Help Build an Orphanage in Nepal!

Making Place in Nepal

Forming relationship, both intimate and communal, is primary to my life. Within the ecosystem I live in, I seek deep and far reaching roots. My world is made of layers of intimacy, both inward and expansive - within myself, with my family, my neighborhood, DC, this region, the east coast, the US, Europe, South Africa, and now Nepal. I've been fortunate to have a door open into the Kathmandu Valley, through the astonishing smile and warmth of the founder and director of a Nepali NGO, Krishna Gurung. This opportunity both stretches me and further provides refuge; my foothold is expanded half way around the globe, the unfamiliar sights and smells and skin and flora and dirt and people and pollution are now part of me.

The Kathmandu Valley is both beautiful and a dump. As the eye takes in a landscape that has no rival, the nose begins to pick up the sewer of a river that runs through the valley. This dynamic plays out in many ways, in every way; the Kathmandu Nepalis are lovely, bright-spirited people who breathe in air which in a day equals a quite a few cigarettes. They are warm and family centered, walking hand in hand on Kathmandu city streets where there are no traffic lanes or sidewalks, with many types of vehicles barely missing them with no notice.

I can see it and smell it now, back in my American comfort of home. I miss it, as I miss the experience of changing my daughter's diapers (don't laugh, or cringe; my daughter usually laughed and smiled, bringing great joy amidst the unpleasant part). That is, life is mixed; the good and bad are inextricably woven together and our experience is given great depth by this dynamic (don't get me started on how we in the west do everything we can to eliminate the stink).

The Kathnamdu Valley is as such vibrant and real.

And people there live seeking their intrinsic needs, not their wants. Nepal is one of the poorest countries, or are they? Consider that to be rich is not to want. We in the west have everything, but we want more; we're spiritually poor. The Nepali have little yet live humbled by their nothingness and with gratitude for their life.

Yes, I'm generalizing, and romanticizing. Just go with it, as you do when listening to a love song. Be fed by the possibility.

For the second time during the past year, I recently went there to lead a team of western volunteers and many villagers in a natural building workshop, this time to build an addition onto a village community center. This work is in support of the Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation, which is located in a village with the intention of making the village sustainable. The hope then is to take practices and lessons learned to other villages in the Kathmandu Valley, where a great percentage of the Nepali live. There are many aspects to our efforts - more fruitful farming practices, health care, creating an orphanage(s), developing craft/jewelry products, advocating bio-fuels - always trying to provide meaningful work.

We're developing a natural building method from local materials - structure form bamboo, roof from thatch, and walls from waste bottles and paper set in earthen plaster (sand, clay and straw). This work is not complicated; what it's really about is forming relationship.

To build with your hands, and feet as you stomp on the sand and clay (aka, mud) to mix it, is to return to kindergarten. Your actions are integrating many aspects of your humanity; far removed from this computer screen I'm now writing on. While squeezing earthen plaster between your fingers and toes, the flow of voice to voice is easy and pleasant, and smiles and laughter abound (no harsh DC metro driver's looks to be found). It's a bit idyllic, even I admit.

But as we built this addition on the roof of the existing community center, being in the center of the village, all I had to do was look around and realize I was far from shangri-la and how much work we face. As un-pretty as the village is, the life is abundant and peaceful. Chickens are very free range there, so much so as they eat all day out of the polluted and trash filled central, ummm, creek-culvert-dump. Children bound everywhere, often all over our building site and sometimes putting plaster where it belongs. Villagers are all on the move, mostly living outside, interacting in a variety of ways, hopping on the bus to the city looking for any work (unemployment is 90% in the village!). And they watch our work, sometimes bleacher-style, often scratching their heads, wondering why the crazy gringos ("curlys" to them) are sticking waste bottles in the walls.

Creating jobs is a central aspect of our work; we've now trained a team of builders and there are villagers who want homes built with this method. The building team will take their profits and create a simple abode for one of the many thousands of homeless Nepali in the valley. After the Nepali in need receives their home, which they'll help build, they'll pay back by volunteering on the next few homes, which will train them to then be part of the next buiding team.

It's this type of sequential development that we're striving for. Of course, my obsolescence is part of the plan; fortunantely, there are many other parts of Nepal for me to take this work. I'll be returning in July to lead a similar group in the building of an orphanage in another part of the valley.

I am looking for volunteers to join me then, and in October when I return again. Please email me for more info - bill@heliconworks.com