I'm listening to an old Swedish band singing in my head phones during the 5 hour long ride in the mountains of Nepal from Kathmandu to Gorham. I think the lyrics are a perfect match to the ETC team's soul. Maybe all of us working as humanitarian volunteers can recognize ourselves in this song.

"Oh your heart is always full of love babe
And you gave me lots of love today babe
Will you also keep the world in mind
Tell me what you did for all mankind

To give the world some love today babe
Everybody in this world has to do a whole lot more
Than love the one they spend a lifetime looking for
You just can't keep your love in a cozy little shell
Got to love the one you know and a whole darn world as well"

You can listen to it here on YouTube

It rocks, just like the team!

Internet is now up here in Gorkha as well, to provide the much needed service to the sub-OSOCC UNDAC/OCHA office here (On-site Operations Coordination Centre, United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination/United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs).

As always, it's really good team work with the different actors in the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC), consisting this time of Nethope and Ericsson Response.

The other day, while driving around in Kathmandu to get supplies, a new 7.1 Magnitude earthquake hit Nepal. I have never experienced anything like it. We had to stop the car and we had to grab hold of something just to feel safe standing up. The ground was moving several minutes after the quake. Fortunately we were in a very open space, quite far from anything that could fall on us. Total chaos followed in the city as everyone went out on the streets, and once again many people decided to stay under tarp in the middle of the street or in parks, rather than going back to their houses. A quite powerful aftershock hit during the night, and several people decided to sleep in a tent outside the hotel, even though the hotel had been secured.

Coming back to the long ride to Kathmandu from Gorkha. It takes some 4 hours on incredibly bad roads. We need to re-group, re-pack and then head out again to spread the love (internet) of the ETC.

See you out there!

Martin Falebrand, Ericsson Response, deployed as ETC Technical Specialist