Report from Nepal, Part 2: The construction and the culture

By TruexCullins | February 12, 2014 Posted in Education

Continuing from Monday’s report, Diantha Korzun shares the highlights of her recent trip to Nepal, when she, Sparky Millikin, and Andrew Chardain travelled to the village of Basa to assist the Edge of Seven with the construction of a rural mountain school.

Read on for the second of this 3-part blog post, which describes the construction of the classroom and a small taste of life in the mountain village.

Once we arrived in Basa, our group of 6 volunteers worked on the site of the new classroom, alongside the superintendent Ram, his skilled group of masons, the community, the students and staff of the school.

The photos below show the progress that was made during our couple of weeks building on site:

nepal-08_foundation — Our building site after several days of digging the foundation and hauling rocks from the quarry a quarter mile away

nepal-09-10_stone wall — photo, left: A 12’ high retaining wall was built behind the school. Photo, right: Members of the community helping with the heavy lifting of rocks from the quarry.

nepal-11_earthbag wall — Once the foundation rock was in, we were able to sew the rice bags, and fill the first course with small rock for a drainage course.

nepal-12-13_building — Photo, left: Tamping the earthbags. Photo, right: The wood for the doors and windows were cut and hauled from the surrounding forest. The skilled laborers below are rough sawing the timber that we would later haul to the site.

nepal-14_wall-w-doors — Doors in place, 3 courses of earth bags set. This was where we ended after a week and a half of work

nepal-15_group — Many of the workers and volunteers on site for a team photo

As volunteers, the Edge of Seven and our guides from the Small World were insistent that we get a wide variety of experiences and were immersed into the community. Most importantly, all of the volunteers lived with one of two host families. We were invited into their homes, and shared both breakfast and dinner with them.

Top photo: Cooking area in Nema Doma’s home.

Bottom photo: Andrew prepping Tibetan bread.

nepal-18-19_sketch — Typical courtyard buildings in this area. Drawn: Nema Doma’s home.

Coming Up: Celebrating a successful trip