Monday February 13, 2012
I have been anticipating this part of my trip for a long time and am tickled to finally be at the build site.
Our team arrived from Katmandu (K-Du) on the ‘brain shaker’, a small 18-seater plane. I can’t remember the last time I was able to watch pilots doing their job in the cockpit or being thankful for our safe landing. It was a whoozy ride for me but I was happy to arrive and begin the build.
Our HFH team is stationed in Bharatpur, a small city on the edge of Chitwan National Park. Bharatpur is located in the lowlands of Nepal and sits at a considerably lower altitude than K-Du. Where K-Du is located at about 1000m, Bharatpur is only at 100m. It is significantly warmer and definitely flatter than other parts of Nepal.
The project that we are working on is on the edge of the city, in a community that is very poor. Most houses appear to be one room shelters – some wooden, some made of concrete blocks or bricks, and some a jumble of materials put together in an apparently random fashion. To date, Nepal is the poorest country I have visited and Bharatpur, the poorest city.
Sujit Maharjan, the HFH Nepal contact, met with us to give a bit of an orientation to the build, the family for whom we are building, and construction processes, safety considerations. Our family of 5 is led by a widower named Kamala Neupane. The home she currently lives in provides shelter for herself, two sons (ages 16 & 17), and two daughters (I think that they are around 21 and 22). The daily wage of those working in the household is 100 rupees (approximately $1.50USD) per day. This is not a lot considering that I bought a new pair of hikers in KDu that were the equivalent to one month’s worth of wages and I did so without putting a lot of thought onto the price. My description of the site is bland to what one sees on the site. It’s a pretty impoverished family. Immediately, I am grateful for what I have. We take things for granted.
Our team of 16 is a bit of a motley crew. I love it! There is a varsity basketball coach, a NYC model, hedge fund manager, software developer, retired army member, physician’s assistant, architect, and civil engineer, to name a few. We come from NYC, Boston, Chicago, Kentucky, California, Minnesota, and Arizona. Once again I am the lone Canadian, which I don’t mind at all. I’m trying to be an example of a great Canadian. Please pass the beer and poutine eh. 😉
We are building a 3-room home which is split up so that each room has a window and its own entry. None of the rooms are linked to each other. It kind of reminds me of row housing we built in Cambodia. The homeowner had the option of making the home into one entire room, but she opted to design it into three rooms. My understanding is that when the house is built, Kamala’s mother will join them. They will live in the first room; the daughters will occupy the second room; and the sons will have the third room. In Nepalese culture, daughters leave the home when they marry and sons bring their brides home. In this case, when the daughters eventually marry, each son will have a private space for him and his wife. There will be no kitchen built. They will cook outside at the back of the house. When and if the homeowner has funds, she will put in a cement pad for the kitchen.
We are a keen group and all are excited to let the building begin!
The Travelling Psychologist 