January 2019

While drinking my morning Chai on our first morning back together as a team I was amazed when Keshab brought 7 people along with him to join us. Ram had decided to work with us again and brought his best friend for some casual work. We were strong. I knew a couple of Keshab’s lads from when we had built the retaining wall, but there were many new faces, and just like Keshab, they were all a big power on site. For the gruelling task of getting the materials down to the site, the more the merrier. We had a lot of materials to shift and these guys didn’t often stop, no matter the heat, the weight or the awkward gradient of the path down to the site. It felt good to have them back with us. Kesheb kept joining me in motivating everyone too, showing his passion as we all sweated it out for a couple of full days until the site was ready for Sukuman to join us again. I decided to order the next trucks to deliver to the road above us, to get some more of this painful and insane heavy labour out of the way while we had the power playing on our side.

Sukuman was ready for us; this time everything was connecting perfectly. I had organised Sukuman to bring another trusted builder with him. It turned out to be someone I had not met before, Milan. A gentle soft-spoken man, but on hearing he was a young uncle of Keshab, I guessed he must be setting a good example on building sites. I met them all for a morning Chai and wished them well laying the first bricks. I had to negotiate and check the quality of the metal order in the city which meant for one day I could not be on site but I had full trust in the team to carry the work forward. I met Mandu while we were finishing our Chai and soon we were on our way to Bhaktapur together once again.

The metal order took time, as to be expected. It was a full load for the completion of project, from rebars to roof structure and cladding. Johannes had messaged to say he was on his way to the village that day to start with us the following morning. Things had finally started falling into place.

On my return with the materials and knowing I would need a hand, we picked up Johannes from Ramesh’s homestay. Together with the materials we headed two kilometers down the other side of the mountain to the village of our site. As late as it was,  the team were still passionately waiting for us; all ready to help unload the truck. I couldn’t believe it, I had expected them to have gone home by now as it was after 6pm and dark outside. An incredible commitment from our Nepali team, what an amazing crew they are.  On my arrival to the site, carrying some of the heavy materials with the team, I was amazed to see how many bricks they had layed in a single day. The bricks were already coming up to my knees. This was very motivating and exciting and reaffirmed my trust in our team.

The next day I was glad to be back on site getting my hands dirty. I feel like I’m missing all the fun when I am not there. Being involved and seeing the realisation of a project is the most satisfying thing of all. It’s alive! It looked so beautiful. By the end of the next day we were ready for the first layer of formwork and rebars to be placed. We were going faster than I had imagined and it was all looking fantastic. They brought another new builder with them, Pushpa. Pushpa is another gentle and committed hard working guy. I was pleased to meet his acquaintance and although he is a little shy at first, he has a great sense of humour. With the amount of people in the team the next day we could all be extremely busy supporting each other on site. Everything about the team felt well balanced enabling us to get the work done with speed, durability and efficiency.

Milan had effortlessly won over my trust in his skills very quickly. Such a confident yet calm temperament with only respect for the work in hand on site. I knew straight away he was going to be a big player and character on site this time, I hadn’t anticipated him becoming the biggest player though. Through conversation I learned he only became a builder due to the earthquakes, with it being a high in demand job. With only three and a half years’ experience and Sukuman still teaching him everything he knows, he was impressive. There is however no substitute to having Sukuman on site with his mastery and experience. Sukuman really is a true master of the building craft in all capacities. Even Sukuman was more active this time on labour work when needed than before. This surprised me, and concerns me in equal measure this time knowing his growing health issues. This time around I can empathise with Sukuman even more, having had my own concerns after slipping a disc in my back. With increasing age I wonder how long the pair of us can keep this up? Knowing that Sukuman has 10 years on me, I urge him to calm down more, but his passion for the work is overflowing.  Sukuman and Milan are a perfect fit of age, youth and experience. With Keshab’s amazing power coming up behind them and with great support from the others all around the site I genuinely believe it couldn’t be a better team.

We spent a day cutting, bending and banding the rebar that would follow with our longest days on site: formwork and cement pouring. Due to the disaster and high amount of building work currently going on, (even now over 3 years since the disaster) we went to another house to borrow wood for the formwork as we had done previously with no problem. We had a very long tiring day of assembling the formwork, mixing and pouring the cement by hand. Days like this become the longest ones on the project. To complete this kind of work in a single day we start earlier and leave later than a normal working day for it to settle, for us to continue to lay bricks. Normally we finish these days in the dark with literally no complaints from any member of the team. We all see the goal and are committed working towards it. On a smaller day I welcome them to finish earlier when the work has an appropriate break in lieu of this. But on these days, I love nothing more than to personally buy a well-deserved cold beer for the team and do a little teambuilding with the volunteers. Getting everyone to know each other and have a good time. There is no question this benefits onsite efficiency. After all, we are having a great time all around.

I dream of our school project’s future with this team, especially with the growing feedback I am getting from engineers about the work we are doing. I dream of Keshab becoming a fully legitimate builder with us. Keshab tells me his dreams to learn woodwork too, like Sukuman, his hero. My thoughts are that with the school project this can be as good for us as it will be for him. It should be something we work towards together, the sound of it makes me happy. I always want our project to support the local community as much as possible as we continue; especially given the amazing skills, commitment and loyalty they are providing us.

Johannes beat me to Nepal by a couple of days. I was able to meet him straight away as he was in our usual hideout in Kathmandu, Hostel One96, waiting with curiosity and excitement. With no time to waste we headed straight to the village together, with Johannes very excited to finally meet Raju and Phul Maya. We needed to put the team back together and say a big Namaste to all of our dear friends, introducing them all to our new teammate.

Soon after arriving in Baluwapati I heard that Indra, our site foreman for the house foundation, was in Kuwait; contracted to work there for the next couple of years. Sadly this led to his much loved family run cafe closing. However, on arriving at Sukuman’s house I was greeted warmly with chai and the excitement of him being fit and well after the accident which had stopped him joining us last time. Sukuman was now full of passion and ready to join us again. I was also met with the same enthusiasm from Keshab just a few houses down the mountain. Sukuman gave us strong support on the retaining wall on the school site with Keshab, who has been with us ever since.

Life felt great. I showed Johannes around the village so he could meet our close friends and be acquainted with our projects and the local villagers that would become a big part of his life for the next couple of months. The two of us laughed a great deal as we enjoyed a few drinks and meeting the characters in the village while getting further acquainted with each other. We stayed over for the night before heading back to Kathmandu to sort out the donation collection. This volunteer already felt like he was going to be a lot of fun to work with, and his heartfelt questions gave a good indication of his more serious desire to help and work hard. I was glad to finally meet him in person, and already it felt like a natural friendship was forming.

The donation collection between our two countries took a little longer than we had hoped, however as soon as it all came through, I was on my way straight to the closest city of Bhaktapur, to buy materials and organise the first materiel shipment trucks to deliver to the village, Chaap, two kilometers down the mountain from Baluwapati.

It was time to enjoy another road trip with our driver Mandu whom I knew well from last year’s wall building, and more recently from collecting materials for the Raju’s House foundations. Due to the road being so destroyed by the heavy monsoon this year he was the only person willing to drive through the chaotic landscape, however he drove comfortably with grace and ease. I was in safe hands with him behind the wheel. As we drove across the terrain not far from the village, we could clearly see the evidence of people that don’t fare so well, with trucks that have been pulled back up the mountain completely demolished. Thankfully they only had cargo aboard and nobody was seriously injured. To my surprise the driver was a friend of one of our strongest workers, Keshab, and would later help us manually lift materials to the site when available. We collected sand from a river far down in the valley, further away from infrastructured civilisation. The journey runs slowly across terrible, hard and monsoon destroyed terrain, to the river meandering through the valley between the bottom of the mountains. It feels like a different world down there, a different country even. The humidity at the bottom was like a different climate, as sweat poured off me, soaking my clothes. Children with their families working hard to mine the sand from the riverbed and moderately filtering it without protection from the incredible direct heat of the sun. Coming from the West it is hard to understand why these kids are working so hard in the severe heat this time of year and not in school, and why Mandu is the only truck driver that is willing drive, yet drives so well.

As fast as we were going, our team were still held back on their various jobs for a little while longer. I started moving materials down on my own but it was gut wrenching doing this kind of work, causing a serious energy deficiency and delusional thoughts. I needed some positive vibes and I missed the team. I was lucky to get the first shipment of cement down to the site with the help of Raju’s late Father Bicman’s best friends, as it needed dry storage and rain was still a threat.

I assembled a small team of people from the local village of Chaap to help lift the rest of the materials down to the site with me. To start us off I had organised 2000 bricks, 200sq/ft gravel and 200sq/ft sand with the first 60 bags of cement, but I knew for sure this was only just the beginning of the materials order. The new team started with further site clearance after the monsoon. It had become a micro jungle since I had last set foot on site. They seemed to be less motivated than my main loyal team, but I assured them that if they worked hard, they would have a job until the completion of the house and maybe even to build a school with us in the future. Unfortunately however, they disappeared after eating lunch on their first day! I had assumed they went to the shop to get cigarettes for the afternoon but they never showed up again. I continued the long slog alone for a few hours, carrying a lot of weight down the mountain. Eventually Raju greeted me after he finished school. He was so happy we were back that he too started carrying a few bricks down to the site. Moving about 50 all by himself. Pretty amazing considering his small size. The kid cheered me up a great deal, giving a motivating end to what had been a pretty difficult day.

I missed the stamina and strength of our main guys, due not only to the stress of this new village’s relaxed ‘easy come, easy go’ attitude, but also working alone again with a head full of thoughts, and a lot of weight to carry. I wondered with each heavy step when Sukuman, Keshab and the boys would be free, knowing it would be soon. Throughout the next day I grew more respect for them with every step I took. Time can be a strange but precious commodity in Nepal and I value it, there is never enough, although at times it feels like many people have more than they need.

Exhausted and walking back up to Baluwapati, a long two kilometers carrying the stress of getting the project up and running, I arrived  drenched in sweat to where we were staying at Ramesh’s shop. As I ordered a Chai, to my complete surprise Keshab arrived, immediately asking how I was, and reassuring me that his people would arrive tomorrow. These words were not only music to my ears, but felt like a full symphony bouncing through the mountains. I had to give him a hug, it was such a relief! Keshab, his brother Bicram and the younger team like Bijay use the hard labour as a competition, challenging each other, using their job as a gym, to get strong naturally. When I watch them work, I often laugh to myself about the crazy ride I am on with pure and beautiful souls that respect the work and let the work respect them back. In times like these you appreciate the friendship of the villagers you have come to know, especially the key players that help drive the work forward and respect what we are trying to do within their community. Keshab is amazing, he’s the real deal and a real blessing to know.
That evening I was having a few drinks in Ramesh’s shop and Purna (Budland School MD, our larger project’s school rebuild.) came in to say hello; his younger brother Frame was also becoming available for some work; it all sounded too good. It had taken a few days, but finally we were back together with both the people and the materials we needed to successfully continue our journey to help this beautiful little family. From struggling alone to having a large, strong team staggering back into play, we were ready and motivated for the fresh start in the morning’s clear air.

It has been a successful time being back in England collecting donations for Raju and his mother’s house building. One of our volunteers, Joel Blaht; who was working on the house foundation some months ago; was very quick to make a donation for the continuation of the work, along with our long-time volunteer website editor and dear friend Daniel.  All three of my brothers and a few of my friends were also very quick to help financially; being interested after hearing about the grim reality this family has been experiencing ever since the earthquakes.

Whilst staying with my friend Glenn Ford near London; I visited a pub in Plumbstead called ‘The Plume of Feathers’ just a stone’s throw from his house. While enjoying a beer with Glenn’s housemate George Mitchell we both got speaking to the pub’s Landlady Ellen Hughes.   Through Ellen’s curiosity of what we were up to in Nepal, she decided she wanted to help fundraise with us and she welcomed us to do a raffle with her customers within the premises. I hadn’t realised before arriving that there is a Nepalese community in Plumbstead.  Although few Nepalis ventured inside the pub’s door, I did socialise for the first time with Nepali people outside of Nepal, which was quite surreal. The raffle took longer than we had hoped however the customers soon warmed to the project and the three bottles of spirits up for grabs with a cuddly toy! They wished me the best on my endeavour and seemed to genuinely want to hear more about the project on my return. A very special thanks to our raffle winner Sarah Simpson, for constantly putting loose change into the pot, a most deserved win. All said and done, Ellen and her husband were both fantastic, also making very kind donations to top up the kitty for Raju’s House. We are very grateful for their strong efforts and along with all their supportive customers we wish them the very best.

We’re also very greatful for the support Glenn and George have given us while in south England and their kind donations to support us rebuild Raju’s home.

Marcel, who was with us on the school site last year developing the land with the huge retaining wall, had been messaging me for months about coming back to Nepal to join us again. Likewise, a new volunteer Johannes, from Germany has been showing his interest persistently through email and eager to help the school project. Due to his dates matching up well with this project he was extremely happy to help us on site in service of Raju’s House. For such a small intimate project and with the plan to put the same Nepali team together, I felt we had enough volunteers with just two to start, but imagined there might be a few more from the backpacking circuit down the line if needed. Feeling great and full of enthusiasm,  we were finally ready to continue the adventure in Nepal.

A massive thank you to everyone that has supported us to continue the work in service of Raju and his mother Phul Maya’s House rebuild to change their situation. We also have continued gratitude for those supporting and following our school project, which is still in development.

A very special thanks to all those who have supported us on this project and donated to the “A home For Raju” funding: Chris Wilson, Tony Wilson, Joel Blaht, Gordon Wilson, Basia Bizon, Daniel Davies, Glenn Ford, George Mitchell, Kevin Galerand, Ellen Hughes and the customers od the Plume of Feathers, Plumbstead.