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The first day of our Habitat for Humanity build started off with us being welcomed into the village of Prithvinagar by our partner organization the Pragati Women's Village bank. They are a women's cooperative that helps each other out financially. We went to their building which was partially built where we had a very warm welcome with lots of tea, speeches and photos. We then boarded the bus and headed a few miles out of town to a small rural community. We met the family we would be building the house for. The husband and wife were tea laborers and were in there early 30's (Lakwa and Miley) and hey have 2 sons 7 and 3 (Deepak and Amir). Luckily for us the foundation for their home was already complete along with some of the framing. The current state of their home was very poor. They had a mud house with a tarp and thatch roof. When we arrived part of the current home had been removed to fill the new foundation so they were living in a small building next door that was in very rough shape.
It didn't take us long to get started. Out first task was building bamboo slat walls. This is where you cut bamboo into strips and then weave them into a frame. The first 2 walls were a bit shaky at first and I think the home owners were unsure as to our competence. Once they let us go we were able to figure out the process and our team of 10 Canadians 1 Swedish/American and 1 Nepalese Habitat employee started working together very well.
By day 3 we were finished bamboo weaving. As well the home owners began interacting with us more and were a lot more positive and excited. Miley especially came to life and we tried to share as much as we could despite the language barrier.
In Nepal there various Caste's of people. The caste determines what type of job you do and what type of respect you are given in the community. If your parents were of a specific caste you would be labelled into the caste. There is no way of changing. This is really hard to grasp for a westerner but it is alive and well in Nepal. Unfortunately the family we are helping are of the lowest Caste possible and therefore will always struggle to make it in life. This caused some confusion and it took Miley a while to warm up to us as she felt we were of a caste that would not touch them let alone do something good for them.
Every day we were also joined by a policeman/border guard as we were only a few miles from the Indian border. I am not sure if they didn't trust us or if they were just curious. We were also joined every day by a few ladies of the village bank who made us tea, taught us some Nepali and always offered us a laugh or too. Unfortunately for the men they were not as warmly welcomed by the ladies but I think that is just the culture, men and women don't co-mingle the same as we do. Every day we also drove a few miles into town for lunch made by the ladies from the village bank. There was always too much wonderful Nepalese food and they soon figured out Dave never said no to a second helping or a third or sometimes even a fourth. The wonderful part about us buying lunch from the ladies was that the money they made went towards the costs of building their headquarters. We also had an opportunity to get to know the ladies better. We met some of their children, sisters, mothers, husbands etc. One of the ladies allowed her 16 year old son to skip some of his school to come and help us. She felt it was a great learning experience for him.
We were also stared at a lot by the other people in the village but once we gave them a Namaste (hello) they would smile and go on with their day. Some of the kids were very intrigued by us and one girl said to one of our team members that he was "so white". After a few days the kids stopped being apprehensive and would run to the bus to talk to us.
During the first week of our build we also had the opportunity to see how they harvest bamboo (we actually helped and took it back to the site with us on the roof of the bus!). We also went out to the tea gardens and learned all about collecting tea. Miley was so happy that we had taken interest in her job.
Back at the house once we were done with the bamboo the mudding started. Mudding is not like plastering at home it literally is mudding the walls . They mix clay, water, straw, and manure into a mixture that is then slapped onto the walls and spread by hand. They mix the mud with their feet and mud is applied with a bare hand...needless to say some of our city team members struggled with the process. There were so many jokes made about poo I think that was all we talked about for a while!
As Christmas approached our team decided to do a secret gift exchange so one afternoon we went to the market to shop. The kids swarmed us I had one group of girls that invited me to her house for tea. We were also told that they love us. This is the first time I have ever felt like a celebrity.
We closed the week out having accomplished a lot and ready for a well deserved break to enjoy Christmas.
- comments
Lorrene Building the house sounds like such a fascinating experience, a REAL experience, and not just being a tourist! I am so happy you guys chose to do that project; I'm sure you will remember it as a definite highlight to your trip. So, are you going to start up a bamboo-mud-house building company when you come home??!!
Suraj_labung Thank you
SURAJ LABUNG thank you jen and dave. an outstanding credit goes to you and your team. it was a tall order task but you made it. an act of humanity and guided us to the smooth water. anyway we express our gratitude. please join us in our twitter page PRITHVINAGAR. Also i have a blog too thank for the blog please add some content like this to make by blog rich just simply mail it to this address to post it directly. [email protected] by blog site is www.prithvinagar.blogspot.com THANKS WITH BEST COMPLIMENT WE HOPE YOU WILL POST SOME CONTENTS.