Days 10-11

Days 10-11 (March 10-11)

Today we finally got to wash some clothes. There is a washing machine in Aparna’s house. While the electricity was running, she offered her machine to us. Well …. it’s a different experience than washing in the West. Aparna’s son helped me with what turned out to be a project. First, you load the clothes. The water pressure was not working, so we had to get some buckets with water to add to the machine. After adding some detergent, he started a cycle. When that cycle ended, the laundry was taken out of the washing section and put in the spinning section. After spinning, the clothes were put back into the washing section, they got washed once again, then put back in the spinning section and then I could hang the clothes on the line to dry.

Our goal today was to drive to a store that sold eco friendly, fair trade, hand made Nepali crafts and clothes. We wanted to check out what’s available on the market, what was charged etc. Our plan was to explore ways for some of the people we have met to make a living. We hope they can create products that we can sell in the US and then send the profits back to Nepal. I know there are already many stores that sell Nepal imports, but we were hoping to find a way to help these people become self-supporting. Most of the goods in the store are available in the US already. So, we have some more research to do.

I talked with my cousin from Germany on Skype today and she asked me (Ute) if we felt out of place or strange here. I told her, on the contrary, we feel like we are amongst family. It is quite amazing to travel around the world and be in a foreign place where you completely connect with people who seem to have been in your lives for a long time.

Next, we visited a friend of Aparna’s and Sita’s (who was with us this afternoon) who has had back surgery and is recovering at home. Her home was somewhere in Kathmandu where her neighborhood had extensive earthquake damage. Fortunately, her house was not effected. When we entered, they were cooking over a wood burning fire in the back of the building and the smoke filled the stair way. It was difficult to breathe as we walked to the second floor where she lived.

Even though most of the conversation was in the Nepali language and we could not understand a word, we still felt like we were part of it. Often translations into English were offered and the atmosphere was relaxed and enjoyable. We were then offered a meal. The hospitality here is amazing. Unfortunately, my husband and I don’t eat much and can’t handle the amount of food they eat so we always feel bad turning down food. We compromise by asking for really small portions. I guess, being foreigners, we can somewhat get away with it even though no one here can understand that one can function with less food.

We were then asked to offer a healing session to the woman with the surgery. She was sitting in a chair surrounded by 6 of us who were sending her healing energy and praying with her. Again the results were amazing. Spirit worked!!!

After visiting with this woman, we met two engineers who had finished an earthquake resistant plan for a small hospital in Nagarkot, which was the site we visited on our 6^th day. We went over the plan with them and talked about the cost and what would be needed in terms of materials, labor, etc. One of the engineers will meet us at the site on Saturday to finalize the dimensions for the building. From that meeting we headed back to Aparna’s home during Kathmandu rush hour. This experience was truly hell on earth. The pollution was so dense it is almost impossible to breathe. You are stuck in traffic surrounded by cars, motorcycles, buses, and trucks with their engines pumping out fumes. In an earlier post I called the traffic here organized chaos. I now know why. There are no road signs, not even stop signs or yield signs. There are also no traffic lights because the electricity is not constant. This means rush hour is just one huge bottleneck with everyone looking for an advantage. If a truck is turning left, for instance, from a side street, it just creeps forward until it has blocked all lanes moving one direction until it can complete the turn into the lanes going the opposite direction. Completing the turn is difficult, though, because the lanes of traffic the truck is trying to enter are also at a stand still. Compound this with thousands of trucks and cars constantly turning and total gridlock is the result. At some of the more major intersections (an intersection of two six lane roads say), you have police directing traffic but many drivers just ignore their signaling. At one point when we were approaching such a large intersection, it took us about thirty minutes to move 200 meters. Not an experience we want to duplicate. I cannot imagine doing this on a daily basis. I now know why many in this city wear masks. You have to just to survive.

Here we are meeting with the 2 engineers

When we arrived at Aparna’s house, a young man was waiting for us who was supposed to teach me (Ute) a Nepali song. We plan to return to the elderly home for the poor where we want to entertain and feed them. We also want to pray with them. Let’s say my (Ute’s) Nepali is not quite there, but I will have time to practice.

Day 11 we returned to the mountain village of Nagarkot. You can only take so many days in Kathmandu. The amenities are better but the smog takes its toll. There is very limited Internet in the village so it will be a few days before we can load more posts.

Now here is more about day 11 that we have written after we left Kathmandu and couldn’t upload it. One lesson we are learning is that is such a thing as Nepali time. We in the West are so punctual and always concerned with a schedule that we often miss what is important. Maybe our organized western mind needs to relax more and be open to when and what is happening. We were supposed to visit people in the morning but this didn’t happen. As such, we had much time on our hands and used it to pack our backpack for the trip and wash some more laundry as we waited for things to unfold. Aparna went to the elderly home for the “homeless” and arranged for us to visit there next Friday. We originally had planned to serve healthy, cooked foods but the Government intervened and will only permit us to bring cookies, fruit, and processed foods.

After midday, a young man we have been waiting to meet came. He is the cousin of a Nepali woman we met in Alabama when she was attending the local university. He had just come from working on a construction site in one of the more remote villages where the NGO he works for had just completed helping the locals build 2 schools. Sonam talked to us about his work, the efforts after the earthquake, and recent challenges and successes. As in Africa, it is sometimes difficult to motivate the locals to help with the projects – even if they are for their own benefit. He told us that sometimes it is not beneficial for westerners to come and help because some of the local villagers then believe that they don’t have to do any of the work. They are more than happy to allow the Westerners, who have more money than they do, to come and no only pay for the materials but actually do the construction. It’s a fine line. Sonam’s NGO only provides some of the materials coupled with the technical labor needed such as architects and engineers. The locals have to provide the manual labor. The locals also have to acquire and install the doors and windows themselves. This way they have ownership in the home or school and it is not just a handout. As such, they maintain it because they built it and, through this effort, acquire local “ownership” of the project. The design is simple so that unskilled labor can build the structures. There is a brick making machine that only requires human effort because in runs off a hydraulic system. The bricks have two holes in them and can be stacked on top of rebar. This gives the walls rigidity. They only build single story structures so you do not have to worry about excessive weight and no sway contributed by extra height. This way the buildings will withstand future earthquakes. The completed structure costs approximately $12 per square foot.

On our third day here, we met another woman, originally from Wisconsin, who now lives in this part of the world. She decided to come to Nagarkot with us because we started talking about spiritual matters when we first met her. The time in Nagarkot will give us the opportunity to continue our conversations.

Finally, at 4:30 PM, we left Kathmandu. On the way out of town, we stopped at an outdoor market to get some fruit and vegetables and then at a hardware store for plumbing supplies. Conrad is going to help Aparna fix a bathroom at her home in Nagarkot. Once again we hit rush hour but it was not as bad as our experience several nights before. We arrived at Nagarkot about sunset and were greeted by the caretakers and their children. They prepared a lovely dinner for us. Thankfully, they are slowly adapting to the concept that we don’t eat that much.

Aparna immediately went to get some fresh cow milk (literally fresh from the cow) and invited the owner of the cow to come and teach me (Ute) some Nepali songs to sing. He is a drummer. (Our room is now filled with the musical instruments he brought.) Since my Nepali language is massively underdeveloped, we soon started to sing other songs and each took turns singing a song for the others. During the evening there were Nepali songs, Bhadjans, US songs, and African songs. It was much fun. We have been adopted. We had a wonderful evening with the young man, Conrad, Miriam and 2 village boys all singing and drumming together by candle light. The electrical power, as usual, was off.