Darbung, Nepal - School Rebuild Project
The welcome we received upon arrival to the village was powerful and evoked deep emotion in each of us. Through tears and a pumping heart is was hard to grasp the depth of what we were about to do. After months of organizing and negotiating both local culture and government guidelines, the time was now. The children lined up to added flowers and leis of marigolds. By the end we each had necklaces of flowers from our chest up to our chins. There must have been 3 or 4 hundred children. Once we passed them they ran to the front of the line to continue the path to the stage. They sang and danced and made announcements that we were here to help rebuild their school. The love and hope was palpable. The children were in awe of us and us of them. It took my breath away.
The following days were filled with work. Hard work. We rose at 6am as the mist was still thick along the mountain ridges. It quickly gave way to the sun and was hot until sometime around 5pm. The hard work and dripping sweat seemed like nothing because the children were singing and studying just outside the walls we were knocking down.
The soccer ball was the biggest hit. Our first evening Nigel and I joined in a game almost to our demise. They were passionate and strong. We were weary from traveling in the back of a work truck for 4 hours and the emotion from the welcome ceremony. That was the last game we played that week. The rest of the days we worked. Sleep was welcome and the first two nights we were sleeping by 7pm. Exhausted and elated we woke and we're back to work by 7am. Life was amazing. The project was off to a perfect start.
Our first week of rebuilding in Darbung was beyond successful. With 3 of us and a local girl to translate, her name is Sonia, we were able to completely clear the first building of crumbling walls. We had 4 local laborers which worked relentlessly by our side. After countless wheelbarrows of used dirt, rock chips, school debris and broken dreams we were ready for the masons to begin reconstruction. The villagers were talking about how crazy it was that with so few people we accomplished so much. They see us as strong and can not comprehend how we could work so hard. They are used to having a lot of man power. We view it as an "ant mentality". It works but is slower.
