Volunteers at Construction

We are Valentin from France, William from Belgium and André from Switzerland and somehow all of us ended up staying with the same nepali family in the village Kavresthali. We have been brought together by VIN to work as volunteers on a construction project in a neighbouring village.

Since we arrived here two weeks ago, we are in close contact with the nepali culture. By living in a nepali household we are immersed in nepali language, food, music and everything else Nepal`s culture has to offer. However, we get even further benefits from our construction project.

Five days a week we leave our home in the morning and walk for 45 minutes to reach the construction site. We are building a house for three families that stayed together in a three-floor-building prior to the devastating earthquake in 2015. The house collapsed, three residents lost their lives and for the last two years, nine people have taken shelter in an improvised hut comprising of two rooms.

After a short introduction to family members, neighbours and other people from the local community we already started working on the first day. The family has no spare land, therefore we needed to tear down the hut to make space for their future home. The hut was built just using mud and home-made bricks, crumbling upon a single hammer strike. We didn´t dare imagine the possible consequences of another earthquake.

Several members of the three families and the neighbouring community are working with us on the construction site every day. They desperately want to finish the building before monsun season starts and everyone is working strenuously, motivating us to do our best as well. It is ardous to cope with the heat in the afternoon, however, it is rewarding as well. It feels good to see how well we advance. Despite just making more progress by working together, it also really helps us to bond with the local community. Everyone working with us on the construction site is grateful for our help and shows great interest in us. As soon as it started raining on one day, we got invited for a hot tea which allowed us to meet the local youth and learn about the schooling system in Nepal. When one of us forgot his lunchbox, they spontaneously offered us lunch in a neighbouring building, again allowing us to taste authentic nepali food, delicious tea and meet locals.

Now, after two weeks we finished clearing the land, dug out all trenches for the foundation and started layering big rocks inside the trenches to form a stable foundation. So far, we are very satisfied with the project as it is possible to work together with the nepali community, allowing us to make a lot of progress and giving us the feeling of providing help that is really needed.