What Does Uncle Ed Do in Nepal?

Excellent question!  A picture being worth 1,000 words, here is a glimpse of my more photogenic projects:

Julia took this when I was showing several of the Kids how easy it is to remove a door that I reinstalled years ago using screws that were actually screwed in instead of hammering them as is the custom here.  Doors swell in the wet season and get stuck on the floors.  Four of us took the door off (using our Dewalt 20V driver-thank you again Renee Pie and Stanley Black and Decker) sawed off 1/8th of an inch using our Dewalt jig saw, and reinstalled the door in less than 1/2 hour.

Replacing broken things like…

This ceiling mounted light socket…

and this broken toilet seat:

I also do, and teach, PM: Preventative Maintenance, to anyone who will listen.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure… and a washing machine…

These are the water filters, hot and cold, from the back of the machine.  Now they are being checked and cleaned weekly.

This is the lint filter from inside the drum.  These two shots were taken the first time I touched the machine.  

Now, everyone authorized to use the machine knows how, and must clean the filter at least once each use.  Often we clean it mid-wash while the tub is refilling.

Shopping for “stuff” is high on my list.  Below you see the largest screw eye in Surkhet.  That won’t cut it so Uncles Jim and Jeff are bringing bigger ones from the USA next week.

Speaking of high… We need to get up high at both the New Land and the Home and current School.  I have searched for ladders on all five visits over all five years and only scored one stepladder in Nepalgunj several years ago.  Maggie and Tope brought home a telescoping one from KTM the same year.  They are both still working but need reinforcements, so shopping we went:

Meet Sample #1, which resulted in a “pledge” to have 11 ladders at the shop on Sunday for us to pick from.  Sunday came, we went…”landslide”…”still coming”…”we will call you…”

…Still waiting…!

Big Ideas, Big Projects:

I know you are thinking, this isn’t much, what does this guy go all the way over there for?

Dry up the washing machine deck:  When they installed the new one, they covered the immediate area with sheet metal.  But that was before monsoon season set in.  I looked at it with Tope Uncle and the next day, workers showed up with parts and pieces and a welder and…Presto!  Three or four days later, you can walk from the third floor rooms to the bath room with out getting wet.  You can use the sink without getting rained on, and you can not only do your laundry, you can actually hang some of it up in rainy weather.  I just took the pictures and held the safety line.

 

From Left to Right: Prity Uncle or DaJu (Tope’s Older Brother and the grand old guy of Kopila), Laxmi, jack of all maintenance, and Laxmin, the stonemason turned metalsmith for this project.  Note the step ladder I once stood on in Nepalgunj and proclaimed victory in finding one before a bunch of startled Nepalis.

Fly Fishing:  A battle started by Uncle Hans when he was here, continues.  Bags of water hanging in the air-don’t work.  Flyswatters, even electric ones, aren’t enough.  So Hans sent out the call for good old fashioned Fly Paper or Fly Ribbons as they are now called.  You can’t find it in Surkhet, nor Kathmandu so we flew in the first wave from Seattle and started winning.  Reinforcements will arrive tomorrow from the UK thanks to Anna, yep Woman Center Anna ,is bringing ribbon of a different sort.  Next week, Uncles J & J will pile on with over 50 rolls, and we plan to keep it coming until there aren’t two sitting on my screen and one each on my chest and arm as I write this.  Here is Pankha, our budding mechanical genus, hanging one of the first rolls:

It is soooo nice to eat in the kitchen without sharing with the flies.  The ribbons do get less effective when they get wet outside, but they continue to work hard just like they did back in our grandparents times.

One Last Thing, not much, but I think the most important thing I may have done on this trip.  The compost bucket, that sits just before the dishwashing sink, had a top on it that was always upside down.  People would dump their plate scrapings in it without removing the top.  I couldn’t understand why until I turned it over and cleaned it up and put it on correctly.  

The little round “knob” in the middle was the handle and even I couldn’t open the bucket with it when it was wet and slippery (always!).  So as I stood there pondering, I spied a piece of black tubing lying on the ground, cast away from some previous project.  I remembered some wires hanging down back by the old shop that no longer do anything but get in the way.  The wire is now tied through the tubing inside the lid and even the smallest Kopila Bud can lift the lid and deposit the banana peel or mango skin I don’t want to slip on.  Note the lack of flies on the outside, and any that dive in when the lid is opened, help the compost cycle.

And that is what I did in Nepal on my Summer “vacation”!

Love to all, Uncle Ed

 

 

 

Working two “jobs” in Nepal!

 

When I write “Working Two “Jobs” in Nepal it isn’t quite correct, as what I do here is a labor of Love! Julia took a shot of me working outside my room on a leasing update for Seattle Data Center Space.  That is Franny sitting Nepali style with the children behind me.  She is teaching them cursive writing (at their request) and I’m always amazed at how attentive the Kopila Kids are to learning here.  They sat with here for almost two hours and by the time they finished they were writing phrases and sentences in cursive.

Julia is doing a much better job posting here, but I needed to let everyone know I’m alive and can still write!  What follows is a post I just did on my LinkIn page so that my work colleagues and friends will know what I am up to.  It will be old news to Julia’s and my loyal followers (thousands of you I am sure) but please be encouraged to share it with your friends and family who might not know about Maggie and her incredible program.

I spend most of my days, and some nights, teaching children how to hang fly paper, install window latches, deal with compost and “remember to turn off the water so we don’t waste it”! I am volunteering for BlinkNow.org, a Childrens Home and School started by my niece, CNN Hero of the Year, Maggie Doyne. Maggie is the legal guardian of 50 children and started a school that now has almost 400 Kopila Kids. I love the work I do in the Seattle tech space, but it doesn’t compare to the satisfaction I get from teaching these Kopila Kids life skills I learned from my soon to be 69 years! The new school campus we are building here will be one of, if not the best, school in Nepal with rammed earth buildings, solar power, aquaponics, sustainable agriculture that feeds the Kopila Kids, and a suspension bridge that will knock your socks off! The Nepalis, volunteers from around the world, and their fearless leader, Maggie Doyne are “Changing the World in the Blink of an Eye!” I invite you to check it out.