After the earthquake of 25 April 2015, volunteers from the Deerwalk Social Welfare Network, staff of Deerwalk Services and students and faculty of the Deerwalk Institute of Technology worked across the districts around Kathmandu. At the end of most days someone wrote up what had happened. The 23 reports collected here run from 30 April to 29 May 2015 and are published close to the way they were written, so the record stays in the voice of the people who were there.
The work moved between three kinds of task. The first was cash handed over in person, to households that had lost a family member or a home, in Dhading, Nuwakot, Sindhupalchowk and Kathmandu. The second was supplies bought locally and carried to villages that had received nothing: tarpaulins, 30 kg sacks of rice, salt, cooking oil, medicines, water purification and clothing. The third was labour and company, from clearing brick and stone by hand at the Kaalmochan temple site in Thapathali to running games, drawing and film shows for children living in makeshift camps.
The reports also record what the volunteers could not do. Requests for tents ran far past the 100 tarpaulins they had in stock. Medicines on a list could not all be found, even at a hospital pharmacy. Several numbered days were never written up, and those gaps are left as they are.
