116 days

The air temperature 16 degrees Celsius (-2 during the night), barometric pressure 614hPa - stable pressure drift, air humidity 28%, position North 33° 3,86, East 77° 13,73, 4200m.nm, wind speed max 10m/s.

Today it is exactly 116 days since the first members of Surya team arrived in Kargyak this year. Altogether over that time there were 4 members of our civic association, 24 volunteers and at least the same amount of passers-by participating in this project at different stages. Thanks to all these, those who were helping last year and people in the Czech Republic the construction is coming to its closing stages now.

Over the last week we successfully glazed both interior and exterior windows. Right today, after months of negotiations, have the villagers Pangey and Norbu delivered carved entrance door and a number of windows. In the rear room has been installed a wood and yak's dung-burning stove and all classrooms were equipped with newly painted blackboards. With Lobsang's help we are finalizing painting of the walls and after that we just have to paint the new entrance door, thoroughly clean everything up and the school can be moved from the temporary location to a new building.

The rapid development of the construction has apparently impressed the villagers, who every day come in groups to inspect the new school. Notably it is not just people from Kargyak but also our neighbouring villages distant a couple of hours walk. On Thursday we were delighted to be invited to a 'picnic' held by the local mother association Ama Tsopa. We were served sweet milk, milk tea, salty tea, chang, butter tramps, potatoes and momos (a local festive food slightly resembling our filled dumplings). The local mothers and grandmothers have thanked us for the school construction and everything that we do for the local community whilst tying katakts around our necks. I believe we don't have to elaborate any further on how touching it was!

Today Permi and Bara left the village but arrived Martin who is going to be teaching over the winter along with Pyru. Our current team consists also of Honza, Eva, Ondra and Lada. In order to make the deadline of opening the school planned for the end of this week we have recently had to work until 8pm everyday. Luckily everyone here is hard working and we get a big support from the oldest kids, who got holidays. In the meantime Marketa and Yiga have decided to make the best use of school holidays by setting off for a trip.

The weather has been kind to us. For the most of the last week we had sunshine. Bara's sheep/goats and yaks remain in the village and thus we regularly get milk and yogurt. The villagers are moving the harvest of barley closer to their homes, where grains will be crushed by yaks in the following weeks.

That's it for now. More news from Kargyak will come again in a week's time. Thank you for your support.

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