Mission to Nepal: Dhungkharka

OK, get ready for lots of pictures, because today we made it to Dhungkharka, one of the hill villages that Build Change is doing work. As I mentioned in previous posts, it is also one of the villages that the Build Change survey team I was on surveyed last June, so I wanted to see how things were now.

My first impressions were that things looked better. There were still some buildings with damage but not as many as before, and the houses that were destroyed had been demolished. There were still people who were living in temporary shelters but there were also some that had moved back into their homes. Life appeared to be somewhat normal, as best I could tell anyway.

The main purpose of the trip was so that I could see the 3 homes that Build Change had retrofitted in Dhungkharka. They wanted me to see what they did and offer suggestions (if any) to make the designs better, since Build Change is preparing to make a large push to retrofit homes in several Nepali villages.

Here is the first retrofitted house, painted in Build Change teal. Or maybe it's cyan, but I prefer to call it teal since I'm a San Jose Sharks fan...

The interior of the ground floor of the house, pretty typical of houses in these villages.

The retrofit design included adding straps and wood strongbacks to strengthen the walls, and a stud wall and straps at the roof to tie the roof to the rest of the building.

Pretty slick I thought. The second house had a similar scheme, only instead of metal straps it had concrete beams poured within the floor.

House #2

Concrete beams in the floor

At the roof

This house is owned by an elderly couple who were very happy that they could sleep in their house, which is really why I am here and why Build Change does what it does. The owner of the first house wasn't home but one of her neighbors came by and told us that she wanted her house retrofitted too.

One of the elderly couple's neighbors came over and invited us to his house where he gave us what best could be described as thick oatmeal that tasted like cookie dough. It is made by heating up buffalo milk until it hardened. The buffalo was in the next room so I knew that what they told me was true. I'm pretty sure that the plate and utensils that I was eating with were not at all sanitized, and I didn't know whether there was any bacteria in the meal, but I couldn't stop myself from eating it because it was very tasty.

Just like last time, I'm amazed at the million dollar views that the peasants in these villages have. Not that it helps them have better lives or anything, but they are still amazing views.

There were also Europeans lounging outside of another house next to the elderly couple's. I had to do a double take since I didn't expect to see Europeans here, especially those that were sitting outside reading books. I was told that they were on vacation doing farming while they stayed at the house as part of a work-stay kind of thing, but they weren't picking up any tools while I was there. Perhaps they were what one of my colleagues called "volun-tourists", people who come to places saying they want to help but are not qualified to do anything helpful and are in fact there to be tourists and still feel good about themselves. I guess it is good for the local economy but I don't know. I also don't know how they ended up in a place like Dhungkharka...

On the way to the third house the driver stopped in front of a steep and wet dirt path. I was thinking there was no way we were going up that, were we? Well, yes, we did.

This is actually one of the drier sections...

We made it to the third house that is still under construction but close to completion. This house was different from the other two in that it had concrete strongbacks instead of wood.

House #3 with a wood gable, a Build Change trademark

A concrete strongback

The floor joists were tied to the beams in the wall with embedded rebar.

My colleague in the office doesn't think we need to design the attics for heavy loads. I took this picture for him.

My colleague Kiran being friendly with a shy calf.

Finally it was time to go, which meant traversing down that steep, narrow, wet path again...

My hats off to our driver for driving up and down this...

Not that the roads in the valleys are any better. Some of them are just as plagued with ruts, rocks, and ditches as the paths in the mountains. My Fitbit, which can't tell the difference between walking and bounding around inside a car, says that I made 22,925 steps today. I probably walked about 1/10 of that.

Finally we arrived in Kathmandu during the height of the rush hour, where we got up close and personal with many of our Nepali friends...