We always think of big AID organizations as being monolithic, centralized and constantly disbursing tasked employees into the field for reasons both bureaucratic and practical.  I think that’s mostly fair. That’s also not the way our earthquake relief processes have materialized.  We are discovering that decentralized, individual efforts—partnering with, but directed by Nepali ideas and […]

Our volunteer Justin Langford is a Fire Captain with the Sparks Nevada Fire Department.  Justin has worked on a lot of wildfires that required the ability to use local resources and materials as a means of expediting services and cutting costs.  He was able to put those skills to work on our Pisgar/Duskhun sheet metal […]

I’m tired of showing pictures of destroyed structures.  We all get it by now, the earthquake was devastating– whole villages were flattened.  It was a very physical and traumatic thing.  Sometimes, In the rush to provide metal sheeting to the villagers, I’ve caught myself laughing and joking at the wrong moments–I could kick myself. I […]

Everyone in Nepal has a story of legitimate need, everyone has a story of loss.  No combination of governments or aid agencies could possibly fix Nepal in anything approaching a reasonable time frame:  The damage is just too vast.  Still, it doesn’t mean we should just give up.  People are coming to us from every […]

I don’t know what happened during the last two weeks.  I do know that on May 15 we took a short accounting of our work and realized we’d just placed over 20 tons of rice, sheet metal, medical supplies, tents and tarps in the field.  We survived a 7.3 magnitude aftershock and continue to function– […]

After 3 weeks in the field, we’ve dispatched 17 shipments of materials ranging from rice, metal sheeting,tarps, pads, dal, and medical supplies.  Over 30 tons in all.  Big aid agencies and the government of Nepal are nowhere in sight.  Nepalis are realizing they have to do much of this on their own.       […]

Our first two truckloads of metal sheeting arrived in Jethal, VDC, Sindhupalchowk. Through village consensus it was determined that Wards 4 and 5 were the most needy and distribution began immediately after our load was deposited at Silunga depot. The shop of Shiva Manandhar, our exhausted sheet-metal dealer in Bhaktapur and delivery of goods to […]