Our Habitat for Humanity team successfully finished our first week building the house. We left it with the walls completely constructed and with all door and window frames in place. Over the weekend, our trades people would be installing the tin roof. I felt that the team left the project on Friday feeling a sense of pride and connection to each other, the family, project and surrounding community. It was not time for some R&R on the weekend. As a team, we all decided to use our free weekend to travel to Chitwan National Park. Bharatapur, the city in which we were stationed, sits close to the border of CNP. CNP is located in the south lowlands (the Terai) of Nepal and is pretty close to the border of India.
Our team travelled to Chitwan where we stayed in a lodge within the confines of the Park. Chitwan, Nepal’s first national park, was established in 1973. Prior to its establishment, it was hunting grounds of Nepal’s ruling class. It’s seen a lot of damage. One of the stats I read was that at the end of the 1960’s 70% of its jungles were eradicated through the use of DDT. As one can imagine, it was totally destructive to the habitat of many animals who live in that area. CNP is the home of the Bengal tiger (it has one of its best habitats in the world) and the one-horned rhino. At the end of the 1960’s, only 95 rhinos remained. Continue reading
The Travelling Psychologist 