Awasuka

The Awasuka program resumes its work

After a monsoon break of three months, the Awasuka program resumes its work to face the last stage of reconstruction: house retrofitting in Matilo Supin community. Since July, 2015, Awasuka volunteer turns had been taking place without any rest until June 2018; at that time it was decided to resume the works after monsoon, due to the impossibility of doing these works during heavy rains.

The arrival to Bhimphedi has been very different from the former times; due to the coincidence of two events, Bhimphedi was suddenly left without any volunteers for more than three months. This has made people welcome us more effusively than usual: smiles, joy and comments like: “It was about time for the volunteers to return, Bhimphedi without foreigners is not the same!”

The two coincident events have been: Awasuka’s summer pause and recently created regulations that local government (also newly formed) has implanted in our Balmandir Children’s Home. The new laws seem to affect Balmandir volunteers but not those of Awasuka, as they come to work for the community. And while we wait for this topic of Balmandir volunteers to be solved, here we are, starting a new Awasuka turn, which will surely be the last… We leave you now with the two new members, on the tenth turn of Awasuka volunteers.

Namaste!

We are Sebastiá Febrer and Ana Fernández, the new Nepalese adopted by Awasuka Program!
We come from the islands of Mallorca and Tenerife to enter the country of the heights and reside in the town of Bhimphedi, where we will carry out retrofitting works in five houses already analyzed by the previous volunteers.

We’ve spent a week in Kathmandu with Monica, the Program coordinator, where she has helped us to get updated with all the necessary procedures and main cultural customs of the country.
We were preparing a presentation for Rotary Club Kantipur, the counterpart of Awasuka, where Monica explained the goals achieved so far. We went to Patan to a meeting with conservation architects and in the meantime we were able to visit the palace and the temples. On our way to Amics del Nepal office, we visited Bouhdanath Stupa and Pashupati, and in a short break we went to the Monkey Temple; everywhere we started using our first Nepalese words like: Daniyabat (thanks), Chito chito (fast) Paani (water) and the numbers from 1 to 10.

Upon our arrival to Bhimphedi we have fallen in love with this rural place that maintains the Nepalese identity, leaving behind Kathmandu traffic jams and the compulsive construction activities that this city has been suffering in the last decades.

The office cleaning day was hard but very productive! Now it is ready to start working! We received a lot of help, as we only had to take care of the inner part and buffaloes, chickens, dogs and ducks raided the entrance and the grass outside.

Yesterday we had six teas each thanks to the generosity of the families in our first trip to Supping, where the five houses we have to retrofit are located. They showed a lot of interest, affection and gratitude towards us for the work done by previous colleagues. We are willing to start the retrofitting Works!!

Pheri bhetaula !!