An update at last!

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Nameste

This entry should have been sent over 2 weeks ago, but I did not manage to get to an internet connection before leaving Kathmandu, and since I returned I have had a nasty cough(pollution induced) and been on medication and resting.
So read on as I will add the next entry at the end.
It is almost 7 weeks since I arrived, but it feels as if I have been here for so much longer. The in - country training really keeps us all very busy. If we are not in ‘school’ all day for language learning we have half a days language and the other half sessions run by VSO relevant to our work here. However, the end is nearly upon us. Next week sees the group decamp to ‘our country home’! The language school is taking us all off to stay with families in a village about an hour from Kathmandu, just past Bhaktapur. It’s called Chaukot, just off the main road to Tibet and China! The change will be something else. Squat loos here we come! It will also be so much quieter, at least traffic wise. The family I am staying with has 7 members and one cow. Others of the group have several cows and goats as well as family members. That is if I can remember the Nepali to ask the right questions.
That has been by far the most difficult thing about being here and possibly one of the most difficult things I have ever been asked to do! I now have greater empathy with all those children I have come across who find learning difficult. There was one session we had where I felt totally stressed because I did not know where to begin or what I was doing in fact. I almost got up and walked out of the room just to escape the pressure and my embarrassment. The problem is wherever I go in Kathmandu and try to ask things in Nepali they always answer in English! Once I am at work I may need to use it more. We are supposed to be starting work around the 12th May. We are advised the first few months is spent observing and listening to find how things are done and what they are doing already, so no pressure apart from getting to know everybody and hopefully make a positive impression. More detail later once I am actually there.
I have now got somewhere to live. A one bedroom ground floor flat in a brand new house. The rooms are a good size especially the living room and kitchen there are 2 shower rooms, one en-suite! The landlord and his family live above and are really nice. They are involved with cultural exchanges from Australia and are hosting a party, to which I am invited, for visiting Australians the Tuesday after I am due to move in. So real Nepali life is about to begin at last. Hotel living is OK, but after so many weeks it begins to lose its appeal. I long to be able cook a simple pasta dish with salad and garlic bread! I am going to have a decent internet service put in at the flat so I should have time to work out how to put photographs onto the blog. Free internet sites are either limited in time or very slow dial- up connection plus I have to carry the laptop to wherever and back.
It is getting really hot - up into the low 30’s and predicted to get even hotter. A water shortage is also predicted so we will go from electricity load sharing to water sharing! All drinking water is bottled and to have the large 20lt bottles costs less than £1 and it is delivered. And then, in a relatively short time the monsoon season will be upon us and I will need my wellies! So much more to learn and experience in this amazing country. Until the next time.
Nameste.

p.s. My team came second at the last quiz night at Sal’s Pizza!!!



Saturday 17th May

Since I wrote the above the village stay is over and I have 'started'work.
My family were really nice and tried very hard with me over my Nepali. The three children all spoke English to varying levels, but the hajur baah, hajur amaa and amaa could not.(that's grandad,grandmother and mother) However they thought if they spoke very loudly to my face I would be able to understand them. If only they had spoken slowly then I might have had a better chance of understanding them.
The two youngest children, Sujan(boy aged 16) and Sujani(girl aged 14) both went to fee paying schools so their English was very good. They do all their lessons in English, apart from Nepali ofcourse! Sashi, 20, was at college training to be a teacher of English and her English was not as good as the other two. She went through the Government school system where all lessons are in Nepali and only 1 hour a day of English. This difference is featured a lot in the press here at the moment, stressing the widening of the gap of the oppurtunities available to the young of Nepal. With the Maoists the majority party in the new assembly you get the feeling people are expecting a lot to change, but it will take a lot of money and time to change the education system as far as I can tell from what little I have seen so far.
Back to Chaukot. The day strted at about 5am when I was woken by hajur amaa walking around the house chanting and then a cup of sweet black tea and a roti or biscuits at 6.30. I then got up and had a shower in the indoor shower room. The house is very new and only half built! The ground floor consited of 3 bedrooms, a sitting room/ hajur baah's bedroom, shower room and separate charpi(squat loo) both with running water-only cold! The next floor was an open terrace with two rooms off it. It will eventually become the second floor with more rooms and the the terrace and Temple will be on top of that. One of the small rooms was the 'kitchen', the other a store room. The kitchen comprised of two small cupboards and 3 tiny cooking points. Two were clay wood burning stoves and the other a metal one. Therefore you could only cook with 3 things at any one time. We also ate in the kitchen. We sat on blocks of wood approxamately 12''x4''x2''. The 2'' being the height of the block! I became quite good at getting up and down and sitting crossed legged to eat. Eating consisted of 'lunch' at 9am with dhaal baat(rice and lentils and veg. or bean curry) then in the afternoon about 2 there was 'tiffin', a plate of nibbles like cold veg. curry and dried flake rice. The evening meal was at 7pm and again it was dhaal baat etc. It was this for 8 days, however I only had tiffin once as we had language lessons during the day and we would fill up on the crisps and biscuits we had brought with us!
The family had several fields spread around the village, growin wheat and potatoes mainly and then rice after the potato harvest. I went with Sujani and her mother one afternon to dig potaoes. The mother was cutting grass for the cow and goat and filled a large whicker basket that she carried on her back with a cloth strap over her forhead and then she put an almost full sack of potaoes on top of the grass. She then proceeded to climb up the terraces back to the house. there were girls as young as 12 and elderly women carrying similar weights. Some men did do some carrying but not many! the father of my family was in Dubai working as a cook. He has been away about 4 years and is hoping to come home for their big festival of Dessai and then Diwali in October.
He is obviously working to pay for the house and the school fees! The night before we left the village gave us a farewell party, with traditonal dancing and music and speeches! then on the morning we left we had garlands, tikka's, flowers, friut and more speeches! They were so sad to see us g, but the general feeling all of us was, although the experience of Nepali village life was great, we were all looking forward to getting back to Kathmandu. In the evening we went to an Italian Restaurant and had pasta or pizza!!
This has been a very long entry for you to read so I will end here. My next entry will be soon and I will tell you about starting work and school visits and moving to my own place!
(Cold has gone and treating the cough)
Nameste

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