Altitude sickness at Lama Kholsi

Well, granted it is some time since I have updated my blog, working in Melbourne since February, but I've finally dedicated some time to try and finish my blog.

I have been editing some map links to show various highlights.


One of the projects that RIDS Nepal was looking at, was to install a number of water taps, and possibly improve the village water supply at Lama Kholsi.

The below photo is of Bombador, our guide from Lama Kholsi, and Alex Zahnd the founder of RIDS Nepal at the spring which is the water source for Lama Kholsi.




To Travel to Lama Kholsi from Dharapori, you have to cross over the Karnali River, with the bridge at below 2500m.

As Nepali's often only eat 2 meals a day, before the main meal at about lunch time, we decided to have a look at the water source for Lama Kholsi. This was at about 3000m.

So on this day, we didn't really have a substantial meal, decided to go for a trek to the village Lama Kholsi, and return, which should take about 3 hours.

However, when we went to the water source, we were told there was a frozen lake, at about 4000m. This lake also had a local legend associated with it. As our guide told us it was about an hours walk away, up another 1000m.

Now I think it is worth noting, the link at wikipedia for Altitude sickness.

Altitude sickness
Please also note the description.

The rate of ascent, altitude attained, amount of physical activity at high altitude, as well as individual susceptibility, are contributing factors to the onset and severity of high-altitude illness.

We travelled from about 2500m to 3800m in about 3 hours. With the below link on google maps showing the contours of where we travelled.
To view the satellite image, just click on "satellite"


View Trek to Lama Kholsi High Altitude Lake map >

Now I didn't make it to the top of the mountain, as I was feeling extremely unhappy with the world. It took me a few minutes to walk about 10 metres, at about 3700m, with a 10 minute break in between attempts of walking. I was short of breath, confused, and getting a slight headache.
Altitude sickness can be quite dangerous, and more so in remote areas such as Humla.

Just before I decided it was in my best interest to head down the mountain. I thought I would take a photo of myself to capture the moment of discomfort.
It doesn't show it that well, but I was extremely unhappy at this moment.



I don't regret not being able to make it to the frozen lake, as you are responsible for your own welfare when traveling in remote areas such as this. As soon as I trekked down 100m, I felt much better.

To show what I missed out on seeing, Alex took video footage of the area, with the local tibetan guide singing in the background.

I loaded it on youtube just recently. So check out the link.

Frozen Lake above Lama Kholsi in Humla


I have also included some of the images of the scenery around the area.

Remember that this is at approximately 3700m. With the photo's it is obvious that there are much taller mountains in the area.





This next image shows Alex's arm pointing towards Dharapori, next to the Karnali river.





With further scenic views.








We were incredibly fortunate later on, with the guide taking us to his families house, for some food, and tibetan tea.
The image below is of the guide's wife, children, with Alex looking on.

Photos from Chris Lombardi

When I was in Jumla, I met an Anthropologist, Catherine Sanders with her partner, photographer Chris Lombardi.

They had a great insight into the local communities in Humla, as they have stayed there for a number of months, and will be going to Humla again in mid February.

Check out Chris's photographs on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clombardi/sets/72157622950275283/

Working women of rural Nepal

When in Humla, it is made clear how difficult life can be. There is an incredible amount of work that everyone does in their daily lives.

However, it is even more astonishing how much the women and children have to work. The best way I can describe it is by some of the photos I took.

The main diet in Humla, is Dahl Baht. Dahl is a lentil soup, and baht is cooked rice. This is often served with a bit of takari, which is a bit of a curry, mainly potatoes, sometimes spinach.

To make the dahl, the seeds have to be threshed from the stalks, and the lentil beans ground into a powder.

This image is of a woman griding the lentil beans.




















The next image is of a woman threshing the stalks with a flail, to get the beans. They dry the stalks on the roofs of their homes.




















They also need to gather firewood, to cook their meals with, as it is the main method of cooking.





















They also use different grains, which need to be crushed and seperated from the husks.












































One of the more difficult tasks they have to do, is extract cooking oil. This is extracted from walnuts, and other types of nuts in the area. They take the shell of the seed, crush the seed by pounding it, then mix it with water, to a paste. They then dry it, place some more water with it, then squeeze the paste with a rolling action over a wooden type bowl. This rolling action takes an extremely long time, and difficult on the hands. The whole process to extract about 2 litres of oil takes about 7 days. There is currently a project in RIDS to use hand crank oil expellers, using the raw seeds, and taking about 4 hours total for about 2 litres of oil.

This image is of the woman squeezing the seed paste with some of the oil she has extracted.

























They also have to gather grass for the animals for feed.






















































I was also surprised on the way to Jumla, to see how young they were, carrying large loads of leaves for compost back at the village.























When we were in the Jumla area, we saw the family, mother and children, all carrying loads in the usual fashion you see porters carrying loads. With a basked on the back, and a strap around the basket and their forehead.

Harmonious society.... not always

Often people have a romantic view that rural villages live in a harmonous society.
It is not always like that. They are all individuals with their own reasons for doing various things.

The best insight I had was with a book "Decision-making In Village Nepal" by an anthropologist, Casper J Miller, that lived in rural nepal for a year in the 1970's, to obtain an insight into how the Nepali's reach various decisions.

My best understanding is that each household works independently, as daily life is such a struggle in Humla, often people do not have enough food to eat over the winter, and the main people each individual relies on, is within their own household.

So my thoughts are that their main motives are to survive, and relationships within their household are key for this.
Miller also gave an insight into how the villages conceal information, which many people can read into, as there is virtually no privacy in a rural community in Nepal.

Now I cannot fault any of the people in the community, as I cannot say I would not act the same in similar circumstances.
When doing any work in such a community, we have to remember it is a different culture.

To be successfull for any work there, we need an incredible amount of respect and understanding, as they are people. They act and do various things for their own reasons, which we need to respect.

Now to the picture. I was looking at some of the pipes of the village water source, as there were some problems.
On the way back, there was a group of approximately 10 women at the top of the village, shouting, cursing, and pointing to a group of about 10 women at the lower part of the village.
Now I have absolutely no insight to what caused this, and the Nepali staff in the field office did not know either. But if a community project is going to be run within a village such as this, it may run into problems.

A development organisation may not have insight to frictions within the villages they work. Knowledge like this is key to to the success of any development work. If the people are not careful, they may unintentionally create rifts within a village.

Rock Climbing in Humla?

The scenery around Nepal is spectacular, and some of my friends are mad rock climbers. So I was taking photo's of potential rock climbing sites.

Now I am unsure if this would be great sites for climbing. I am unsure of the geology, if the cliffs are stable, and how accessable they are. However if there was a medical emergency, it would be difficult as Humla is extremely remote. There are no roads, unreliable air transport, and not many staffed medical posts.

But I am fairly sure alot of these cliffs have not been climbed.
I'll post up some of the photo's, so people can see for themselves.

Enjoy!

Working in Tulin

One of the villages RIDS Nepal works at is the village of Tulin.
It is approximately an hours walk from the field office in Dharapori, along the trail going to Tibet from Simikot, the district centre of Humla.

In this image, it is of the Karnali river, with the trail going towards Tibet on the right side of the valley, with Tulin along that trail slightly on the right of the image.




















This image shows the way many of the houses are stacked on top of each other, with steps cut into logs, leaning against the roofs that people walk up and down. I did have some problems with some of these, as some steps cut into the logs were not big enough for my feet.























They also have some livestock on the roofs of the houses, as shown by the kids (baby goats) in this photo.


















The solar lighting that RIDS have installed uses a tracking solar panel frame, which rotates following the sun, generating more power to charge up the batteries for use at night. The tracking system was broken, as some wires had come loose, so the sytem wasn't rotating following the sunlight.

The next image is of Sher Bahadur from Humla on the left, and Paras Karki on the right.
Sher is the field maintenance guy, who collects the data, and fixes any of the solar systems that need repair, and Paras is the electrical engineer from Kathmandu University, who revises the datataker programs, designs any electronic work that is required, and has done alot of the programming with Manish Pradhan for the online databank.



















The next image is of some of the typical scenery you see around Humla.


















A few days later, Paras, Sher and I went to reprogram some of the monitoring equipment (yes I have been working since being in Nepal). This image is of Paras looking at the monitoring equipment next to the battery bank.


















There was a problem that arose, in the room next door, they started cooking for there lunch.
One of the projects that RIDS Nepal implement is implementing each of the houses with a smokeless metal stove.

Smokeless Metal Stove

Now I did not realise how significant a difference it made. The room next door was using a udon, a metal frame stove with an open fire beneath it. Even though you cannot see the smoke with the photo, the woman cooking also had her eyes half closed from the smoke.
















The smoke was making us cough and our eyes water. This was only after a brief exposure of the smoke. The people in humla often cook like this, in rooms with no ventilation (it may be to cold at 2500m) You can meet children with problems from continual smoke inhalation.

So I was forced to work outside with my laptop, to remove myself from the smoke. However, after about 5 minutes, the local village children went to see what I was doing, and proceeded to start trying to type on my laptop. Now as I only know a little Nepali, I was unsure of how to say "Please don't do that" in Nepali. The children thought what they were doing was quite funny and okay, so I was forced to go back to the smokey room to continue working. Working with my colleagues in a smokey room was a better option than in the open air where at least 5 village children were insisting on typing on my laptop while I was trying to write a program.

The next image is of some of the children who followed me back into the smokey room. Sher the RIDS staff member managed to convince the children to leave me in peace so I could finish the programming.






















There was some urgency to finish the work soon as it was close to getting dark. As the walking trails are rocky, with a cliff leading down to a freezing river on one side, it can be a little dangerous in the dark.