Namaste,

I am sorry to advice you on this. Despite, many attempts to convince and persuade the Government Officials, I did not get any green signal from the Education Department regarding our proposal to re-build temporary school.as per our design (Temporary one).

I have a trekking group to take to the Annapurna region over the next 10 days and I won’t be in Kathmandu region, should you arrive end of this month or beginning of December?.

When I am back I will try once again, one last attempt to see if they will give permission

If not, we may need to go with our other option that is to help out with Prisoner Assistance Nepal ( PA Nepal) to build their school.. Or alternatively, we can just help to the villagers or try for other places affected by the earthquake?.

I think helping PA Nepal through, Indira’s school and place.is better. Indira’s school is private school, hence no restrictions and regulations and bureaucrats to contend with.

Let me know what you think of this suggestion from me. ?

Sorry for this entire difficult situation.

Namaste,

Its Autumn season in Nepal now and it should be a busy season for the trekking but not so this year. There are not many tourists around because of fuel crisis with India and the effect from the earth quake. Even for the few tourists that are currently in Nepal, it hard for us and them to manage the transportation (car) for them to move around the country Its getting worse by the day!!!!.

Last week, in Nepal, our parliamentarians elected two women into two most powerful and strong government’s position. There were the President and the Speaker in Parliament. Hope they can do some change to what is a terrible economic situation already.

Regarding the fuel crisis, it is still the same, with India supplying only 10 percent of the total demand on Nepal. Our supply ministry and Nepal Oil Corporation are trying to get fuel from China but the nearest fuel refinery center in China is 1200 kilometer, which is relatively far from Kathmandu. Plus to complicate the transportation issue, in between Nepal and China lies the Himalayan range, where transportation is needed to cross over 5400 meter high pass. In winter, road will be frozen. So I think, it may not be good option for us to get fuel supply from China.

We all just have to wait and see and hope for the best.

Regarding our project, rebuilding Dhading School progress, here is my latest report.

Last week we had big Hindus festival  (call Dhasain), all the government office close for 1 week and open yesterday. So this coming Monday or Tuesday I will go to Dhading district headquarter with the teacher and some villagers to further sought permission and approval confirmation to our temporary school rebuilding. However I have been briefed that or the confirmation approval for temporary structure rebuilding, they say that the issue permission authorities has to come from the District level (not from Kathmandu).

Will update the news about this, as I have been given the run around!

Now, the situation in Nepal is bad, politically. We have trouble with our neighbour , India.

After the declaration of the Constitution by Assembly, India closes all the border over the last two weeks (may be they are not happy with our Constitution).

There are shortage of fuel (petrol, diesel and cooking gas).

Around 20 percent transport are running. Lots of restaurant are close because of no cooking gas. Terrible time!!!

If you are planning to visit Nepal, not good time (you mention before that you may visit in October).

Because of this situation, I have not been able to get any decision or repines from Nepali Government or they cannot give say anything about our School project. But rest assure, I will follow through with the villager and Chief of Education Department of Dhading.

Trekking season is very quiet because of this situation. Lots of hiking group been cancelled. We shall just wait and see. Sorry to let you know that all this situation.

Let’s wait and see.

Sorry for this difficult situation.

I am in always in touch with the teacher of the school and other villagers. They said now, they have new education officer in Dhading district. They said he plan to visit that school area next week.

We have submitted request to them to suggest and to request for the approval for the temporary buildings for the school.

If he is agreeing , then we can start our work. I am waiting his response

If this situation do not improve, there are many other places around to help. But, whenever we involve government school, then we must get approval (permission) from them.. It is same all the area in the region. Our place (Dhading Paharechap) where we are looking to rebuild we must seek approval, but government rule gives us problem. We are seeking permission from education officer of Dhading district.

We can however build semi-permanent/temporary housing structure as per our budget. This will be very good for children.

I shall let you know further next week about this.

Also if this is too complicated, for us to do our part, then maybe we can build houses for the village instead.

This one we don’t need government approval, and don’t waste time, and don’t need to waste money unnecessary for anything to be done. There are 36 houses in Dhading Paharechap.

Any further updates regarding the rebuilding school in Dhading ?

I am wondering what to do next .. ?

I have a few questions and hopefully you can give response to..

1. The ADB bank, funding has already been given to Nepali government ?  and if so, when ( date/ month)  do they want to start re-building the school ?
2. Since the Dhading school is so much bigger…  now incorporating all the other 2-3 villages together, (looking at the plan) …. any other villages other than those in Dhading region  that has not been targeted for funding by either “outside”  world bank or Nepali government ?
3. What is your proposal for us to do with regards to this rebuilding? let the bank ‘s money be used to build this school.. and we play or have no part in the building process.. then we can use our donated money to furnish the finished school, such as  furniture, classroom materials etc… ?? This may take years, knowing how the system works!
4. If it’s going to take time ( months or years) can we then suggest to the Nepali Government that we build semi-permanent/temporary housing structure  for the children in the meantime  – ( better than the tent , of course ) , so that they have a better classrooms in the meantime ??

The dream gets bigger when there are better problems…

Today I went to the Nepali Education Ministry in the construction department to get the permission to rebuild the school.

Unfortunately, there will be complications. The officials insisted that we build the school according to their design. This design has already been submitted to them from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). This bank has said they will fund the money to rebuild the school in Nepal and they have submitted a template which is the standard for which if followed the money fund will then be used to rebuild the school.

Looking at the design, it does seem like a bigger task than before. We wont’ be able to follow our design bu it has to be according to this drawing design.

It is for permanent construction, to be earthquake roof hence we need to follow their design. You would agree that this project now is 10 times biegger than our design and will be much more costly than the what we thought. Every step, we take to undertake the rebuilding, we need to follow and take on the engineering design and follow them on site for checking at each progress stage.

Our Nepali Government rule is difficult. I did not think that it will be that complicated.

Here is the design which we should follow:

Thank you for the update information.  Now, I will need to do planning with timeline and timing for each stage of the project.

Ok, lets aim to start the work in 2nd week of November. ( say around 15th November ?)

I have not done any building project before , so I don’t exactly know where , who and when and which to start planning and preparation work.

Let’s start by knowing that the project will be done by stages:-

Stage #1 – what , where, when who and how  and how much each will cost?

Stage#2 – what will then be carried forward ?

Stage#3 .. as above ?

Now, we need to identify:-

Stage #1 – who are the people to draw the plan, engineers to identify what materials to use, how much materials needed and total costing ..

Stage#2 – timeline for each task, activity to progress.. ie building which first part first, then second, third etc…and how much to cost..

Stage#3 – same as above…

I am submitting the layout plan as per the original school design as before .