Internally Displaced People (IDP) Camps

Hello, official first day in Nepal disaster relief! How exciting!!!!  

5:20am Morning call from the hotel

6 :00am Continental breakfast….ridiculous amount of food (had a lot of coffee). Stared at the fruit and yogurt bar and thought….yeah, let’s not…

6:40am Video conference with Master Cheng Yen

The whole rest of the morning was filled with meetings and talking with each function group on what was done for the past month since the earthquake. I am a part of group A, the Charity and Individual Case Visits Team.

In the afternoon, Group A went to visit some of the tent areas in the Bhaktapur (BKP) area. The biggest spot that we went to get a better understanding of was the Internal Displaced Person’s (IDP) camp.

Internally displaced people (also known as DPRE in many civil and military organizations which assist) are people or groups of people who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border. 

We went and saw lots of cases and met the local volunteers there. I love them already, learned some Lebali and Lewali words. Going to need to learn these languages quite fast if I want to help out more.

There was a substantial amount of sand and dust in the air as the afternoon went on.

The road conditions were not bad, not really bumpy at all and the direct aftermath of the earthquake is almost at a minimum now. The government has really stepped up their responsibility of taking care of their citizens. It really is a huge contrast to what Haiti still looks like today. It really goes to show you that when a country has a government that is structured and willing to help, it really makes a huge difference in helping speed up the relief efforts.

Tonight, some of the volunteers were especially invited to go to an entrepreneur’s home to have dinner with him and his family. His daughter is very interested in humanitarian work and we helped bridge the gap and gave them a better understanding of what Tzu Chi is all about and that it is indeed an International NGO. I was very fortunate to be able to share with them my experiences in Haiti and Africa. The whole night was filled with delicious Indian and Nepali food, ridiculously good, definitely had a food coma. The best thing was, EVERYTHING WAS VEGETARIAN! The whole family is vegetarian. It was like I walked into heaven. So super grateful.  The parents showed us their garden area and all the animals that they had. 

In Nepal, cows are considered sacred beings, so the people that can afford to raise them, will have many cows on their property. The entrepreneur’s cows recently had a small calf, only 7 days old, super cute. The local volunteers told me that because cows are sacred and many times they are used for milking purposes, that when they no longer lactate anymore, the people set them free onto the streets. So all over Nepal, we can see cows everywhere, just lying down in the middle of the road or on the side of the street. Many countries have a problem of strayed dogs, here in Nepal, there are many strayed cows. What a concept!

By the time we bid goodbye to the family and headed back to the hotel, it was almost midnight.

Tomorrow is another day! I feel so grateful that I get to have these opportunities of sharing my stories, helping those who are in need, and also meet so many people from all different backgrounds of life.