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