The wonderful experience from Dailekh | Karnali Pradesh of Nepal

2019-08-03

Date: 3rd August 2019

By Utshav Shrestha

I have always been fond of traveling. And for a person like me, it is a blessing when your job description includes fieldwork and field visits to different parts of the country.

Like every fieldwork, this trip to Dailekh was full of adventures and experiences. However, this fieldwork was slightly different from the previous projects. I mostly worked as a supervisor, so my tasks were to monitor the activities of the enumerators and ensure the validity of the data they had collected. But for this project, I had to get my hands dirty and step in as an enumerator myself. The name of this study was ‘Baseline Monitoring of Beyond the Finish Line: Inclusive and Sustainable Rural Water Supply Services’. We had to conduct surveys and collect water samples in schools, health facilities, and households of the Dailekh district. Also, we had to collect water samples to test the level of E-Coli bacteria in them. For the household survey, we had assigned local enumerators, however, the survey on schools and health facilities were under our responsibility.

Dailekh lies in Karnali Pradesh of Nepal. We took a flight from Kathmandu to Nepalgunj followed by road drive from Nepalgunj to Dailekh.  The distance from Nepalgunj to Dailekh was 200 km and it took us seven hours to reach our destination. Dailekh was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen; it was clean and untouched by urbanization. Once we reached our destination, we rested and started planning for our twelve days fieldwork.

The next day, we booked a jeep with a driver who was a local resident of Dailekh. We set off to survey some local schools and health facilities in a locality named Mahabu. The roads were in very bad condition. But since the driver was a local driver and the jeep was also in good condition, we made it to our destination safely.

However, we had to get off the vehicle and give it a push number of times. We visited the local schools in the area but to our surprise, the authorities had closed all schools for summer vacation. Thus we collected the telephone number of the headteachers of the schools and visited their respective houses for the survey. However, we could not collect the water samples as the schools were closed. We collected ten school survey and three water samples that day. The first day was a good experience.

However, the next day, luck was not on our side. We booked a different two-wheeler Scorpio from Surkhet and set off to Mahabu. The roads were extremely rocky and dangerous. Time and again, we had to get off the vehicle to remove the rocks and give a push to the vehicle. But, at one point, the vehicle gave up, the engine belt came off and the vehicle stopped functioning.

Until the driver fixed the problem, we decided to go to get some samples from nearby schools and health facilities on foot. Two of our friends left to get samples while the rest of us stayed back to help the driver. It took almost two hours to fix the engine belt. But we decided to return back to our hotel as the local residents warned us that the road ahead was worse.

On our way back, the engine belt of the car fell off somewhere along the road. We could not find it despite our numerous attempts and thus were stranded on the rocky pathway. We risked it and drove without the engine belt. Luckily, we reached our destination safely but could only manage to collect one sample that day. We then realized that we need a local vehicle and local driver in these typical geographical locations.

Thus, the next day, we canceled our pre-booked Scorpio from Surkhet and we hired a four-wheeler jeep with the local driver. This driver succeeded to drive us through the same rocky and dangerous path with minimal difficulties. Once we reached the destination, we spread out and started our survey battling leech and difficult terrain.

Thereafter, the work went comparatively smooth; we finished our work in Mahabu and left for Dungeshwor. And after working in Dungeshwor for the next two days, we left for Thantikanth early in the morning through the Madhya-Padhadi highway. We reached Thantikanth at around 3.00 pm and spent a night in a local health facility. It was an adventurous night. We kept hoping no ghosts would show up. And the next day, it started raining and which continued for consecutive two days.

Despite the rain, we completed the survey in two days and moved towards Gurans. One of the members from the laboratory fell sick due to the rain and cold. But despite the harsh circumstances, we completed the work on time. To blow off the steam, we decided to collect Rs. 100 each and bought a football worth Rs. 500. We played a match in an open field near Karnali riverside. The prize for the winner was the same football. There were two teams; enumerators and team from Kathmandu. And the enumerators’ team beat us.

      

The next day was Janai Purnima. We bid farewell to our enumerators and visited Badheswori temple and put Janai from the priest and marked it as the end of our trip. Then we left for Kathmandu. The fieldwork was extremely challenging; with the leeches, the hunger, the rain, the rocky roads, and ghosts but it is very exciting at the end. I always end up feeling more liberated and empowered after coming back from the trips. The experience is priceless. I consider myself lucky to have such an opportunity and I am already excited for yet another fieldwork.