Buddha Airlines was delayed, so all of us going to Pokhara on Saturday had a 1 and ½ hour wait at the municipal airport. Quite an experience. Many of us kept taking out our passports until we realized we were in a municipal airport & not leaving Nepal but just traveling in the same country—dah!!! Some in the group were asked to show ID, so passports made sense.
Men and women go through security in two different lines as we were frisked. However, I had a hip-pack and shoulder bag that were checked but my backpack never left my back. I am not the profile nor do I think they were looking for anything other than weapons on our persons. There were also 2 loud speaker systems in the small waiting are, both with lots of static announcing different flights sometimes at the same time. It made the airport wait annoying and quite noisy. There were a few glimpses of the Himalayan mountains from the plane, but not really as clear as a postcard may show. I did have the opportunity to meet my room-mate, Chloe, a Tufts grad who works in Boston for Habitat. She's a great young lady.
Upon arrival in Pokhara, we were rushed directly to the Habitat for Humanity Welcome area. All the families –from babies to grandmothers--and volunteers lined the path to our welcome tables. My eyes filled with tears so see so many happy faces; all glad our teams were finally here to help finish their homes. Each of us had a silk scarf put around our shoulders and flowers in our hands. We proceeded to the Himalayan Mountain Museum for a brief look while others arrived from other nations.
In a lovely outdoor setting full of lights, costumed families and dancers, the president of Habitat of the Nepal/Asia said welcoming words. A couple of “world famous” Bollywood actors also spoke. I do not know who they were. A young girl narrated the rest of the evening in beautiful English. She was charming and clear. Fabulous dance groups of mostly children & youth entertained us for a bit less than and hour followed by delicious dinner in the park. I tried to take little movies as they were so intricate and polished in their performances. Fully exhausted, we rode a bus to the hotel & collapsed very late.
Monday & Tuesday, got up @ 6, breakfasted quickly, then off the our build site. Each morning the Annapurna range of Himalayan are visible from my hotel room, and again riding to bus to and from our work site. I cannot believe that I view such a beautiful place. If I lived in Nepal, I would select Pokhara to stay. Yes, it is very poor and disorganized, but so is most of the world. The climate is hot, quite muggy at times, but it cools in the evening. I haven't seen June bugs in a while. Butterfiles everywhere. And, Dragonflies are prevalent which is great in my opinion as they eat mosquitoes. The people are lovely, friendly and do wave as we go by (the bus does have Habitat for Humanity written on all sides).
The Home building has begun in earnest. Concrete pads for houses along with support beams of bamboo were already done. But cutting, trimming, weaving the bamboo strips is not easy. The best weaver on our team is undoubtedly, the father of my team's home- # 27. He is a very slight man of 52 who lives with his family and several others in a one room concrete shed. He works along side of us; or rather, we work along side him. Such an exuberant person. He hardly takes a break except for lunch and a cigarette near days' end. He seems to outwork some of the younger men who are volunteers for Habitat and aspiring contractors for engineers. Our family's wife and grandmother help out a lot whenever they can. Grandmother walks into the houses when 5-6- folks are working in a small place to just wander in, check on us, I guess, then say a few words. When she re-joins her daughter-in-law and sister, lots of chatting ensues. Sure wish I were able to hear it all. I shared a few photos of my grandsons with the mother and grandmothers, they were thrilled—especially to see photos of two brothers- one with red hair and one with brown.
We work very hard all day and yesterday I wanted to write, but was more tired than tonight. We have already started the stucco of some mud/cement mix. Tomorrow all day we apply mud, then paint the day after.
There was a visit to an Orphanage-SOS children's Foundation, after working today; so I will close.
Photos may do best. I have a very early day, so much rest now.
Until later.....................................
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