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Published: August 14th 2006
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Bijay's dogs, Kathmandu, Nepal Well, what a week it has been. After getting a 'quick fix' of civilization in Hong Kong, the clock has once again been wound back in Nepal. the facilities here are more advanced that I'd expected, with fast internet, running water & even a flushing western toilet - beauty.
Tuesday I arrived VERY early in Dehli, got a few hours of restless sleep & caught a plane straight to Kathmandu. Immigration was no problem, just long lines & my bag even arrived in one piece, although somebody decided to souvenir my Aussie flag address tag, so I must replace it before my next flight or goodness knows where my stuff will end up.
Goma (the mother at Mukti Nepal) & Pema (one of the children) met me at the airport with a lovely bunch of flowers. They both looked delighted to see me & I don't think Pema left my side the whole time we waited for Goma to fetch the car. Unfortunately the car decided not to start, so the ever resourceful Goma tracked down a group of wanna be mechanics who pottered around & finally had success after what felt like forever, but was probably only
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Bijay's house, Kathmandu, Nepal half an hour.
If I had known the deathride ahead to Muklti would be so scary, I probably wouldn't have wished for the car to start at all. I don't know which scared me most - the traffic in general, Goma's driving skills, or the combination of rain, dodgy wipers & constant windscreen fogging. Thankfully I think we were only averaging speeds of around 30km/hour. Anything faster & my eyes would have been shut or I would have been walking!
Arriving at Mukti Nepal (Salvation Nepal) was another experience in itself. I was pleasantly surprised to discover I would not be living in a mud hut for the next eleven weeks & in fact the accommodation is quite good. Mukti occupies a two storey house consisting of about twelve rooms, one of which is my new room. There are five bedrooms, two toilets (one on each level), a kitchen, plus food storage/spare room, an office, lounge/study/play area & a prayer room, which is the least used, yet largest room in the building. After unpacking my gear, I was introduced to the children, observed evening prayer (they are Hindu's), ate dinner & crashed, as it had been a long
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Bijay's house, Kathmandu, Nepal twenty four hours from Hong Kong.
Wednesday saw me discover the first of many cultural differences - meal times. The Nepali day consists of four meals, firstly tea (breakfast) about 7-8am, breakfast (lunch) between 9:30-11am depending on if it is a school day, tea (afternoon tea) sometime in the afternoon & dinner (tea) somewhere between 7:30-8:30 depending on the length of evening prayer. Although the food is quite basic, it would still be easy to eat too much as the first and third meals consist of milk tea & bread with either butter or jam spread. I have been trying to explain to Krishna (the cook) that I only need small helpings & nothing to eat with my afternoon tea, but I don't think the message is getting through just yet. I think that is due to the fact I am finishing my meals, but only because I do not want to appear rude by wasting food.
Joy Lama is my contact in Kathmandu for the HELP organisation who sent me here & she stopped by to meet & greet me today. She has been a social worker in Nepal for many years & is here if
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Pradip, Manisha, Nicolle & Isabelle at Swayambhunath temple, Kathmandu, Nepal I run into any difficulties & need help. Her english is great & I enjoyed immensely our conversation, she really put my mind at ease by telling me to take a few days to watch & settle in before getting stuck into too much work. After Pema tried throwing me straight into teaching english this morning, I certainly feel more comfortable in saying 'no', so I can learn how things are done first before doing them myself.
Fortunately there is internet access at Mukti - unfortunately it is VERY slow, so unless this can be remedied, it looks like I will be heading off to the local internet cafe for all my communication.
Thursday was a LONG day indeed because there was no school due to a festival or some such thing. I am in desperated need of some teaching tips & materials as I feel like I am drowning in my task & not being at all effective. There is hope though, as I have sent out an SOS to a few family members & friends for help.
Again, Friday was another holiday for most ot the children, however I hibernated in my room
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View from Swayambhunath temple, Kathmandu, Nepal for much of the day resting. Not only was yesterday tiring due to being occupied with the children all day, but I am not sleeping well. I am still getting used to the mattress & all the new night time noises. There are many dogs that roam the neighbourhood & at night they fight & stir up all of the guard dogs. I am considering using earplugs to block out all of their noise, as I don't think poisoning them all is a viable option.
Saturday morning Goma, Isabelle, Manisha, Pradip & I visited Swayambhunath Temple, which is a famous Buddhist Temple known for it's large monkey population. Although it's large in size & the first Nepali temple I've visited, unfortunately I am over the whole temple thing from month long tour of Asia. The most interesting part of the visit was an overpriced art shop selling lovely paintings of various Kathmandu scenes. I contemplated purchasing one, but figured I would get a better deal & be helping the local economy more if I bought from somewhere less tourist oriented.
After playing a while with the children & a two hour stint at Cyber (the internet shop),
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Manisha & Goma at Swayambhunath temple, Kathmandu, Nepal I accompanied Goma to drop Isabelle & Manisha home. I must admit, my fist impression of the famous tourist area Thamel wasn't much, but it is the low season & I really only saw one street, so I'll have to make an effort to go & explore it more thoroughly in the upcoming weeks.
On Sunday, Goma attempted to show me around a bit on the return journey from running some errands. We headed up New Road, which is a busy shopping street that goes through to Durbar Square. We drove around Durbar Square a little until we could go no further & had to turn back, which is where the adventure began. After stopping briefly to re-energise with a mixed fruit Lassie (a dairy beverage), we jumped back into the care & got all of ten metres when the engine failed. Not so much of a problem ordinarily, except we were in the middle of a busy roundabout, blocking all the traffic! With horns blaring from every direction, the traffic police came to our rescue, pushed the car to the side & attempted to fix the problem. After much tinkering & a fuel top up, the problem
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Swayambhunath temple, Kathmandu, Nepal was not rectified, so we abandoned ship & caught a taxi home. Somehow the car was taken to the garage, where it spent the next few days being fixed. I still have no idea what the problem was & I don't think Goma does either, but the car is now running, so that is the most important thing.
Monday I met with the Pricipal of the local Primary School. Her husband Bijay is a good friend of Goma's & has told me his wife can arrange for the purchase of teaching resources at discounted prices through their account. Although my list is quite extensive, I came away from the meeting excited about my purchases. Not only will these aides make my life easier, the children will be much more productive & hopefully learn more during my stay.
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