First blog post...finally!

Okay, so I’ve been here for over two months and still not written any blog entry…sorry! Thought it was about time I actually did, so here we go.

Where am I?

From September until February next year I am working with the NGO RUCHI (Rural Centre for Human Interests) based in the village of Bandh, in Himachal Pradesh, India. The two of us, myself and fellow EWB-UK volunteer Holly, are working with RUCHI on a rainwater harvesting project in the village of Bhogpur. It takes 40 minutes to reach the village by bus, but is only a distance of around 15km/10 miles – we are in a very rural location; the nearest building outside of our complex is 20 minutes walk away and there are only two direct buses to the site each day (at 10.30 and 11.15, so not much choice of time!) The views are spectacular, however. Below is a sight we get every day on the way to work, about 5 minutes walk from where we are staying. We are surrounded by nature – just trees, hills and the odd building, which has the advantage of meaning that we are able to see the Milky Way in the sky at night.

View on the way to site

Where I'm staying! My room is in the building on the left!

RUCHI

RUCHI is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation which has been around for about 30 years. They specialise in integrated rural development, through providing local villagers in the local area with the means to develop themselves. These include such things as supporting Women’s self-help groups, giving women the chance to take out small short-term loans and have a large say in how their village functions; improving agricultural methods in the region; and through improving villages’ water and sanitation needs, through providing water storage tanks and latrines.

Some of the staff and volunteers at RUCHI

Rainwater harvesting

One of RUCHI’s largest areas of work is in rainwater harvesting – the rainy season in India provides a large amount of water, whilst the dry season can remain dry for months, and in some cases, the villages have no means of storing water, except for one or two jerry cans used to collect water sometimes miles away. Through constructing ferrocement tanks next to people’s houses, water can be collected from the roofs during the wettest months of the year, and used during the dry times of the year, to save the villagers (generally women) from having to collect water several times a day from the nearest water source. Whilst in the majority of cases this water is not used for drinking purposes, it can still provide water for washing clothes, bathing and animals, giving the women more time to tend to the homes and their families.

A typical water storage tank

Our work in Bhogpur

When we arrived in mid-September, the project had already been going on for over 9 months, so many things had already been done. The majority of the ferrocement tanks had been constructed, most of the latrines/bathrooms had been built, and the project should have been due to be nearing completion.

Our initial work was to give a go/no go to a possible check dam, a large dam that would act as a groundwater recharger, holding water which would eventually seep back into the ground to ensure that the groundwater would not get unsustainably low. Upon visiting the site, we quite quickly gave it a no-go, as we thought that there would not be enough water to enable it to refill quickly.

Cleaning out one of the tanks

Our second task was to look at what had been done already and suggest improvements. We noted several problems – such as pipes from the roofs to the tanks situated in the wrong location; pipes that were flowing upwards to the tank; and a distinct lack of drainage in the village.

Investigations in the village

Following a long investigation, most of these problems have been rectified, and we have already made suggestions to RUCHI to make sure these problems don’t happen again. We did make a video back in October about our work in the first month – this is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjEhDqYdZXY

The past month has been spent investigating the possibility of installing an irrigation tank in the village, which would mean that some of the villagers would be able to use water stored during the monsoon in the dry season to harvest crops. This has involved surveying for the best location; and most importantly speaking to the locals to ask where they want it and how it should be for them. I’ve managed to design a tank which will hold 36,000 litres, using water from a large section of roof which is currently unused…during the dry season it can be filled up using one of the nearby government taps, which come on for half an hour once every three days!

Some of the village residents

Weekends away!

Given that we are completely in the middle of nowhere, we’ve been making sure to get out as often as possible to various places around. The nearest place of any worth visiting is Kasauli, an hour away, which is a small hill town with fantastic views over the hills (and the snow-capped Himalayas in the distance), chicken (as we don’t get any meat where we’re staying), and the opportunity to buy things such as Heinz Baked Beans, Nutella, and pretty good jam! 

Also got away to Amritsar – the home of the Sikh holy Golden Temple, and where we got to see the hilarious scenes they enact daily at the Pakistan border, which involves lots of friendly shouting, silly walks (the border guards manage to kick so far up they touch their head) and shouts of Hindustan Zindabad (Long live India) from our side against Pakistan’s shouts. Pretty weird considering the countries are at war with each other…!

Golden Temple in Amritsar

Ministry of silly walks at the India-Pakistan border

Shimla, another place we’ve been to, was the summer capital of the British Raj during colonial times, as it’s pretty mild even during the hot summers. It’s a nice relaxed city which still has a lot of British architecture along with traditional Indian buildings…we plan to head back there before we leave!

In the clouds in Shimla

The best place we visited was Dharamsala (or technically, McLeod Ganj) the home of the in-exile Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama. We spent a good few days there soaking up the relaxed atmosphere, eating lots of meat, Tibetan food and drinking, and went on a 20km long, 1000m climb hike, after which we were rewarded with the picture below – absolutely stunning at 3000m above sea level! There were people even higher than us – we saw a couple of paragliders way above us. They must have been cold, but the views must have been spectacular!

At 3000m in McLeod Ganj

Then last weekend we went to Delhi, for a wedding of a friend of Holly’s! Wedding’s in India last days – we were there for the last day and got to see the actual ceremony, which was preceeded by about 2 hours of dancing on the main roads, with firecrackers and rockets being set off everywhere – great fun!


So ,there we go, sorry it’s taken so long. Will try and keep a bit up to date with this from now…! Lots going on from now on though, and I’m trying to keep up with my learning Hindi – I can now read and write the Hindi script, I just need to learn to be able to speak more.

Oh, and before you get jealous about me being in a hot country – it’s pretty cold where I am…and there’s no central heating at all!!