Jumping right in—engineering students dance in Nepal

BCIT Civil Engineering students Ryan Kroeker and Casey von Hahn spend most of their time in Burnaby, British Columbia, studying with the BCIT School of Construction and the Environment. This summer, however, they’re in Kathmandu, Nepal. Ryan and Casey are working as Earthquake Engineering Interns, helping the area become more earthquake resilient. They are blogging about their experience. To find more of their stories, click on Casey’s byline above or this link

NSET Day
June 18th, 2017

Pandey - BCIT - Civil Engineering - Nepal
Left to right Ryan Kroeker Dr Bishnu Pandey Casey von Hahn Photo taken the morning of the celebration of NSET Day

Even though we have only been in Kathmandu for a few weeks now, we have already had our second work celebration (Not complaining!). Nepal Earthquake Safety Communities (NSET), the sister company to Earthquake Safety Solutions (ESS – where we work) had its 24th anniversary. The celebration was planned for weeks and the event consisted of a full day of celebratory performances, speeches, poems, dances, and mounds upon mounds of food.

The day started off with an enormous photograph of all 200+ employees followed by a short social gathering. After meeting up with our professor Bishnu Pandey, he encouraged us to be the first foreigners to perform at NSET and represent BCIT by performing a ‘Canadian’ dance piece. Even though we had been standing out in the sun sweating in our traditional Nepali suits called Daura-Suruwal, we were up for the challenge. Over the next 4 hours, we created and practiced our dance while outdoors the informal events of the day took place, consisting of poetry about earthquakes and Nepali history.

Nepal - Civil engineering students - Casey - Ryan
Casey L Ryan R Dressed in our Nepali attire waiting to perform our dance

Once the evening set, our dance was prepared (more or less) and we were ready to join the main event. We got to hear about how NSET was initiated, watch awards get handed out, see traditional Nepali Dancing, eat about 5 plates of food, and finally perform our dance.

Our performance consisted of a mashup of music, from Cher’s Believe all the way to Cotton Eye Joe. To our pleasant surprise the dance was received well and it went viral in the office!

After the event we realised how lucky we are to be learning about a whole new construction process and philosophy on earthquake design. To see so many people involved with the awareness and training of earthquake disaster response and preparedness is like nothing compared to at home.

Here’s a video of our dance, in case you’re curious:

 

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