Yesterday there was a terrible earthquake in Nepal, with a great deal of damage and deaths in the city of Kathmandu as well as elsewhere.

We visited Kathmandu in 2012. I got very tired of looking at the temples and monuments that the tourist promoters wanted to visit. They were shocked that we didn’t have any interest in the young girl they called the ‘Living Goddess’.

But we loved seeing how the people really lived. At one stage we were on the rooftop of a building, looking across the tangled mess that is Kathmandu.

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These buildings are old and crumbling, even without being shaken about.

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Everywhere you look, there are people sitting on the roof sunning themselves, growing vegetables and flowers in pots, drying their rice.

P1050768compWhat hope would they have in an earthquake?

When I look at the photos of the earthquake damage, there are piles of bricks looking like they never were attached to each other, and sticks of wood all lying about.

No wonder.