I was feeling tired but satisfied, we had just completed our fourth training session in three days and had another in a few hours. The morning’s training had gone well, but had been very hectic, a large group of people with sometimes conflicting opinions had attended. Add in paint and it got loud and messy quickly! This map was always going to be the most difficult to make, it was by far the largest and had a lot of intricate details. The night before our glue had run out halfway through sticking the layers together, but with some quick thinking we used pins to hold them in place. Despite the setbacks, we had finished with a map that clearly reflected the community’s knowledge of the area – and as a bonus my Nepali was slowly improving.
As I walked to the edge of the school to wash my hands, I noticed the walls of the polyhouse had been repaired, I looked inside and to my delight saw manure being spread and the now rubbish free ground being watered. It felt like the community was coming together.
We had noticed during an earlier walk through the school where we held the training that a tap had been broken off one of the water tanks and they were very overgrown, the school’s polyhouse was in disrepair and filled with rubbish instead of plants. My colleague was disheartened, the systems had been in place for less than a year. We decided to take matters into our own hands, with help of one of the villagers we set about repairing the tap and started to clear rubbish from the grounds. As we worked staff and students came out of the buildings, and instead of standing and watching, started to help. With all hands working we were able to quickly prune around the tanks, pulling up weeds and picking up rubbish as we went.
Later that afternoon we moved to the next village, and I was shocked at how instantly I felt a difference. The previous village had spanned from the bottom of a mountain to its peak, with households clumped at the top, middle and bottom. I think this is why the community had felt a bit disjointed – they were! Comparatively, the village we were now in had houses next to each other in a small group, with land surrounding the village as a whole instead of each household. I think this created the sense of calm I felt as soon as we stepped out the car, the community was much more close knit. We were welcomed very warmly, and ended up staying in the bedroom of a local family.
The training that day was done in the dark, on the earthen floor of a veranda with my headtorch swinging off a cable above us as our light. The community came and watched as we glued and plastered, helping where they could in the tight space. Slow conversations surrounded us, and it felt like we were part of the community instead of outsiders who had arrived only hours before.
It was the sense of difference that stuck with me from that day. How two communities so close together could had such different attitudes, a large part due to geographical differences. I could apply this to the water management systems used in each community too, the first village used a variety of systems. Some households were located beneath a spring source, and gravity flow systems could be used to transfer water to the households. Others were more isolated and would need rainwater tanks installed so they didn’t have to travel the distance to collect water from the spring. The second village was located nearby other communities and a water lifting scheme delivered excess water from other villages to their community, meaning that water supply was often scarce as surplus water was never guaranteed. The trip illustrated to me the need for customisation of each project to each community’s needs, not just in the systems that are provided to them, but also in the interaction, training and assistance they are given. Tailoring each project to a communities differences will determine the success of the systems put in place.
–Charlotte Louise Ryall, Australia (Volunteer)
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