Rasuwa Roots

I was supposed to leave Nepal on May 25, but on May 23 I had a 10 PM conversation with World Jewish Relief (WJR).  They wanted to hire me for two weeks, to write earthquake related livelihood proposals for Community Self Reliance Centre (CSRC) and Friends Service Council of Nepal (FSCN).  Never one to turn my back on an opportunity I said yes.  On Sunday May 24 I moved to CSRC, called Singapore Airlines and changed my ticket to June 8 without a penalty charge. 

I recently wrote about my roots, in another S4G article, and connecting WJR with CSRC.  But here I was on the morning of May 26 heading out to Rasuwa District to hold community meetings with members of CSRC Village Land Rights Forums (VLRFs), i.e. landless people working on accessing their land rights.  Based on their input we would develop a proposal dealing with transitional housing and eventually greater livelihood opportunities. 

During my time in Kathmandu I'm constantly reminded of the devastation and public safety issues, which seem to be getting worse.  I also wanted to view communities in more rural areas and see how people there had been impacted.  As five of us drove through Nuwakot on our way to Rasuwa I began to see how lives had been changed forever. 

Constructing homes out of mud, bonded bricks/stone just won't hold up to a natural disaster.  According to the 2011 census, home ownership is very high in the three Rasuwa VDCs, i.e. Bohrle (98%), Dhaibung (86%) and Laharepauwa (93%) in which this particular project is being proposed.  Throughout Nepal approximately 40% of the homes are constructed out of the above mentioned materials but in Rasuwa these figures are closer to 90% and in some of the potential project VDC's these figures are even higher. 

For people who have invested their blood, sweat and tears no matter what their pre-earthquake condition, losing a home is a great financial and emotional loss.  I can't really imagine how difficult it must be to go from a strong structure to living in a tent or other type of transitional housing.  The added pressure of the approaching monsoon must weigh heavily on all of the families now living in temporary shelters without much privacy. 

However, in our three meetings, two sitting under large trees, and one at the District Land Rights Forum (DLRF) office in Kalikasthan, people were adamant about their immediate need of stronger transitional housing.  Both women and men spoke up to let us know of their feelings.  I asked them about livelihoods and many said that this was difficult to think about given their current lack of housing.  But they were able to "dream" a little about how they could improve their livelihoods, especially since some were dependent on tourism which now seems to be somewhat lost. 

I think a lot about education and how this can opens doors.  Although only a handful of people at each meeting had an SLC certificate, they didn't let this stop them in providing ideas as to how they might be able to turn things around. I was encouraged by the number of women, a group which CSRC focuses on, at each meeting.  They talked about getting training in tailoring, collaborating on vegetable/herbs gardening and obtaining some animals, which as I came to find out could only be accomplished by individual families and not through, e.g. a cooperative.  But one has to start somewhere.

One of our five group members was a wise young Nepali man, Rohan who lives/works in the US.  When we were walking together he said to me, "there is something about village life which really makes people stronger, something one can't get from living in a city".   The people whom we met from Rasuwa really showed me this and no matter what, they will come back from the earthquake to be even stronger.