Day 7 after the quake

City is still stabilizing. More shops and now also restaurants are starting to reopen. You can find most anything again, like fruit and vegetables. Yogurt is bizarrely missing though. Still some shocks, but I hardly notice therm anymore.

We continue our volunteering with the Yellow House bunch, or, as they now call themselves The Himalayan Disaster Relief Volunteer Group. It helps to have a semi-official name when you're calling to ministries and other NGOs. The good news is the site they create to map reports and needs, is getting more and more attention, even in the NY Times. We are getting so many people at the 8am meeting (around 150 today), we're trying to reroute them to online register, to avoid having too many people cluttering the space. They put on signs with reported needs, resources that can be mobilized and it is up to the volunteers to organize themselves and plan missions, transport etc.

Let me maybe detail one specific mission, to give a better idea of what we did. The most distressing message was regarding a far away area, Ree Gaun, which so far had received no relief. They are reporting a community of 400 people, with all houses destroyed, 150 dead and no food left whatsoever. Problem is, to get there, one has to drive 4h to Dhading and then walk two days. A landslide has even blocked the path and Care International reported problems with people blocking the passage and claiming goods, so security was also an issue. A Dutch girl decides to take on the challenge. She gathers a group of 16 volunteers who are interested, some trekkers who want to help, other Nepali. We get a couple of things from the general stock, like a bag of 20kg of rice and 8 tents. Different volunteers pitch in money, like 100EURO each. One of therm, a girl, starts a crowdfunding and raises 1.300EUR but can't manage to withdraw it. They go out scozering the city and use the pooled money to buy 60kg more of rice, more tents and medication. We contact doctors, who turn out to be a couple and a nurse who want to go. I get in touch with Care and get more details, then an adviser to the PM who refers me to Home Affairs for a security escort. A Danish guy contacts us and offers to send a Search & Rescue team with us. One of the villagers comes to explain the situation. He was airlifted and is injured at the spine. Turns out they mostly need medical supplies but have health workers, so no need for doctors, so we cancel that.
We schedule a departure the day after, early. Troubling news: apparently, there is a great risk the authority (Chief District Officer) in Dhading (end of the paved road) will confiscate the goods and reroute them to his own discretion. We get his phone number, but it always rings busy. We start mobilizing connections, to ensure safe passage and the Nepali seems confident they'll manage to talk their way through it. The Danish guy from the Search & Rescue team shows up and turns out to be the most arrogant and disrespectful guy ever. During all the days, I had been amazed by the willingness and motivation from all the volunteers, Nepali and foreigners alike, but this one made up for all that. He keeps dropping names and boasting, interrupt others and hush people, saying things like:"Be quiet, we won't do this the Nepali way, we're going to be professional." Turns out he's married to a Nepali woman (poor girl), who is from a village, Satyadevi, some four hours before our destination, Ree Gaun. The girls running the operation are more diplomatic than I am and we decide to pool resources and send a joint team. Nine of the volunteers will go early by bus, accompanied by the Dutch girl,  and one pick up truck will drive the goods and four members, some of which will have to be picked up in the morning. The members also get a mission sheet and community assessment form so they can track situation in all the villages they pass. The Dutch girl also lends them a GPS as there is some hope of being able to send more relief afterwards by the UN (who can do that by helicopter).

In the evening, the Danish guy also pressures our village member to agree that half the goods will be left in his village. Sigh... After a long afternoon, I go to bed, calculating that we're sending 80kg for around 400 people, which will be about 1kg per family. All this effort and it doesn't really sound like it is enough to ward off a famine. It is not a comforting thought to fall asleep with, especially if combined with thoughts of what I would have liked to say to the Danish guy...

We meet at 7am at the Yellow Point and load what we already have in the truck. I go to the shop and have to wait there for more rice to arrive. A gentleman from the nearby bakery sees our goods and promptly buys four more bags of rice. I get a call from our team leader and she warns me not to go back to the gathering place, as police might be there to confiscate goods. We agree she'll reroute everyone to the shop, where I will wait. An elderly couple sees our truck and also comes to ask where it is going. I explain it is for Dhading district and apparently, a local newspaper, the Himalayan Times has a front page headline about the needs in that region.

They go in the shop next door and donate a bag of rice and noodles. It brings tears to my eyes. Everyone is running late and the wait becomes tedious. The Danish guy is still causing problems, not wanting to talk to the mission leaders (most likely cause they are girls) and keeping us all waiting. Eventually they are off and we exhausted but eagerly await news. Around 2pm I receive a text that they manage to get through and are on their way. It'll take another two days before it reaches the village though, with little or no cell coverage along the way. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

This is just an illustration, next to a thousand hectic things that need to be managed. Paperwork needs to be filed, to track missions. Our house is accommodating twenty boxes of medical equipment from a team from India. Forms need to be printed and photocopied. Our travelling neighbor asks us to check in on his dogs. We need to pick up extra keys for all the people living in the house. My tourist visa has run out yesterday and I can't find time to renew it. Our inverter isn't working anymore, so when city power is gone, we are back in the dark. And our landlord is knocking on the door for the rent...

Today, I also saw this message, as if from Haiti was talking to Nepal. Very touching to see these two countries, at each end of my career and walkabout, share experiences and hopeful messages after similar catastrophes.