Back to Bansbari Road, as I have mentioned the streets are being widened. The traffic is so very congested the people about four and sometime five times during the day traffic come to a stop for about 90 minutes.
It is literally faster to walk, albeit hazardous to your health, for a variety of reasons, cars and motorcycles on top of the list, if the traffic is to slow they will go onto the walkways. The debris on the walkways and roads makes it very difficult to navigate when walking. As you can see if there is a clear sidewalk the cars park or drive on them.
Back to rebuilding the roads. Caleb, Aaron, and the rest of you, we are going to have a test. The test is simple see how many things you find wrong with the following pictures based on your cultural perspective. This first picture is the front of a building that has had the concrete broken off from the front of the building, first floor and the roof of the building. They are in the process of cutting the re-bar from the structure before they knock the pillars down. The man with the sledge hammer is about to start pounding on the pillar to knock enough concrete away so they can cut the re-bar away from the remaining structure
This is the same person just from another angle, you can see more clearly the remaining part of the floor that he is going to break out. That is what he is standing on.
These fine young men are breaking the pillars as they come down, first one hits the concrete and then the other, on and on they pound. Immediately above them is the guy with the sledge hammer breaking up the pillar.
The pile of bricks that you see was taken out of the buildings that are being partially demolished. A person will sit on these brick and chip the mortar off and then stack them for reuse, look closely and you can see and stack of bricks immediately behind the pile of bricks.
You can see the person cleaning the bricks and those that have been cleaned and are not being used again in the building are sold and hauled away. One by one they are loaded onto the truck.
This building has the front removed and the concrete floor broken out, and a footing poured for the new store front to include the pillars for the next floor and roof. You can see where the wall between the store fronts has been broken and right in front of the wall is the re-bar for the pillar. As soon as the pillar has been poured a mason will fill in the gap between the two stores. It is amazing how they can get those gaps filled. Once the gap is filled they will put stucco on the wall to finish it.
Now to start the rebuilding, first you need to get the bricks and mortar to the masons. There are no fancy forklifts or conveyor belts just hard labor! One of the workers shovels the sand/concrete mix, or bricks into the basket and up he goes on the ladder You will see some of the ladders and stairs in some pictures later.
These are the masons installing the bricks on the house and store fronts. This scaffolding is the norm, it is bamboo lashed together with a hemp twine.
This man when he saw me, I waved and I asked if I could take his picture, and he said that was very OK. I didn't take this picture from the correct angle for you to see what he is standing on. So...here is a description of his perch, he is standing on a piece of wood about the with of a 2X4 protruding from the wall, setting the bricks. You can see his work in the back. Those are windows that he is setting in the wall.
One important thing that I forgot is the building infrastructure, in this case, the sewer. These guys are connecting the sewer from the house to the street. Notice how deep the sewer is? Not your standard 5 to 6 feet, no need, it doesn't freeze in Kathmandu.
These are the finish carpenters building the shelves and other necessary cabinetry for the store. They have no power tools only hand ones. A small hand saw connected to one of these men's arm was used to cut the boards to size and then nailing. The most interesting part is they do not use finish nails, so you can see clearly the nail heads.
Now back to the tales of Bansbari. This week has been interesting, our internet has been down, and I realized how much we rely on the internet for our work. I called and they, "Subisa Cable" our internet service provider, told me they were having trouble with there router and the service would be up in a half hour. Well and good. Did I mentions that our internet was down also about a week ago also and they told me the router was down and everything would be working in about a half hour? I called numerous time during that day and finally they told me someone would be out to fix the problem. About 4 days later a person came to look at our service, which in the mean time had started itself. It had been raining heavily and I just thought that could have been the problem. Week two, the computer is down and the half hour is up, so I called again. I explained the the cable light on the modem was not lit, and hadn't been since the night before. The representative on the phone said, " OH, I will have some one come out". One hour , Two hours, no technician, so I called again. I was told they would come out soon. One hour, two hours, you get the drift, no technician. I called again and told them I need this done today and they said they would have some one out around two o'clock. Two o'clock and the technician comes and tells us that the problem is not with our line to the house, but that it was old and would need to be replaced someday, or our modem. He said the problem must lie in the switch out on the street and someone would come and check it and fix it if necessary.
Remember Bansbari road is being rebuilt. These two lines on this photo are the power line, I think that one of the poles must have fallen somewhere, oh well, just be careful and don't touch it. This did not just happen, it has been this way since we arrived and how much before then I do not know, hence, the segue into the next part of the story.
The technicians came to fix the switch and up the pole one of them went. Did I mention that it has been raining an awfully lot lately?
Up the pole on his aluminium ladder, which by the way he brought on his scooter.
Here is a picture of him getting to the switch box. The part that you may not see is that the poles contain all genre of wires, electrical, telephone, cable, and internet. You also need to know that the power is 240 volts in Nepal not the 120 volts you find in the US. If you are not sure what that means, ask Aaron, he will explain it to you. When the technician got into the spider web of wires he used his head to wiggle into the wires and pushed them out of the way, then climbed right in. He got into the switch box and determined that it was broken and he had to take it down to the repair truck to fix it.
NOT!!! What you see is what you get. The story about the internet ends happily, however. It works well, for now.
The real story, however is about these amazing people. They are the most ingenious, and creative problem solvers I have ever seen. If you lived where the roads were jammed and traffic was very slow and the best way to travel was to go by scooter, would you carry the ladder? If you had to fix a sophisticated piece of technology on the street could you? They are, as Tiffnie would call them, the McGuivers of the world. If it needs fixing they will find a way, with their limited means to " Do It ", as President Kimball would often say! I know that God knows and loves them, he makes life functional for them and soon there will be a way to teach them of His love and concern for them. They are amazing!! Pray for them!!
Next Chapter - Visiting the members for strength, our corner of the vineyard.
Love the pictures of the rat's nest public utilities.
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