September 4, 2026 Our team is on the ground in Nuwakot. It’s pretty grim. Some of our volunteers were unable to get across the river and I don’t blame them for not wanting to use the perilous rope way contraption. Our team did use it, however, to get some petrol across for the generators we delivered to the health posts. The reality of the situation on the ground has hit them pretty hard, though. So many families have lost loved ones and soon it will be 13 days — the last in the time of mourning. The finality of loss hits hardest perhaps. As our team leader, Om Thapaliya, visited homes where many flood-affected families are sheltering with relatives, he encountered folks dressed in mourning white who found it hard to move past their sorrow. Many of those families, who are outside the holding centers, have not received any assistance at all or been contacted or counted or considered. We are doing our best to identify those most at risk and most in need. They are the ones we will reach out to first. There is no doubt, however, that everything in the three jeep loads will be disbursed. Om reported that at the holding centers there was a surplus of rice and clothing. An over abundance. That’s what happens when there’s no effective coordination. I’m glad that we had such strong engagement with local leaders in advance. It looks as though there is a need for everything we brought. We’re still trying to get a good understanding of the situation on the ground. Om’s visit will help but I’m willing to be it will be a while before we know as much as we’d like to for planning purposes. Nonetheless, I had a good meeting today with two colleagues from the Gorkha Foundation. We are working with them and with Châine de l’Espoir (our French non-profit partner in pediatric health) to plan our initial trauma counseling support. All of us have good Nepali partners we work with and by combining all our efforts we are confident we can be even more effective. We’ll go from there to looking at broader child and public health and safety planning and, with the Gorkha Foundation, we’re starting to talk about education options. There’s a lot of planning going on. We’ll share more as we go but that’s all for tonight.
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