describe the grace which God had on the people of Nepal. If it were any other day of the week or any other time of day it is not a stretch to say the death toll would have been far beyond 100,000.

Saturday is Nepal's day of rest, where kids are not in school and most businesses are closed. The quake was in early afternoon so the majority of those in the hardest hit districts were out farming. Even more, the power was out so very few kids were inside watching TV or using electric lights.

 

Multiplying Temporary Shelters

 These are some photos of the first design of temporary housing we have been building with families. The buildings are stout enough to be protective in monsoon, but can easily be recycled into the roof of a new permanent house.
A huge advantage of this design is how is easily villages can catch on and make it their own.

Multiplication- On the first major build, our team demonstrated shelter #1 for all to see. For #2 and 3, our team split up and worked along with residents. Before #2 and 3 were done, I looked up the hill and people were starting numbers 4 and 5 without our help. The hardest part of the build ended up being to slow the families down and talk through where to put the shelter. We needed to walk them through the process of giving forethought and make the decision their own.



This is what the temporary shelters look like before the family
personalizes it with ends, door, floor, etc.

1 month update: As I have gone back to this village I've seen that roughly 95%
of the families have people sleeping in these shelters. This is well above the average rate I've seen with identical shelters done in other projects. I believe there is a significance here. Ownership forms when people take part in the decision process and share in the labor involved. Otherwise, these shelters might have just been "One more thing I'm told I need, but I wouldn't spend a personal dime on the idea."

Millet Season

The work here is about so much more than just building houses. People are working at rebuilding their lives. There's a quick snap shot that makes the news, but a deeper story too. Looking at the deeper story can mean the difference of just doing relief or taking it further to community development.

Short Story: these women are processing recently harvested millet where their house used to stand.

Longer Story: These families primarily grow corn and wheat for subsistence and some income. Some millet is also grown to make beer, either used as a carb-heavy energy drink or to sell and generate income to buy vegetables. This is a common way by which hill families obtain vegetables. It's not a stretch to think that a family could end up with three times the nutritious vegetables for less effort if they were to plant vegetable gardens and skip the process of cultivating millet, producing beer, and competing on a market.

Opposed to what you might think, it is very hard for a farmer to accept a gardening approach. There are a lot of barriers to modifying the tradition which has made proper nutrition tough here. And nobody can really fault the villagers. Fathers have relied on this strategy for a thousand years. Helping a family grow their own vegetables is one project we can implement if the right combination of need and teachable attitude comes up.