Days 72 and 73 - Chovar and Kathmandu, Nepal

Day 73 – His.

 Quest offices are a mix of offices, kitchen and bedrooms. The volunteers who work for quest are encouraged to come down to the offices in the weekend and recharge their batteries in the company of their fellow volunteers for a day or two. It is a homely and comfortable spot with soft pillows, good cheer and lots of coffee if you want it. We got up late, had a warm shower and breakfast with Sanju and two girls who had been working in an orphanage.

They have internet there and Patti spent quite a while uploading the blog, reading e-mails and checking facebook. We finally made a move after lunch and chucked ourselves into a taxi Sanju got for us. After more hugs and goodbye scarves we were back at the Shakti and were pleasantly surprised to find the staff here actually remembered us. It was a bit like a homecoming – very odd. So we settled ourselves into our room and I went to pick up our washing. As part of our home stay we were expected to wash our bed linen so I had walked up from Quest last night to drop it off in a laundry near our hotel.

When I got back it was time to attend our group meeting. There are 19 of us – the group is huge and not inclined to listen. The leader had a hell of a time getting the information across as people kept chatting to each other and basically ignoring him. No doubt they will have a lot of questions later. Again they are mostly Australian and girls. There are a few couples, a couple of New Zealanders, a couple of Colombians – who spent most of the meeting looking confused – and an American woman who i fear is best described as having an interesting world view. They seem like a nice group but I strongly suspect we are not going to see much wild life on this trip as I suspect there are quite a lot of squealers amongst us. I have decided to adopt a pragmatic approach as they are only with us for 6 days and then we split into three trips and there will be only 9 of us travelling on through India.

Patti and I are quite tired. It is amazing how much you have to concentrate when you have no English speakers around you and getting back to the hotel has fairly knocked us off our feet. The plan, as far as we are concerned for the rest of the day and for the first day of our new tour is to chill. So we left the group to themselves for the night and we won’t be joining them tomorrow either – they are going to see a couple of temples we have already seen – so, after the meeting, I took the washing off to Quest where I spent half an hour having a coffee and saying more goodbyes. How many goodbyes can you say?

Dinner was a quiet affair, by ourselves, in a sweet little place that served continental food – weeks of Dal Bhat have made me appreciate my home food.

Day 72 – His

Well, this is our last day in Chovar. We were asked to make sure we got to school by nine thirty and when we arrived the headmaster had called an assembly. The school assembly had been suspended because of the building works and only resumed yesterday and today’s was in our honour. It was very sweet. The kids were in neat rows and after they sang the national anthem and done some whole school PE by numbers the vice principal gave a little speech to thank us for what we had done and the head presented us with good luck scarves – a real tradition here – the scarves are cream silk with Nepali words of good fortune woven into them – and little golden trophies with a token of love written on them. If we weren’t standing in front of a couple of hundred people I swear I would have cried. After the thanks and gifts we were called upon to say a few words – Patti’s little speech was great, mine was rubbish and Steve’s was clumsy. But, we were incredibly sweet. Assembly broke up and Patti and Steve went off to teach and I went back to working on the school roof.

At half eleven the school bell rang for a minute and all the kids came running out of the classrooms with their bags on their heads. It turns out they had arranged an earthquake practice drill. Just like we have fire drills they have earthquake drills. Of course, I have never seen such a thing. It was great. Just like a mummery. The kids were clearly loving it as they came out smiling and giggling. After they had assembled the older boys were armed with hard hats and stretchers and went hurrying off in search of the injured. Some of the younger kids had been held back and dressed up in fake blood and rubber wounds. The ‘injured’ kids were rushed to the staging area – doing their best to look injured – and treated to first aid by the teachers. It was truly brilliant and very well done.

The assembly and earthquake drill didn’t leave much more time at school – Nepal’s weekend is a day and a half and starts Friday at one and includes Saturday – So, I went back to cleaning the rubbish up from the front of the school. All week I have had a Nepali guy helping me. I have no idea who he is. He just turns up and works quietly beside me for the day and then disappears. Nobody really speaks to him and I have begun to worry that he isn’t really there and just a figment of my imagination. But he works hard for a figment. So we worked on clearing up until ‘coffee girl’ came up and invited Patti, Steve and me for a good by tea. – I think she wants to make sure Steve comes to say goodbye – Today is certainly going to be a day of goodbyes – personally, I hate goodbyes. But, I guess they have to be done.

We said our final school goodbyes – which took half an hour – and went to ‘coffee girl’s’ coffee shop and swigged back our tea – which was lovely, she had added some secret ingredient X that she wouldn’t tells us, but it certainly made a difference to the taste – so, we finished as quickly as was polite so we could leave her and Steve alone. It turned out Steve changed his plans so he could spend more time with her – young love is so sweet – and a little thoughtless.

As we walked back I realised I had forgotten the ladder. All week we had been using a long wooden ladder we had borrowed from the village. It was waiting by the wall for me like an accusation. The only problem with the ladder is that it was heavy. Stupidly heavy and I wasn’t looking forward to dragging it up the hill to the village, particularly up a set of steps that leads into the village. A set of steep stone stairs I had begun to have a deep dislike of – I think they hated me too as I was always knackered when I got to the top and I could swear I heard them laughing every time I climbed them. As luck would have it one of the village boys was still at the school and offered to help me – i could have kissed him. Nepal is full of examples of these little kindnesses. We could certainly learn something from them in England.

We had done most of our packing last night – actually, we had randomly stuffed our belongings into our backpacks as we expected to leave at two. We, in fact, sat around until three – Nepali time at play.

There is nothing worse than sitting around waiting to leave. The family were most sad we were leaving – particularly Patti as she and Camilla have formed a real friendship – and when the taxi finally arrived we were treated to tears, hugs, hard boiled eggs and a blessing. It seems it’s a Nepal tradition to give a departing guest a hard boiled egg and press a deep red mashed vegetable into their forehead. I have no idea what the vegetable is but it stains the skin purple red in a thumb sized spot on the forehead. Patti had wanted one of these since we got here – there are plenty of holy men on the streets of Kathmandu who will give you one for a few rupees but Patti wanted a real one. Well. She got her wish.