True Grit

I am now preparing to leave after a month here in Nepal. Officially the immediate emergency phase of food distribution, seeds and tools, shelter , hygiene kits etc. is now coming to an end and we are in phase 2...recovery.


I took some time to stand on the balcony of my flat here in Kathmandu this afternoon. When I arrived back in mid May the open ground opposite was covered with tents, tarpaulins and makeshift shelters as everyone was fearful of another earthquake. No one wanted to sleep inside in case of a collapse during the aftershocks. Now I look again and there are no tents left, people have gradually made their way back into the houses, the schools have opened again and the notorious traffic is back on the streets, blocking the roads and causing a lot of pollution in the process. One could say that life has returned to normal, we even have electricity  cuts i.e. load shedding again ( i.e. blackouts for 12 hours a day)


However it  is not a return to normal, people still have to carry the fear that the cracks in the house may turn into a need to demolish it , that the cracks in the ground may turn into landslides and most of all there seems a resignation that this event will take years and years to recover from. I feel as if people, despite being exhausted and mourning, are now settling into the long haul of recovery. The grit and determination of this amazing group of people is a real inspiration.

Cleaning up the debris

Just back from village visits, it is going to be along haul for Nepal to rebuild in the hills areas as nearly all houses are affected. The earthquake ( the first one, biggest one) took 56 seconds. I was in a friends house this week and he showed me on the ceiling where his pendant lamp fitting ( hanging from the ceiling) had impacted and damaged the ceiling above. Imagine the force to make it swing thorough at least 90 degrees! then count off 56 seconds , similar time to a minutes silence we often keep. The damage caused in that minute is going to take 5 maybe 10 years to repair.
In the villages I saw over the last few days some houses are completely destroyed, others look OK at a distance but when you walk past them you can see the walls are nearly always cracked from side to side or the gable ends are coming out or the roof is about to fall in. The construction of houses in the hills is a type of dry stone walling or wooden frame covered with mud and straw. Here it is called lipnu but in Devon we would say cob. Once that cracks and with the monsoon any day, there is little choice for them but to stay out in tents or makeshift shelters.
There is a particular smell as one walks through these villages, it is of dust and old fusty materials exposed to the air for the first time in years, mixed with smoke and soot ( many fallen buildings caught fire as everyone cooks on wood fires and the dry debris would have caught). Every now and again you can get the unmistakeable smell of decomposing bodies ( mainly livestock killed and not yet disposed of , but some human remains too). It is 37degrees C during the day in most areas, we now hope for the rains to wash away the debris but the next step is to ensure drinking water is kept clean.

Veggies

Sorry for the delay in writing since my last blog. It has been quite hectic, we had a huge aftershock on Saturday night at around 10.30pm. My bed was moving all over the place and in no time everyone was out on the street. However after some minutes the panic was over and we all trooped back again. It must have been around 5.5-6.0, as some of the neighbours were saying they don't bother getting out of bed for anything under a 5 nowadays!
Great news, the application I submitted a few weeks ago for around $200,000 for the first part of the seeds programme has come through. Rice seed has gone out and we have placed orders for 7500 vegetable seed packs today. Each pack contains 19 different veg seeds which we have crossed checked with the health team to make sure they have a good range of nutritive benefits. These are now going out with the cultivation tools and we will follow that with millet seed later.
We are now procuring waterproof grain bags so the existing wheat which is still being harvested can be safely stored before the monsoon as any remaining shelter is being used by the people.
There are very large cracks in many of the fields and terraces so the irrigation system is not working well. There is a fear that in the monsoon these cracks will allow more rain to percolate than normal and cause more landslides. Not much we can do at this stage but advise to cultivate away from the edges.

Multipication tables

This will sound like a school maths lesson , but is reality here.
1) We are working with roughly one tenth of the population of Dhading District (much bigger proportion by area as we are in the highest elevations near to Tibet where the population density is lower).
2) Dhading is one of 6 districts severely affected by the earthquakes.
3) I am working on the Livelihoods Sector ( food security and agriculture) , others in our team are covering health, sanitation , water supply , education ( temporary schools, children should go back next week!)and shelter ( temporary until now but eventually replacing houses destroyed). Not to mention trauma counselling, internal displacement etc.
4) In just my sector I have this week written proposals and concept notes for the immediate need in our working area of ( seeds, tools etc. ) of $200,000 and long term recovery( livestock, cropping, irrigation system repair etc) as being $800,000.
Now it is possible to do the multiplication just in Livelihoods across all districts we are talking  many millions being needed.
The Nepali government have just confirmed the international donor conference will be held in Kathmandu on June 25th. This will involve countries who can help through their aid budgets. I feel by then the final bill will only just have been calculated but lets hope the donors are generous.

Livestock trauma

Below is a picture of an aid flight coming into Kathmandu airport. These very heavy flights are now being limited as the airport is small and they fear they may damage to runway.
The logistics of getting equipment from this stage to the high Himalaya areas we are working in in Lapa and Ree is quite a headache. It is amazing to see what UMN has achieved to date.
I went to the Ministry of Agriculture here in Kathmandu again yesterday for our weekly partner meeting with other relief groups in agriculture. They are now finding that the surviving livestock have been badly shocked by the 2 earthquakes and aftershocks. The level of abortion is high, they are not feeding and are tense. A recent example of this was reported that when a helicopter came in to land in the high Himalaya some goats died on the spot (because of the noise and surprise I guess).

Time to get planting

Latest trip to the field included liaising with the District Agricultural Officer and the distribution hub in Dhading Besi the main town in Dhading district. We are distributing to 9000 households here right up to the Tibet border. Met with helicopter team who are still able to make 15 flights a day. The weather is closing in as the monsoon approaches , we are getting rain each day now of varying ferocity. I think we have around a week left before the full monsoon starts. A lot of the people in the high Himalayan region ( 10,000 ft altitude and above, areas like Lapa and Ree ) are now coming down as they realise it is impossible to try to plant or find shelter until after the rains. This is an additional problem as they are now internally displaced people ( IPD) and an additional challenge. Many are setting up camp around Dhading Besi. At last we have the green light from donors to buy more rice and veg seeds to add to the FAO supply, seeds are now being distributed and not a day too soon.

Landslides, rain and debris

Over the last few days I have been out to Bhaktapur, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site because of the beautiful medieval architecture and temple complex. It looks now like a bomb site, the temples are all but completely razed to the ground. Just piles of bricks, and the houses are often without the gable ends so you can look right into the rooms and the walls are leaning out in a dangerous way. All the buildings are in such a  poor state that not many are habitable , many are still digging in the rubble to try to retrieve something. In the newspaper yesterday there was the report of a couple who died on Saturday, he was 65 she 55. They had gone back into their home to retrieve goods and a beam fell on him and then the stones and bricks fell on his wife who was near the door!
The monsoon is gradually coming, on Saturday night we had a terrific storm which closed the airport for an hour as all the tents, tarpaulins etc. were blown over the runway.
On Sunday there was a huge landslide which blocked one of Nepal's major rivers , the Kali Gandaki. This is a big river and soon a lake had formed threatening the villages below if it broke out. Thankfully I heard today that it has found a small channel to gradually drain through the landslide so I think the danger has gone for now.