05/16/10
All pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.ca/coopergibbs2008/HabitatNepalApril2010
In three words: Nepal was AMAZING.
The air travel
I flew with Jet Airways from Toronto - Brussels - New Delhi - Kathmandu. Hadn't heard of Jet before I booked the trip but they apparently were the 2nd best rated air carrier in 2008. I can now attest to that. The level of care in steerage was far better that I have previously experienced, however, if you don't like Indian food then this company is not for you. The trip to Brussels was ~ 9 hours overnight which wasn't too bad and I managed to get ~ 4 hours of sleep. Got to walk about in Brussels through security and charge some of my electronic devices for a couple of hours before the next 9 hour leg of the flight to New Delhi. I was quite looking forward to checking out New Delhi airport thinking that it must be replete with ornate carvings and culture. I didn't sleep on this leg of the journey because I wanted to be tired enough to be able to sleep in the airport overnight. The reality of New Delhi airport was very different.
While exiting the plane (a very long process), at New Delhi I met up with Geoff. He is an amazing guy living ~ 1 hour drive north of Burlington. He is close to 70 but looks 50, had a pacemaker implanted 3 months ago and was the only Canadian on a team attempting to scale Everest. We hit it off immediately. The reason it was taking us so long to get off the plane was because we were exiting onto the tarmac and being stuffed onto busses. It was 10pm and the temperature was 37C with very high humidity - shock # 1. We were driven across the tarmac to an unloading area where we passed through army guards with very big guns - shock # 2. All those heading into India were ferried through a customs area - the rest of us were told to wait over to one side.
Geoff introduced me to John and Miroslav who were other Canadians who he had met during the flight and were going hiking in Nepal. It was very nice having others to hang around with because, as we were to learn, it is next to impossible to get any information out of the employees at the airport. There were about 30 of we pasty foreigners hanging around in this no-man's-land and no staff would give us any information. Suddenly, an Indian employee showed up and painstakingly took each of our information which included passport number, flight info ,checked baggage tag numbers, etc. - shock # 3. This took an eternity. After another round of waiting we were told to follow this guy and were marched upstairs into a sterile, glass enclosed area with the most uncomfortable seats ever (any thoughts of trying to get a few hours sleep were immediately dashed). We were told to wait here until somebody came for us. We all started asking what that meant but that was all the information we received - shock # 4.
So, in my humble opinion, New Delhi airport is a hole and we were stuck in the glass box for 8 hours. I did start to notice a pattern. About 2 hours before a flight was to depart, the info board would say "Security" next to the flight number. I presumed that you were then allowed to head through the security gates that resided at the other end of our glass box; there were very few staff coming to "collect" people though and I didn't trust this system. Our flight to Kathmandu was supposed to leave at 6:30. By 4:00 am I told the guys that I was going to head through security because I was fed up of sitting in the gold fish bowl and there were some duty free shops on the other side that looked far more interesting. After a lot of kerfuffle at security we made it but there really wasn't that much more stuff to keep us amused so we headed downstairs to our gate and waited some more. At 5:30 we received news that the flight was delayed to 8:00. We were all really sleep deprived by this point and started getting really silly, but at least this was better than being antsy. At 6pm a woman came down to the gate area who turned out to be Kathleen - one of the Habitat build people and my room mate for the next 2 weeks and we hit it off immediately. She had been waiting in another segregated glass box area and had waited until someone "came for her". Fortunately, she was just as sleep deprived as the rest of us and joined in our silliness. After more and more delays we eventually were told to head to the gate and we trouped through, having our bags and persons searched, were bussed across the tarmac, had our bags and person searched again and boarded the plane.
The following day we took a domestic flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara. All the bags were first piled up onto an ancient post office type giant scale, weighed en-mass, tagged, loaded up onto a green hand cart and pushed over to the Yeti airlines plane which was a small, 36-seater prop plane. It took an awfully long time to get this little plane off the ground with all of our stuff and tools but after a noisy 1 hour ride we arrived at Pokhara.
The return flights were pretty much the same deal. Exactly the same thing happened in New Delhi with the glass box transition area and the make-work projects to keep lots of people employed. Fortunately, the Icelandic volcano had stopped spewing ash 2 days before my return flights which meant that I could land and take off in Brussels.
Kathmandu
As soon as you exit the international airport at Kathmandu all your senses are bombarded. Kathmandu is frenetic and polluted. There is a mass of activity, voices clamouring to attract your attention, horns beeping, and the smell of diesel and garbage assault your nostrils and your taste buds!
Forest, Eileen, Colin, Dean, Kathleen and I all arrived around the same time and were were picked up by a Habitat representative and bundled into a waiting van. Driving in Kathmandu is absolutely crazy - we were constantly in fear that we were going to be hit or hit something. There are no road signs, street signs, stop signs, traffic lights, lane dividers - in a word nothing but traffic and horns. They drive so close to each other I couldn't believe that most vehicles still had their wing mirrors. The video below shows how they deal with intersections and this is one of the more polite ones.
There are tons of people driving motorcycles and scooters because cars are too expensive. These riders weave their way through the traffic and impossibly small spaces. The drivers all wear helmets but not the passengers. Some women passengers were sitting side-saddle and other drivers had their small kids sitting on the fuel tank clinging to the handlebars.
People honk their horns to let others know: they are there, they are going to make a manoeuvre, they are going to over take them, they have done something wrong, etc. They honk for everything. Our heads were on a swivel trying to take everything in. The funniest part was when we stopped on a bridge because the traffic ahead was moving slowly. The horns grew silent while all traffic carefully manoeuvred around a massive cow that had decided to lay down in the middle of the road. As soon as we were clear the horns started up again.
It quickly became apparent that the hotels in Nepal have very grandiose names which do not match up to the actual structure. Ours was called "Hotel Magnificent View" which it was definitely not. However, it was clean if not basic, but right in the middle of Thamel, the tourist area. Kat (Kathleen) and I each had a quick shower and then headed out to survey the area.
There are not really any sidewalks. The shops open directly onto the road and are all about 10 ft wide by ~ 15 ft deep.
Some vendors had set tables up outside their shops to show their goods. There were lots of souvenir and hiking equipment shops. Apparently you can get pretty decent gear for a really good price, but we were content just soaking up the surroundings.....however, being asked by each separate shop owner to come inside and view their goods did get a little tiring after a while. If you did go inside but didn't buy anything there was palpable disappointment by the owners and you wondered if you had not just somehow swindled them out of their next meal. When I returned at the end of the trip and had a day in Kathmandu, I could weave my way through traffic, seek out bargains and haggle like a native.
My greatest shocks were the garbage piled up in the streets, the homeless kids pleading with us for money, the adult beggars who had deformed limbs or leprosy and there was a group of kids about 10 years old lying in an alley way with cans of spray substances next to them, a vacant look in their eyes and sores all around their mouths. I had expected to see poverty and beggars but not the garbage or blatant substance abuse.
No one in Nepal has an ounce of fat; they are all bones and sinew but strong as anything. The Sherpa gene must be in the entire population because, throughout the trip, we saw the slightest people carrying almost impossible loads and making it look relatively easy.
By evening time on the first Saturday, most of the team had arrived and we were taken to a traditional Nepalese restaurant that had dancers in various traditional dress. We sat on the floor next to low tables and were served many different foods from a pre-arranged menu while the dancers performed. The best thing was the enormous brass dinner plates they use, which we were to encounter in even the smaller villages. We were all a little cautious with some of the food for fear of getting sick on the first day. By the time we got back to the hotel, the power was out (which we later found is a common occurrence) so it was a pretty early night for all of us.
At breakfast we met Manisha who is the regional Habitat manager and would stay with us for the time we were in Pokhara. She set up a slide show and explained how Habitat works in Nepal. Villagers form a micro-community all put money in the pot. The micro-community then decides who is the most needy so should receive the next house. The money in the pot is used to fund the project and the recipient pays the mortgage back to the micro-community. In this manner the community believes the most needy receive the house and the recipients do not default on their mortgages because they are paying back the community and want to maintain their standing. This works way better than a faceless committee from afar making the decisions. She also explained that while bamboo houses are quite common in Eastern Nepal we would be only the 2nd team to build one in Pokhara (the first having been built by the Habitat staff). We also found out that ours was going to be a model home. They have a blitz build scheduled for September/October where they plan to build 30 - 40 houses in the village, and we were the guinea pig constructors. This was such an important build that Aruna, the Director of Habitat for all of Nepal, was going to spend the 2 weeks with us observing (unheard of, apparently). What we found worked or didn't work would influence how they would structure the blitz build.
After checking out of the hotel after the first night in Kathmandu, all of our bags were loaded on top of a van (something that we would never quite grow comfortable with, especially because they were rarely tied down) and we went on a pre arranged tour. After driving some distance we were offloaded and wound our way through the streets to a temple. On the way we saw the spaghetti wiring and understood why the power grid cannot cope with the demand.
Interestingly, very few people have telephone land-lines - most have skipped this and a lot of people have cell phones. In the temple it was neat to see all the prayer wheels but it was hard to be filled with reverence because there were children from a local school sketching various statues and other children running about the place.
We walked on to a city square that held several temples. To one side of it was a source of clean water and there were women lined up to collect this water into various vessels to then carry it back home.
I took Tigger out for a couple of shots in front of a temple and was immediately swarmed by children. They were unfamiliar with him so I demonstrated how he bounces on his tail. An older kid came along who could speak English and sort of translated this to the younger kids. He had picked Tigger up and really wanted to keep him and it took a fair deal of persuasion for me to get him back again. After a quick lunch we headed to the airport for Pokhara.
Pokhara
This is a city of ~ 200,000 people and sits between a lake and the Annapurna mountain range which contains 6 major peaks over 7,200m and are among the world's most dangerous to climb with a fatality rate of over 40% (compare this to Everest which has a fatality rate of < 10%). It also contains the distinctive Fishtail mountain (Machapuchre at 6,993m) http://nepal.saarctourism.org/machhapuchhre.html and also the 10th highest mountain in the world (Annapurna I, 8,091m). It is an essential stopping place for hikers because a lot of the best hikes around Nepal start from here.
Unfortunately, the pollution/smog was just as bad here as in Kathmandu - so much so that we couldn't see the mountain range. Practically any place within the city should afford you a view of the Annapurna range. The pollution comes from the multitudes of diesel generators they use (because the power grid is so flakey), the 2-stroke motor engines, and the fact that they burn all the rubbish that has collected in the streets - including plastics.
The pollution was perhaps the biggest shock and disappointment of the entire trip. The pristine vistas that are associated with Nepal no longer seem to exist. Perhaps they do when you get up into base camp type zones but not from the valleys. One morning we awoke to relatively clear skies. Roger managed to work it such that we took a lengthy detour en route to the construction site to go up to the top of Sarangkot where we could view the mountain range. We were all really excited about seeing the mountains and it was very fortunate that we took the detour because that was the only day that the smog lifted and the mountains were visible.
Hotel Panorama was an order of magnitude better than I had been expecting. Clean, the rooms contained 2 single beds and a bathroom. The rooms also had a sizable bed side table where we could stash our things and a wardrobe that contained 3 hangers and no shelves.
Each morning they washed the floor down with a solution that smelled of citronella and then lit incense sticks. The hotel was located on the strip so there were tons of shops and restaurants about. About every 2nd day the room would get cleaned and the towels taken. We would come back from a hard day on the construction site, all dusty and sweaty wanting nothing but a shower. However, they had taken the towels and not left any in their place. You would have to go back down to the desk and ask for some towels and they would arrive about 5 minutes later. We eventually discovered that they washed the towels that same day and hung them to dry (nobody has a dryer) - hence the towels taking a time to be returned. There was one night when we had a big rainstorm while being driven from the site back to the hotel. Within minutes the streets had turned to rivers and I found it hard to imagine how bad it must get in the monsoon season. We got to our hotel to find that there were no towels available because they had not been brought in before the rain so were all wet. Kat used her travel towel and offered it to me but I took a wet one from the hotel and kind of flicked off some of the water on me with it.
It was in Pokhara that I perfected my bartering skills. I had been told that you should expect to barter ~ 30% off of the first price quoted to you. These people have very little and I did not want to totally rip them off so I would offer a price that was between 20 - 25% lower than they had quoted. Invariably, they would come back with a counter offer at which point I would thank them and begin to walk out. There is much more supply than demand so to prevent you from going down the road to a competitor they would quickly fold and accept your price - we were both happy. Within the group it became known as the "Andrea exit bartering technique".
The build and team
Roger (the team leader) assembled a great group of people.
Picture courtesy of Forrest
Bottom row l to r: Colin, Jorge,
Eileen, Bruce, Forrest
Standing l to r: Christie, Zach,
Kathleen, Andrea, Roger, Simone, Colin, Lynn, Manisha
We were all super over-achievers who had come to Nepal with one purpose - to build a house - and we were determined to do just that. However, we soon found out that it may not be as easy as we had first thought. Sunday night we were told that the Maoists had called a general strike for the next day. This meant no transport, shops, restaurants - no anything. We were aghast; none of us had expected anything like this. After forwarding suggestions, it became clear that we would not be able to build because to get to the build site we had to take a van for 45 minutes and then hike for another 5 minutes. So that we wouldn't lose a build day, we arranged with Manisha that we would do the hiking tour scheduled for Saturday and would work Saturday to make up for the lost construction day. We awoke on Monday morning to the sound of traffic - the strike had been called off at the last minute. We were all super excited to get to the build site! Manisha said that it wasn't possible because she had cancelled everything at the build site (the transportation, welcoming ceremony, etc) and arranged everything with the hiking tour operator. Well, poor Roger had a bit of a mutiny on his hands so Manisha had to un-cancel everything so we could go and work.
Everyone got on really well with everyone else and at the end of the trip we all said that we wouldn't be able to vote anyone off the island. The team worked very hard each day - nobody slacked off and different groups of people teamed up as and whe was necessary. Most had Habitat experience and those that didn't had construction experience but nobody dominated and we were all given a fair chance to do the things that interested us. We also breakfasted, lunched and dinnered together so it was just as well we all got along. Table seating swapped regularly and I don't think there was any time that anyone was straining for conversation - everyone came from such interesting and varied backgrounds
To get to the build site we were driven in a van with suspension that noticeably deteriorated over the build duration and sitting in the back seat was rather akin to being on the tail end of a roller coaster when we hit one of the numerous bumps in the road. We then had a 5 minute walk from the drop off point (which seemed to be the centre of town with a bus depot) on the top of dividers between paddy fields. The build couldn't have been in a more beautiful spot at the bottom of a hillside overlooking fields where water buffalo and goats roamed.
On top of the hill was the rest of the village where Toyanath (the house recipient) currently lived (~ 90 sq ft mud building). We also saw a bamboo house that the Habitat staff had themselves constructed. This provided us with an idea of what was ahead of us. The build materials, such as concrete, sand, etc were dropped off on the road up the hillside. Wheelbarrows do not work in this kind of terrain so these tough Nepalese (usually women) carry everything down on their backs taking the load on their heads via a strap.
When we arrived the main bamboo frame was up. It consisted of the main large verticals (which had been cemented in holes) and the key horizontals forming frames. This was a great giant climbing frame.
Our first task was to drill holes in the horizontal parts of each frame (not easy - bamboo is VERY tough) and thread a strip of bamboo vertically, thus dividing each frame into three sections. These implanted verticals formed the structure for the weaving. Weaving consisted of taking thin strips and weaving them horizontally through our implanted verticals.
The woven strips had to be alternated not only in the way they were woven but also with the outside and inside of the strip. We had to do this in each frame except those that had been designated as windows. Putting the weaving in the frames really stiffened up the whole structure. Because it was a three bedroom house we also had to weave the internal walls. I had been fairly efficient at drilling holes in the bamboo and threading in the verticals but I was absolutely terrible at weaving. Normally I have great 3D spatial awareness, however, it was the alternating between each row that threw me off and I prudently moved onto another job at the first opportunity.
While people were weaving, some of the guys worked on installing the roof which consisted of sheets of corrugated metal. These were bolted down using ridiculously long bolts (obtaining hardware in Nepal is very difficult) which then became a hazard for anyone working up under the roof. Toyanath (the recipient) was very concerned that the roof would not stay on in the winds. The most common way to secure the corrugated metal roofs to the building are by laying heavy objects (such as rocks and branches) all over it. The night after we had finished the roof there was a huge rain and wind storm. The next morning as we hiked out to the build site we encountered the destruction. The corn was all blown over, the tarp making up out bathroom was torn down and metal roofs on the houses we passed had all blown off. After seeing that our roof had survived unscathed Toyanath was convinced we knew what we were doing.
The floors were still rough earth so we hauled a bunch of rocks we dug up from the surrounding ground as a basis for the floor.
Picture courtesy of Forrest
These were then covered with a coarse gravel and then earth was pounded on top of that. Over the weekend the villagers poured a cement foundation. For one entire day Simone and I sieved sand. We needed finer sand for the "mud" that was going onto the walls, the coarser fraction went into the floor. The sieving was actually quite efficient, we just threw the sand against a propped up mesh sieve. It was, however, very dusty work and we were pretty sand coloured by the end of the day.
Mudding was really fun but there was an awful lot of it. It was a cement/sand mix that was very dry. We were, at first, very doubtful that this dry mixture was actually going to stick to the weaving. The Habitat staff explained that we were all used to mudding stonework which absorbs the moisture out of the mud. Bamboo does not absorb any of the moisture so if the mud is too wet it just slumps off. You definitely had to develop a new technique to handle mudding on woven bamboo. A 2 stage approach seemed to work best. First you did a thin coat where you really squished the mud into the weaving. It was important to make sure that the mud pushed through all of the gaps. You then immediately went and did a second coat which bound to the scratch coat. This top coat then had to be smoothed with a float. Babu Ram (Toyanath's brother) was the smoothing expert and we called him over each time we finished a panel.
The mud had to dry overnight before you could mud the reverse side of the panel. While most of us spent 2 - 3 days mudding, a few of the others built doors and shutters for the windows. They had to deal with extreme shortages of hardware which meant that they had to be very innovative. On the third day of mudding I had perfected my technique and, because Babu Ram was unavailable, became the smoothing master. We had a shortage of ladders (we actually built 2 additional ones out of bamboo) and so created some rather dubious methods to elevate ourselves. Lynn and Christie balanced on a board supported by a couple of bags of cement. Jorge, used an angled board. I used a couple of bamboo rods suspended between the hillside and the window frame. Several upturned buckets were used and a very wobbly scaffold was created using boards and a couple of the metal step ladders. Because Simone and I were the 2 lightest people we volunteered to work up there.
Picture courtesy of Forrest
Picture
courtesy of Forrest
Once the mudding was completed it received a a primer acid wash coat. The last day of the build was painting day with the house painted in the Habitat colours (blue and green) and then the bamboo cleaned and varnished. I had not been feeling well the previous night and neither had Dean. Dean felt so bad that morning that he didn't even bother going to the build site. After about an hour of painting in the sun I felt very nauseous and went to lie down in the shade. The rest of my day was spent listening to the team work and watching the water buffalo wander around the fields in between long bouts of sleeping. Needless to say I skipped lunch. That evening I skipped the celebratory last supper and spent my time eating crackers in my room and putting a bunch of photos into an album that we had bought. Kathleen's idea for a gift for the family was a photo album of the build so they had something to remember. The previous evening we had selected a bunch of photos and had them printed up while we were building. The family LOVED the gift.
We have set a very high standard for all of those who will be involved in the blitz build. We were the first team to put on a roof, the first team to fully complete a house, the first team to show initiative and not sit around until we were told what to do. Aruna was absolutely amazed that we took pick axes to the earth to obtain stones and dirt for the floor foundations - apparently no body had ever done that. My team didn't give it a second thought. We wanted to be busy and get the job done - we were prepared to do what it took.
All the children in the village were great. They were very eager to have their photos taken and then insisted on seeing them. Then there were big smiles. They were really nice kids with nothing to their names but happy none the less.
Picture courtesy of Forrest
Thursday morning we all dressed in our new Habitat T-shirts and went to the house dedication. The Habitat staff had decorated the house with balloons and streamers and the whole place was very festive. There were speeches, an official ribbon cutting, gift exchange and final goodbyes.
By the afternoon we had packed up and most of us headed to the airport for the trip back to Kathmandu to start the journey home, while a few team members started the next leg of their adventure with treks.
Our timing could not have been better. Six days after I returned home, the Maoists called a country-wide strike that went on for 6 days. There was no transport, shops open, restaurants open, school, in short nothing. Kat and Roger got caught up in it, were rather stir crazy having to eat only at the hotel, and had to walk over an hour to the airport.
Excursions
Excursions had been planned for us during the weekend in the middle of the trip. Saturday started off with a trek up the hillside to the Peace Pagoda. We went up the easy side and were able to see a few monkeys and some pretty impressive trees and vines.
At the pagoda we got to have a good look around and inside a room there was a monk rhythmically banging on a massive drum while chanting a mantra. When we stepped inside he reached down to a bowl by his side and gave each of us a candy without missing a beat - quite extraordinary and unexpected.
We came down the steep side, which was tough on some people's knees and we ended up at a restaurant for lunch. We were then paddled across the lake and driven to Davis Falls.
This must be very spectacular in the monsoon season when the water level is high, but when we were there is was a bit wimpy. Davis Falls actually ends its plunge underground and we wound our way down underneath the surface to witness the end of the water's plunge which was neat.
We then went to a Tibetan refugee camp that was actually in the heart of the city. I was expecting some kind of tent city that you see on the news when refugee camps are mentioned, but everyone lived in nice cement lodgings, the grass was neatly kept, the dogs were the healthiest that I saw on the entire trip and the people looked good. They make a living by selling hand made crafts - especially carpets. All in all I think they had it better than the Nepalese outside of the walls of the camp.
One morning on the way to the build site we stopped by an orphanage. There were 60 kids living there from 3 yrs old to 18 yrs. The split was about 50:50 boy / girl. After the initial group photo, each of us was immediately befriended by several children who took our hands and led us around showing us all the rooms. They also wanted their photos taken many, many times. They all seemed very happy and well cared for.
The trip was a one of a kind and very humbling. These people have so little and yet are so generous. I had a blast and would definitely do it again.