Volunteering with Pahaadi

After a scenic and lot less bumpy than Nepal bus ride we arrived at Laluri and Dov villages where we would volunteer with Pahaadi society. This new Ngo is run by Dev, a young passionate guy who wants to reverse the dessertification of the village by providing motivation and opportunities for people to remain in the village instead of going to the city. There are a whole range of different projects that they are working on including and organic garden and afternoon classes for children, which were the projects we would work on. These villages are beautiful, people are lovely, however it's pretty evident that life can be hard. Agricultural life involves long days in the field, also trying to fight off monkeys which enjoy the fruits of your hard work. Most families have buffalos, so this involves feeling them with a huge amount of grass, which is grown in fields and women or girls spending their days cutting grass and carrying the bundles of grass on their head up or down the hillside. some girls stop going to school to help their families with this. The village is primarily families and older people and younger children. There is pretty strong absence of people or men in their 20s and 30s as they leave for work in the city. There are beautiful springs where there is a generally good supply of fresh and cool drinking water, however the village only received town/ mains water every 2-3 days. The vehicle free village is such a nice thing, and it means you get a good work out walking within and between villages, which we needed to do each afternoon to get to the afternoon classes.Read more