Watermill, outside

On the threshold of 2022, I’d like to take this opportunity, along with all the members of the Board, to wish you all the best for the future, so that you can enjoy everything that’s close to your hearts. We hope that solidarity and friendship will be the dominant values of this new year (it is not forbidden to dream).

In a context where serenity is far from being the order of the day, let’s remain positive and motivated for all our actions that put exchanges between human beings at the forefront.

Despite all the uncertainties, we are maintaining our plan for a mission to the village in March for a small group of board members, but to be on the safe side we are waiting until the end of January to finalise the trip, set the precise dates and buy the plane tickets.
We had several discussions with Yadav to clarify our objectives for these few days in the village (personalities to meet, data to collect, places to visit, etc.).
Yadav assures us that he will do his utmost to ensure the success of this mission, and we look forward to fruitful exchanges with Rapcha’s representatives and managers.

About the dispensary:

The dispensary
Yadav replied at the end of October to Bernard’s letter about the dispensary.

“…The Rapcha health post has recently been upgraded and is now entitled to have a health assistant (HA), a CMA or an ANM and an office assistant, making a total of three employees. The electricity and water networks at the health post are now working properly.
We have also learned that a medical camp was organised in Rapcha by RE-HELP (a German association) this autumn, after which medicines were left at the dispensary.

On the mill:

The mill, the building.
After repeating our requests several times, we have just recently received a small financial report concerning the construction of the chicken coop and the grain mill (invoices in Nepali, translation and summary in English).
Yadav gave us a few details about how the mill works:

“I put the questions to the farm manager, Nirmal, and asked him for an update on the water mill. He told me that at present, at least half the inhabitants of Rapcha use the services of the water mill.

The mill mainly grinds millet, maize, wheat and buckwheat, and also grinds fried soya, fried maize and fried wheat. A man by the name of Bal Dhan Magar is a full-time employee to oversee the grinding and there is no fixed schedule for operations as the mill is run from 6am to 7 or 8pm. The mill is open at any time depending on the service required.

What’s more, the mill remains idle all day if there is no grain to grind from/for customers.”

 

Mill, the grinding wheel.
The water mill wheel
On all these subjects, we will appreciate having details and clarifications by exchanging viva voce with the people involved in the village and by discovering the new achievements; we therefore hope that our March trip will be able to take place.
We hope that other trips to Nepal will be organised afterwards, as Louis and I envisaged at the AGM, so that we can resume regular exchanges with the villagers of Rapcha and expand (and rejuvenate) our small team of ANUVAM members.

Happy New Year 2022, with all my friendship.

The President, Gisèle Bonnet.