Emergency education

Namaste,
Although Lamjung District has not been nearly so badly hit by the earthquakes as other districts, the damage to homes and schools is still quite severe in some areas.  The continuous aftershocks, there have been more than 200, have compounded the initial damage caused by the big quakes on 25th April and 12th May.

Fallen wall and cracks in corner of classroom.

Many schools have large cracks and structural damage, rendering them unsafe for lessons to be held in their classrooms.  Others have damaged toilets which need replacing or repairing. Understandably parents are concerned to send their children back to school, to sit in rooms that may collapse with another shake.  In order to allow pupils to return to lessons VSO Nepal have been hard at work developing a plan to help.

Cracks in another classroom wall.

VSO Nepal's 'Emergency Education Initiative' has obtained funding and permission to work, initially with the worst damaged schools in Lamjung District, and then to move onto two other Districts, as people are ready to think about schools again once they have personal living accommodation.

Bamboo frame being constructed

Having surveyed all the schools reporting damage in 8 VDCs ( similar to Parish Councils in UK), those unable to continue with lessons have been selected to receive temporary Learning Spaces (TLS, Temporary Classrooms).  These will be erected nearby or on school premises as soon as possible, using local labour and materials as much as possible. Bamboo frames will be covered with corrugated iron sheets for roofing and walls will be constructed of iron sheets too, or bamboo, tarpaulins, wood or woven straw. All metal will get hot in the sun, so some insulation covering for the roof will also be required.

Students helping with clearing the inside of their
temporary classroom

Contents of the Early Years resource bag.

UNICEF have donated equipment to be distributed to the schools too. Bags of lovely puppets, books and games are for the youngest children in school, the ECD classes. How excited the children will be when they see these!

Recreational kits; balls and sports equipment have also been provided for each school.  We plan that these will be used by the Youth Volunteers to provide extra curricular activities in each of the villages.

Classroom equipment - School-in-a-box - also from UNICEF will ensure that everyday resources are available for each class, so that lessons can continue as usual. These boxes contain exercise books, pens, pencils, rulers and coloured crayons along with lots of other essential things for the classroom.

Boxes and bags of equipment awaiting collection
by tractor and trailer for delivery to schools.

All this equipment has to be transported by tractor and trailer to the schools, many in very remote hilly places.

Loading the trailer containing the building materials for
the temporary classroom, with bags of educational resources.

"Put my fingers in the paint?!"

The Youth Volunteers, five for each VDC, have been employed to assist with recovery and ongoing activities for the students. We held a training day for them, where they were taught to recognise and help children and young people affected emotionally by the earthquakes (psychosocial effects).  There was also lots of fun and laughter as they experienced art and music therapy and learnt easy games to play with students.  Finger painting, which they had never done before was a particular challenge, as they were unwilling to get their fingers covered in paint!

Team games - not something these Youth Volunteers had experienced before.

Finally, teachers are being given training so that they understand and are able to help students who are suffering emotional effects as the result of the earthquakes. When completed, around 400 teachers will have been trained in the 8 VDCs (Village communities).  This training has included using art and music to help students, as well as games to allow them to have fun.

Teachers role-play living in a shelter.

Early morning in the village

Namaste.

6am. Rural life in Nepal starts early in the morning, just after it gets light.  In the house where I have been staying, whilst working for a few days in a nearby school, everyone is busy at this hour! By 6am all the family are up and about.  There are many jobs to do; water to fetch, animals to feed and water, washing to do, sweeping and cleaning, cooking and a multitude of other tasks.

6am - The terrace has been swept and mats and cushions
put out for sitting.

Firstly, the lady of the house sweeps the surrounding terraces, and puts down the straw mats and cushions so that the terrace can be used for sitting and as a communal area where visitors are received. Each morning she presented her residential guests with a cup of tea, before continuing with her work. The family's clothes are hand washed in a large bowl and hung up to dry. 

She also takes responsibility for producing the morning meal. The family eats daal bhat before leaving the house for school or work. Rice, with a daal sauce, takari (vegetable curry) and aachar (a spicy pickle) need to be made, ready to be eaten before 9am. The takari is made from fresh produce, picked that morning from the ground near the house. During the few days staying at this house we ate different takari each meal, using potatoes, onions, pumpkin, beans and bitter gourd.

The teenage son has settled at the table to do several hours of homework. He did not need to be told to do his work, because he knows how important it is for him to do well at school. I hear him chanting facts he needs to remember for his social studies lesson; about the advantages of sustainable agriculture. He works for a couple of hours doing homework each morning as he doesn't leave for school until 9am. In Nepal most homework seems to be done in the morning, probably because the electricity supply for lighting at night is not reliable, and besides, few rural houses have many lights.

Grandmother, hajuraama, is busy picking vegetables that she then peels and chops ready for the morning meal of daal bhat. Whilst sitting crossed-legged on the floor, she uses her traditional long curved knife, a kukri, which she holds with her foot, leaving both hands free to slice the vegetables onto it. She takes the peelings to feed to the buffalo. When she walks her back is stiff and bent, probably from the strain of many years carrying heavy loads in a dokko (basket) suspended from her forehead. She has a beautiful smile, and though we can hardly communicate, I often find her watching me and her face lights up and she beams when I catch her eye. We feel have a special bond as we are both grandmothers, and she was interested to see photos of my grandchildren.

Grandfather, hajurbaa, returns from the nearby fields, wet from the overnight rain that has dripped on him from the tall maize plants he has walked through. On his back he carries a huge load of cut grass and leaves, food for the buffalo, which lives tied in the shed beside the house. Before he went to the fields, I saw him polishing his grandson's black shoes, ready for school today. (Sadly no individual picture of him)

The buffalo waiting for her food

Father, a local teacher, takes responsibility for the water. Drinking water is stored in large metal containers beside the house and water for washing in a large black plastic tank, perched on the roof of the toilet and bathroom. This family has the luxury of a separate bathroom, with a shower from the above water tank - much to my delight, as it has been very hot whilst we have been here, and I have been able to have a good wash. (In most of the rural houses where I stay, there is only the outside communal tap to use, so a shower is my first priority when I get back to my flat.)

How busy everyone is, and it may be difficult for people from a different culture to imagine all this happening before 7am.  

Thank you to the family for looking after us and allowing me to write about their morning routine and include their photos. I look forward to returning to stay at the village again soon.

5.45am The family and my 2 colleagues (in red) before we left to walk to catch the 7 o'clock bus.

Recovery

Namaste.

In earthquake-hit Nepal, life for many has gradually returned to normal.  People have moved back into their homes if they were not damaged, and offices, shops and schools have mostly re-opened.  The aftershocks have almost petered out; we hadn’t had one for a week and then overnight everything shook again, not once but twice!  

I went to Kathmandu at the start of last week for a training course. The journey was the first time I had travelled back to the city since the earthquake.  As we climbed the hills into the Kathmandu valley, all along the road, in each village that the bus passed through, there were rows of multi-coloured temporary shelters; small tent-like structures made from a bamboo frame covered in tarpaulin or any other waterproof material that people could find or acquire.  Lots had the aid donors name emblazoned on them. “UK AID – from the people of Britain” was one that caught my attention several times, along with ‘Red Cross of China’ and several others. Many families had taken their beds into the shelter, so that they did not have to sleep in their damaged houses, fearful of another quake. I could not bring myself to photograph these shelters, it seemed such an invasion into these poor people's lives, when they were already suffering.

Also on the main road I saw a convoy of long lorries, empty now, but each proudly bearing a banner on the front "UN - Emergency Relief Supplies". 

In Kathmandu, it is the modern houses that mostly remain standing and in many cases are little damaged.  The old streets of Thamel near the hotel where I stayed, narrow and normally full of bustling traders and tourists, were much quieter and in many places filled with rubble from collapsed buildings. Houses still standing, old and traditional, had walls propped up with wooden beams.  The temples in Durbar Square had mostly fallen and those that hadn’t were surrounded in bamboo scaffolding.  The tall brick walls of the beautiful ‘Garden of Dreams’ (see blog 'Dream of a Garden' from November 2013), the renovation of the old palace garden, had become piles of bricks on the pavement below and the garden was closed.  The large open space/sports ground, the Tundikhel, which acts as a massive roundabout in the centre of the city, was full of temporary tent homes.

However at 6 weeks since the first earthquake, there are now many signs of recovery and rebuilding to be seen. Rubble from collapsed houses has often already been sorted and any materials suitable for re-using is stacked neatly on the sites. Many lorries and trucks on the roads were loaded with sacks of cement or building materials.  New bricks, stones and sand were piled by the sides of the road waiting to be used for new buildings. 

The Nepali people are resilient and determined to bounce back. New homes and schools will eventually be built, but in the meantime, people will manage, despite the hardship and inconvenience, in their temporary shelters and classrooms.  The aid donations from the rest of the world will continue to be vitally important in helping with the rebuilding of this nation.

Shocking!

Namaste

Nepal's second earthquake this week on 12th May took many people by surprise. We had not had an aftershock for several days so everyone was starting to relax, thinking the worst was over. 

With emergency funding to support us, I am now involved in assessing the needs of schools is 8 VDCs (Village Development Committees) in the worst hit areas of Lamjung District, mostly to the south and near the border with Gorkha.  I was out in the hills with Anju, a Nepali colleague from Global Action Nepal, visiting all the schools in Bharte, one VDC, to photograph and assess the damage to each one, so that those that were badly damaged and could no longer hold classes should have early relief and lessons could resume.

Cracks to roof supports

During the past two days we had visited five schools, whose damage was not too severe, mostly cracks in walls caused by small shifts in the ground, or surface plaster falling off in large chunks.  However we had seen bigger cracks in some walls and one classroom where the gable wall was looking very unstable, having moved about 4 centimetres outward and a substantial part of it fallen in. I advised the headteacher that the room should not be used.

We were walking up a steep rough track, cut into the hillside on the way to the school.  I did not notice the earth shaking to start with, as I was contemplating what we had seen so far, and concentrating on walking uphill fast to reach the next school. To me it didn't feel that bad - more like another of the milder shocks we have been having regularly since 25th April. (I believe there have been around 100 aftershocks – the latest at 5.5 was this morning whilst I was eating breakfast!) 

A man from a house beside the track came rushing out, telling us about the new earthquake and to be careful.  We then met students in uniform hurrying home from school along the path. They had been sent home because of the quake. When we reached the school five minutes later the students had all gone and the teachers were locking up ready to leave. They all looked shocked and unsure what to do. Many were phoning their families to check their safety.

The surrounding wall for the school had collapsed in places.

One teacher bravely took me quickly to see the damaged in classrooms and library. I took photos and filled in the report form once back outside again and away from the building. I also inspected the toilets, and observed that the girls toilet wall was badly cracked. I took more photographs to add to our report. A second shock made us rush into the open space between the school buildings for safety. I certainly felt that one!

Cracked toilet wall

When we were sure the shaking had stopped, I went back into the girls toilets, to see if this new shock had made things worse. It definitely had! The external wall was badly cracked, an internal wall was badly bowed and the concrete lintel over the toilet doors looked decidedly unstable.

When I spoke to the assistant principal, I told him the toilets were not safe for the girls to use. This will be a big problem as girls will not be prepared to use the boys toilet, so many will not attend school until this is repaired or rebuilt. As the school is high on a ridge, cement for rebuilding will need to be carried there. During our three days in this area we saw several trains of mules loaded with bags of cement, two per mule, making their way uphill.

Everyone from the village was sitting outside afraid to go back into their houses. Many stayed there for much of the afternoon. 

People sheltering by the temple.

We had stayed the night before at the house of a kind female teachers from the secondary school, and had been treated like honoured guests. The house was built on the hillside in the traditional style using stone set with mud as cement. These are the houses which have suffered so much damage in the earthquake as they are not strong. A neighbouring house had collapsed during the first quake, and everyone was busy helping with the rebuilding. I noticed they were now using concrete pillars with iron reinforcement this time, to give the new house strength.

Building a new stronger house

For safety that night we slept in the nearby health post building, along with another family, all of us on the floor.  This new building is a much stronger structure than the traditional stone and mud houses of the village. In the middle of the night came another tremor. Everybody scrambled to get up but luckily the shaking quickly stopped and we returned to bed.

Fortunately, damage to most schools we have seen has not been too severe. However damage to the classrooms walls at one primary school meant that lessons were being taught outside, which will not be an option once the monsoon arrives.  We are hoping to get some emergency funding for this school to provide a ‘Temporary Learning Space’ so students can at least be taught undercover.

The kindness of the people I have met has been a special feature of my travels this week. Everywhere we went we received smiles and greetings. Complete strangers have given us water, tea, snacks, fruit and even a daal bhat meal. Village people have left their work to lead us through the forest paths or villages to the schools we were searching. Thank you to everyone who has helped us at this difficult time in such a friendly way.

Aftermath - a week later.

Namaste.

It is now over a week since the devastating earthquake shook Nepal.  A week experiencing a whole range of emotions; terror, relief, thankfulness, hope, despair, horror, pity and helplessness to name but a few.

Most people will have heard about the earthquake and seen the dramatic photographs of Kathmandu on the world’s media. The devastation in some areas is horrific! Thousands have been killed, with the toll still rising and many more injured in the worst hit areas.  Unknown numbers have been left homeless as their houses have been damaged or destroyed by the powerful shaking.  Some remote communities needing aid have yet to be reached and this is proving difficult due to routes blocked by landslides.  Often there is no vehicle access to these communities, so aid has to be carried in or delivered by helicopter.

Kathmandu is a capital city with more than a million living there.  To put it into perspective many were unhurt and their homes not badly damaged. Sadly many poorer families from the city will be the ones worst affected by this tragedy as they frequently lived in overcrowded houses, often a family in one room. Their homes tended to be in older, less strongly-built houses, and were often the ones that collapsed in the quake.  In some areas the houses were build very close to each other, and many storeys high.  There would have been a domino effect when they collapsed. These poor families badly need aid as they have not the finance or resources to replace what they have lost.

Since the ‘great’ quake, as it is now being called, there have been many aftershocks, even a small one just before 12 o’clock on Saturday, exactly a week since the first. Fortunately most of these aftershocks have been slight and over time they have become weaker and less frequent. However people are still scared and sudden vibrations or loud noises cause people to move quickly, ready to evacuate the building. Nobody wants to be caught inside a collapsing building!

Fortunately, the town of Besisahar where I live, despite being quite close to the epicenter, has not been much damaged and the district has few casualties.  However, in the rural villages nearby, many of the traditionally built houses, constructed of wood, stones, bamboo and mud plaster, have not withstood the shaking well, and are cracked or damaged. Some have had walls break and crumble or lean-to walls collapse. However there is not the blanket destruction of homes that has affected other districts, where reports talk of every house in the village being flattened.

Life in the town is returning to normal. Many of the shops in the main street are open for business and people are going about their daily lives. There is plenty of fresh food on sale, much of it grown locally and brought down to the town in baskets (dokho) carried on the back. Buses are running, shops are taking deliveries, builders are continuing the constructions and women working on the terraced fields. At the Global Action Nepal office all my colleagues were working most days last week to complete the end of month financial reports.

Schools have been officially closed last week, much to the delight of the students. Many have been playing outside, the terrors of last Saturday forgotten.  Shlok, a ten year old boy living near me, normally attends boarding school in Kathmandu. He and his brother were lucky to get on a bus leaving the city on Monday, before the big rush to leave really took off.  They are now enjoying the safety of home, and an unexpected holiday, and will stay until the situation improves in Kathmandu.

A phone call to check on each of the schools and communities that we are working, with on the Sisters for Sisters project, has reassured us that nine schools have sustained little damaged, and hopefully will be open and working next week after the official period of mourning ends.  I look forward to my next visits to these schools. Three schools, our most southerly and nearest to the epicentre, have more damage and will need repairs before their students can attend again.

There is much movement around the country at this time.  Many long distance buses are crowded with people who live or work away from home, and are anxious to return to their families and homes, to see for themselves the effect of the earthquake and do what they can to help.

As VSO volunteers, we have all been offered repatriation to our home countries. Those from the worst affected areas have been encouraged to go, if there was no further useful work they could accomplish. I feel quite safe in Besisahar, with clean water, sanitation, food and electricity not being affected, so have decided to remain and continue the work I am doing.   I have offered to be involved in any quake related initiatives, should that be appropriate, and I know VSO Nepal staff are working to make plans for this at present.

Now the country needs to get back to some semblance of normality as soon as is possible. In the meantime, a sincere “Thank you” to everyone who has donated money, either for rescue, relief or rebuilding.  Your donations are very much needed to help this very poor nation at this time.  Thank You.