Since I’ve returned to the capital my days have been busily filled with writing and trying to squeeze in meetings. Mostly I’ve been incorporating information from the site survey, into a presentation for Biogas Support Program Nepal (BSP). This has been the focus of my efforts, but it is not yet clear if we will be able to meet with some of their engineers.
The office for BSP is closed on weekends and their people are booked in day-long meetings through Thursday. An American would say, “Well that’s fine, just have the meeting on Friday”. However, yesterday the government announced that the month long process to rebuild the rain god’s chariot was completed! This means that Friday will be a national holiday. From what I understand, two days warning before the city shuts down, is better than usual. I am no longer surprised by such things here. Hopefully Murari will be able to arrange some informal meeting this weekend. We will see.
My other project has been to investigate the construction supplies available in Kathmandu. With this information I can start to develop a realistic construction budget. As Murari drove me to the area of town where such things are sold, the streets were filled with more than a foot of flowing water. A sudden downpour had made a small river of the street, that even the rain god’s chariot might have troubles with. Then again the Nepali motorcycle riders seemed to feel safe with just their raincoats on.
I was pleased to find two different options of electrical water heaters for sale in Kathmandu. Now that we have some real information about this key element of our design, we can figure out how many of what size we will need. The business owner also told me that these could be fabricated to the size we desire (maximum 1m though). Once again, I’ve found that 15 minutes in Nepal is worth five days, trying to research in Seattle.