Back in October we posted about what was happening or more realistically, what wasn’t happening due to the unofficial blockade imposed by India. Two months later and the situation hasn’t changed, if anything it has got worse, as to rub salt into the wounds, the electricity everyone has been so reliant upon for cooking due to a lack of cooking gas, has now been cut drastically, and we are now suffering scheduled power outages, or loadshedding in Kathmandu and other urban areas of a minimum of 58 hours per week (usually more), a figure that will only increase as the dry season kicks in. The rural areas are not as badly affected by loadshedding as the urban ones, but cooking gas, petrol, building supplies and many food and medical items are unavailable across the whole of the country.
The struggles of daily life aside, we have been doing what we can with the minimal resources available and November saw us, supported by Where There Be Dragons students and local community members, break ground for the new permanent 3-classroom building for Shree Upallo Pekhu Secondary School in Syangja District, we mentioned in our last post, update #22.
Due to a shortage of usable classrooms because of earthquake damage, a new location has been chosen for these new classrooms and it was the preparation of this land that we set to working on.
First the land needed to be cleared of existing rubble and general debris.
Forming a human chain to clear rocks and other general debris from the proposed build site
Next a section of the bank was cut away to allow for a retaining wall to be built to shore up the edge of the land and to act as a foundation for one side of the classrooms.
Cutting away at the land and digging the foundation for the retaining wall
Using reclaimed rocks to start on the foundation and retaining wall
Slowly it grows
The upright pillars will allow the walls to be tied-in for extra strength
After this, the land will be levelled to allow the rest of the foundations to be dug and set and the classrooms to be built, once materials are again available in the market place and affordable.
The site for the new classrooms needs to be levelled to the outside edge by the trees, where the retaining wall is being built