Day 68 - Chovar, Nepal

Day 68 – Hers.

I was nervous this morning about giving my Class 10 maths lesson – but it went really well....However, the maths teacher who had asked me to do the lesson so that he could observe me wasn’t there. (Sanju laughed when I told him later. ‘That is typical Nepal,’ he said.)  The head teacher had not realised that it had been arranged for me to take the class and came in a few minutes after the bell – presumably to take the class himself.  He watched for a while and then left to do something else, so I must have passed muster.  Hopefully the maths teacher won’t insist I take another lesson for him to observe – I really don’t need the stress....

My English lessons went well, too.  Class 9 loved their assignment to describe the ‘perfect’ wife or husband.  Their responses were quite interesting – most marriages in Nepal are arranged marriages, but they nearly all mentioned that a husband or wife should love his/her partner and most mentioned the idea of respect. (Of course, all the husbands had to be handsome and the wives beautiful.)

The children at the school are very well disciplined.  They stand as I enter the room, say ‘good morning, ma’am’ and wait for me to ask them to sit.  They stand if I ask them to read or answer a question.  At the end of the lesson, they say ‘thank you’ and wait for me to leave the room before they leave.  It feels quite Victorian – but makes classroom management a doddle....

I wore my tikka spot to school today – I checked with one of the English-speaking teachers that it only means that I am married.  One of the female teachers commented on it and said it made me look beautiful.  A quite different idea to me – that a bright red spot on my forehead would make me look beautiful.....

Steve, Rob and I had a traditional milky tea at breaktime at a little tea shop down from the school.  When we had finished for the day, we had a soft drink at another tea shop (that belongs to Sanju’s brother) in the village square.  People recognise us now – we are beginning to feel like locals.  It is quite strange, but nice, they way that we are accepted within the community.  One of the teachers has invited us for dinner on Thursday – I think Camala will be upset as it is our last night here, but we have accepted as it adds to our experience to eat in someone else’s home – and Robin is a really nice guy.

 

Day 68 – His.

 

Well, today I actually started to do some work on the school – or at least that’s the way Patti puts it. I guess all the co-ordination and planning and getting people to change their minds about demolishing the school isn’t really work – it sure felt like it at the time. But, even so I know what she means. So today I started with one of the upper classrooms. I have no idea how long it has been since that particular classroom has been opened let alone cleaned. We removed 27 25kg bags of bird poop from the floor. I say we because someone had thoughtfully arranged for one of the builders from the new building they are constructing to help me – Which is just as well as it would have taken me two days by myself to scrape up that much poop. We stacked it all along one wall of the school and one of the teachers asked if we could use it as fertilizer. Of course there are whole mountains of guano in southern America and fertilizer is exactly what they use it for – so  I said yes. He went away looking most thoughtful.

The original plan had been to remove a section of the roof but when we finally got up to it the thing proved so hard to remove, I figured – what the hell leave it there and just repair the holes – which my helper and I did.

I find that doing such work – which is the work of untouchables here has greatly confused the locals. On the one had because I am old – ish, European and knowledgeable – they think of me as upper caste – but when I was lugging bricks about covered in bird poop, that is, I was covered in bird poop, not the bricks – I was the lowest caste possible – consequently they really weren’t sure how they should address me.

I went for a tea with Patti and Steve and the old guy who owned the tea shop just kept glowering at me – clearly having the same problems and most unhappy about it. I saw him relax a little as I left. The caste system is something they still take quite seriously here – particularly the older generation.

Along with the broken detritus of a running school and a small mountain of poop, we had to remove five pigeon nests – in itself not a problem but these were occupied by birds ranging from tiny squabs to almost fledglings. We carried them carefully into the nearby forest and can only hope their parents find them. I sort of doubt they will but what can you do – I wasn’t going to foster them. Dinner was a much quieter affair than last night – i think people are settling into a routine – which, of course, will end in a few days as we are due to leave. But a little routine has formed none the less and things are not quite as exciting for the host family as they once were. In addition, Steve has been feeling a little poorly and he certainly seemed to be struggling through dinner. Oh incidentally – it seems Steve has found himself a Nepali girl – well at least he has been out for coffee with a village girl and he plans to meet her again. Is this wedding bells I hear – certainly not in Steve’s mind – but I do wonder about the Nepali girl. Ah well, time will tell and tomorrow is another day.

Day 67 - Chovar, Nepal

Day 67 – His.

 

Okay so I was nervous about the meeting this morning. I was supposed to meet the Quest and school bigwigs and spend ages convincing them that the idea of saving the old building and renovating it instead of demolishing it was a good idea. But, like so many of these things the idea of it was worse than the reality. It turns out most of them had heard of the idea on the grapevine and though it was great. They took next to no convincing. The meeting lasted for well over two hours but most of it was how can we do this. It was so cool – really I had nothing to be nervous about. So we went off in a jolly mood to buy some bits and pieces for the roof with the rest of the Big wigs chatting about organising a village meeting on Friday to get the villagers involved too. Nothing around here happens without tons of discussion and the whole village being involved. It’s kind of cool – but a little intimidating.

For the few bits of roofing materials i needed we went back up to Kirtipur. It turns out that builder’s merchants are the same the world over. Rough, a little arrogant and respond well to being shouted at. At least that’s how it is in England and a similar approach worked well here too. Sanju went with me – to be honest I am not sure why as I think I did most of the talking – but it was fun to have him around. Patti, i think is in her element. Just before dinner ‘the girls’ came round and they took Patti off, in fits of giggles, to dress her up in traditional Newari dress – I think it was our host mother’s wedding dress. When she appeared at the door she looked lovely – I am sort of jealous. Not that I want to wear a Sari particularly – but rather she is really fitting in here and seems to be having a whale of a time. I am glad – I don’t think her last volunteer project was a lot of fun for her and this one most certainly seems to be.

The whole atmosphere of our home stay house was most party like today. The family have bought a dining room set and the arrival was something akin to the arrival of a new baby. We all helped carry it up the stairs and set it up and ooohed and aaahed over it. It was so cute and dinner was certainly a more comfortable – well for us- affair than squatting on the floor. I wonder if the neighbours will talk about them – probably will – a dining table seems to be a pretty big deal around here.

But given the dressing up, the table and the rum they were pouring out for everybody from a big brass ewer the whole evening was a lot of fun. Our Host mother declared in mime and tears that she was really going to miss us – and we have only been here a week – she is such a sweetheart.

 

Day 67 – Hers.

My lessons were fun this morning.  Year 10  - in groups – made up lists of things that volunteers could do to help the school.  We then discussed how to attract volunteers to Nepal – preparation for the next two projects.  I gave Year 9 a lesson on eating a meal, English style.  They then laid the table and demonstrated how to use a knife and fork to eat.  Their homework is to write instructions for eating a meal Nepali style.  They seemed to enjoy it – we all laughed a lot.

I then went back to my sorting of the library.  The old woman who keeps everyone on their toes at the school – I have no idea what her actual job is – She sits in the staff office/library and glares at anyone not doing what they should.  She also rings the bell at the beginning of classes. – seemed quite disapproving of our efforts to tidy the library so far.  There had been several years worth of newspapers piled on three of the four tables, making it difficult to actually use the library at all, so on Friday, Steve and I had piled them into neat piles at the edge of the room, out of the way.  However, what I took to be disapproval may have just been some other emotion – because today she arranged to have all the newspapers sold for recycling, benefitting the school to a tune of 2000 rupees.  Perhaps she was just waiting for someone to take any sort of interest in the place.  It seems I can take it too far though – Steve and I had rearranged the desks, grouping them to make them a bit more less formal for the library.  This morning, the old woman indicated that I needed to help her put the desks back into rows.   Ooops – that told us.....

As Rob mentioned, this afternoon was quite a party.  In the process of emptying a cupboard that had to be moved to make room for the new dining room table, Camilla came across her wedding sari.  She and two of her friends took me off to the bedroom and dressed me for a wedding.  I had the little red blouse, full sari – yards of red fabric, embroidered with gold, wrapped and folded around me and then sewn into place – bangles, necklace, red lipstick, suitable hairstyle and tikka spot on my forehead.  We then went up to the balcony, took photographs and enacted parts of the wedding ceremony.  When we went back downstairs to change, Camilla told me that I must keep the tikka spot.  It feels a bit weird – and I don’t really know what it means so I’m not sure what to do about it.  It’s stayed on for this evening anyway....

Dinner was another delicious combination of rice, lentils, chicken and spice.  We sat at the new dining room table – it does make it much easier to eat.....but I think some of the cultural experience is lost.  I’m glad they didn’t have it when we first arrived.

 

 

Day 66 - Chovar and Kirtipur, Nepal

Day 66 – Hers.

We had a bit of a lie in today as there is no school on a Saturday.  We went upstairs to the balcony around 9:00 to find a village girl helping Camilla prepare a mountain of some kale-like vegetable for the festival that they had foraged from the woods around the village.  The girl spoke very good English – she was the first person in Nepal to notice that my accent is American rather than English. 

Previously when we have volunteered, we have had to leave the host family’s house for the weekend to give them some peace so, even though we weren’t told to do so, we had decided to all three go out for the day to let Camilla and the family recover a bit from our invasion.  There was some sort of miscommunication about breakfast – it seemed that Camilla thought we were eating elsewhere since we were going out for the day.  She made us coffee but still hadn’t offered anything else by 10:00, so we packed up some of the fig and date biscuits and some water and set off.  I spread out my scarf under a large tree down the hill a ways from the village and we had an impromptu picnic to give us the energy to walk the rest of the way into Kirtipur.  Forty-five minutes later, we stopped at a garden cafe in town for coffee and momos.  We then went shopping for silly things – hair conditioner for me, coloured pencils and plastic cutlery for school (I am giving a lesson on how to eat Western-style.), biscuits and coffee for Camilla, a football and shower gel for Steve and a haircut and some electrical bits for Rob.  Steve was convinced by some young local boys to christen the football whilst we waited for Rob to have his haircut.  I sat on the steps of a little corner shop and attracted quite a bit of attention from passers by.  One young man who was doing a Master’s degree in English literature at the local university sat and chatted for a while – asking me if I thought his English was good enough to study for a PhD in England.  How on earth should I know?????

We wandered back to Chobar, had another cup of coffee in Sanju’s brother’s cafe and arrived home at about 3:30.  We still felt the family needed a bit of space so we went to our respective rooms at that point until we were called upstairs for yet another coffee.  Camilla was cooking a dish of buffalo meat, tomatoes and spices that smelled delicious. She asked me if I was going to eat – and I said yes, thinking she meant at dinner time.  She then brought out huge plates of wheat chips, the buffalo stew and grilled buffalo for both Rob and me – Yemen came in and asked if we were enjoying our ‘snack’.  Snack? Oh no – that meant we still had to have another plate with rice later on.  I think I am putting back on all the weight I lost on the trek.  It is very difficult not to eat too much here.

Sanju came over for a while – I think he gets bored when he’s not assisting volunteers and helped me to read the Nepali maths book from which I am preparing Monday’s lesson.  I practised my English table manners lesson on Camilla – with Sanju looking on like a mother hen – and, as darkness fell, we forced down the second portion of buffalo stew and then did the washing up.  The family seem amused at our insistence to help with chores – we quite often have a tussle over the plates.  But Camilla has enough to do – and it all adds to the cultural experience – squatting on the back balcony, swishing uneaten rice into the drain with a little broom made of straw.....

 

Day 66 – His

 

It’s always a shame when you meet people who try to cheat you. It’s not too bad when they try to cheat you and don’t get away with it but pretty dreadful when they cheat you and succeed. As it happens the guy who tried to cheat me didn’t get away with it and I think he was pretty embarrassed by the whole affair. The man I am talking about is a hairdresser in Kirtipur. As we had a day with – to be honest – not that much to do I decided to get my hair cut. Having a haircut in a foreign country is a fraught experience. For a start you have to explain what you want – no mean task when you don’t speak the language. Then, you have to be able to put up with whatever hairstyle you get. That bit is not so difficult if you have two months left to travel as whatever cut you get will be grown out by the time you get home. So, with these thoughts in mind i stepped into a local barber’s in the village and had a haircut. It was pretty much as I expected – definitely a fraught experience - with the guy telling me all the time that i looked 60 and needed to colour my hair or have a facial scrub – he actually pulled out a bottle of apri facial scrub – i nearly burst out laughing. For most of my life I have looked younger than I am and people have asked me how come i looked so young and I have always replied ‘ a nectarine every day and apri facial scrub.’

So, having this barber in the arse end of nowhere pull out a bottle of the stuff and wave it front of me felt a bit like I was being haunted by my old jokes. Luckily I am British, a man and over school age. What this means is that when I go to the barber’s what i want is some surly old guy to run a set of clippers over my head, snip a few of the long hairs from my nostrils, grunt and stick his hand out for the tenner this usually costs. Oddly enough 50 years of that had prepared me quite well for the Nepali barber who wanted to wax my head and massage my eyebrows. After I shook of his attempts at hair colour, massage, facial, shave and god knows what else – i think he would have sucked my toes clean if i had asked him – I managed to get off the chair and ask him how much. Now, those who are more worldly wise than I was this afternoon will already have noticed the mistake. I should have asked him how much before I sat down.

But I didn’t and I paid the price. 500 rupees he said. I looked him straight in the eye and said – no, that’s not right and you know it isn’t.

After some argument we settled on 150 rupees – i figured the facial he half gave me was worth the extra so paid and left a sadder but wiser man.

Such a shame.

Outside I found Patti chatting to a would be doctor and Steve playing football with a bunch of street kids. We gathered ourselves together and walked back to the village.

Day 65 - Chovar, Nepal

Day 65 – His

 

Today is a half day at the school and a payday before a festival. This might not seem so significant but what it means is everybody disappears pretty sharpish to make sure their wages have been paid in and to get some money to buy things for the festival. So come twelve the school was a ghost town – i swear you could hear the wind whistling between the buildings and I am certain I saw a tumble weed going across the playground.

This had a knock on effect that the little report I have been preparing needed finishing quickly so the powers that be could have it in time for their day off so they could read through it for the great meeting that is due on Sunday. I finished it – which i was mildly surprised about and handed the headmaster his copy which he promptly put in a drawer. He is clearly not one of those that takes his work home with him – good for him.

Everybody at the house had different plans for the afternoon – Steve was going off with the young boy of the house to buy some computer games, Patti was going with a gang of ‘girls’ clothes shopping and I was going to visit our host father’s factory. The guy casts bronze statues for temples. We are not talking little statues here. The things he makes are 6-8 feet tall.

This kind of threw Sanju – the guy from our volunteer organisation – he is sort of assigned to look after us and he is a bit of a mother hen. He’s a really nice guy but used to dealing with younger volunteers than us and he sort of flaps about everytime we are doing something, clearly worried that we are going to get ourselves into trouble. He really doesn’t like it when we all go in different directions as he is unsure what to do for best – bless him.

So we set off for the factory – which is in a small town only an hour’s walk or so and the ‘girls’ were following behind. The girls consisted of Patti, our host mother and one of her friends. They were walking the same way but a bit more slowly as they had brought our mother’s baby with them (he was strapped to our host mother’s back) and Sanju kept turning round to see if they were all right. Eventually we reached the factory which was quite small and had five guys sitting on the floor creating their newest sculpture in wax. Our host father proudly showed us round his operation and I have to say I was mildly jealous – I could just see what I could do with this set up in England – I wonder if Patti will go for our own copper smelting operation in our backyard – probably not but i can dream. After the Factory we set off into the town and had a coffee and walked back to the village by a different route. Sanju chattered all the time – almost endlessly, as the place is pretty hilly it was quite a challenge for him but he never stopped talking. When he was out of breath from climbing the hills he just stopped and took a rest – chatting all the time – It was amazing.

I finally got rid of him by ordering him off and went to his brother’s cafe for a quiet coffee and a little read before I was due back. This turned out to be impossible. The brother wanted to chat and we were joined by three nieces (about 10 years old) who sat in the small cafe and plaited plastic bags into ropes as they chatted in Nepali and English. After half an hour of this I left but not before the brother had given me three guava (a kind of small green fruit that looks like a lime and tastes like a cross between an apple and a banana – curious fruit) from his garden tree for a late lunch. I strolled around for a bit more as Patti wasn’t due back from her shopping trip for an hour or so and the house was locked. I finally ended up squatting outside the house and had no sooner pulled out my book than Patti arrived back.

 

Day 65 – Hers.

My lessons went well this morning – and I observed the maths teacher teach class 10 a lesson on Indices that would be difficult for the A level kids at Canterbury High.  He then asked me to take a lesson next week for him to observe.....daunting or what.....

As Rob mentioned, I had a very ‘girly’ afternoon – and an amazing cultural experience.  Camilla, her friend, the baby and I walked into Kirtipur to go to a dress shop owned by another friend.  I had admired one of Camilla’s tunic-like tops and wanted to buy one – not an overly blingy, sparkly one, just a printed fabric one that I might actually wear in England.  Well....things aren’t done that way here....  The shop was very small – shelves of fabrics and do-it-yourself sari kits from floor to ceiling along two walls, two women at sewing machines along the third – and 5 women already seated around on the floor, taking things from the shelves and spreading them out to look at the designs.  We drank a cup of milky tea and chatted for about 20 minutes before anyone mentioned why we had come – then another 8-10 do-it-yourself sari kits were taken down and spread out – all the women commenting on which would be most suitable for me.  It was a little overwhelming – and I had to be quite firm about ‘no sparkles’.  In the end we all agreed on a turquoise fabric with grey embroidery in a quite simple pattern.  I then discovered that you couldn’t get just the tunic top – you had to also have the co-ordinating trousers and scarf that came in the pack.  Okay – whatever.  They measured me from top to bottom and poked at my stomach, laughing because it seems they couldn’t believe I had children.  They then discussed what length this creation should be and what neckline, back shape and sleeve length would be best – and a few other details that passed me by.  I collect my outfit on Tuesday – I’m not at all certain what I have ended up with, but the experience was worth it!  We had another cup of tea and I entertained the baby while Camilla and her friend also ordered outfits for the festival.  Camilla’s friend bought two – one a very rich red with more gold beads than....well, a huge number of them in a swirling floral pattern.  I don’t know what that one must have cost....  Camilla was tempted by a second one – the first one they had suggested for me – tan with blue embroidery and little cubic zirconium sparkles scattered all over.  It was pretty – but I know she had spent her budget on the one she had already ordered.  I think she decided it wasn’t worth the argument when she got home!

We left the shop in high spirits and then went to a children’s ready-to-wear shop where Camilla’s friend bought a top for her daughter – and the baby wet himself (like China, no nappies here) so Camilla ended up borrowing money from her friend to buy the baby 3 pairs of underwear, a pair of trousers and a very cute jacket for winter.  (We then had to stop at Dad’s factory again on the way home so she could get money to pay back her friend.  Dad did not look pleased, but opened his wallet with a sigh and gave her the extra money.)  We went to a little cafe for momo – delicious: buffalo meat, I think – and stopped at a ‘supermarket’ for biscuits before making the long trek uphill home.  I was okay – Camilla and her friend, chatting all the way – Camilla with the baby on her back in a sling – struggled a bit, stopping to rest several times.  (Camilla asked me if I wanted to get a taxi.... I think she actually wanted one and to blame it on me – I think it would have been quite difficult to find one halfway between two tiny villages anyway...)

We then rested until dinner – I had an invigorating (cold) shower – no hot water here and we ate dal bhat with some particularly yummy vegetable dish, then did the washing up (Camilla looks wiped out this evening.) and retired to our room to read, write up the day and then crash....

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.

Days 62 and 63 - Chovar village, Nepal

Day 62 – His

 

This is our second induction day at Quest volunteers. It began pretty leisurely at the Shanker with a hotel breakfast and a get up late. We were due to be collected late so no rush. Sure the guy arrived pretty much on time – well for Nepalese time. We have been told time and time again about Nepalese time. It is anything from 10 minutes to one hour after anytime you set. So as we had organised a 10 o’clock pick up we were sort of expecting the pick up to be around 11. As it happens it was only half ten. We were shuttled to our new hotel by the Quest guys and rushed out to the quest main office before we had time to take in much apart from the fact that our new digs were pretty hostel like.

The day at Quest was pretty much like yesterday  - a long day reading through their induction manual and having basic Nepalese lessons to try and give us some preparation for the total immersion we were expecting as part of our volunteer experience. We actually left the Quest offices around four that afternoon a bit unsure what we had done in the day. Some of the strangest things seem to take time. We walked back to our new hotel and little more than have dinner and fall asleep.

 

Day 63 – His

 

This morning we were due to be picked up at 11. So we showered and went out for breakfast. My greatest moments are not in the morning, especially when i haven’t had coffee. Patti, on the other hand, says this is true of her but it is in fact not. She was collected, calm and cool as she led us through the maze of streets that is Thamel and directed us unerringly to a small cafe we had discovered some weeks back for a breakfast of Lassi, a drinking yoghurt, coffee and toast. Half an hour later I was feeling very much more alive and Patti led us back through the maze to our hotel. I seriously wonder how she does this. My mind was just a fog. Easy prey to any street trader. Luckily, that time in the morning there aren’t that many of them and we got back without having to purchase a cashmere scarf, homemade violin or painting of Vishnu.

We packed in good time and were waiting in the street for our pickup for about half an hour – enough time to fend off at least ten offers from taxi drivers and rickshaw riders to take us on a tour. The guys arrived pretty much on time – i am beginning to have doubts about this Nepali time thing and an hour or so later we met our host family. What can one say about the village we are in?  If you were to imagine what a Nepalese mountain village would be like draw it out and have it printed in a children’s book then covered it with sugar you would have a good idea of this place. It is almost a cliché of itself. There is a tiny square that most of the houses cluster around with a temple right in the middle. At the edge of the village is a monastery – that is now a nunnery and gangs of village dogs, ducks and children run around the little streets happily playing and barking. There is a fair amount of litter but generally it is the clean, sweet, kindly place that everybody thinks is the ideal spot for children to grow up in.

Everybody here seems to regard everybody else as some kind of relative. Mostly it is sister or brother but because of my age it seems brother is inappropriate so given the choice between grandfather rob and uncle rob they seem to have settled on uncle rob and I am not unhappy with that.

Settling in with the host family was a quick affair of introducing us and then whisking us off to the school where most of our volunteer work is going to be. They have a handy spot for Patti – teacher. And that is no real surprise. I think they are a little more unsure of what to do with me. At first they had me look over the construction site that is the new school building. But, seriously there is very little for me to do there as they are still at the stage of forming the steelwork and pouring the concrete. It was finally decided that i would do some work to help renovate the dilapidated building they are currently in. So tomorrow the plan is to go round the building and work up some kind of schedule of works and then try and get some of the work done. Patti on the other hand gave such a brilliant lesson for a lesson she was in fact supposed to be just observing that she has become something of a legend around the school already and the vice principal is supposed to be team teaching a class with her tomorrow but he is clearly in awe of her already. This should certainly be an interesting few days.

 

Day 63 – Hers.

 

In addition, to mum, dad and two sons (one aged 14 who speaks good English and translates everything for everyone and one aged 16 months who is a lively little spark – into everything), there is also another volunteer staying with our host family.  Steve is a twenty-one year old Australian who is teaching English - without any training or experience, poor soul – so when he asked me to start off his lesson with class 5 (Actually he had already asked another teacher to take them  - he finds them a handful!), I jumped right in.  It was great fun – I hope my lessons with classes 9 and 10 tomorrow are as good. - - I feel a bit of pressure of expectation now....

Sanju from Quest lives in the village and was pleased to be home after 5 days of seeing to things in Kathmandu.  He showed us around the village and took us to his family’s cafe for coffee.  He then took us to tour the Buddhist nunnery where a very shy and embarrassed young nun gave me some flowers – ‘Flowers for you,’ she said, and then scampered away giggling with her friend.  It was very sweet.

We settled into our new home and went up onto the balcony where we chatted with Steve and tried to keep the little one from hurting himself as he played with the most dangerous things he could find and tried to squeeze through the balcony railings.  Eventually we were joined by the whole family, chatting and laughing so loudly that Sanju came back over from his house across the square to see what the commotion was.  Mum (Her name is something like Camilla) and her younger sister said that they wanted to know what cream I use on my face.  I showed them my little pot of birthday Olay – and in the end gave it to them....They now want to see if they can get it in Nepal.  Mum also told me (via Yeman, her son) that if she could get her husband to do the cooking, she would like me to give her English lessons.   Meanwhile, Rob was plied with homemade ‘rice wine’ and in return entertained all the ‘lads’ with descriptions of his various experiments and inventions – I think he is now going to try to teach them to make transducers or something.

After a fabulous dinner – on the floor of the kitchen with emergency lighting, eating with just your right hand - of dal bhat and spiced chicken, we chatted a bit more – and watched some local musicians march by 3 times circling the temple for the festival - and then headed to bed.  I’ve got lessons to plan and resources to make – so I’ll be up for a while yet it seems. 

Day 61 - Kathmandu, Nepal

Day 61 – Hers.

We awoke when we felt like it and had a lovely, leisurely breakfast in what must have originally been the palace ballroom.  We were then collected by Devendra at 9:30 and taken over to the Quest Volunteers’ office for our first day of orientation.  We learned about the aims of the project, what is expected of us as volunteers and where exactly we are going.  The village is called Chopra and is atop one of the ridges outside Kathmandu, 8-10 kilometres away. We saw photos of our host family and the village – then settled down for 4 hours of Nepalese lessons, broken only by a lunch of dal bhat eaten with our hands – but at a table, not on the floor as will be expected with our host family.

We returned to the Hotel Shanker about 3:30 – we walked from the Quest office – it was probably quicker than a taxi given the traffic, then had a swim to wash off the dust and exhaust fumes – and sat in the walled garden oasis, sipping coffee and preparing ourselves for what is likely to be 2+ weeks of hard work.

 

Day 61 – His.

 

Swimming, lazing by the pool and dinner of hamburger and soup. Not much, but a superb day when you consider what we have up and coming. My hikers' cough stubbornly refuses to go anywhere and i would worry about it if it weren’t for the fact that just about every hiker we have met who comes down from the mountains has exactly the same cough. The streets are full of tired faces hacking just like me. It is almost a badge of honour. We cough and nod at each other as we pass in the street. A sort of mutual recognition. Well, it saves me having to buy a badge for my rucksack. Tomorrow we move to our new hotel before going onto our host family the next day so internet access is going to be a bit fraught Gin so the chances are the next updates are going to be a few weeks from now when we get back from the village. A different kind of adventure than Everest or Chitwan – but one that is going to need a similar amount of grit to see through I feel!