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.

What did you just call me?

Spotted Owlet. Seen while visiting
in Rajasthan

In South Asia, the owl (Hindi word, "ooloo") is considered about as dumb as a donkey. Or at least the insult is about the same. Our wise nocturnal hunter is thought to be stupid for not even knowing when its time to sleep. Come on owls, get with the program.

So when it comes to haggling over a price and the vendor throws out an insulting price you can always say, "I am not an owl, brother".

Sap Season

Firstly, that's a whole quart of CT maple syrup that arrived with my parents last week. Yehaw.

As I explained maple syrup to a national I realized the process might sound similar to that of village moonshine. A plastic jug is hidden in the fronds of a palm tree just below a slit in a leaf stem. The jug collects juice that ferments in the hot sun. When a buyer shows up a boy shimmies up and brings down the hooch.

Caagage Wallah (The Paper One)

This is the youngest in a family of paper bag makers I have been spending time with. He is doing some of the finer work of making small white bags used in administering medicine. I am amazed that he can paste, fold, and press a stack of 50 in about 2 minutes. So many of the tradesmen here do their work with a flair of personality that wouldn't be there if they simply operated a machine.


One hand moves the stack like a flip-book while the other
 hand pokes precisely in between each sheet to fold a tab

I am also a welcomed guest to the boy's great-uncle. He only has two teeth and is pretty hard to understand, but a warmth comes through in our exchanges. I had already finished the chai served to me by the nephew one day when the elder showed up and asked if I had been served. Everyone present truthfully said, "Yes", but he insisted, "That's not true, get more chai!". Here, Uncle Ji's word is the last word. It's no wonder that I might sip 8 shots of chai in a day.


This is a new type of crowd I am learning from. There is little understanding of English in the labor class. So when my Hindi runs out, so does the conversation for the day. This forces me to push harder in building communication skills.

Cycle Repair

Not only are they great at what they do, but I think
they really enjoy their jobs. 

If there's anything South Asia knows how to fix, its motorcycles. That's most fitting since it sure knows how to damage them.

With a broken microwave, AC, fridge or washing machine you can either fix it yourself or count on a week or two of calling a repair man, being stood up, making a new date, getting stood up again, etc. But with motorcycles, that wallah immediately picks up your bike, does some great work, and gets it right back. And inexpensively!

Theoretically, one can have a bike taken apart, frame checked, engine case seal redone, handle bar unbent, forks and fender straightened, side-saddle foot rack pulled away from the suspension, break cable adjusted, and get a new rear shocker and rod for only $47.21. But that's just a rough guess based on a hypothetical mishap for which only South Asian cows could be held responsible.