Anna in Nepal: Naikot VDC

The following day I set out on my own with Nirjul from WaterAid Nepal to visit a project in a village in Naikap VDC. Naikap is in the North West part of Kathmandu and the village we were visiting, Kankali, was identified in the VDC as having some of the poorest water and sanitation coverage, and some extremely economically marginalised people, with 79 households in total classed as 44 very poor households, 29 poor households, and 6 medium poor. WaterAid and one of our urban partners, UEMS (Urban Environment Management Society) had been working there since late 2010. Before the project, 25 households in Kankali did not have access to any sanitation facilities and used to go to the toilet in the surrounding bamboo bushes. We travelled through busy Kathmandu to the outskirts, and then our jeep began winding further and further uphill. I looked back as we made our journey upwards, and could see the whole Kathmandu valley behind us – the deep bowl of the valley with the sprawling city inside it, and hills and mountains in an almost perfect ring around it, with settlements scattered right up the hillsides. As we made our way along a bumpy track to Kankali, it felt a bit like we were back in the hills, but for the expanse of the city below. We had a warm welcome from the community and were led into a tiny little stone office building on a hill. The walls were covered with pictures of the implementation of the project work here – people grinning as they constructed new water distribution tanks and used the newly refurbished tap stands. An animated discussion followed, where we were told all about the project in Kankali. UEMS had designed an integrated water, sanitation and hygiene project in the area and implemented the project with funding support from WaterAid in 2010/11. The water part of the project centred around the improvement of lift and gravity flow system, rehabilitating one collection tank and one distribution tank and building one new distribution tank, and rehabilitating six village tapstands and one new one. A gravity flow system that has existed in Kankali since 1982 with the support of another INGO was insufficient – as the area became more urbanized the water source dried out around 6-7 years ago and since then water collection was down a steep, rocky path.

We spoke to the chairman of the village committee and he told us that as the main water source was downstream, and had been so unpredictable in terms of when there would be water there, often women and children had to collect water at night. He told us that more than once, children had been attacked on the path by tigers and bears. Although we were just out of the city, the area was quite thick with forest and I could see how this path could be dangerous at night, but I was shocked to hear this. He told us of his frustration that they had to pass tapstands on the way down the path, but that these hadn’t worked for years.

A lady in the group called Sunita then spoke to us about the start of the project. She was quite young, around my age and incredibly animated as she spoke. As I glanced around the pictures on the wall, I could see that she was in the vast majority of them – helping deliver the hygiene training, building the tanks. She told us that one person from every household in the village had attended training on hand washing, water hygiene and chlorinating water before distribution. The community had appointed one ‘Commander’ per every five households to ensure that this training was acted upon. Once training was underway, the community came together to contribute the initial 10% of the project cost, and now each household collects 50 rupees per month for the maintenance fund for the water and sanitation facilities. She beamed as she indicated to each of the photographs on the wall. I asked her how lifestyle and behaviour had changed in the village. She beamed at me again. The most important thing, she said, is that behaviour HAS changed. Women used to spend an hour long round trip, plus time for queueing, to collect water. They had to go with their children at night often to ensure they would even get any. Now, the collection is within a 15 minute round trip from each house, and there is enough water day and night for cooking, washing, drinking and cleaning. Sunita pointed to the walls again, and told me that there are now hygiene education posters everywhere in the village – she laughed as she said that the children watch over you to make sure that you wash your hands carefully.

It was the middle of the day, and incredibly hot in the village office, despite the cool stone walls. We sat and chatted for another half an hour or so with some drinks, and then I was shown out of the building and down the steep path that we had been discussing. Stones slipped under my feet as I navigated my way down, and the trees loomed over me. I couldn’t imagine being here at night, as I looked deep into the forest in case of a tiger or a bear… I was taken down to the newly rehabilitated distribution tank which fed the new tapstands in the lower part of the village. It was an extremely impressive structure. We then had a walk back up, higher and higher to each cluster of homes perched on the edge of the hill to the newly constructed tank in the pictures. It was incredible to see the end result of the community’s hard work in action as we followed the flow from the tank to see each of the tapstands. Again, it astounded me to think that these tapstands had existed without functioning. I’d been really impressed and inspired throughout the whole trip so far by the amount of community commitment to training caretakers for the ongoing maintenance of the work, but here I was able to see the real difference that this makes, and how integral it is to a sustainable working project. It was amazing to think that, were these tapstands to break, this community would now have the knowledge and expertise to repair them and keep the water supply flowing. After hearing the horrendous stories of what some people in the village had suffered on their journeys to collect water in the past few years, it felt strange even walking down this path and I could only imagine what an incredible change and comfort it must be to the parents not having to send their children down there, to the husbands knowing that their wives were safe collecting water, and knowing that they were in control of maintaining the source. The work here really had changed the lives of the whole village.

As we walked around each cluster of houses, I could see that this area was unlike any I’d visited before. The houses balanced steeply on each hillside and seemed extremely small and crowded. A yard in each cluster contained washing and cooking facilities, work tools, animals and everything the people living in each cluster used in everyday life. I could see how keeping each area clean was extremely important here, and again everything was now spotless. Sanitation wise, the project here focused around the construction of 25 new pit latrines. As we visited each part of the village, I was proudly shown each latrine; all spotlessly clean and accessible to each house.

We worked our way higher and higher up each cluster of houses to see the whole village. We stopped at another of the tanks and looked out over the whole of the Kathmandu valley – the scenery from the top of the hills was breathtaking. Walking up and down the hill just a few times had been exhausting, but one man from the village pointed and suggested we go higher. Nirjul explained that they wanted to take me to a monastery on top of the hill. A half hour steep climb later, in front of us appeared a huge newly-built monastery. We were led to the gate where the monk who answered the knocking explained that it was a closed monastery and we wouldn’t be allowed in. To my surprise, the people who had accompanied us up the hill from the village explained to the monk that I was a visitor from London and asked if we could look around. After a bit more talking and pointing at me, the huge gates were opened and we were led in. The head monk greeted me and took all of us (there were still around 15 of us) into the main temple in the monastery. He explained that it had been built here on the hill in 2008. Many of the people from the village had not been inside before, so we walked around together. It was extremely grand, new and colourful, and a world away from the village just steps below it. I looked out from the top viewpoint to see the village below me, and the vast Kathmandu valley in front of me. The monk talked to us about life in the monastery, and I caught two young monks, no older than around ten, peering out at us from behind a window. They giggled and ducked away as I caught their eye. I felt completely honoured to have been shown around the monastery, and we spent a while walking round, spinning the prayer wheels and talking. It felt great to be able to share this with the people of Kankali, after seeing each of their houses and their lives below. As we were leaving the monastery, the head monk gave me a piece of paper with his email address on it, and asked me to keep in touch. He turned to me as we left and said that the main principle of learning here at the monastery was to be content with life, and to be content with what you have. I could see the thinking behind this, but as I looked back around the people around me, I wondered how different their lives would be if they had stayed content with the situation they lived in...? Not being content with having to give their children dirty water, with having nowhere to go to the toilet, with having treacherous journeys down a path at risk of being attacked by wild animals just to survive – not being content with all of these things was the start of the project here. It was a difficult one to even begin to understand and form an opinion on, but I knew that the combined work of WaterAid, UEMS, and the community themselves in making these changes had resulted in a much brighter future for the people of Kankali….