Category Archives: [:ca]Activitats i tallers[:en]Activities and trainings[:es]Actividades y talleres[:]

[:ca]Activitats i tallers[:en]Activities and trainings[:es]Actividades y talleres[:], Children of the Home, Festivals and Traditions, Nepali Culture

The big event in Bhimphedi

Thanks to a project by Rotary Club Kantipur, with financial support coming from Spain coordinated by Juan José Rodriguez, a multisports court has been built in Bhimphedi village.

Everybody was talking about it some time ago, cause it has been a long process: first its planning, then its construction process. And now it is finally completed, and everybody can play whatever they like: basketball, football, volleyball, badminton …

Although many villagers were already using the court some days ago, the official opening will be held on April 25th. The project promoters are coming to Bhimphedi from Madrid and Kathmandu, along with the sports minister and other personalities from the country. So, on April 25 a big event will take place in the village of Bhimphedi!

About one month ago, event organizers asked Laura and me to organise an exhibition basketball match with the children in our home and the children in the village. So, this month we really had to work hard, because children do not forgive any single training!

Every afternoon from 4h to 6h, and some days even in morning time from 6:30 to 8am, we had to go to the sports court and teach them how to play basketball. And most of the times we had to stop them, otherwise they would have kept on playing on and on, until midnight!

Both boys and girls have learned to play very quickly and plus, promoters offered us team t-shirts and sports shoes for the two teams, which we delivered on the events day. They all looked like real teams!! It was great to see how good they played while wearing sports shoes, after having trained wearing flip-flops! (Almost everyone in Nepal wears flip-flops, no matter it is summer, winter, rainy, must climb a mountain, or must work at construction sites). Ram Raj, the star in one of the teams, achieved to reverse the score in favor of the orange team, while executing his attack movements very well, but still having to count his steps loud, cause he had only been doing them for one week: “One, two, toss!”

After the five minutes basketball game, the speeches came. Two hours of speeches where everyone was getting infinitely bored… Finally they decided it was enough and let the local kids do some dances, “but do it quick, quick, it’s about to rain!,” master of ceremonies said…

But it’s not the rain what closes the event. The ground begins to shake… it’s an earthquake! We look at the village and we see many town houses starting to collapse, everywhere. And, far in the mountains, where many detached houses used to be, we can only see some smoke plumes.
After a long minute, the ground seems to be still again; but we are not looking at it the same way we did before: everybody is scared. Nobody had experienced an earthquake like this before… Everybody is very concerned about the consequences this quake might have had, and also to know whether it is stopped or it will have more afterquakes. We all head to the village very quickly…
On April 25 there has been a big event in the village of Bhimphedi! Although it was totally different event than what we all expected …
If you want to know what happened the next hours and days after the quake, read the next post about the earthquake. 

[:ca]Activitats i tallers[:en]Activities and trainings[:es]Actividades y talleres[:], [:ca]Sanitat i higiene[:en]Health and Hygiene[:es]Sanidad e higiene[:]

The dentist Sole in the Children’s Home

I`m Soledad Paredes from Chile and am a Dentist. I´m in Childrens Home Bhimphedi, for realize activities in promotion and prevention (as the first part) to introduce children in oral health.

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I have taken on Saturday is a day without school, to initiate activities.

We started with a competition to clarify three important concepts: that the teeth are used, How do we keep our teeth Healthy? and What foods are bad for our teeth?

Using posters they`ve made and cards with the concepts, we did a competition with two teams (male vs. female), to see who succeeds in placing him more concepts in the right question. Result of competition: girls have won and are very happy!

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After we perform different activities at different ages were conducted to show that we use to brush our teeth and we have also introduced new concepts to understand that we speak (fluorine, cavities, cavity, etc). The activities were: painting boards, join the numbers and wordsearch. With these last until the bigger they are excited, and the smallest have remained happy with the drawings.

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And so we have finished the day and the activities we had planned for two days have gone and asked for more activities for the next day. So a hit today!!!

[:ca]Activitats i tallers[:en]Activities and trainings[:es]Actividades y talleres[:], [:ca]Informàtica[:en]Information Technology[:es]Informática[:], News

Internet at the Children’s Home – Second Part

Days pass and nobody calls us to go to Hetauda to buy the cable, phone and router. We begin to worry… But suddenly, a car stop at the entrance of the center, and two gentlemen say they have come to install the phone-line…

– But you bring the necessary equipment for installation – Ask a surprised Ram, the cook of the center.

– Oh, still haven’t you bought the cable? – asks an even more surprised technician.

– You told us you would call us so that we could go to Hetauda to buy everything you needed and then the technicians could come with us. – Assures Ram.

– How could we have called if we didn’t have any contact number on our papers? – Protest the technician.

– I gave my phone number – Ram answers.

There is nothing we can do now, maybe some other day we will be more successful… but at least we make the technician to tell us exactly what we need to install the phone-line: 120 meters of cable, a phone, a modem, a couple of line boxes (or something similar)…

– Sunday we will go buy everything! – Ram says.

– Uff, but we will not be able to come till next week, on Friday… – says the technician.

Ram protest a little bit. But I would be very happy if we get the internet connection next week…

On Sunday it rains, on Monday Ram has a meeting with “neighbours” (he lives on a mountain, in the middle of nowhere, I do not know who will show in this meeting…), Tuesday is a holiday, so on Wednesday we go to Hetauda to buy the cable…

After all the shopping we go to the office of Nepal Telecom to confirm that the technicians are coming this week. The bureau chief sees us there again and asks us if we have not yet Internet. “It can not be!” says flatly. And he asks for an explanation to the technician. The technician explains the misunderstanding, and says he will go on Friday to finalize the work. The boss asks “Why Friday? What work do you have to do tomorrow? Go tomorrow”, the technician says “Hunchha” (meaning “ok”), so he will come to install Internet tomorrow morning.

Friday morning the technicians come to install Internet.

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When they finish to connect the cable and equipment, we are asked to sign some papers, and then they will go to the office to activate the line. Signed, they leave, and after a while we have phone-line but no Internet… It was too good to be true…

After two weeks of repeatedly calling different employees of Nepal Telecom, ask a computer technician to try to solve the problem and even change the year, the head office of Nepal Telecom decides to send a technician “Thursday, Friday morning or Sunday. “Maybe someone will come Sunday, if we’re lucky…

Surprisingly on Friday they tell us that a technician is on the way! I just do not believe it until he reaches the center.

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After two hours, we have phone line and Internet. It seems that this 2015 will be a good year!

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The first website never opened in Bhimphedi Children’s Home.

From the Bhimphedi Children’s Home, through our new ADSL, Happy 2015 to everyone!

[:ca]Activitats i tallers[:en]Activities and trainings[:es]Actividades y talleres[:], [:ca]Sanitat i higiene[:en]Health and Hygiene[:es]Sanidad e higiene[:], News

Medical check ups

Paula, a doctor volunteer of Amics del Nepal, arrives at Bhimphedi with two assistants, Susana and Anae, with the aim of doing 40 medical checks in two afternoons.

Just after arriving, they open their bags and prepare all the equipment to measure height, weight, arterial pressure, visual acuracy, heart auscultation, skin afections, check for louses… After some hours of hard work, the team has completed the job in just two days!

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Some kids in the line to have their medical check-up. Do they look worried?
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Susana introducing the results of a check-up to the database.
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Paula and Anae making the check-up to Ashish.

One kid shows an arrhythmia, but after some extra tests (in Hetauda and Kathmandu) everything looks good. He is now on the way back after a few days of “vacation” from school. No problem, he is very clever, so after a day or two he will be updated.

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In Hetauda, Eating a chocolate doughnut just before doing some medical tests for the arrithmia. Nobody seems very worried, so everything is going good.

Some other kids and staff showed some vision problems, so we will have to visit the ophthalmologist.