Sunday, June 14, 2015

Chu Che Pati Tent Camp Individual Visits

Today, both the A and B case visiting groups went over to Chu Che Pati Camp to do individual tent visits. Our goal was to split into 10 small groups, with two of the local volunteers in each small group, and then go and visit as many tents in the area as possible. There are about 1,000 tents total, so each group will try to visit as close to 100 tents as possible. We will get to know the families (name, age, how many people in the family, age, sex, current job situations, family situations, look at their actual living situation and record their actual tent number). Due to the fact that Jolin and I are the ones responsible for today's program, I got to roam around the whole tent camp site throughout the day. I visited many different groups and talked with many different families. I am so grateful to be able to do all of these tent visits!

The raining season is fast approaching. Last night it poured during the middle of the night, so many of the tents were flooded with puddles of water. The ground was really moist and super muddy.  Many of the residents there had to evacuate and move their tents to drier areas around the grounds.  
The residents were using bricks to create a slight foundation and to prevent water accumulation on the bottom of their tents or plastic tarps. 




Most of the residents had no actual tents to set up with, so the majority of them went up to the higher mountains to buy bamboo to use. Bamboo is a really great material to use, since it is bendable and creates quite a sturdy structure for the make-shift tents. In order for the bamboo to be easily bendable, the residents uses a machete to cut the bamboo into halves.  

There are many children at the Chu Che Pati Camp. In fact, out of the 4,000 some residents there, about 1,300 of them are children between the ages of 0 to 18. The tent area has a child friendly space (Donated by UNICEF), where the children can play and some teachers will guide them in some activities throughout the day. I love these kids, you will always see them playing with the outside of rubber tires by taking a small bamboo stick and guiding it along the different paths between the tents. They make it look so easy! 



Many of the tents are filled to the maximum capacity of people. Some tents are holding a ridiculous amount of people, like this one. This is a bigger tent for sure, but inside it sleeps 3 families with a total of 20 people!!! Everyone sleeps on the ground covered by thick blankets, but whenever it rains the blankets quickly soak up all the rain water plus the mud. It is really quite a harsh condition to be living in. Let's not even get started with the mosquito problems. 







Later on, we met up with the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Officer Regmi, to discuss the safety plan around our four day program at the Chu Che Pati Camp Site. He was very interested in what Tzu Chi does and why we were in Nepal to help. We spent about an hour at his tent office (which is just located right next to the camp site) and got a better understanding of how the tent camp came about. He told us that before the earthquake, this area was like a park, all open to the public, so naturally after the earthquake, many people came to take refuge there. It started out small and quickly gain to about 500 tents last month and now it has quickly doubled. He told us that most of the residents came from the mountain side, because their houses had collapsed in the earthquake or that they feared for landslides. It is indeed a very dangerous situation at the moment with land and mud slides, especially with the monsoon season just around the corner. 


Half way into the individual tent visits, I saw some people walking around the site taking pictures. I walked up to them to get a better understanding of what they were doing. It turns out they were from Cadena Mexico, a Jewish Foundation based in Mexico. They were in Nepal looking for different camp sites and villages to help out. They were also in partnerships with Operation Blessing, a Nepalese Humanitarian Organization. What an awesome meeting today! We each exchanged contacts and we invited them to our Wednesday distribution of relief goods. I got a good feeling about this one!!!! Let's hope for more opportunities in working together all for the greater good of Nepal!

1 comment:

  1. you've done so much in one day, you are super useful there! feel very good I bet!
    That must bring you the true happiness. very proud of you, love ya!

    ReplyDelete