Nepal Visit: Prototype Transfer and Field Visit

This is Kazu from the financial division. On this post, I would like to report a visit to Nepal in a nutshell. The visit was about two weeks (from 7th to 21th August) and part of the expenses were funded by the Hisao Taki Fund for learning abroad Summer 2011. All of the activities were requited to organize by myself and activities for IDA had mainly two purposes: One is to transfer the prototype of our cooling system and the other is to visit Sudal village for the first time in almost two years since our field survey that precedes to the submission of the initial proposal to Mondialogo Engineering Awards 2008/2009.

Thanks very much to a Nepal memeber, Shrisiti and her family, my stay in Nepal was safe and quite comfortable despite the messy political situation there. Shrisit was about to leave for Canada for her master's program but devoted her time for me during the first couple of days of my stay.

(From left) Me, Shristi and her family@Tribhuvan Airport

Prototype Transfer
Deepak and Girish, other Nepal member, were the ones who actually worked with me during the stay. The prototype of cooling system transported from Japan was still being processed at the airport. We spent a week to collect the parts due to payment of the interest to custom and persistent ask of additional money collection by corrupted officials. The collected parts were reassembled in the garage of the Robotics Club at Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University (IOE-TU).

(From lest) Deepak, Me and Girish @Robotics Club Garage, IOE- TU

Transferred prototype

We have still many challenges to achieve the completion of our proposed plan; The major ones are the improvement of the performance of the system, cost reduction and local procurement of the parts. Even though, the installation in the IOE campus became our big event that symbolizes the transfer of initiative of our project from Japan team to Nepal team. In that sense, a generous offer from Mr. Shyam Pradhan (Shristi's father) for being the longer term coordinator with village representative of the real real testing site at rural area was really appreciated.

Meeting with Mr. Shyam Pradhan (Shristi's father)

Also, the recruitment of new member from IOE-TU is another challenge for us to speed up and sustain the activities in Nepal. It was pity that the orientation session to undergrad students at IOE-TU scheduled on last day of my visit was cancelled owing to unexpected entrance exam in the campus on the public holiday. Still, I believe that Nepal team can attract new members from IOE-TU for our project.

Field Visit
The second purpose of the stay was, field visit of the real testing site of our project. The place is called Sudal Village and it takes two hours by bus and walk from Bhaktapur (half day trip from Kathmandu). With the guide of Nepal team, I could meet village representative (Mr. Guna Raj Subedi) and his family. He is the school principal of the community and her daughter is an active member of women's community group. I stayed one night there and his son took care of me and taught me many things about the daily life in the community.

Mr. Subedi (Village Representative, far left) and his family
including his elder daughter (3rd  from left) and son (far right)

I felt the village was quite modernized than expected. They were connected to electricity grid (although blackout is very much common) and could use bio gas for cooking by utilizing cow dung and the facility seems funded by a Japanese NGO. We may consider the difference of the condition to more rural area in Nepal, but they live far more sustainably relying nature and most of the contexts seemed relevant to our proposed system. At the time of my visit, the family has just started to plant potato between the maize stems, which are already harvested. They said the yield of crops are good this year since they had much rain for the rainy season this year. (They had far less rain for the last two years)

At last, let me tell you a heartwarming story about Mr. Subedi's niece, Rachana. Her family lives just next to the Mr. Subedi's house and she came to the house for play (maybe because I was Japanese and new to her).

Rachana (Mr. Subedi's niece)

She was curious about the camera as well as other villagers and we played some hand games. She taught me a game in English (♪ Butterfly, butterfly, which colour do you like...). I showed a Japanese hand play called "いっせーのせ" instead but it was too complex to her to understand. 

At the dinner, she unexpectedly gave me a letter with bashful face.  

In the handmade envelop was her drawing of Nepali house and Japanese house!

I thought we got a precious thing and I decided immediately to put it on the wall in our garage back in Japan.

More photos and the detailed report are going to be uploaded at our website in a week. Don't miss it!