We started our relief effort with a meeting in Kathmandu. My head porter, head Sherpa, and 2 representatives from “Resilient Homes” met my wife and I in our hotel lobby at the popular Tibet Guest House.
Jacob, the gentlemen who helped create “Resilient Homes” is from Holland, speaks Dutch, Nepali, and English. Timothy is from Nepal and is Sherpa who converted to Christianity, spoke Nepali, Sherpa, and English, and was a rep for Resilient Homes. My head Sherpa Gombu who speaks English, Nepali, and Sherpa was in attendance to translate and help with logistics and would be receiving aid. Finally Asmit and Prakash who are of the Rai tribe, who spoke Nepali and Rai and were there to represent my team of porters, help with logistics, and actually carry the structures (over 850 pounds) we were gathering to discuss, to their village 2 days from the roads end. A group representing 4 different religions, 4 different languages, and 3 different countries, all gathered to give, help, and receive.
When I had planned the relief effort I had a vivid, beautiful picture of how the relief would be distributed, complete with a common sense progression, ending with happy smiling villagers, thankful for the help from compassionate Americans. I was set on 10 structures which would provide shelter for 10 families, purchasing almost 2 tons of rice for the village of Khumjung, and supplying a years worth of school supplies to the “Home Away from Home” boarding school. Seemed simple enough. One of the beautiful aspects of life is its unpredictability. Although I knew at the end of this project I would have photos of happy villagers full of gratitude I did not expect things to change with the first question posed by Jacob.
“Are you getting the most bang for your buck with the structures?”
Although I understood the American slang in the soft Dutch accent I was immediately confused. I had just flown 24 hours to the other side of the earth to purchase the said structures that I had ordered 6 weeks ago. I sat with $15000 in my pocket to pay for the structures. I replied to Jacob “I don’t understand?????” Gombu was translating to the porters and the porters scooted to the front of their chairs in anticipation of Jacob’s explanation. I to scooted closer as if the answer to the great mystery was going to be divulged.
He then went on to explain the cost of the structures versus the cost of the actual damage and a huge discussion ensued. We went back and forth with the porters and Gombu, Timothy and I, Jacob and Timothy, the porters and I, Dee and Jacob, exhausting every aspect of cost of structure, transport of structures, and damage of homes. Basically Jacob was wondering if some of the homes would be cheaper to repair than to buy a structure to replace the home. The depth of the damage I always assumed was total, homes flattened to the ground, villagers digging through rubble to find remains of the past.
Now we were a group of buzzing confused but focused bees.
As the discussion continued it became clear that yes, homes were damaged but some of them may be cheaper to repair versus buying the resilient structure. My beautiful plan complete with a common sense progression was in shreds. We hammered out different solutions for over 3 hours. Magnifying and adding pressure to the situation was the tight flight schedule. We had landed on the evening of the 8th, planned the meeting on the 9th, and would be flying to Lukla on the morning of the 10th. It was now 3pm on the 9th and we had no clear plan.
We finally narrowed in on one question for the porters and Gombu, “What would be best for you, a structure or the money to repair your current home?” Throughout the meeting Asmit was calling the other porters in their remote village trying to figure out cost of damage and if they wanted a structure. He was back and forth throughout the meeting with the porters. The answers were surprising. Only 2 of the porters and Gombu felt that the structure would be best while 5 of the porters felt they could repair their current home with the money that would have gone toward a structure.
We finally ended up purchasing 4 structures and agreed to meet all the porters in their village of Bung to see the situation and allocate funds.
That’s where we were at on July 9th...
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