Dhaneri

A few hours later, we arrived at the site of our first village visit… Dhaneri.                    

As we jumped out of the dusty jeep to climb over the hills and down into the village, Dinesh from NEWAH pointed out something alongside the path we walked along – pipes running down from the hills and into the village. It was my first sighting of part of a gravity flow system. When I’d put together some of the information for our WaterAid200 event participants, I’d included a diagram of one of these – water is sourced from high in the hills and piped down into tapstands in the villages, each one not being more than a 15 minute round trip from each house. It was quite overwhelming to get my first glimpse of this in action as we followed the trail of the pipe into the village. We were greeted by the people of Dhaneri with garlands and welcomed into the school office building, where members of the village had gathered to meet us.

It was an exciting time for us to arrive – the village was to be declared ODF (open defecation free) in just three days time. This is an important step on the way to completely safe water and sanitation in a community, as it means that health and hygiene education has reached a stage where the whole community is aware of the health practices needed to be acted on to keep the village healthy.

We sat down to hear from members of the Water Sanitation Users Committee (WSUC) and other members of the community. To quickly explain – the way that NEWAH and WaterAid work with these communities is that in order for any ‘hardware’ work to begin, we have to see evidence of ‘software’ working in the community – so there has to be village commitment to practice safe sanitation and educate others about hygiene. The project start also requires a small financial commitment from each household – in Dhaneri it is 115rs each month (about 80 pence) – to set up a maintenance fund to make the implementation of the tapstands and sanitation blocks sustainable. This fund is also used to train and then pay a small salary to a few members of the committee who become caretakers of the systems.

First we heard from the Chairperson, Gagan Sunar. I learnt later that he had been a Maoist guerrilla for 5 years and had then returned to the village a few years ago.

He told us some information about the work we had done in Dhaneri – there are now 9 village tapstands and every household has a toilet. There has also been the construction of a new school sanitation block with separate toilets for boys and girls – imperative to keep teenage girls at school. He told us that they had heard about NEWAH through their local DDC and requested help. Between members of the community, they then made a whole village commitment to get the project started. He reported that all tapstands are now working well and that they had conducted world toilet day celebrations in the village. We also heard from the school principal, a lady who talked about the situation in Dhaneri now – she told us that they have enough water and people are clean and well. She smiled as she told us that children’s behaviour is changing now. They have seen their parents make a huge commitment to health and sanitation and they are knowledgeable and eager to contribute.

We then heard from the Community Health volunteer, a young woman about the same age as me. Obviously, I don’t understand the Nepali language, but I immediately got a sense of her passion and commitment to the WASH issue as she talked… She told us how, after her training on sanitation and hygiene, she would go to every house in the village to spread the messages and teach good health practice. She said that at first, they would call meetings to discuss the issues and no one would come, but when people started to learn that making a small contribution to health through sanitation could help to keep them clean and well, she began to feel much more interest. There certainly appeared to be a great deal of interest from this community – the room we were in was packed with the whole village, with everyone wanting to give us their views and tell us their thoughts. She also told us how she remembers the problems in the past with not having access to clean water and that she was determined to keep it that way. She told us of their ‘One household- One toilet’ campaign that had helped to build a toilet in every one of the 41 households in the village.

We asked her if she would make any changes, or if there was anything more that she would want for the future… Parus translated for us that , from the heart, she wants to take the water and sanitation movement as an example, and wants to try to use this model to get electricity for the village. I found this one of the most inspiring things that she said. It was incredible to see first hand water and sanitation being used as the building blocks for other development, and really humbling to see a strong young woman wanting to drive this forward.

We left the office building and were escorted over to the nearest tapstand. It was clean, flowing and the children played – turning it on and off for us with pride to show that it was working. I learned that the women of the village used to collect water from rivers which was difficult for them in and around Dhaneri. The village itself is very hilly, with houses spread out quite a distance from each other and I could see just from looking around me that this would have been an incredibly difficult challenge. It’s just before the monsoon season now, and the rivers are drying out, with water along the riverbeds muddy, and steep climbs to bring it back to some of the houses.

We were shown the newly constructed school sanitation block with pride – it still feels slightly strange to me that people are so proud to show you their toilets, but it also highlights that the issue is out in the open and has been dealt with in Dhaneri.

As we walked around the village and visited the different tap stand points, I could start to appreciate the logistical challenges of piping water to a village like Dhaneri – with the houses so spread out over rolling hills, through rivers and agricultural farming land, it’s a huge challenge to ensure that each household has access to a tapstand within a reasonable distance. As the community also then contribute to the maintenance fund to keep the water flowing, I could also see how there could be issues with fairness and equal access to the water supply. I asked Parus about this, and he said that this can often be an issue, but that actually by giving ownership of the implementation of the tapstands to the committee, a solution is worked out amongst the villagers themselves.

On the way round, Parus pointed out a cow shed to me, and told me a story about how when a woman is menstruating, then she can be made to sleep outside somewhere like this, because it can be thought that she is dirty. She would then not be given any access to safe water to wash, or to drink. He told me that one woman had died of exposure recently in these circumstances. I asked Parus what could be done to challenge such practices in these remote villages and he told me that through the hygiene education given to the communities at the start of the implementation of a NEWAH project, these issues are addressed. The Community Health Volunteer in the village is educated in menstrual hygiene management and women’s health and can then deliver these messages through the community as the project begins. I found our approach to this really inspiring – putting the hygiene and sanitation education element of our work into such a powerful context really made me appreciate the great importance of this part of what we do.

As we wandered more around the village, everyone was so friendly, and seemed so happy. I could really see the impact that our work has had here in bringing this community together and empowering them to make changes in their lives that have brought about access to clean water and sanitation. I think this is the first time I can say that I can truly appreciate that the work that we do is not just building tapstands or toilets, but to bring communities together to access safe water and sanitation and demand what they have the human right to have.

We headed back to the jeep after lots of goodbyes and good lucks and as we left and followed the dusty road back to Surkhet I felt really overwhelmed; trying to take in what I had just seen and looking forward to what would come in the next few days…

The path into the village at Dhaneri - with gravity flow system pipeline running alongside

The community meeting building where we met the WUC

People from Dhaneri at a WaterAid tapstand

The new school sanitation block

Tom at a newly constructed household latrine

A new drying rack to keep pots and pans clean

Asha, a little girl who followed me round on my trip through Dhaneri



Members of the community with Dinesh from NEWAH



On the way to Surkhet.....

We headed out on our first evening in Nepal for a fantastic welcome dinner, with Ashu – the 
Nepal CR for WaterAid  and other staff from WaterAid Nepal. Mine and Kate’s body clocks
were still a bit confused and  a combination of lack of sleep and a huge meal sent us straight 
out for the count as soon as we headed back to the hotel to bed.

We’d already begun to learn a lot about life in Nepal – conversations centred around Nepali 
ethnicity, access to WASH  (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Education)  and the upcoming 
political constitution decisions that the people of Nepal are hoping will see the end of years of 
political uncertainty. At present, an interim constitution has sat in place since 2006, and the 
government have already missed four deadlines to agree a permanent solution. The whole 
political process is rife with uncertainty and unpredictability and there are still no locally elected 
government bodies, which is problematic – there is little clarity on who we can work with, in 
what capacity. WAN (WaterAid Nepal) has an advocacy goal of making the government 
accountable for the goal of universal access to WASH by 2017

 I could already much appreciate how against this backdrop of instablility, the work that we do
in terms of education, advocacy and lobbying could have real challenges… I hoped that I’d
learn more on this as the week progressed.

Friday was the start of our field visit, so we were up early – to make the start on our long
journey to a remote part of Western Nepal.  We were going far into the Nepali hill countryside to
visit some AusAid funded projects, accompanied by Parus Thakuri from NEWAH. To explain,
NEWAH is WaterAid’s rural project partner – an organisation that was born out of WaterAid in
the early days of working in Nepal. NEWAH are our service delivery partner and work with
communities in rural areas to establish Water and Sanitation Users Committees. The
Committees are then involved in every stage of bringing WASH to their ward (village) within
their district – everything from spreading the word about sanitation and hygiene through their
community health volunteers, to their caretakers being trained on the maintenance of the
infrastructure that is put in place. More of this to follow for each community we visit…

We left the hotel early as the first leg of our journey was a flight to Nepalgunj in the Western plains – a car picked us up at 6.30am to head for the domestic airport. After a passport drama U-turn  (you do need a passport to fly internally it turns out Kate) we finally set out on the way. It was already incredibly hot and hazy and schoolchildren passed us on the way, starting their day early.

As we drove through Kathmandu, we saw temples dotted inbetween mobile phone billboard posters and there was a clear police and military presence in the air. Back at the airport again, we met up with Ashu and made our way through the terminal to meet Parus and wait to board our flight…

We headed across the hot tarmac towards our little propeller plane. Ashu had organised for Kate and I to sit on the right hand side of the plane so that as soon as we were up in the clouds, we could look over the whole Himalayan range as we headed west from Kathmandu. I’d been warned that this flight could get a bit hairy from reliable colleagues who had done this trip before – but actually it was fine. The views of the Himalayan mountain range to our left, higher than our plane was incredible; the rolling green hills underneath us and then the grassy plains out to the other side really emphasised to me the diverse landscapes of Nepal,  and I started to think more about some of the challenges that WAN face when implementing our work in such a varied environment.

As we made our descent, it was immediately obvious that the land around Nepalganj was completely different to what we had seen before – extremely flat agricultural land spread across the plains, with small houses clustered together. We landed in Nepalganj and it was even hotter than before too, with the mid-morning sun really stifling. We arrived at the same time as a muslim policial official making a visit and crowds gathered with flags and whistles. A big group of muslim women, with their heads and faces covered passed us to greet him. It was so completely different to being in Kathmandu.

Nepalgunj is only 6km from the Indian border and it seems it’s a bit of a half-way town. Many Nepali men cross the border for work, and to me, it felt much more ‘Indian’ than anywhere else I’d been in Nepal, especially  Kathmandu. Apparently it’s a famous spot for BBQ joints… We stopped at a large new-build hotel for a breakfast of masala omelette and coffee and then set of in our jeep on the long drive towards Surkhet. I saw a sign not long into the journey that said Surkhet was 66km away – but the condition of the roads meant that this still took 4 hours; bumping and jolting our way over dusty roads and tracks. The road quickly left the plains behind and wound up and up into the hills. Buses crammed with passengers inside and on the roof passed us noisily – workers heading down into the town to find work. The narrow roads clung to the hillsides and we started to see some spectacular scenery. It was much greener than I’d anticipated, with trees dotted all over, and terraced hills farmed by the small villages we passed through. The jeep commanded quite some attention as it powered through the small dusty towns.

We stopped a couple of hours in to the journey to look out over a river at a huge steel bridge. Ashu told us that much of the new infrastructure now in Nepal is built by China – they come in and build something like a bridge and then India also comes in and offers to do the same. It’s all about political power and control, with Nepal sitting in contested land between the two emerging powers.

While we had stopped, we stretched our legs and decided to use the toilet in the village – no toilet they told us. Sanjay, our driver told us he believes that the village has no access to any kind of improved sanitation and still practices open defacation.  It seemed really strange to accidentally come across this, just randomly as we passed through.  As we left, the big beautiful river flowing behind us, Sanjay turned to us and said ; ‘Look – God gave us the water but not the pipes…’

Kate and Tom in the village with no toilet, with our jeep

Typical scenery on the way to Surkhet



Arrived...

A quick note to say that I've arrived in Kathmandu... after a LONG journey from London. The flight from Heathrow was ok - a curry and a film, followed plenty of turbulance and a resulting lack of sleep is probably sufficient description. We met up with Yael, a colleague from WaterAid and Katie, who is accompanying Yael's work in Nepal this week. It looks like there's going to be quite a WaterAid presence in Kathmandu this week. We then picked up Tom and boarded our flight to Kathmandu. The dusty monsoon clouds have started to gather over Delhi which made for a bumpy start into the skies... The short flight was low in the sky, giving us amazing views of mountainous Nepal - particularly the vibrant green terraced farmlands that we've seen so many times in pictures, that we'll be heading out into tomorrow.
A trip through the busy, dusty streets of Kathmandu followed; whole families on scooters, cows in the road, people hanging out along the streetside. Tom pointed out a bridge coming up with a river running underneath.... before he needed to explain any further the smell hit us through the open windows. Open sewers. Small tin houses ran alongside the riverbanks - women were hanging their washing over it and children playing nearby. My first sight of poor sanitation....
We've just arrived at the hotel - it's 16.30 local time so just time for a nap and a shower before our welcome dinner. Much more to tell over the next few days I'm sure...

A xx

On my way...

So today's the day! The last time I hit the dusty, colourful streets of Kathmandu was back in 2008 as an excitable young traveller, ready to take on one of the most incredible, beautiful places in the world... Four years on, I'm living back in London and I've got myself the most incredible job in the world - working in WaterAid's Events Team. 

I've got a feeling that this trip to Nepal will be an entirely different experience..... 

For the last year or so I've spent a great deal of time working on developing the WaterAid mountain challenge, 

WaterAid200 (www.wateraid200.org) - an event taking place in June that hopes to see a team climb one of 200 selected mountains across the UK and Ireland on the same day. For the first time, we've linked fundraising from the event to our work in Nepal. At first glance, this seemed an obvious link - trekking the mountains of Nepal surely appeals to every budding climber and hillwalker? I spent a while looking into and learning in more detail about WaterAid's work in Nepal and learnt that for many communities, particularly in rural Nepal, life is often as tough as the terrain...

The remote mountainous regions of Nepal are home to some of the poorest and most marginalised communities in the world. Collecting water is a huge daily chore, with real risk of serious falls on arduous treks down the steep narrow mountain paths used to reach water sources. A colleague of mine was out in Nepal a few months ago and met one lady, Dambar, who had slipped and broken both of her hands as she made her way down a steep path collecting water. Her hands didn't heal properly and she was then unable to lift or carry anything at all, never mind collect water. She now relies on her daughter in law to tread the same path to fetch water for the family. Communities like Dambar's struggle to work their way out of poverty, with women bound by the hours they spend collecting water and unable to earn a living. In addition to this, diarrhoeal diseases are common, and children's lives are lost.The lack of water and sanitation in these areas simply keeps people in poverty. 

I've seen examples of real abject poverty but only really in cities - Mumbai for example - and witnessing this alongside contrasting riches in these cities has shaped my own personal view of the world's inequalities. Some of the communities that WaterAid work in in Nepal are really remote, really removed from any kind of material riches... That beautiful, remote isolation sounds wonderful to some people - who wouldn't want to leave London and go and live off the land in some beautiful Himalayan paradise? It's a type of poverty that I'm not sure is fully understood in the west and I'm really looking forward to our rural field visit in the first few days of our trip to try to understand this a little more. One quote I read from a man in one of the communities visited on a previous WaterAid trip is stuck in my head.... 'We wake up and we see the beautiful mountains. That is the only single good thing about living here' 

I'm still a little unsure what this trip will bring - I'm feeling nervous but excited to learn as much as I can..... One thing I know is that I'm already feeling very lucky to be given the experience to see first hand the work that we do. I'm off to the airport now, but I'll blog as often as technology permits. See you on the other side! 

Anna  xx

To begin...

This blog will follow my trip out to Nepal with WaterAid.

All views, thoughts and opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily shared by WaterAid....