Each day is a weave of experiences, threaded through with 'Hope'.

Some days here in Nepal are like looking into a collide-a-scope. As you turn the barrel experiences tumble across your vision. Each event quite unexpected but together they have links which form the rich pattern of life.

13.06.2015
6.30 am, whilst on my morning run, I was unaware that what lay ahead was a day filled with strange unconnected happenings that would meld into a precious unforgettable tapestry of memories. As I rounded a street corner a collection of wheelchairs users blocked the way. This group were watching a wheel chair basketball tournament and I enjoyed the fun for a few moments as team Bouddha, in blue, went on to beat the local rivals.  I now stay in the city district, Jawalakel, where the Chinese Red Cross have made a good tented provision for wheel chair using citizens, Here their needs can be best met and the risks of being trapped in a collapsing building are minimised.

Bouddha contest for the ball

Nepal Army Team wait their turn

The sport attracts a good audience

 I had planned, later that day, to once more return to Bungamati and see how the quake recovery was progressing. I seem to be drawn back to this place rather like Kathmandu's cyclists are drawn to me as I run. Like rabbits caught in the headlights they aim at me and my warning to wannabe Kathmandu city road runners is be prepared to fend off bikes and 'glazed over' riders by literally pushing their handle bars away!!

Having recovered from a couple of pedal power near misses, I found myself  later that morning on route to my favourite local town, Bungamati. Again my path was blocked, not by sporting activities but instead by the ‘Chariot Festival'. Due to earthquake  shock waves the wheels on this mobile mini Blackpool Tower had ground to a halt halfway to its city destination. Undeterred by the precipitous angle the tower now assumed, worshipers still performed their ‘pujaa’ and musical ceremonies. One devotee who seemed to have had an operation to remove all his sense of self-preservation,  clambered to the apex and  fixed yet another Buddhist flag. This month long Newari festival involves both Hindus  and Buddhists who worship the Assam god Machhendra Nath. I felt some affinity with proceedings since the god should bring farmers good rains and harvest.

The Red Machhendra Chariot and yes that is a man on the top!!

Candles are lit accompanied by traditional music.

Worship continues unabated.

Further along my route, as I approach my destination, I was amazed how the landscape had been transformed since my last visit only three weeks ago. Lines of women farmers had been busy planting rice in flooded paddies. The flooding being achieved by irrigation channels, I am aware that the rains have not yet arrived and I offer up a silent prayer to Machhendra Nath not to heap more misery onto these simple farmers, many of whom have already lost their houses, by delaying the onset of the monsoon.

Dry paddies three weeks ago

How things have changed, with some water channeled from a nearby stream

Rice planting a Team event

Half an hour later I am relaxing with a khalo chiyaa (black tea), after having picked up some shirts from a  Bungamati tailor, when I see an old friend Juju Man Shrestha. Some weeks before the quake I had been looking for a craftsman to make a wooden box for Jude’s birthday. Juju had kindly found me a workshop, rather than use his own since their main line of work seemed to be carved furniture and house fittings. I was eager to discover how his life had changed following recent dramatic events.

All of my fears were confirmed as he described the tragic, but far too common, outcomes of that fateful earthquake day.

Juju's mother, looking a little weary but she was very welcoming.

Not sure who looks most hard bitten! It is the natural Nepali pose not to smile, whatever the underlying emotion . I think my emotion is perhaps showing through. as we sit on the step of  the closed workshop.

His house, along with those of his extended family, was destroyed. Being constructed using traditional mud and brick techniques they offered little resistance to shock waves. Along with the houses nearly all of the 300 carving workshops in the town had been ruined. Demand for their craft work had collapsed along with the tourist trade, and 15 or so remaining workshops were also finding it difficult to source camphor, the wood they traditionally use. In the wards that make up the  Bungamati VDC ( Village Development Committee) there had been 1045 houses destroyed, but fortunately due to the midday timing of the disaster, the loss of life had been limited to 7. Most people were out in the fields having eaten daal bhaat. Had the shock struck at night there could have untold misery for this community.

Juju's home that was four floors. For safety he knocked the top two down, and judging by the cracking the remainder will have to go as well.

Two women, and their dog, do a demolition job.

Machhe Narayan Shrestha outside his home, which displays some of his carved screens.

Madan Bhakta and Surja Laxmi Maharjan clear rubble from the first floor of their house in search of woodcarving tools and completed work.

Still neighbours despite everything.

Juju was eager to show me his new home, which is a tent shared by 15 others. It is a cliché to say that he seemed not to be down-hearted but all his family radiated a positive attitude and told me of their plans to recover from there predicament. Juju is a wood carver and along with most of his close relations is now jobless, but he has work to do as a subsistence farmer. Planting rice and cultivating crops is a group activity, to which the whole community subscribe, with little money changing hands.

The new family home, for 15 people.

Inside is just as you might expect,......very simple, just bedding.

Speaking to the whole family group  I discover they have plans to rebuild their traditional homes, and in Juju’s case open a home stay once the tourist trade has recovered. For me, knowing that no one has the luxury of house insurance, and that the combined Government and donor support will not run to a fraction of the cost of a rebuild, I can only feel a sense of huge concern.

We ate as they told me their story, and their plan for recovery.

As I walked  home Juju’s case weighed heavily on my mind. Not only had he lost his house but also his job. Some of my work at my partner organisation, Samarth, has  been involved in supporting nearly 5000 households with an emergency intervention that provides feed support for their beleaguered cattle. The aim is to maintain a source of family income through milk sales. These are small holder farmers whose immediate emergency requirements of shelter have been met and Samarth is trying to support their future livelihoods. We have been very careful to use the existing market chains to provide the feed in such a way that other livelihoods are not disrupted or even destroyed by the intervention. This intervention will roll out into very remote badly affected districts which already have established milk collecting cooperative structures in place.

A Danish Aid organisation is erecting some other temporary dwellings.

Another option, split bamboo housing.

Yet another unexpected experience in the cascading collide-a-scope of events awaited me before arriving home. On the same corner where earlier in the day I’d witnessed basketball, the equivalent of a Nepali tree surgeon was at work. This time instead of a trailer to remove scrub and brash, as we would at home, the method of transport was by elephant. As branches were loaded onto her broad shoulders the old female stood quietly by, munching on a few stray twigs. As friends have often said –‘we are certainly experiencing an amazing gap year!

What a way to move scrub and brush. How about it Nick and Chris?

’

My Dad was 89 that day and he sounded full of beans as we chatted on the phone. Jude and I will be travelling back to the UK for the month of July to be with our family. In the back of my mind is a persisting niggle that for the Newari families I have recently met there is no such escape. The long awaited PDNA (Post Disaster Needs Assessments) will appear in the next few days. These will form the basis by which the big donors place their aid. I hope some support will reach Juju and his fellow community members in Bungamati.