On Shaky Ground In Nepal -

I was stumbling around in the middle of the night trying to make it to the squat toilet.  Taking short, quick steps I was in a hurry, aiming my headlamp at the ground to avoid tent stakes and electrical cords.  In the distance I saw something white and red floating nearby and gasped as I saw her in my headlamp.  I remembered this blind, albino girl wearing red from earlier today – pressing and feeling and curious about this new person and equipment in camp.  She was one of a dozen or more orphans with major disabilities who had been abandoned by their caretakers for who knows how long. 

Searching For a High Place To Install the VSAT
Any New Activity Is  A Magnet For the Orphans

A few days before, a Spanish Red Cross disaster response team ‘discovered’  this situation; a building of blind, disabled and handicapped young Nepali children who had been abandoned by their caretakers.  The Red Cross team set up a camp behind the building, cleaning the filth and floors where the children had relieved themselves instead of the overflowing outdoor squat toilet.  Until the Red Cross came across these children, they were left to fend for themselves, wandering around the building, eating handouts of rice from villagers.  
  

I was there to install communications and internet for the  Spanish Red Cross mass sanitation team using  one of our American Red Cross VSATs.  

The Spanish Red Cross Camp Behind the Orphanage
Bringing  Humanity, Energy and Compassion   

When we arrived with our cases of equipment we were immediately surrounded by small, outstretched hands of the blind children wanting to understand through touch and feel. 

When Elisandro Alvarez, my Spanish Red Cross counterpart, explained the situation, it was obvious this was no ordinary satellite terminal installation.  These children were curious and many were blind.  The equipment had to be placed far from the reach and access of very mobile and curious children.  The Spanish Red Cross now came to my rescue as well; strong, energetic team members emptied a tall, heavy, wooden packing box creating a five foot tall base for our VSAT.  Far from the prying hands of children.  Perfect! 

The Spanish Red Cross Making Things Happen

 The amount of hard, dirty, hazardous work of the Spanish Red Cross astounded me during my time there. The filth they cleaned must have been overpowering – the stench was still there - worked deep into the concrete floors.  The Red Cross rescued those children in addition to their normal duties providing clean water and mass sanitation for villages in the region. 

Our 'Special' 'Childproof'' VSAT Installation 

Elisardo Alvarez making friends with his internet provider! 

I was humbled by the extreme humanity and compassion I saw extended by the team I was there to support.  Now that the Red Cross team had internet they could coordinate with UNICEF for a long term solution to these unfortunate children.  The difference these people made to the lives of these orphans can never be calculated.  But they are making a difference in Nepal. 

Julie Bradley, American Red Cross IT/Telecom ERU volunteer in Nepal.      

Blown Away In Nepal

Talking About Our VSAT Internet/Wifi coverage w Canadian Docs

Crumbled Hospital In Dhunche  - Replaced By Canadian Red Cross Field Unit

My little yellow tent sailed off the cliff where I had slept the night before.  I couldn’t stake it down because of the rockface, so left my duffle inside as anchor against the strong winds whipping up from the steep Himalayan valley.  It was all replaceable; clothes, dehydrated food and sleeping gear.  All the important stuff was right next to me in my backpack; satphone, radio, toilet paper….

Helo Bringing Medical Supplies

Ewan Coldicott and I were out in the field as part of a joint American/New Zealand Red Cross IT/Telecoms  Emergency Response Unit (ERU).  When I heard about my tent I looked down the mountain and kept on about our business.   With all the serious disaster surrounding us the loss of my tent seemed pretty mild.  To get to this remote mountainous area of Nepal we had driven at walking pace up a narrow, dusty road with steep drop offs, stopping only for a landslide which partially blocked the road and to check on our sensitive equipment strapped to the roof of our car.   Our destination was Dhunche, a remote village high in the northern mountains where we were going to support a 35 person Canadian Red Cross medical unit perched on a narrow strip of rare, flat land.   This Red Cross unit was the only medical facility in the region and needed contact with the outside world to do their job. 

Along the way we passed destroyed villages waving strings of colorful Buddhist prayer flags.  Their baked brick homes built on a ridge line had literally crumbled during the earthquake.  Survivors had salvaged and gathered what they could and were sleeping outdoors or under raised blue tarps with the Red Cross symbol. 

Ewan - NZ Red Cross Team Member

Finding a clear line of sight to the satellite among the steep mountains was a challenge.  We finally locked on and got the row of green lights - success.  At this point the lack of useable living space turned into an advantage for us.  As we hammered nails and strung our cables we realized it was all so compact we could cover the hospital as well as the Red Cross medical personnel sleeping quarters with one large wifi antenna.  As Ewan  explained the system to the Red Cross team a villager ran up the mountain path carrying my tent and duffle over his head.  “Auntie, auntie, your tent!”  Now we were all smiling; the Red Cross hospital workers had internet and communication with the outside world and I had my tent back. 

All the best from Glen and Julie Bradley,  American Red Cross IT/Telecoms disaster volunteers

After The Shock In Nepal

VSAT Installation at Choutara - Norwegian Red Cross Hospital

When the dogs wake you up at night with frantic barking it might be time to put on your shoes and get ready to run.   So far, dogs have been reliable indicators of aftershocks ranging from mild to let’s exit the building.  Right now we are sleeping in tents in the field next to Search and Rescue dogs and they have been a reliable ‘canine early warning’ of coming aftershocks;   truly ‘man’s best friend’. 

Stringing Cable

The past few days our job in the American Red Cross IT/Telecoms ERU has been to support field units in the hardest hit areas of Nepal.   Tom McNally, a New Zealand Red Cross team member and I just returned to Disaster Operations in Kathmandu after installing communications, internet and wifi to support a rapidly expanding International Red Cross Operation. 

Team Member Tom McNally - NZ Red Cross  

Delayed enroute by a landslide,   Tom and I walked from the vehicle to the landslide blocking the road, gathering with the villagers to watch the slow but effective clearing of our path.  In some areas whole villages crumbled and the community is still in shock.  But in the rest of Nepal people are moving on with whatever they can do to help with the disaster relief efforts. 

This Entire Hospital Was Erected in 2 Days - Astounding

Landslide We Encountered On The Way To Choutara - Cleared Fast By Villagers

Tom and I drove through crumbled villages on the way to our field units and arrived on site at the same time as the Red Cross hospital and sanitation teams we are supporting.   It was an eerie scene as we worked well into the night; dozens of Red Cross working by headlight.  Literally overnight a 60 bed hospital camp was well underway and the next day by afternoon they were accepting casualties and patients.  As the scene unfolded around us Tom and I worked to get our equipment up and running; satellite communications, wifi and internet based phone service which was desperately needed for the 60-100 Red Cross workers to communicate and coordinate with the outside world.  A Norwegian Search and Rescue team gifted us some equipment as they departed so we even had a Red Cross laser printer and admin supplies – trivial in civilization but major luxury for these field teams.

The units we supported were smiling and appreciative of our efforts, but they are the superheroes in this story.  We move on to the next site, providing communications, and move on again to the next site.  They stay, living in indescribable hardship, giving help and hope to destroyed communities. 

Shaken In Nepal

Working W Nepalese Red Cross - Achyut Bhatterai 

 

The aftershocks, which have been rolling across Kathmandu sporadically since April 25, shake the region almost as much as the initial 7.8 quake.  People are skittish of enclosed spaces.   Families whose houses are still standing continue to sleep in the open.  Aid workers sleep jumpily in the few so-called ‘earthquake proof’ hotels – a  claim that basically gives you time to run from the building before it collapses.  Those of us who brought tents vie for the best empty space — the grassy grounds of a nearby hotel closed since the quake.  Space is tight as IFRC relief units from all over the world pour into Kathmandu airport and then push out toward the epicenter to do the most good among the growing need and casualties.    

Glen Working W Nepalese Red Cross  

Strangely comforting, I keep my portable VHF radio close as I work, monitoring the Red Cross disaster communications network we installed a little over a year ago as part of a joint Earthquake Preparedness Program with the Danish Red Cross.  Glen and I, American Red Cross IT/Telecom Emergency Response Unit (ERU) members, previously spent a month in Kathmandu and the foothills of the Himalayas installing a robust radio communications network that covers the entire Kathmandu Valley.  Funded by the Danish Red Cross and assisted by the Nepalese Red Cross, we dubbed ourselves the ‘Kathman-duo’ and spent that December working with our Nepalese counterparts installing radio repeaters, antennas, solar panels and battery banks on two mountain tops surrounding Kathmandu.  All followed by  training sessions with the Nepalese Red Cross staff and volunteers – allowing daily operational use of the network to widely dispersed districts and chapters.  That month we worked long days and weeks with our Nepalese counterparts; forging friendships which opened our eyes to their culture and people. 

Everest Survivors Who Came By Red Cross Ops Center to Help

 

When Glen and I got the call to deploy to the earthquake, our thoughts were of our friends – they had not responded to our emails.  Were they safe?  Had our disaster preparedness communication network survived? 

Loading Our Satellite Communication Equipment

We sent an email with our airport arrival time and were relieved to see the smiling faces of our Nepalese friends with arms stretched out to welcome us back.  As they loaded our stacks of 70lb cases of VSATs, computer networking and radio equipment, they told us their stories;  where they had been and what they were doing when the quake hit.  Their survivor stories.  In our relief to see them safe and well we forgot to ask about our communications network.  Then we heard a remote voice and our friend Achyut reached for his radio responding to a call from the Nepal Red Cross headquarters. 

Installing internet/comms- Norwegian Red Cross Hospital - Chautaura

The communications network survived. All the planning and hard work paid off; the Danish Red Cross recognized the need and the American Red Cross worked with the Nepalese Red Cross to make it happen. 

Now Glen and I are here in Nepal working the earthquake disaster the only way we know how; supporting the dozens of IFRC disaster response units on the ground with satellite communications, networking and radio capability.  It’s a big job, but once again we are working as a combined team- this time with our New Zealand and Nepal Red Cross counterparts.

All manner of vehicles carting Red Cross Relief Supplies - Food/Water

 

That capacity building project worked – but now we have a bigger challenge.  Do whatever it takes to provide communications  to the ever growing numbers of Red Cross relief and medical teams working across a wide swath of Nepal.  The job here is overwhelming, but we will have a lot of help from our friends. 

 

Glen and Julie Bradley with the American Red Cross IT/T ERU in Nepal