Earthquake interruption

The Tibet vacation interrupted by the Nepal Earthquake

So as I am sure everyone knows about the earthquake that hit Nepal. At the time of the earthquake my sister Nikki, friend Amanda, and I were in a microbus in Kathmandu heading to Chitwan National Park. Amanda and Nikki had arrived in Nepal the night before for a 15 day vacation to Nepal and Tibet.

So the micro was driving through Kathmandu and luckily there weren’t huge buildings surrounding us nor on the edge of the windy dangerous rounds of Nepal. At first it just felt like some strong North Dakota winds rocking the bus side to side really intensely and Amanda and Nikki were like “What is that?” My response “Oh that’s just the wind” Then we looked around and every motorcycle had wiped out, people were running and falling over, there were clouds of dust ahead of us and I looked at them “Fuck, this is an earthquake.” People in our bus ran out and Amanda and Nikki looked at me “What do we do?” All I could say was “I don’t know, I don’t know if we should get out of the bus, stay in the bus.” After the first big one passed (we stayed in the bus btw) the ground stopped shaking and Amanda wanted to turn around and go back into KTM. I was like nope, no way, we need to leave, KTM is the most dangerous place to be right now we need to leave. I also got in a mini argument with a local telling me there was another coming and I was like this isn’t something that you forecast dude, how can you know that (Nepal people are full of a lot of talk to I have a hard time believing anything they tell me anymore). We ddint see too many collapsed buildings where we were so all three of us kind of concluded that this wasn’t too bad and we all agreed not to mention this to our moms until after Nikki and Amanda got back to USA. (Little did we know how big it was in other parts of KTM and Nepal).

So we hit the road. The driver was really great and was in amazing spirits the whole time. Unfortunately a lot of boulders had fallen from above and reduced the roads down to one lane so there were a lot of traffic jams we had to sit in. Our bus ride that was suppose to be 5 hours turned into 10 hours and my phone was going off like crazy with texts and calls with other Peace Corps Volunteers at the time. So with my shitty iphone battery my phone was losing power fast and I needed to save battery for when we arrived in Chitwan to I could call the hotel and arrange for us to get picked up. I turned off my phone for a few hours and then later turned it back on and the texts from home started pouring in asking if I was ok from lots of people. That’s when we realized how big this earthquake must have been. I immediately texted my mom back informing her we were alive but phone was gonna die and I would text when I could.

Earthquake or not we are on vacation!

The next morning we were woken up by more aftershock quakes and then we got breakfast and started our day. The elephant safari was pretty unexciting and we didn’t see much wildlife in the jungle but that was fine, although, we did see two rhinos, which was pretty great. Then we did elephant bathing which was really fun. We road on top of the elephant bare back and then it sprayed water of us with its trunk. I LOVED it! This was my third time to Chitwan and the other two times the bathing all got canceled so I was really happy I was finally able to do it. On the way to canoe over to the jeeps to start the jeep safari we were in this easily tippable canoe when the next biggest tremor happened. Little scary. The jeep safari was all right. Sadly I think all of us at various times dozed off. Our guide was not very enthusiastic nor really good at spotting wildlife sadly. But we saw wild boar, wild buffalo, rhino, deer, monkeys, and were pretty close to seeing a sloth bear, the jeep before us saw it but by the time we got there it left. At the end of the safari we stopped at the crocodile-breeding center and saw lots of baby crocodiles that was actually surprisingly cool.

The next day just rented bikes and rode to the elephant-breeding center and saw all the babies, which was really cute. Then we went into town and did some souvenir shopping  for Amanda and Nikki. It was a very relaxing day which was good because Amanda and Nikki and I were all pretty shook up with all the tremors. I spent a lot of time on the phone with other volunteers listening to rumors about evacuating/not evacuating/staff homes being destroyed/staff family passed away ect. Luckily that evening I got the ok from Raju to leave Chitwan to head back to site. 

Rhino we saw on the elephant safari

With our elephant after the safari

Bathing the elephant or the elephant bathing us?

The news of Evacuation
So we had been told several times we are not evacuating things are fine, all volunteers are safe we are all on stand fast aka stay put don't travel. Then BAM we all get a text message we are being sent home to our home of record we all need to be in Kathmandu on May 7th to fly to Bangkok. WTF does put on hold mean? I wasn't at my site so I called other volunteers to figure out what the handbook says about being put on hold.....are we coming back? What is happening..... Well several hours later I finally get a phone call from staff and he explains this is because Nepal is under a state of emergency, our main medical hospital isn't open do to earthquake damage, we don't have access to emergency evacuation helicopters if a volunteer would need to get medically evacuated out of their site for something serious, and a lot of staffs' houses have been affected and some staff lost some extended family and Peace Corps Kathmandu can't run to full capacity. But we are not 'evacuated' which would mean Peace Corps Nepal would stop, its just put on hold. With this hold we still are considered volunteers and are receiving our per diem and monthly funds and our end of service date will not change. (yay thank goodness). We all fly to Bangkok for transition conference on May 7th and then fly to our home of record May 10th. 

At this point Nikki, Amanda, and I head to my site for a few days before we have to be back in KTM. They both really enjoyed site and my family loved meeting them. They were really happy we all came because originally we weren't going to have enough time to see me site. 

Typical Nepal Meal, rice/lentils/cooked veggies/slices cucumber

My hose mother cooking roti

Us eating dinner with my sister from USA and we are drinking the last of my homemade wheat beer

Delivering book to the school that i got donated from the Asian Foundation

On May 7th I flew out to Bangkok and May 6th Nikki and Amanda departed KTM for home, they moved their flight up two days because there is nothing to do in KTM anymore with most of the cool stuff destroyed by the earthquake. 

Now what am I doing in the USA
So the original send back date was suppose to be May 30th but then the May 12th earthquake hit and that pushed our send back date further back. I just recently found out June 20th is when I will be going back to Nepal. Arriving June 22nd and then we have some conference stuff to go over and safety issues so I should be back to my village to resume my work June 27th (just in time for the end of mango season!). 

Here is the actual criteria of why we were evacuated and what needs to happen before they have us return:

"1)       The medevac flights have to return to a “normal” flying status;

2)       We would need to complete the housing review for those PCVs in the area affected by the April 25 earthquake;

3)       And we would need to give our local staff time to deal with the impact of the earthquake on their families and homes, with a timeline of the office being back at full strength on May 26.

Though these criteria have now been met, the May 12 earthquake has changed our situation here. Peace Corps headquarters is now requiring that we check all Volunteer housing (including that of Trainees) to ensure that it meets new standards that have been developed in the review that we recently completed in the West Development Region. We must complete that review before your return."

My house has been unaffected and my host family is all ok. About 25 volunteers will have to be moved houses which is a timely process looking for new host families in such a short amount of time. Looks like being one of the districts furthest away from KTM is a positive thing! Sadly my host family i first lived with in Sindupulchowk (the district that has had the most casualties) was affected. They lost their house and all their animals but thankfully none of them died in the earthquake. All us volunteers are hoping Peace Corps will allow us to go to there when we return to maybe help deliver some relief goods and food. That is yet to be determined due to safety. 

I would like to thank everyone who texted/emailed/messaged me telling me they were thinking about me. I am sorry I was pretty slow to inform everyone what all happened. 

Cheers to enjoying 'Merica' getting me that seafood and beef everyday!!!