Rocking and pounding for hours along a rubble-strewn road that looks more like a mountain goat trail, the Canadian Red Cross mobile medical team is on the move. Four times a week, a doctor, nurse and translator with the Canadian field hospital in Dhunche, Nepal, load heavy metal trunks filled with medical supplies and travel to surrounding villages along earthquake-ravaged roads.
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In a half-constructed classroom open to the sky, about 65 Nepalese students laugh, wave their arms and carefully mimic the gestures of a young woman in a Red Cross and Red Crescent vest.
On a misty, pre-monsoon morning at the Canadian Red Cross field hospital, a colourful line-up is forming of elderly Nepalese women in traditional embroideries and heavy brass earrings, crying children, and a few proud, wiry men.
Tucked in her mother’s lap, two-year-old Sandya Tamang watches other children build blocks, count wooden beads, and tussle over stuffed toys.
It’s Sandya’s first day at the play space created by the Canadian Red Cross for children affected by the Nepal earthquakes.
Shortly before her first child was due, Diki Dolma trekked for days across mountain trails devastated by the Nepal earthquakes to reach the Canadian Red Cross field hospital in Dhunche.
Fortunately, the roads reopened within a week of the earthquake and we were able to begin transporting supplies by truck. The team moved quickly to set up camp, assist the local medical staff with their workload and begin mobile clinics on foot to reach otherwise inaccessible communities around Dhunche.
Dhunche is a remote village located high in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal, several hours away from Kathmandu. This is where a team of Canadian aid workers have set up tents and medical equipment, part of the Canadian Red Cross mobile field hospital, where they can provide medical care.
As the relief operation continues in areas of central Nepal devastated by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, hundreds of thousands of families face the prospect of another night in the open air, fearful of returning to their homes due to aftershocks.
In this setting, access to drinking water is limited access and there are sanitation challenges to overcome.