Cafe De Food Land

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The title is purely because we rather liked the name of this mediocre cafe - it bares no other significance than this.

This week has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Two of our beautiful children, Sunita and Sushil were taken without warning to Pokhara. Their family belong to a group called the Maoist, who are currently trying to expand their numbers, but quite literally collecting all Maoist children together. Sunita and Sushil's mother has a history of mental illness and has been in an Indian hospital for 3 years. She was badly beaten by the Nepali army and their father was killed in the same event. So on Wednesday, their mother and her new husband (a Maoist leader) came unexpectedly to Happy Home to take the kids to a Maoist camp near Pokhara.

The whole ordeal was just horrendous to watch, Sunita was just quietly doing as she was told (as usual) in tears and Sushil flinching away from the mother and clinging to everything possible as they tried to forcefully drag him away. He was absolutely distraught and was screaming and kicking as they prized his fingers from the chair, slung him over their shoulders and took him. You could still hear his screaming after they were half way down the road. Not one of the kids got to say goodbye and they were all pretty terrified by what they had just witnessed. It was horrific for everyone.

The week started on a very much lighter tone. We were asked to attend a parents meeting at Temple and got to sing our kids praises for a good half an hour whilst sitting on the floor with a Hindu teacher. During the main service we discovered that one of the male teachers had recently died, so everyone was in floods of tears. We were then asked to place some flowers at the front by the shrine, which was flattering but also very nerve racking as we had no idea if we were meant to bow or do the prayer hands or just walk back. We did look a little awkward, but it was a beautiful service with amazing singing. During prayers that day, Tekmaya (a gorgeous 10 year old) let Clare sing the solo with her for one of the songs. Was fantastic!

The rest of the day was spent preparing for the fundraising party at Satabato swimming pool that evening. The kids decided it was their duty to dress us up for the occasion. It took them a good hour and in the end they settled for "same, same!" - basically identical multicoloured, hippy skirts and identical long sleeved blue tops. They even put the "same, same" finishing touch - identical flowers in our hair. It was sickening... but anything for our kids!

With no idea where we were actually going we, Rosie and Clare left alone with all 20 kids were herded into a tiny tin tuktuk which cost only 100 rupees. This was no mean feat - cramping 22 bodies in a little tuktuk seriously reduces oxygen availability and blood circulation to you lap when you have 4 or 5 sat on you. We were abandoned with our kids standing on the other side of the swimming pool for a couple of hours. Finally, people started arriving and the music started playing - heavy base thumping from giant speakers. There were so many people there - Andreus , Courtney, everyone we knew there. All the kids absolutely loved it and all went crazy. They are all very talented dancers and made us dance with them the entire night. At one point, they were doing a dance routine following Rosie's instructions as she wracked her brain for every tacky western move she could think of. The food was amazing and very plentiful. After a phenomenal sunset, the disco lights were turned on and the party became a blur of colour and people. Everyone had an amazing time. When everyone was sufficiently worn out (except the kids) we decided to head home. This involved squashing 13 people into one 5 seater taxi and 12 in another. Definitely interesting, particularly due to some dodgy driving. We finally made it to bed, ears still ringing.

The Sunday was the kids last exam - science. The books they learn from are more often than not a complete joke. For example, Mingmar was reciting "a fish needs to breath, a fish needs air" over and over again. If A level biology has taught us anything, it's that fish don't breathe and they don't need air. And counter current mechanisms of course, but that's a whole other story.

We were finally able to escape the clutches of Manoze (a clingy, dictator of a principle) and give up our "teaching" duties for good.

We swear the buses are becoming increasingly more squished each time we venture out to Thamel. But we love it! You meet some really interesting people - everyone is so friendly and chatty. Recently, our Thamel days have become so so busy. We have had to resort to "to do lists" and flow charts so that we get everything done. Essentially this is our last chance to organise everything for the rest of the trip, particularly India. Therefore, our perception of our Thamel day being a day off is somewhat misguided. Regardless of this, Thamel is still awesome. We would happily stay here for our entire six months.

The last two times in Thamel we have bumped in to Tenzing (Tibetan Buddhist guy) and co. Although this is probably a bizarre coincidence, suspicions of stalking are a definite possibility! They are are lovely though so we don't mind... too much. Apart from the time we had a romantic night-in planned with chocolate and music. But instead, they dragged us to Reggae once again. Clare without thought airheadedly jumped onto the back of Tenzing's motorbike coasting through Thamel, leaving Rosie in a dark street with a guy called Sunny (who Rosie fancies the pants off anyway so didn't complain too much). To both mums - we are profusely sorry but no promises that we won't do it again.

The second time we heard the fated call of "Clare...Rosie" as walked back from the British embassy, we ended up once again in what can only be described as a bizarre situation. We sat in Tenzing's incredible ornament shop, drinking hot lemon with his short, hairy father watching Animal Planet and poring over an old map discussing how to get nicely lost in rural Nepal.

We have properly engrossed ourselves in the toe-fudge way of life. We spend hours handwashing our limited supply of clothes - the worst are our recycled pants. Moreover, we have already resorted to self-hair cuts. Clare, already accustom to this practice, did a quick trim but Rosie decided to attempt full on layers. We sat on the roof in the pitch black with a tiny pair of nail scissors cutting off large chunks of hair to the kids crys of "not nice becoming". Surprisingly, Rosie's layers turned out to be very successful!

One afternoon, Mr. ACTUAL Slade and his family joined us and the kids in prayers. We had spent the last two days making countless trips to KGH to find out when they would arrive so it was a bit of a surprise when back in Patan we spotted a taxi full of white people and the Slade's jumped out. It was so nice to see them - like a little piece of home.

This week we have had two shocking thunderstorms - massive purple lightening, ground shaking thunder and torrential rain. As we ran down the Thamel streets, it was like having several buckets of water chucked over your head and comments such as "you girls need an umbrella" were distinctly unhelpful.

We have finally sorted out a guide and porter (1000Rs and 500Rs per day through Bishwa's agency). The guide is very nice and speaks good English, plus has done the circuit over 20 times.

We have met with a series of potential guides. The first was too expensive and kept inviting us to stay in his 1 room bedsit in Bhaktipur (never again) and the second...well lets just say we questioned his ability to climb a mountain. This was only confirmed when he told us he had only done 6 short treks with 65 year old ladies.

Damche has been a god send helping us out with all the trekking practicalities. He's great!

So, we had arranged a guide, but we still needed our trekking permits and TIMS card. Bishwa took Clare on his motorbike to the tourism office. This again fueled Clare's love for motorbikes - until a car clipped the front of the bike as they drove down a busy road. It was fine - just a scratch! Meanwhile, Rosie caught the bus to Thamel making a couple of Nepali boyfriends along the way.

We spent Easter Sunday in Thamel - what could be better?! Problem was this was quite literally the one day in Nepal where they didn't have festival. As one guy in Namo Buddha has just informed us "there are 365 days in a year and 1000 festival days in Nepal". So true. Therefore, with no chocolate eggs we resorted to several bars of cheap "chocolate" and Everest beer. We ended up in Reggae bar again surprise, surprise and spent much of the evening talking to an old, psycho drunken Nepali man (the dancing legend from our last blog) who had an overwhelming love ethic. He insisted on given us drunken lectures about "how love is everything" and "choice matters", grasping our hands and leaning way to close to our faces - awkward! Funny thing was the guys said they had never seen him so sober - what?!

Both of us have had tummy bugs this week so have spent many a night awake fighting over the toilet for what we have aptly named ass-peeing.

Plus, we've had no water for 4 days again - black feet, dirty hands and greasy hair. We love it here!

We leave to Besisahar for trekking on Wednesday early morning - apparently the bus journey of death.

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