Spotlight on Nepal

This item currently has 11 comments. Add your comment.

Our own Kate Green, who manages USC’s Nepal program, visited in September, making it at long last to Humla in the remote northwest corner of the country.

This is the enchanting land of the Himalayas. There are no roads here – no cars, no trucks, no bikes. The only way to get from place to place is to walk. And walk she did…for eight days!

She also brought home some spectacular photos of this breathtaking land, and of the amazing farmers we work with there.

Click photos to enlarge.

 

---

 

On Edge of the World
At this point, Kate had already been walking for three hours, with another five hours ahead of her, en route to Simikot (indicated in photo). Over the course of eight days, she covered over 7,000 meters in elevation – trekking up and down these steep slopes to get to villages that hang above the steep cliffs along the river. September is a warm harvest season. By December, snows and temperatures of -20C will make the trails so slippery people will stay indoors and close to home until March. “It was hard to imagine life in the winter as we traversed this valley, warmed by the blazing sun” noted Kate.

---

 

Just Around the Corner
“In every community, villagers were expecting us,” says Kate, “and as our path wound around the hillside on the way into Kharpulgaon, this was the sight that greeted me.” The fields for this community cross over 1,000 metres in elevation, from rice watered by small creeks below the village to millets grown high above on the drier high fields. Above the tree line, even higher up, the animals – Jupa, a yak/cattle cross – graze in the summer.

---

 

The Village on the Edge
Kharpulgaon villagers live in these stacked homes, an ancient and ingenious design. The animals live in the bottom with people in the two middle floors. In fact they use only the lower middle floor in winter, to conserve heat. Roofs are used for storage, with notch-cut logs acting as ladders between the layers. “While we were in Kharpulgaon, there was a strong earthquake in eastern Nepal. Being over 1,500km away to the west, we didn’t feel it. But we did use the solar powered radio to contact our USC partners in Kathmandu and Pokhara in eastern Nepal. Thankfully they were all fine and had experienced little damage.”

---

 

Gathering the Sun
If only you could hear the sound of this picture – a hum of activity. From the moment the sun rises at 6 am until the complete darkness envelopes you around 7pm, every ray of sunshine is put to use. These rooftops are far from the fields of buckwheat, millet, amaranth, and rice that were nearing harvest on the hills outside the village, but the people worked every second of the day to dry and process all sorts of foods for the coming winter. Vegetables were being trimmed, sliced, and dried in the sun. Grain were dried and threshed. Seeds were set out to dry and to check for pests. And each home seemed to have its own small solar panel for charging batteries and lights. (Can you spot the solar panel in this photo? Click to enlarge) “The noise associated with all of this activity was soft and constant,” says Kate, “the thump of threshing poles, the rustle of winnowing, the trill of grain being poured from vessel to vessel.”

---

 

Hillside Gardens
Bimkola (on the left) and Laxmi (right) are part of a large extended family of 10 that now has a tea stop at the Karpundanath Bridge, catering to passing porters, and other passers-by. “This bridge is at the first major crossing of the Karnali River on our field visit,” says Kate. Their future wasn’t always so bright. Bimkola and Laxmi’s family are Dalits (or untouchables). Deprived of land, they lived as agricultural labourers and porters. Two years ago, they resettled to the rocky, unused land by the bridge. With encouragement and training from our Nepal partner, SHIP, and USC Canada, they started a lean-to greenhouse and now grow vegetables – onion, tomato, cabbage, chili, radish and spinach – three seasons of the year. At every village we stopped – Raya, Lali, Durpa – there were many of these rich and diverse family vegetable gardens, all started within the last two years.

---

 

Smokeless Cookstoves
Deforestation and a short growing season have lead to a decrease in forest cover in Humla. Many hours a day are spent searching for fire wood, and dried animal manure is increasingly being burned in the traditional open stoves. This means the valuable nutrients manure can provide to the soil are being lost. Clearly, with five months of winter and demand for cooking fuel that lasts all year, some sort of innovation was needed.

Over the past 10 years, USC has invested in the design and development of new cook stoves, like the one pictured above. They’re made in Nepalgunj by a reputable blacksmith. Today, the amount of firewood used has been reduced to between 30-40 per cent, which also means a drop in the hours women and young girls spend collecting firewood.

---

 

The Long Haul
It took Mr. Dachcha Phadera two days to carry his improved stove home from Simikot – no easy task, considering the whole thing weights 40 kg. But the new stove should last for more than 10 years. Why the hard labour? It’s worth it, leading to better indoor air conditions and improving health. The higher-efficiency stoves also help cook food more quickly and thoroughly. Here, Mr. Phadera arrives home, where his family gets a first look at the stove, which will be installed by USC’s partner, SHIP.

---

 

Diversity Sites
In each of these experimental sites – carefully chosen to be representative of local soils and conditions – farmers tend to a minimum of two sample plots, each dedicated to all local varieties of a single crop, be it corn, rice, or beans. The objective of the project, in this first year, has been to assess diversity and identify the unique characteristics of the different varieties being grown. The information will be used to monitor yearly changes and threats to diversity. This innovative work is extremely important with changing climate conditions.

---

 

Flower Power
“While it looks like I’m about to topple over from the weight of the flowers, what I’m about to do is SNEEZE!” says Kate. “I have pollen allergies, so the mountains of flowers that are heaped on me upon arrival in each village are quite a challenge.” Every person in the village offers a string of flowers – called Mallas – to the visitors; mostly to the guest from Canada, but others get some too. “When I start to address the community, humbled by the gift I’ve been given, I usually ask if there are ANY flowers left in the village – that always get a good laugh.” This photo was taken in Karpelgaon, and Kate says they eventually removed and weighed the flowers out of curiosity. There were 7 kg of flowers! Happily, they were all hung in the sun the following day to dry and have the seeds saved to plant more marigolds.

---

 

For more stories from Nepal, have a look at Kate’s Notes from Nepal series, written during her monitoring visits.

Leave a Comment

Name (required)

E-mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

USC Canada, 56 Sparks Street, Suite 705, Ottawa, ON Canada, K1P 5B1
(T) (613) 234-6827, (F) (613) 234-6842, 1-800-565-6872
Find us on a map . Privacy Policy
Founded in 1945 as the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada