Okhaldunga: a remarkably remote part of Nepal

Okhaldhunga District in eastern Nepal is densely mountainous and sparsely populated.

In the centre of the district administration is a large grinding stone for crushing grains. Okhal means “grinding stone” but there are other crops than grain, such as tea and coffee and citrus fruits. In the tourist areas there are rivers, springs, and waterfalls – an ideal place for white-water rafting.

Away from the tourist areas, along narrow dusty unsealed roads, is the village of Nawalpur beside a river. Abandoning the vehicle on one side of the river, my team and I cross a suspension bridge to the hillside. Up the hill and along a goat track is a secondary school. Although it is a Saturday when we arrive, the community, celebrating The Day of Learning, awaits us. The whole community is not present. A male teacher died the day before due to a motorcycle accident and many are at his funeral. The roads are dangerous when dry, hell when under construction, and murderous when wet.

The school has received funding from the American Government’s Department of Labor. The School Safety initiative aimed to renovate the school to make it child friendly, such that children would turn up. Many were enrolled but most had portering duties, lugging local goods for their communities up the mountain side, so children rarely attended school. That was before the School Safety initiative renovated classrooms, installed a skylight in one to provide additional sunlight, built a latrine, added a pump and tap for drinking water, levelled the school ground, built a retaining wall, and provided rubbish bins. Perched high on the mountain, overlooking the river, it was a beautiful sight, where once it was neglected, dim, and dark.

Rain was forecast. And rain it did. At first a drizzle, making the roads wet. Heavier rain set in, turning the road into a slippery quagmire – for almost all of the seven hours to Kathmandu. But worse was to come. Almost for the three hours before the capital of Kathmandu, in the dark of night, a thick impenetrable fog obscured everything – everything: from the side of the mountain to the edge of the road that dropped into an abyss. 

Buses and motor cycles are most at risk, but many accidents go unreported in remote areas. Although road construction has commenced on the main east-west highway from Kathmandu to India, and city streets are undergoing widening during a phased implementation, the United Nations reported that over 1,700 people died in road crashes in Nepal in 2009-2010 (The Guardian, www.guardian.co.uk, August 3, 2012). The World Health Organization (WHO), in its Global Burden of Disease (2012), reported that road traffic accidents are one of the fastest-growing “epidemics” in south-east Asia, increasing fourfold in the past decade. Nepal has constructed about 7,000 kilometres of roads across the nation in the past decade, most with the aid of donor countries. However, half the population is without access to safer “all-weather” roads, according to the World Bank.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).