Lest you think that I am actually doing real physical work here, think again. No shoveling sand, moving rock, pounding nails. I am getting physical, however, walking up and down some pretty steep ridges many days. And riding on lots of buses that I would really prefer not to be on.

OK then, so what is my job here? I would describe it as “general short-term volunteer dogsbody for the Gorkha Foundation’s school construction program.”

Hmm . . . Maybe something a little more specific? OK, how’s this:

I’m traveling around to the Foundation’s school construction sites – finished projects, under construction and prospective – reviewing and reporting on construction practices, materials selection and implementation problems, and also advising on whether new sites are good matches for our capacities. I’m taking lots of pictures to create a photo archive for the Foundation of many nuts-and-bolts details about sites and practices. I’m sharing some of this information, and my insights, on this blog and in Facebook posts. Hopefully this will help the Foundation in fundraising so we can do more school projects.

I’m also helping with relationship issues, with organizations like: the UN World Food Program (which has a logistics hub just outside Gorkha District and helps us with transport of materials to our sites – cement and bricks for example – reducing the cost to our budget); the Nepal NGO Women for Human Rights (we hope to build the first structure, a birthing center, for their planned Model Village Reconstruction Project in Chhoprak); OLE Nepal (an NGO focused on education and setting up computer labs for schools in the earthquake zone – we are assisting them as they move into the construction of primary schools here, a new venture for them); and working with a World Bank consultant who is here in Nepal to try to break free the $1 billion of reconstruction funds that has been hung up in Kathmandu (we are supplying him with on-the-ground information of real conditions in the earthquake zone).

My days seem to have been incredibly full and varied, as reflected by many of the photos I have been posting to Facebook. However – this is Nepal – there has been a huge amount of time in which nothing seems to be happening. Everybody – foreigners and Nepalese alike – says that this is just “Nepal time,” the unhurried pace at which things get done here (or not!).

This gets me to the final and very important point of my job description: Ceremonial White Guy in long, long meetings, usually accompanying Ganesh Shrestha. In this context I try desperately to understand as much as I can of what is being said in Nepali and generally contribute next to nothing – my Nepali is OK, but not good enough for this. At the end of these meetings I ask myself, “Why did I sit through that?” The universe works in inexplicable ways, so maybe something good comes of my presence.

At this point I want to introduce my two colleagues, the Gorkha Foundation’s full-time volunteers Ganesh Shrestha and Basanta Devkota. These guys live this life seven days a week with no paycheck, getting amazing, effective results in so many ways. Ganesh is a retired contractor, about my age. He is at the center of everything the Gorkha Foundation does here. He travels all over the district – on foot, by bus or jeep – carrying only a cell phone, nothing else, no luggage, maybe a toothbrush. They say that if there is ever a statue honoring Ganesh’s contribution to Gorkha, it will show him with a cell phone to his ear.

Basanta is a young guy who lives in Kathmandu but is from here originally. He has finished his degree, has just taken the exam for his teaching certificate and is devoting a few years to this work – like Ganesh seven days a week and no paycheck. He does a lot of field work for the Foundation: visiting sites, managing logistics for materials delivery, inspecting construction jobs in progress. He was also “Mother Hen” to a group of young volunteer English teachers here for four months from Tacoma, Washington – a role which Basanta relished.

That’s it: full days, changing agendas and schedules (sometimes changing by the hour!), little formal structure – and yet a lot of really good stuff happens.