Day 64 - Chovar / Chobar, Nepal

Day 64 – Hers.

I got up at 8 and woke Rob in time for breakfast at 8:45.  Breakfast was another huge plate of dal bhat – neither Rob nor I could finish our portions and Camilla (This is undoubtedly not really her name, but it’s something like that....) was afraid we didn’t like it.... I think we managed to explain that a gigantic plate full of lentils, curry and rice – though delicious – was more than we could eat at any time, never mind breakfast.....

Steve, Rob and I went into school – Rob to put together a schedule of works and Steve and I to teach our classes.  My classes went well – and Steve said that my suggestions helped his to go better – so it was quite successful all in all.  Steve and I also started sorting the ‘library’ which has a large number of donated books, both Nepali and English, that seem to have been just chucked on the shelves up to a decade ago and are now collecting dust.  I am hoping that if it is sorted and clean, the kids – and maybe the teachers - might be able to use it.  There are at least a decade’s worth of newspapers as well – I’m not sure what to do with them.  Apparently, the school must keep anything it spends money on, so the newspapers can’t be thrown out.  I wonder if we could make papier mache furniture out of them.....

We had a cup of coffee in Sanju’s brother’s cafe for lunch and after school, returned home where we were offered all sorts of things by the neighbours – crunchy wheat flakes, curried potatoes, etc. etc.  Camilla seemed a bit upset by this – we found out later that they don’t get on with the neighbours.  I helped Camilla to make coffee for everyone – the first time she has let me into the kitchen – and she went out and bought doughnuts.  It was lovely – but honestly, the amount of food we are expected to eat is just crazy....

We sat on the balcony overlooking the village square, chatting, planning lessons, playing with the kitten (I’ll leave Rob to explain that one...) and watching the baby until nearly dinner time when Camilla brought out a less alcoholic rice drink she makes – that was delicious – and the inevitable dal bhat, this time with an aubergine curry.  I gave Camilla an English lesson at her request – she remembered quite a bit of it later on.  I think her husband was amused, but also impressed.  Even when Yerfen went off to play on his computer, we all managed to communicate in a mixture of broken Nepali, broken English and gestures.

 

Day 64 – His

Chovar, the little village we are in is on the top of the hill just north of Kathmandu and despite being only 15 km from the place it is amazingly isolated and very villagy – i know that’s not a real word. Now when I signed up to do volunteer work here i was supposed to be doing some kind of building project – but really it turns out there is no building project – so to a certain extent i have been making my own. The school where Patti is working is a community school. That means something different here than it does in England – what it means here is that the entire village got together and physically built the school house. Our host father still has a scar on his foot from when he dropped a rock on it – he was showing us this tonight. So, they all feel a certain emotional involvement in the place. The school is currently having a new building built to house most of the students and the plan had been to pull the old building down. Due to some confusion I was asked to prepare a plan to save and renovate the old building. This has caused something of a stir. Now i find I have several of the village worthies and the school headmaster backing a plan by me to save the place. It’s a little intimidating if i am honest. We have several meetings planned to present the proposal and try and get a workable scheme together to save the building and renovate it at zero cost to the village – it is causing some quite heated argument. All good fun. We continued the argument over dinner. Incidentally it wasn’t the only argument we had. We discovered today that our host mother can’t stand her neighbours.

It was a bit of an accidental discovery. When we got back after work the neighbour’s cat had been tied to the fence and was yapping most forlornly. Steve – our fellow volunteer – is a bit of a soft heart and climbed over the fence into the neighbour’s house and ‘rescued’ it. That is he untied it and brought it back with him. Bear in mind this is four stories up. I can barely go near the rickety balcony railings let alone climb over them edge along to the next house and bring back a cat.

Still he did and we fed it fig biscuits and gave it water until the neighbours returned and found their cat missing.

Steve gave them what he thought was a winning smile and apologised. The old woman who lived next door – she is a real shrew as it happens – then spent half an hour yelling at us in Nepali – I have no idea what she was saying but it soon became clear – she was bumming cigarettes. We bought her off with a couple and she returned with bowls of food for us. Steve accepted them and wolfed them down. Patti and I had a taste until we caught sight of our host mother – it was at this point we realised all was not well.

Being a not very brave guy at the best of times sort of fellow I tactfully (or not) put my bowel down and went to help our host family’s son fly his kite for an hour. By the time I returned the food was gone, the cat had been returned and Steve was still eating under the wrathful watch of our host mother – she was not pleased and kept muttering something about young men. I think she will forgive Steve eventually. I wonder what it was all about? My guess is i’ll never know – but at least i know enough to avoid the shrew next door – which seems enough.

Anyway, jollity soon returned and we sat around chatting and eating our dinner until it was time for bed. Unusually tonight the electricity has stayed on – which is good as we can recharge the computer.