An earthquake that has shaken the world

Today I start this post with an extremely heavy heart. What should have been a post about my teaching experience in school has now become about a major natural disaster that has absolutely devastated a country and it's people.

I've had many concerns from a lot of family and friends from home, and let me assure you that I'm perfectly safe and well. Thank you to everyone who has contacted me to make sure I'm doing ok. Luckily, my network and data was working so I was able to make contact with people as soon as the earthquake struck.

As a lot of you know already, I am currently volunteering with VSO in the Lamjung district in a place called Duipiple. We were only approximately 35km from the epicentre of the earthquake so we could really feel the impact when it struck at around 12 noon on Saturday.
At the time, I was having a nap. I haven't been sleeping well in Nepal so was making the most of a quiet morning. I was awoken by what I thought was a large construction truck going past the house. It was shaking the house considerably, so I got up to investigate. I then realised after seeing people running out of their houses shouting or screaming, and other houses shaking along the street, that I was in the middle of an earthquake. I ran downstairs into a doorway and found my Didi clutching her children. We all ran outside to an open area and waited for the earthquake to be over. This earthquake measured (the measurement seems to change from source to source) around 7.8/7.9 on the Richter scale. 30 minutes later, another big aftershock struck the community.
It was a very surreal experience. I have never felt an earthquake before and I certainly won't forget this one in any hurry. It's an unnerving feeling when the ground moves beneath you. It wasn't as if it was a little bit; the ground was violently shaking everyone and everything. The tremors continued on average every 30 minutes for the rest of the day.
When I look back, I actually surprised myself with how I remained calm and collected. If I'm honest, it felt a little exhilarating feeling an earthquake, however this feeling very quickly disappeared when I heard of the destruction it had caused to the west of the district.

Tragically, Kathmandu suffered immensely with a lot of their World Heritage sites having been destroyed or damaged. But the real loss here is the lives. As I write this now, I believe the death toll has surpassed the 5000 people mark, with 1000's more injured or missing. The prime minister himself has said that the death toll could reach 10,000. A horrific number to even think about. Whole villages have been wiped out due to both the earthquake itself and landslides triggered by the aftershocks. The landslides have also meant that rural, mountainous villages are inaccessible. Trekkers and their guides on Mount Everest have been killed due to the onset of an avalanche the earthquake caused, with many more people trapped and waiting for a helicopter to lift them from base camp. This has been the biggest earthquake in Nepal for 80 years, and what's more, it was long overdue.

The aftershocks have caused as much damage as the earthquake itself. As I've previously mentioned, there have been landslides in the Kathmandu valley. Houses that hadn't initially fallen down from the quake then collapsed in the aftershocks. The aftershocks have even caused damage emotionally and mentally. Saturday night/Sunday morning was horrific for trying to sleep. The tremors were pretty constant and it meant that practically the whole community I live in slept outside. Everyone was on edge, waiting for the next tremor to come. When it did come, you could hear men shouting, women screaming and children crying. In those situations, you really just wish you could take their suffering away. We also had a 6.7 after shock on Sunday afternoon, which again shook the village to it's core.
The community have slept outside since Saturday night out of fear of even more tremors. You can see in the pictures their makeshift tents they have been using.

What's even more worrying is the rainfall and snowfall that could potentially cause more destruction. Nepal is notorious for landslides and if the country has more rain and snow as it is predicted, it could cause further chaos and destruction, thus taking even more lives.

Thankfully the family and friends of our Nepalese volunteers are safe and well. Most of our counterparts are from Kathmandu itself and naturally the images of devastation have broken both their hearts and ours. The main thing is that their family has their health, which can't be said for a lot of other people.

The priority for us now is to get our counterparts home to their families. Unfortunately, this means that we too will be leaving community and flying home to the UK. We've had confirmation that we will be leaving in the next couple of days so we've been asked to be packed and ready to go at any moment. It makes me incredibly sad that we can't help with the disaster relief in Kathmandu as I am just simply getting on a plane and leaving it all behind. Sure, I can do fundraisers when I get home, but I'm leaving having seen the devastation and pain that a whole country is going through. It makes me feel guilty that I can't do something in Nepal itself, having called this place my home for 2 months. I write this in tears because I'm leaving not only the Nepalese counterparts and host home, but people I now call my friends and Nepalese family. It really has affected me more than I ever thought it possibly could. Nonetheless, I have to think that I am not trained for this situation nor am I medical professional. I have goodwill to help out, but it is not what is necessarily needed at this exact moment. All I can say is that I hope Nepal remains strong and strives to come back from this extremely unfortunate natural occurrence.

The disaster relief has been incredible with numerous countries sending over helicopters to reach those in rural areas and medical teams to deal with the vast amount of people injured. They are also providing safe drinking water and items such as blankets to those sleeping outside. If you would like to donate to the disaster relief fund, then please visit these websites and donate to one of the many great charities that are all currently on ground in Nepal.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/apr/27/nepal-earthquake-how-you-can-help-donate-aid
http://time.com/3836242/nepal-earthquake-donations-disaster-relief/

I've also shared a post of photos on Facebook that tell Nepal's Earthquake story.

Let's do what we can for a country that is in dire need of human compassion, and let us also remember to show as nations what Nepal stands for:

Never Ending Peace And Love.

Alice x

"Whatever you do, don't do it halfway"

What a milestone! Halfway through the project and everyone seems to have achieved a lot already. However, as the blog title states, we all have a lot more to do in our remaining few weeks. I'm really sorry it's been a while since my last post, but it's been pretty busy with Mid-Phase Review, our Community Health Programme CAD and team meeting on Sunday.

So... let me fill you in on what's been happening.

We left for Pokhara on Sunday 12th April and it took approx 2.5 hours to get there. We had lunch straight away and got stuck straight into our training. The first session (and probably my favourite session of the 3 days) was reflecting on our personal development. I was looking forward to Pokhara mainly because of the change in scenery and western food, but actually, I took a lot away from this session and the whole training in general. With the amount of physical work we're doing in community, its really easy to forget about the personal changes you go through on a programme like this. This experience has definitely made me reconsider future career prospects, and has helped me develop work skills. For example, project management has been vital for planning and implementing our CAD's within community. We as volunteers are solely responsible for the programmes, and if we weren't able to manage with this responsibility, we definitely wouldn't get things done. The second session was reflecting on our counterpart relationships and host home environments. Meetum and I are lucky to have a good relationship, and if we've ever had any issues, we've talked about it. This session was good to bring up anything that might need to be addressed. For example, Meetum openly admits to me that she thinks I don't eat enough, but I reassured her that if I was hungry or if something was wrong, then I would tell her. Plus we also talked about not relying on each other too much. Also, Meetum and I came runner's-up in the Mr & Mrs quiz. She assumed I couldnt ride a bike. She thought they meant motorbike! The third session was presenting on what we had done up until MPR and what's to come. For this, Meetum and I wrote a poem:

We arrived on a Tuesday in our community home.
We got off the bus and were all alone.
Duipiple, the centre of the country we're in.
At once we noticed, "Where was the bin?".
It got us thinking the waste needed picking,
So we went to VDC to get our brains clicking.
A litter picking day was planned for all to come.
It would make the town merry and a lot less less glum.
Litter was picked off of the streets.
Tea and biscuits were provided as the treats.
Managing the waste was the issue now.
We provided a workshop to show them how.
Mini greenhouses were fun to do.
The ladies had answers to give us too.
Bins are the next step for this small Lamjung town.
Recycling their products will mran they have waste management 'down'.
These are the CAD's we have done for far,
And now we are here for MPR.
A lot has been planned for the next five weeks.
It's crazy to think how quickly time creeps.
School sessions have been planned. We are ready to train.
The children can make a change from the knowledge they gain.
Menstruation, reproduction and the confidence to speak out,
The children will benefit from this, I have no doubt.
A community health programme was to take place in week four,
But issues arose that closed this door.
Worry not, this programme will be back.
It's taking place on the fourth of Baishak.*
This is what we've completed up until now.
Hopefully the second half will make you think "WOW"!

*17th April in the English calendar - just to let you know.

I think I have a future in writing poems for Hallmark. It went down a treat ;)

Speaking of treats... have I talked about the serious stuff enough to now divulge into the details of FOOD?!? Our first dinner was actually dining out in a bamboo restaurant overlooking the lake. In true British fashion, and to obviously make us feel more at home, it completely tipped it down. It was emphasised even more by the metal sheeted roof. A downpour and a half!!! Now imagine if you will... a moment where you've been so overwhelmed, that a little part of your brain goes into overdrive, and you go a tad crazy. This was exactly what happened to me when I saw the menu. I ended up sharing a plate of cheesy, salsa nachos with Rosie, and I had bbq chicken sandwiches with chips and salad. Let's not forget the cheeky two cocktails that accompanied this meal as well. They were polished off in no time and measures are DEFINITELY stronger in Nepal! Day two I got actual cornflakes with cows milk. COWS MILK! And toast. Glorious toast. Only thing that would've completed the toast would've been marmite. Lunch was a pizza. I obviously would've had one for dinner the night before, but it wasn't on the menu. A sweet Danish in the afternoon. Pasta in a tomato sauce for dinner. Day three. Omlette on toast. Chargrilled chicken wraps. Chocolate cake shared with Rosie in the afternoon. Stir-fry noodles. Day four. Lots of toast. Chicken schnitzel sandwiches with chips and salad (these were unbelievably AMAZING!) and a frozen yoghurt. I also managed to get a lot of fresh fruit juice into me from this trip which was so satisfying. Miss lots of fruit and veg! However, after eating all this glorious food, I don't think the stomach could handle the western food overload. I felt a little bit sick in Pokhara but as soon as I got back to Daal Bhat in community, it actually settled... This is just my luck, and I guess that means no binging on burgers or lasagne when I get back then.

We also had some really lovely free time in Pokhara whereby we had a bit of an explore of the city. It was New Years whilst we were there and Nepal is in the year 2072 now. There were lots of things going on in the streets with people dancing, playing instruments and oddly, there was a large parade of motorbikes down the lake road. Loud motorbikes too. On New Years Day, the whole team headed down to the lake and we boated around for a couple of hours. It was honestly so peaceful with the Himalayas and the Peace Pogada in the background. Plus, it was sunny so topped off the boating experience even more. On our last day, Rosie and I went to a supermarket. Yes... an actual supermarket that had refrigerated cabinets and shopping trolleys. But the nicest part was our long walk back chatting the entire way. Let me just emphasise that it was a LONG way. Nice to have a heart to heart now and again isn't it?

Thanks for planning a good MPR Aweg, Kuldeep and Miranda =)

After we got back from Pokhara on the Wednesday, we had to start prepping for our Community Health Programme on Friday. It was a very successful day with approximately 30 people turning up from 13 households. The community is a Dalit village who are a group of margainalised people shunned from Nepalese society. The purpose of the programme was to allow the Dalit community access to healthcare and to build a better relationship between the community and health post. The general feedback from the programme was that they were very happy to get check ups and required medication, and the community would now go to the health post and see the health assistant if they were ill, instead of travelling hours to Pokhara. They also felt happy that their care would continue having now developed a relationship with the health assistant.

Our team meeting was really interesting on Sunday, as Jita and Soti Pasal team members; Rosie, Jeshmina, Nisha and Keah, led their ACD on female empowerment. One really good idea from Rosie was a world map that had facts about the limitations on women around the world. It was surprising how close to home some of the facts were and the shock factor of how women are treated globally. Good job guys! It really was an informative and thought-provoking session. One you should be proud of too!

Lastly, Duipiple are currently hosting a Dutch organisation called Medical Checks for Children, who have worked here for the last 4 years (this being the 5th and final year). They have noticed reoccurring problems with children in the area and these include anemia, worms, malnutrition and dental problems. As we have roughly 4 weeks left in community, we made them aware that if they would like us to discuss a particular topic within the school, we'd be more than happy to help. Meetum and I have also produced leaflets on ten common childhood illnesses, which will hopefully contribute to the great work this organisation is already doing.

So that's about it really. Meetum and I will hopefully be teaching some school sessions by the end of the week, which include menstruation, general sexual and reproductive health, climate change, female empowerment and healthy living, and... we have a few more CAD's to run which are commercial vegetable growing, healthy livestock, cervical cancer awareness with a pap smear and the unveiling of the new community recycling bins.

Sorry once again for not posting something sooner, but I promise the next post will be within the week.

Alice x