Last week INF hosted a visit from a group of young Australians, and Phil traveled down to Nepalgunj in the southwest of the country to help the team there plan and manage the visit.

We took them to see an area where INF is just starting a new community development project. Although quite close to Nepalgunj, it lies in a bend of a large river that floods badly during monsoon, meaning that flood waters arrive from three sides at once, completely cutting them off from the outside world.

The only way across the river was on a large barge that is punted to-and-fro by hand. The boat is used by thousands of people each day who collect firewood in the nearby forest to sell in the town. On each journey it can carry a hundred or so people and bikes, but we wanted to get two vehicles across, which was a different matter entirely!

Despite a previous agreement, it took the boatmen about two hours to get the first one across, and then another hour for the second. The return journey took a further two hours. I was very grateful for an extremely patient group, who graciously accepted that this a good example of the problems that can be faced by development organisations working in Nepal!

We spent some time in one community where most of the people did not have rights to the land they were living on, there were no toilets or proper health care and access to markets was very difficult – problems enough without the fact that their village was underwater for several months of the year. INF will try help them work together as a community to identify the causes of the issues they face and agree what they, the community, can do about them.

Another project the group visited was INF’s Drug Awareness and Rehabilitation Centre (DARC) who work in Nepalgunj to raise awareness about drug addiction and HIV, and work with drug addicts to help them reduce the harm they do to themselves and hopefully give up drugs. We spent some time with current and previous clients and their families. The group were all impressed with the standard of care that is given, and amazed at the honesty of all involved, and their willingness to talk to a big group of strangers about what must have been very painful aspects of their lives.