Building BASS

Days were hot, night were cooler and windy, and dusk, they were super awesome with setting sun on your work background.

Bamboo Art Student Center (BASS) that was the name we gave to our project while discussing about its design at the Yellow House, Sanepa. Pronounced Bass (in Nepali) is the Nepali name for bamboo. The basic foundation Temporary Learning Center (TLC) we were going to build at Nimarchowk Lower Secondary School, Marpak was the Bamboo, that’s why we named our project the BASS. We got this design from one of our friend of Adam and Alba (our Irish and Spanish friends) Paulo. This design was jointly developed by ABARI and Learning Planet which was low cost and time efficient. Paulo supported us with the tarp to cover the roof for free. Sumira di and Verena ( a German friend) helped us to collect funds from their friends around.

Women from village actively volunteered to remove the debris from collapsed school building.

Diwash dai and I was in regular contact with the school principal because we’ve already been there for the relief mission on the second week after the quake. And, we knew what the road is like so we hired a tata mobile up to Dhading Besi, from Besi we hired a four wheel Bolero. It was already dusk when we reached Nimarchwok so some of us started camping our tents and some started cooking Dal Bhat.

Happily back! These kids came back to their school for the first time after the quake.

Meet Surya, our best boy at work. Working with him was never boring because of his humor filled  Kathmandu stories and broken  Angreji which he never hesitated to use while talking with our foreign friends Adam, Will, Alba and Melanie, and they loved it!

We started working from the next morning with some local volunteers. It was tough getting the bamboo because we have to bring them up from the village which was nearly 300 meters below vertically. Adarsha dai and Manish started measuring the site, we along with three local guys started digging out the holes. Bikki, Kissan and Surya were the three paid volunteers from village and they will be working with till the end of this project. We continued working despite knowing it’s in a slope. We finished constructing the bamboo structure within 4 days. But, later on we found we’ve under estimated the slope initially which cost us more than 2 weeks to build our first TLC. First we thought we can easily fill the slope, it shouldn't be more than 1 feet gap. Later on we found, the gap was about 5 feet. We had to fill the gaps with earth for which we used an excavator to dig out. After filling the gaps with earth we had to put earth bags to reinforce the wall. This took painstaking one week for more than 6 volunteers.

It was cooler at night so we used to work until dinner was ready.

Project BASS was more than building just building TLCs, we had a team of volunteer to conduct classes for kids for the post-quake trauma healing. Alba, Melanie, Palistha and Dristy were in the team. They conducted these classes for more than 3 weeks. For the last week Savita di came out to help us and she was one of the favorite miss among kids. 

We moved heaps of earth from this place using wheel barrow and doko to fill the gap. Local boys Kissan (left) and Biki (Right) on yellow helmet.

Our favorite TLC because we spent so much of our effort covering the side walls with bamboo sticks and reinforcing the wall with earth bags. 

It was a great relief when we finished our first TLC on around day 20. Before we finished our first TLC, bamboo structure for four other TLCs have been constructed already with the help from a relief group called “Revive Nepal”. They helped to fund our project but behaved like they owned it and nearly ruined our four TLCs. We already had the experience of building these kinda TLCs but they started working like they knew everything. They were in super hurry and worked compromising the strength of structure.

Being on the top of mountain means you have good views really good views even from the classroom.

Pegging! The only tough task to build TLCs at the top of hill because
we'd already grown pro after 3 weeks.

Later on, we had to re do some of the works. Our team had already grown to build these structures. We finished these four structures within next 3 days. By this time we had already spent 24 days in Nimarchwok. We slept inside one of the TLC for the last night. Early morning on the final day, villagers and school kids started gathering in school ground. It was the farewell time, they’ve managed us a small program to bid us farewell. All of us were covered with Abir and garland at the end when every kids and their guardians queued to say goodbye.

Final Four! These TLCs are supposed to hold 200 school kids for some years to come.

Photo credits: Shail Shrestha, Diwash Pradhan, Adam Hourigan, Chakshu Malla, Manish Maharjan

More photos and videos about BASS on:
www.facebook.com/bassnepal