Womp Womp: Field Visit Cancelled

There was quite a bit of lead up to this trip to Nepal at the office, I should probably point out. It was clear somewhat early on that this would be a bit of a roughing it trip. It wasn’t entirely clear to what degree, but “hours of trekking”  “sleeping bags and tents”  “sleeping in villagers’ homes” and such was sprinkled throughout the planning. Estimates from the team in Nepal varied anywhere from 1-2 hours of trekking to get into the villages we were going to, to about 5-6 hours (EACH DAY), with my boss reminding me that “when the Nepal team tells you it’ll take X amount of time to trek somewhere, you might consider doubling it.”  Okay then! Never one to shy away from a ‘Tough Sheila” challenge (“Sheila” is Australian slang for chic, and in Thailand the Aussie guys would call any women who ran or biked on really rough terrain a “tough Sheila”) I decided I was up for the task. I was in the middle of training for a half-marathon anyway, up to about 9 miles of running, so I figured- how bad could it be? Just for good measure I started walking all 5 flights of stairs to my office too.  And I’d done this sort of trekking before…but 12 years ago. Hence my new hashtag, #28isthenew40.

All for naught! After our dicey experience trying to get to Lamjung (Besishahar is the name of the town we were in, by the way), we started having security briefings each evening. By Monday night it became clear that the situation was deteriorating, and if we set off Tuesday for the furthest village on our list, as planned, we’d be out of pocket for 3 days. The actual plan, once we arrived and got the details, was a 2 hour drive or so, and then a 5-6 hour trek into the village. Spend the night with villagers in their homes. The second day in the village, Wednesday, we would spend 2-3 hours doing data collection, then move on to another nearby village for another 2-3 hours of data collection. Spend the night in another villagers’ home, then trek back to town on Thursday, with continued data collection in other villages (6 in total over the following days). We decided it was too risky that the situation might be such that by the time we got back to Besishahar on Thursday, we might not be sure to have enough gasoline for the driver to get us to Kathmandu if needed, or even the other villages. So we canceled that trip and started working on a Plan B.

Plan B focused on training a team of our Nepali staff, plus staff from our local partner, to do the data collection themselves. We figured that way, we’d at least have our bases covered if we had to leave the area quickly. If things remained stable, we could shift the schedule and still do some of the data collection in closer villages later in the week.  What we also liked about Plan B is that there was a nice capacity building aspect for the local staff. The whole timeline for the data collection, analysis, and final report would have to be shifted quite a bit, but the advantage was some unexpected rich training for our staff.

So we spent Tuesday working together to map out the training plan and prepare the materials.  We called the field agents from the neighboring district of Gorkha to travel to Besishahar, Lamjung district, where we were, for the next day. On Wednesday, we trained 6 field agents, two teams of three people, on facilitation techniques, participatory research methods, and the specific data collection plan that we’d outlined for the assessment. It ended up being a great day and we were really pleased.

By the time we had our daily security briefing at about 5pm on Wednesday, it became clear that things were getting even more uncertain.  The fuel crisis was starting to get intense. We had had 70L of diesel reserved for us at a local station, and when we realized the day before that we wanted to keep it ourselves at the office, the station manager (who was a close friend of the head of our local partner), tried to hand it over to them and there was some sort of rush on the station and one of the jerry cans was broken. So we only got 35L in the end. After that, we started to get a bit nervous. We also heard that some airlines were reducing flight schedules, and that a strike had been ordered for areas near where we were and had to pass to get back to KTM.  So the decision was pretty clear. While we weren’t so much worried about our personal security, it was clear that our ability to get back to Kathmandu anytime soon was starting to be in question.

So….after all of that, I didn’t so much as get to see a trail, let along do all the great trekking and village work we were supposed to do. I know our field staff will do great work, but still, it was somewhat disappointing. We also heard that the village that was the furthest away had been really excited for our visit. They are so remote that they hardly ever get any visitors from outside the village, and were very, very appreciative for LWR’s support after the earthquake. We were really sad to disappoint them, so we at least made a little video that the field agent will play for them on his laptop when he goes out there, next week or the week after. 

We headed back to Kathmandu yesterday and got back safely. We observed long, long lines of vehicles, parked, and waiting for fuel all along the way. In some cases, large groups of men were gathered, which is never a good sign. Traffic in Kathmandu is, as you can imagine, unusually light! We’re appreciative of being back in our quaint garden hotel here, and have the ability to walk about a block to the office. But at least Kat and I know, that when we get back to the office, we’ll have lost face a bit after not even seeing a single day on a trail here! 

(another beautiful view of the Annapurna range from the town of Besishahar, Lampjung. Lampjung is the trail head of one of the longest, most ambitious treks in the region. Yeah, you pretty much start here and trek through...there. )

The chef at the hotel restaurant, where we ate most of our meals, had a belgian waffle iron! I was skeptical one morning and order a waffle, and my adventurous spirit was rewarded!

Training Workshop. It was HOT in Lamjung. No AC anywhere.  We were working hard but man was it sweltering, like a Baltimore summer.  I packed ALL wrong for Nepal this time of year, that's for sure!