Before I left for Nepal, I spoke with Arthur Williams, who had been conducting research in pico hydro for over 20 years. I had met Arthur a few times over the last couple of years and found him a great person to chat to and bounce ideas off. He had hands on experience of pico hydro systems and was always interested in improvements. He was supervising an MSc project looking at the feasibility of a pico hydro project in Gorkha district of Nepal for a charity called Learning Planet. Learning Planet was run by a former teaching volunteer and her friend in the UK, as well as the Nepali headmaster of a school in Gorkha district. They were looking at trying to improve the local school and community though educational projects. I was quite intrigued, on a pico hydro side, I had never really done any site studies and so wanted to look at different potential sites. On a more development side, some of the projects they were talking about doing were quite different for Nepal. So I decided to visit and see what was going on.
Bus from Pokhara to Gorkha
I took an early morning bus from Pokhara to Gorkha, the district headquarters. From there I caught a bus towards Arughat, a town on the Budi Gandaki river. Soon, a 600MW hydro power station would be built on this river, flooding 40 square kilometres of land and causing many families to be relocated. I'm never sure how I feel about large hydro, especially when land is flooded and people are forcibly relocated. Obviously, a reliable electric supply is invaluable to Nepal's development, and using their own hydropower they would not depend on imports of oil from India. However, there is a lot of research, for example here, which suggests the greenhouse gas emission from these lakes negates any gain compared to fossil fuel based power sources. I have also heard stories from places like Sarawak in Malaysia about large hydro projects not being thought through properly.
The road to Arughat was problematic. In the monsoons, the road had washed away in two places, so I had to change buses twice. Several times, the buses slipped and slid, getting closer and closer to the edge of the road. From leaving Pokhara at 6am, I got off the final bus at about 4pm, being met by two pupils of the Learning Planet school in Dhawa. We then walked for the next hour or so down the valley and then up the side of another hill to reach the village. By the time I arrived in Dhawa I was a sweaty mound, always a great way to meet new people! Sat outside the school was the Headmaster, an unassuming man called Giri Raj Lamichhane. We had tea, and chatted about the school. Another foreigner, a German who had been living towards Manaslu for the last couple of months, had arrived the same afternoon, and Giri took us back to his house for tea. We ate and chatted. Giri told me about his ideas and plans. He wanted to expand the school, currently there were 10 classrooms for 500 children, and they were just going to start teaching plus 2 - A Level equivalent - so needed more classrooms and teachers. As always, money was a problem. They had started to build some classrooms, but funds had run out. Giri seemed to have a different mindset to many that I had met in Nepal. He wanted to improve things by learning themselves, through education and knowledge transfer. It wasn't what I'd normally heard from people.
My two pupil guides to Dhawa
Dhawa
Over the next couple of days I began to really respect Giri. He had taken a lot on, and wanted to make his village a better place. His ideas didn't stop at the school, he wanted to help improve the water supplies, help continuity of electricity through micro hydro projects and help to keep talented people in the village by offering them opportunities there. He did seem to have the whole world on his shoulders though, I wondered if he was taking too much on himself.
The current nursery school
The main school buildings - solar panel provided by Learning Planet through the Envrion Foundation
The classrooms
Pupils clearing a field to do athletics on
Practising the long jump in the newly built pit
Giri took me to look at the river they would like to build the pico hydro. Even in the monsoon season, the flow seemed quite low, so again, my research would not be much use here. However, there was a good head drop, through a waterfall and so could use a small peltric set. There were a couple of possibilities for sources, two rivers in different locations. Arthur's MSc student was conducting the feasibility study for this, to see which would be most appropriate. It was good to try and look at the site and try to picture what it would look like. As it was a river, there was a point where I needed to wade, and being clumsy me, I did fall in the river, to a mix of concern and laughter from the locals that were accompanying us. I didn't damage anything too bad, although I managed to bash my toe and this went black for a good week.
The river for the pico hydro source
There are a couple of projects that Learning Planet are still undergoing, and require funding for. They are both building projects, the pictures are below. If anyone is looking for worthwhile and meaningful projects to support can I recommend these. You can donate here, on their website. They are also looking for teaching volunteers, schools to twin with and communicate with, so if you're interested please contact Learning Planet. I felt very at home in Dhawa, a very friendly little Nepali village, who want to improve all their lives.
Building the new classrooms
The new Nursery school, supported by Architecture for Humanity
The journey back to Kathmandu was as fraught as the journey to Dhawa. When I climbed aboard the bus after an hour's walk along slippery paths, the aisle was full of stones, which confused me. When we arrived at a particularly muddy section of the road, I finally understood. The kalashi (bus conductor) got out and filled in the muddy section with the stones, allowing the bus to drive over it. Again, I had to change buses twice. The final bus coming into Gorkha almost didn't arrive. There was no seating on the bus, so I had to stand in the aisle. The bus was baking, everyone had sweat dripping of their faces. The road had a particularly slippery section a couple of kilometres from Gorkha which the bus seemed unable to pass. We would slip and slide, but never get any further. After a long run up, we flew towards the mud and slipped and slid right to left, towards the edge of the road, which was followed by a drop of about 30ft or so, but the bus managed to squirm its way along the road, finally finding some grip and shooting forwards once again. After the excitement of the bus ride to Gorkha, the trip to Kathmandu was mundane, only a couple of occasions my pulse quickened where the bus overtook on blind corners where we were met by trucks on the opposite side of the road.
I had arrived back in time for Janai Purnima, and then after a couple of days I would leave for the UK.
SAM
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