United Cool-Aid
We were approaching Ringmogaon, a village by the Lake Phoksundo of a variable blue that changes shade as the sun and clouds dance over the snow capped mountain peaks. The gray rock cliffs accentuate the barren extreme.
Krishna and the young mother with a baby strapped to her back were chatting up a medicine man sitting on the side of the trail and the rest of us pushed on to the Sherpa Hotel where we had a tea and coffee with the ladies. A Canadian named Derrick showed up and we made light introductions and he simply explained why he was there. A couple others appeared and John scouted out a hotel for us. We had climbed primarily up switchbacks for 1000 meters including the traverse. My body did not know what hit it in such a beautiful place. Altitude is an amazing thing when you’ve been living at less than 200 meters since a trek from Mae Hong Son to Pai, Thailand over a year ago.
The rooms at the Himalayan were 1000 Npr/night/room. This was the most expensive on the trek. There are no such things as laundry service or necessarily running water. In front of the hotel is a stout concrete pillar with a concrete basin and a pipe sticking out of it. A hose attached to the pipe was pointed at an open 10-liter jug. The water came and went like a tide so you never knew when you would get water or had to take a jug to the river and load it and carry it back up the hill. Not easy for mostly elderly women digging in the potato fields near the village or banging the mustard out of the branches on the roof next to the corn stacks drying.
The cream of the trek always came around dinner when Nepali guests and owners would enter and talk in their native tongue and Krishna and John would chime in Nepali and it would be on. John and Krishna could get anybody laughing or telling stories to good questions, we all participated. Smoke billowed out of the cast iron rectangle stove and fill the room with a haze and eventually roll through a square opening in the roof. The chimney worked too but the stoves usually don’t have a door and sticks are burning on one end and the remainder is out the opening and pushed in periodically.
We heard more stories about poaching by people to the north. Snow leopards were a featured concern and again the Musk deer came up. One of the ladies was a bit cheeky and scowled at us humorously, tongue-in-cheek, and would say things like, “If you stuck around longer you could speak our language.” They talked to me in whatever language they wanted I still had not a clue. My Nepali is bleak although I am getting better at baby talk.
The next day I felt like watching the village wake up and see what a normal day would be like and absorb what came while John, Krishna, and Prabesh were set for a little further exploration towards the Gumba, a Buddhist Temple, Ban Buddhists, they walk the other way around there respected sites and push the wheels obviously in the opposite direction. I wrote for a while looking through large windows over the mud and stone houses. The sun was beginning to warm the ground and the wind began to flutter the prayer flags and white banners. I decided to go see what Derrick was on about, some turbine installation, something about rock walls. Camera in hand I wandered through the village and saw some beautifully humble and simple sights. There are about 40 houses with approximately 10 extended family members in each. Many of the men were out of town and up in the mountains harvesting crops before the brief rains and snows appeared. When winter approaches the whole village basically packs up and moves down the mountainside to a manageable environment. Judging from the prayer flags, stupas, and the numerous religious sites in the immediate area religion is a big part of these people’s lives and so are ghosts. Many times through out our trek we heard of their translated fear of ghosts. It’s wide spread.
No one was down at the river but I could see what he was referring to but since no one was there I thought I’d wait and check later. It was around 10:00 am. I wandered up to the Sherpa and that’s where I met Lynn. (I don’t know how to spell his name). I walked up with the hopes of getting a charge off their solar recharger. Lynn sat leaned back in a four-legged chair wearing brown jeans and jacket. A salt and pepper ponytail trailed a floppy brimmed hat. I asked if the charger was his and he shook his head and offered me a USB port non-the-less.
Sitting with Lynn changed the course of the day. Lynn is an engineer for the turbine and was content to wait for the military to volunteer a few hands to assist with the turbine mount and the waterway. The goal was to offer eco friendly, green power to the village and bring them into the 21stcentury. Lynn is part of a small band of energetic non-profit specialists offering a few sustainable energy sources for villages in the remote Himalayas.
Peter showed up walking briskly toward the Sherpa Hotel and the outdoor table where I sat in the warming sun watching as my green charger light crawled to full.
Peter plopped down in the chair next to me looking at Lynn and announced, “Well, I bought a goat.”
Lynn smiled.
“That should get them to go to work.”
Continuing to smile Lynn asked, “When?”
“Soon.” Peter half spun around in his chair and looked for someone in the shop, “Can I have a beer?” He looked back at us and explained with a smile, “It’s beer thirty somewhere.”
“In that case I’ll have one with you,” I said.
The army said they’d be there at 8 am and after they heard about the goat they would show up promptly at 11 am. They had worked discouragingly the day before and were not so willing to leave post but with the future of a goat they were rejuvenated.
Lynn leaned forward and stood up, springing into action as best he could, “I better get down there to sort out the final details for the four blade turbine that is going to supply the whole village with electricity for free.”
Himalaya Currents Inc.
Peter Werth III
Director
www.himalayacurrents.org
‘Himalaya Currents Inc. is a non-profit organization seeking sustainable solutions for energy and water challenges in the remote Himalaya regions.’
I sat with Peter and we drank our beers leisurely. The sun was warm on my face Peter turned out to be an interesting sort donating money, time, and expertise all under a WWF umbrella. He said it was easier to do the work he wanted to do with WWF than without them because of the global identification with WWF verses the red tape he would have to go through on his own. He informed me a little more in depth about their mission here at Phoksundo Lake and mentioned that he had a drone and when the others were done putting up the solar panels at the Gumba then he was going to fly it up for photos and records. He was also excited because the Gumba is at the edge of Phoksundo Lake so the big blue was definitely getting some camera time. I asked if I could join and watch and he agreed.
We walked about a kilometer to the Gumba where Derrick, Justin, and Tim were busy bumping their heads in the little entryway and getting the power running. When we arrived the lights went on and Pete pulled out his drone, reset the GPS on all four rotors making contact with satellites to get the drone to fly steady in a consistent breeze heading through a colorful network of prayer flags and over Phoksundo Lake. The drone took excellent shots and footage and returned to earth and it’s padded carrying case. For such a fragile piece of machinery the case took a beating on pack animals and other forms of transportation.
After lunch we went down to see how the turbine project was going with the military work force and the turbine. I walked passed some spectators sitting on a rock watching as Lynn orchestrated the workers who also want the power for their barracks.
There is nothing more painful than doing your best, having everything in place, and Mother Nature throws you a curve ball when you’re expecting a fastball. Due to no fault of the crew Lynn noticed some inconsistencies between engineered designs and the manufactured practical fabrication of the rock and wire mesh block barriers helping to focus the water over the turbine blades. A few of the rock and wire blocks had blown out at the bottom and filled some of the void where the blades were to spin unencumbered. Raising the blades only introduced cavitation and Mother Nature didn’t drop as much water this year as in the past. They tried shoring up the banks with temporary boards but that interfered with a sacred tree that some monks prayed at may moons ago and that could not happen so they continued working on different variations to get enough water over the blades.
John Sparshatt joined Lynn on the small dam and tried to help translate from Lynn to the military. In the end Lynn came to the conclusion that without sufficient snow melt and rainfall power was going to have to wait until the rains come. There were one or two locals that Lynn and the others had trained and knew what to do when the river rose and they could swing the turbine in the river on a swivel and crank system and fire it up when the time comes. I stayed to the fringe and took photos and watched as a few military had to enter the water to try last efforts to bring up the water level. A group of Yaks trundled down the tail and went in every direction eating what was available. Two girls chased after a small cluster of horses that scattered to the wind in the chaos.
Peter came down the trail behind me followed by a tethered goat waiving his one free arm and yelled to the military, “Hey, come get this. I’m done with it! Come get it.”
Some army men laughed and one came across a series of unsecured balance beams and came and got the goat and walked it off toward the barracks.
We all moved back up to the Sherpa Hotel for an afternoon beer or coke with Derrick, Justin, and Tim. Lynn and John remained momentarily behind with the military. Peter took solace at another hotel and had a beer by himself before joining us. The sun was about to set and the chill in the wind picked up. When Lynn, John and the military showed up the Captain and Sargent invited all of us to dinner. John was a hit because he’s a ginger haired Yorkshire man who speaks Nepali.
7:30 pm arrived. It was dark and we could see torchlight reflect off the village buildings and break into the field. We joined up and headed for the barracks. John carried a large coke bottle of Roxy and I saw a few bags of beers as we found our way. After greetings and smiles we were escorted to the BBQ and fire and then into the barrack that had been turned into a dinning room and we all sat and the food started rolling in. What was on the menu? Goat was on the menu, all of it, followed by potatoes, dal baht, vegetables, intestines, the lot. Goat has a very distinct taste and apparently there is a difference between male and female. Somebody handed me a Budweiser can and I washed it down. The BBQ blazed and conversations varied from how many times people hit their heads at the Gumba and whether it was Lynn’s birthday or not, he wasn’t talkin’. Lynn sat next to me and we swapped stories as more plates of food kept making the rounds.
We had a big day the next day heading back down the mountain and I wasn’t in the mood to let loose nor really was any of the other guests. They too were heading back down and out in two days so we all were getting prepped for that. We politely thanked everyone and walked to our hotels with torch in hand.
Just one last point on eco power, there are a lot of people out there that would frown on putting in power in such remote places because of the cultural heritage that will be lost in time as villages become more dependent on such power projects. I’m here to say that most people in the mountains have solar rechargers for their phones and others have 12-volt batteries and others have double AA/AAA and 9 volt batteries and use them constantly. The problem with batteries is that the villagers throw them in the rubbish pile when the batteries are finished and burn them, rupturing them and it leaks into the soil. With a sustainable power source battery use drops exponentially across the board leaving the villagers with sustainable soil as well as power. In my mind it is a necessary endeavor and I’m honored to meet such a fine group of people in the middle of bloody nowhere. I raise my cool-aid recycled cup to you all.
