Saturday, August 22, 2015 9:52:50 PM
Returning to a Rebuilding Nepal
Kevin Bubriski
View Slide Show 28 Photographs
By Kevin Bubriski Aug. 10, 2015 Aug. 10, 2015
As soon as I heard the news of Nepal’s earthquake last April, I knew I had to get back there as soon as possible. Ever since I first arrived there as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1975, I have lived and traveled throughout the country, including in three of the districts devastated by the quakes. Now, deeply saddened and dismayed, I needed to continue documenting life after the devastating 7.8 magnitude quake.
On May 12, the day after I purchased my ticket to Kathmandu, a second earthquake .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/world/asia/nepal-earthquake-east-of-kathmandu.html .. hit, bringing more aftershocks and anxiety. Aside from a handful of international relief workers, migrant Nepali workers, on their annual trip home from their work as construction workers and domestic and service workers in Qatar, filled the plane from Doha to Kathmandu. There was a sense of nervous anticipation on the plane. The Nepali passengers were returning to a transformed country, and many of them would find their villages shaken to rubble. As we descended through heavy, cloud-filled turbulence, passengers grasped the seat arms tightly.
Nothing appeared unusual as we approached the airport: Newly constructed concrete buildings were standing, traffic was on the roads. But then I spied dozens of large pallets piled high with relief supplies under thick nylon straps. The ride from the airport to Patan seemed normal, too, until we got into the old city and had to take a circuitous route where wooden splints and buttresses held up old brick house and temple walls.
When I got to Swotha Square, it was impossible not to notice that the tiered pagoda was gone and that debris, bricks and splintered timbers had been put into piles at the edges of the temple’s remaining brick and stone stepped base.
The Boudhanath Stupa is shrouded in a network of bamboo scaffolding for the stabilization
and reconstruction of the upper parts of the stupa. Kathmandu, Nepal.Credit Kevin Bubriski
Up the street, a sparse crowd of curious Nepalis was taking photos with their phones of what had changed after three major temples were lost. Young couples and clusters of teenagers sat on the remaining foundation stones. There were no piles of rubble in the streets, but the exquisite Krishna temple, Shiva temple and Bhimsen temple all had wooden buttresses pressed into their eaves for support. It felt eerily quiet, and somehow it was the new normal.
My arrival was six weeks after the earthquakes; the initial emergency and rescue operations were over, and the flock of parachute photojournalists had left as Nepal fell from the front pages. But the story continues, the less dramatic saga of cleaning up, rebuilding homes and entire villages, as well as healing the wounds of trauma, fear and uncertainty.
Several days later, I ventured to Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, where many of Nepal’s oldest and finest architectural and spiritual treasures had been lost. I knew what to expect from the news, but it was still a shock to confront the reality of what Durbar Square had become with its “Tour Lane” and “Danger Zone” signs, and walls of corrugated zinc sheeting hiding remaining debris piles. The walk that used to be among tiered temples edged with red fabric and bells was now more like walking past a construction site anywhere in the world.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Showcase
Documenting Nepal
A look back on Kevin Bubriski’s coverage on Lens.
A Timeless Portrait of Nepal » http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/a-timeless-portrait-of-nepal/
In the Kathmandu Valley area towns of Bungamati, Kokhana and Sankhu, the damage and devastation were much more thorough and overwhelmingly palpable. Each town lost acres of urban housing where ancient domestic dwellings collapsed in seconds, killing scores of inhabitants. In the following weeks, survivors searched for shreds of belongings and bricks that could be reused to build new homes. Watching elderly Latna Maya lovingly stack usable bricks on the walkway next to where her house had stood in Bhaktapur was the perfect snapshot of how much was lost and how precious even bricks are to those living so close to subsistence.
By early July, monsoon rains turned these places of rubble and the town streets to mud.
The rains lent an urgency to ensure that the basics of tarps and food aid reached everyone. While it’s difficult to monitor exactly what aid reached the more remote villages, the difficulties were compounded by roads closed by landslides. Throughout Sindhupalchok and Dolakha districts, villagers salvaged pieces of wood, corrugated zinc sheets and stones from their fallen houses and made small dry shelters to get through the monsoon season. Proper construction can begin only after the rains have ended and what crops there are can be harvested. It’s also a question of what financial, material and human resources — not to mention will — families have to rebuild houses and villages.
Returning from the destroyed villages is a world where the traffic jams have resumed and the daily toil of the needy is easily forgotten. In mid-July there were still some shelters throughout the city shoehorned into traffic islands, road shoulders and empty lots where houses had stood in April. Next to the Hyatt Regency Kathmandu, a tarpaulin tented camp sheltered hundreds of displaced persons. It’s a difficult place to call home, with its inadequate sanitary facilities, lack of security against theft and sexual predation, and such close quarters that there was not even walking space between the shelters.
Nursing students took a break from their studies to say hello from their classroom. This nursing school is
sandwiched between buildings in various states of collapse. Charikot Bazaar, Dolakha, Nepal.Credit Kevin Bubriski
Over my four weeks in Nepal, I watched the seasons transition from blasting hot sun to the hard rains at night and, without warning, during the day, too. Schools reopened. Young students, both boys and girls in button-up shirts and neckties, were chattering and smiling while walking through the streets, along mountain highways and on narrow village footpaths. While they live in cramped temporary shelters in the city or in the mountains, and their schools are tents or zinc metal pavilions, they have the fellowship of their classmates and teachers and the welcome distractions of learning and imagining a bright future.
Another positive sign was the industriousness of the young men and women “building breakers,” who had come to Kathmandu and beyond to work for a guaranteed wage of up to $10 daily, dismantling damaged buildings. Wearing flip-flops and plastic helmets — but no gloves or eye protection — they spent long hours breaking up high-rise structures hammer blow by hammer blow (and some even sleeping in the same buildings at night).
Remarkably stirring, was the sight of a volunteer crew of 40 young men and women of Bungamati town, south of Kathmandu and Patan, working industriously, at times running with wheelbarrows of debris to dump at the edge of town. All would gather at 6 a.m. and work straight through until 11 a.m., at which time they were served a healthy, rich feast of rice, lentils and curries prepared by the older members of the community. This is the image to hold onto as we are reminded of the incredible, very long-term task ahead of rebuilding what was lost in the earthquakes.
Nepal still needs financial assistance, and visitors, tourists and trekkers are very welcome. Nepal has been on a fast track from the feudalism of just over a generation ago to a modern, emerging constituent democracy. Monuments and houses may have been lost, but the country is rebuilding and there is much to learn by experiencing the enduring generosity, resilience and beauty of the human spirit that continues to thrive.
Kevin Bubriski is a fine art photographer in Vermont and co-director of documentary studies at Green Mountain College. You can follow him on Instagram at @kevinbubriski.
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/returning-to-a-rebuilding-nepal/?_r=0
Kevin Bubriski
View Slide Show 28 Photographs
By Kevin Bubriski Aug. 10, 2015 Aug. 10, 2015
As soon as I heard the news of Nepal’s earthquake last April, I knew I had to get back there as soon as possible. Ever since I first arrived there as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1975, I have lived and traveled throughout the country, including in three of the districts devastated by the quakes. Now, deeply saddened and dismayed, I needed to continue documenting life after the devastating 7.8 magnitude quake.
On May 12, the day after I purchased my ticket to Kathmandu, a second earthquake .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/world/asia/nepal-earthquake-east-of-kathmandu.html .. hit, bringing more aftershocks and anxiety. Aside from a handful of international relief workers, migrant Nepali workers, on their annual trip home from their work as construction workers and domestic and service workers in Qatar, filled the plane from Doha to Kathmandu. There was a sense of nervous anticipation on the plane. The Nepali passengers were returning to a transformed country, and many of them would find their villages shaken to rubble. As we descended through heavy, cloud-filled turbulence, passengers grasped the seat arms tightly.
Nothing appeared unusual as we approached the airport: Newly constructed concrete buildings were standing, traffic was on the roads. But then I spied dozens of large pallets piled high with relief supplies under thick nylon straps. The ride from the airport to Patan seemed normal, too, until we got into the old city and had to take a circuitous route where wooden splints and buttresses held up old brick house and temple walls.
When I got to Swotha Square, it was impossible not to notice that the tiered pagoda was gone and that debris, bricks and splintered timbers had been put into piles at the edges of the temple’s remaining brick and stone stepped base.
The Boudhanath Stupa is shrouded in a network of bamboo scaffolding for the stabilization
and reconstruction of the upper parts of the stupa. Kathmandu, Nepal.Credit Kevin Bubriski
Up the street, a sparse crowd of curious Nepalis was taking photos with their phones of what had changed after three major temples were lost. Young couples and clusters of teenagers sat on the remaining foundation stones. There were no piles of rubble in the streets, but the exquisite Krishna temple, Shiva temple and Bhimsen temple all had wooden buttresses pressed into their eaves for support. It felt eerily quiet, and somehow it was the new normal.
My arrival was six weeks after the earthquakes; the initial emergency and rescue operations were over, and the flock of parachute photojournalists had left as Nepal fell from the front pages. But the story continues, the less dramatic saga of cleaning up, rebuilding homes and entire villages, as well as healing the wounds of trauma, fear and uncertainty.
Several days later, I ventured to Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, where many of Nepal’s oldest and finest architectural and spiritual treasures had been lost. I knew what to expect from the news, but it was still a shock to confront the reality of what Durbar Square had become with its “Tour Lane” and “Danger Zone” signs, and walls of corrugated zinc sheeting hiding remaining debris piles. The walk that used to be among tiered temples edged with red fabric and bells was now more like walking past a construction site anywhere in the world.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Showcase
Documenting Nepal
A look back on Kevin Bubriski’s coverage on Lens.
A Timeless Portrait of Nepal » http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/a-timeless-portrait-of-nepal/
In the Kathmandu Valley area towns of Bungamati, Kokhana and Sankhu, the damage and devastation were much more thorough and overwhelmingly palpable. Each town lost acres of urban housing where ancient domestic dwellings collapsed in seconds, killing scores of inhabitants. In the following weeks, survivors searched for shreds of belongings and bricks that could be reused to build new homes. Watching elderly Latna Maya lovingly stack usable bricks on the walkway next to where her house had stood in Bhaktapur was the perfect snapshot of how much was lost and how precious even bricks are to those living so close to subsistence.
By early July, monsoon rains turned these places of rubble and the town streets to mud.
The rains lent an urgency to ensure that the basics of tarps and food aid reached everyone. While it’s difficult to monitor exactly what aid reached the more remote villages, the difficulties were compounded by roads closed by landslides. Throughout Sindhupalchok and Dolakha districts, villagers salvaged pieces of wood, corrugated zinc sheets and stones from their fallen houses and made small dry shelters to get through the monsoon season. Proper construction can begin only after the rains have ended and what crops there are can be harvested. It’s also a question of what financial, material and human resources — not to mention will — families have to rebuild houses and villages.
Returning from the destroyed villages is a world where the traffic jams have resumed and the daily toil of the needy is easily forgotten. In mid-July there were still some shelters throughout the city shoehorned into traffic islands, road shoulders and empty lots where houses had stood in April. Next to the Hyatt Regency Kathmandu, a tarpaulin tented camp sheltered hundreds of displaced persons. It’s a difficult place to call home, with its inadequate sanitary facilities, lack of security against theft and sexual predation, and such close quarters that there was not even walking space between the shelters.
Nursing students took a break from their studies to say hello from their classroom. This nursing school is
sandwiched between buildings in various states of collapse. Charikot Bazaar, Dolakha, Nepal.Credit Kevin Bubriski
Over my four weeks in Nepal, I watched the seasons transition from blasting hot sun to the hard rains at night and, without warning, during the day, too. Schools reopened. Young students, both boys and girls in button-up shirts and neckties, were chattering and smiling while walking through the streets, along mountain highways and on narrow village footpaths. While they live in cramped temporary shelters in the city or in the mountains, and their schools are tents or zinc metal pavilions, they have the fellowship of their classmates and teachers and the welcome distractions of learning and imagining a bright future.
Another positive sign was the industriousness of the young men and women “building breakers,” who had come to Kathmandu and beyond to work for a guaranteed wage of up to $10 daily, dismantling damaged buildings. Wearing flip-flops and plastic helmets — but no gloves or eye protection — they spent long hours breaking up high-rise structures hammer blow by hammer blow (and some even sleeping in the same buildings at night).
Remarkably stirring, was the sight of a volunteer crew of 40 young men and women of Bungamati town, south of Kathmandu and Patan, working industriously, at times running with wheelbarrows of debris to dump at the edge of town. All would gather at 6 a.m. and work straight through until 11 a.m., at which time they were served a healthy, rich feast of rice, lentils and curries prepared by the older members of the community. This is the image to hold onto as we are reminded of the incredible, very long-term task ahead of rebuilding what was lost in the earthquakes.
Nepal still needs financial assistance, and visitors, tourists and trekkers are very welcome. Nepal has been on a fast track from the feudalism of just over a generation ago to a modern, emerging constituent democracy. Monuments and houses may have been lost, but the country is rebuilding and there is much to learn by experiencing the enduring generosity, resilience and beauty of the human spirit that continues to thrive.
Kevin Bubriski is a fine art photographer in Vermont and co-director of documentary studies at Green Mountain College. You can follow him on Instagram at @kevinbubriski.
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/returning-to-a-rebuilding-nepal/?_r=0
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
