Mukti Nepal - Week 6 | Travel Blog

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August 21st 2006

Published: September 16th 2006

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Children at Mukti Nepal, Panipokhari, Nepal

Tuesday Goma, Kabita & I had discussions about building a shelter in the backyard. The Mukti house is situated on quite a large block, but unfortunately the back area is overgrown with weeds & there is a lot of rubble that has been dumped out there by previous tenants. We want to make an area where the children can play outdoors whatever the weather, as they are currently confined to the driveway, the rooftop or inside if it is wet, which being monsoon season is currently for most afternoons. Goma has a quote to concrete the area & erect an open shed for a cost of USD$1600-, which seems reasonable considering the size of the yard. I raised a few concerns, namely that the building is not owned by Mukti, however Goma assures me she has a two year signed lease agreement & the owner has already given permission for her to make the improvements. I have decided to take some photos & send an email out to friends of Mukti, requesting donations for the project & see what sort of response we receive. It would be fantastic to achieve something so significant during my stay here, something the children can

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Children at Mukti Nepal, Panipokhari, Nepal

use every day.

On Wednesday I completed & sent out my group email with details about Mukti's proposed shelter project. I am quite excited about the project & am curious as to what sort of feedback we get from people. I think the most time consuming part of it all so far has been transposing email addresses from the visitors' book into Outlook. Most of the information has been written by Gomas sister Deepa & her handwriting very difficult to interpret, so I can only imagine how many returned emails we will receive due to incorrect addresses.

I've finally started getting photos onto my travel blog & unfortunately the process is a bit more long winded than anticipated. First dud pictures need to be culled & keepers need to be upright, named & resized to reduce the upload time. After logging onto the travel blog website you have to transpose the name, select the file & finally load onto the relevant entry. I suspect the process will quicken as I become more proficient, but so much is reliant on internet speed, which varies here from hour to hour. I renamed all my photos at Mukti, spent a

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Children at Mukti Nepal, Panipokhari, Nepal

couple hours at Cyber downloading & writing journal entries, then the most frustrating thing happened; the internet crashed! Ordinarily this would not be so much of a problem, except today I had been writing my journal directly onto the net, so I lost a couple of pages worth of entries - bugga. That will teach me to save my work more often & I think from now on I will just cut & paste from a word document, that way I can work offline more.

I had a very frustrating day with the computer on Thursday. After getting to the stage where I was ready to begin downloading all my 'mini' photos, I'd decided it was prudent to do a backup before beginning the process. The discs I'd purchased last week from the stationery shop turned out to be no good, so I decided to fork out the extra dough & buy good quality rewritable discs. I purchased two Sony RW discs from the department store, only to discover the first cover was empty & I couldn't erase information from the other disc, so now I have to return to the store & try again tomorrow -aaargh

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Children at Mukti Nepal, Panipokhari, Nepal

I spent the most part of Friday on the computer at Mukti deleting photos. I couldn't figure out why it was running so slowly until I discovered the photo section. There were about 500 photos stored on the hard drive, only each one had ten copies saved in other areas, so I went through & cleaned it all up. Fingers crossed it has freed up some memory & the computer will work more efficiently from now on.

In the afternoon I met with a group & visited the Supporting Helpless Child Development Organization, which is another local orphanage based in Lazimpat. Dhruba had been trying to get me to visit this orphanage for a few weeks, so I could see the difference between it & Mukti. There are about twenty children living in a much smaller house than Mukti & the 'mother' is a teacher who runs the shelter using her own wages, plus that of her four sons. They currently have no outside funding & our group visited to give clothes & toys that Jill, a KEEP volunteer from Scotland had brought. We were also there to get information from the mother about the operation & determine

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Goma & Nicolle at proposed shelter area, Mukti Nepal, Panipokhari, Nepal

if assistance could be obtained from aid organizations to benefit the children. It was a very interesting trip for me, because although it was obvious their living conditions were much worse than at Mukti, the children were still very happy. Their manners were impeccable & they waited patiently for the bags of gifts to be opened & displayed before being allowed to play with their new toys.

In the evening I had dinner with Sam (the English volunteer) to celebrate reaching the halfway mark of my stay at Mukti. We went to an Italian restaurant called Fire & Ice in Thamel, who reputedly do the best pizza in Nepal. The pizzas only came in one size, big, so I ordered a Calzone, only it turned out to be just as big, only folded in half & stuffed with filling. It was too big to finish, but tasted fantastic & I washed it down with a beer. Afterwards we went to Sam's Bar for a few more drinks. The atmosphere was great & I could have stayed a lot longer, but wasn't sure what time transport ran to in Kathmandu & didn't feel much like walking home in the dark.

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Pradip & Goma at proposed shelter area, Mukti Nepal, Panipokhari, Nepal

I walked Sam back to his hotel & continued onto the Tempo pick up area, only to find the roads almost completely deserted & it wasn't even midnight! The only vehicle in sight was thankfully a taxi, so I woke the driver up, returned to Mukti, jumped the fence, woke up Pradip to let me in & crashed. After five & a half weeks, I finally had my first night out on the town & it was great, a little early for me, but great fun.

With the kids having no school, a Saturday sleep in was just about out of the question. I tossed & turned until a little after eight, then got up & spent some time on the computer with Anjali, going through her emails. The computer was running faster, so it looks like all my hard work was worth the effort after all.

I was due to have lunch with Simon, a new HELP volunteer from Australia. He has recently commenced a teaching position in a small village near Bhaktapur, which is about twenty minutes drive from Kathmandu. Unfortunately there was a strike on & so barely any public transport was running &

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Supporting Helpless Child Development Organisation, Lazimpat, Nepal

anything that was, was chokkas. Fortunately Dhruba had run into a couple of the Mukti kids at the library, given them a lift home, saw me waiting on the roadside & offered me a lift to Thamel. What a lifesaver, I would have been late if I'd walked & there was no way for me to contact Simon in time if I was going to be a no show, so I had to go. Sam was returning to his hotel as Dhruba dropped me off, so he decided to join us for lunch. Simon arrived right on time, even though he had walked from Bhaktapur! Due to the strike, there was no other way for him to get into Kathmandu either, it must have taken him hours, but he insisted it was a lovely walk - madman… We lunched at the coffee shop attached to the Lhasa Guest House. I still don’t know the name, but it’s an easy meeting spot, they have good food & THE best coffee in Thamel, no in the whole of Kathmandu I think.

There was still no public transport running afterwards, so I walked back to Mukti, it only took me a little

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Supporting Helpless Child Development Organisation, Lazimpat, Nepal

over half an hour. Upon arriving back, I met our new Aussie volunteer Jessica. She has come to Mukti through a local organization called Hope & Home and will be staying for one month. Jessica is nineteen & has been teaching English in China for a few months, but due to some internal politics didn't really enjoy her time there. Originally from Mackay in Queensland, she finished a fast track degree at Bond University on the Gold Coast & plans to move to Melbourne & undertake further study upon her return to Australia. I'm not sure what her first impressions of me are though, being starved for conversation I didn't stop talking for hours.

On a side note, I discovered the reason for today's strikes. It seems that a man was hit & killed by a bus in Bhaktapur yesterday. Obviously this is a tragedy in itself, but the real horror of the story was that the bus hit him & his infant son; the man who takes the bus fare got off, picked up the uninjured child & the bus reversed back over the man until he was dead. The reason for this is because the bus driver

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Supporting Helpless Child Development Organisation, Lazimpat, Nepal

would have been forced to pay all medical costs, loss of income etc for the rest of this mans life, which could run into hundreds of thousands of rupees. Under current Nepali law, if the person is killed, a one off payment of less than twenty thousand rupees (AUD$400-) must be paid to the victims family as compensation. Apparently this sort of manslaughter is now quite common in Nepal, so people were protesting on the street to change this ridiculous law & stop more unnecessary deaths occurring.

Sunday morning saw yet another strike on in Kathmandu, the busses are not running & so the children cannot get to school. This strike is due to a twenty percent rise in fuel cost, which apparently the government had promised would not happen. It seems the local petroleum company is losing billions of rupee every day & to reduce this loss have increased their prices, but because such a sharp rise happened overnight everybody is up in arms.

Suraj's checkup at the National Dental Hospital was about the only thing that went smoothly today. The doctor was happy with his progress & thinks the wires can be removed next week.

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Supporting Helpless Child Development Organisation, Lazimpat, Nepal

I think the strikes affected everything because the internet was useless, I couldn't download attachments & gave up after three hours of frustration. Jessica & I took a few of the children to the library to pass some time, forgetting that it is closed on Sunday's & due to the strikes, the Japanese library was closed because nobody could get to work.

This striking business is so foreign & frustrating to me. I understand why people are upset, petrol prices have been going up & up all over the world at an accelerated rate for the past few years. The problem is every time there's a strike, it disrupts everyone (which I realize is the point), every thing just comes to a complete halt; life simply stops! No wonder this country is in such a mess, when people happily burn tyres, yell, shout & clash with police every few days, it's like a spoilt child trying to get it's own way by throwing a tantrum. I mentioned to Jessica that it would have been an interesting experiment if I'd noted which days the children did & did not go to school over the course of my stay. With holidays,

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Dawa Sherpa's visit to Mukti Nepal

strikes, exams & the like, I honestly think it would average one day on, one day off; now at that rate, how are they expected to learn even a fraction of what is required for a decent education? OK, I'll get off my soapbox & back onto my journal writing now, just had to vent some frustrations.

Although the libraries were closed, on the way home we ran into Dhruba, who took us to meet Bill. Bill is a middle aged American who moved to Kathmandu from Los Angeles a few years ago. Originally from New York, Bill was formerly a travel agent back in the states & has an agency still in Los Angeles. He has travelled the world extensively & has settled into semi-retired life here (I think), after falling in love with Nepal & his current project is opening a take away pizza restaurant. Jessica & I spent a few hours chatting with Bill while the kids watched new release movies on his big screen colour television. We then took a walk to where Anjali & Pradip go to tuition, just to check out where it is located in relation to Mukti.

Shanti was

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Dawa Sherpa's visit to Mukti Nepal

sad again on Monday morning & I can't figure out what is wrong; perhaps depression. Neither she, Krishna or Goma get paid for the work they do at Mukti & I think I might suggest to Goma that both Shanti & Krishna should get a monthly allowance, just so they don't have to ask anytime they need to buy something. Living here permanently without receiving any recompense for your efforts would be quite discouraging, I think even a small, regular payment would validate their efforts & give them a little independence.

Much of the afternoon was spent working on a report with Kabita for The Global Fund for Women. The group had given a grant to Mukti, which Goma used to fund programs in rural villages aimed at educating women & girls about people trafficking & prostitution rings. They wanted to know exactly how the money was spent, who it benefited & whether the project was worthwhile.

Late in the afternoon, we had a visit from a famous Nepali movie 'villain' called Dawa Sherpa. Goma had read an article about him a few days prior & learnt that after a very privileged early childhood, he had essentially been

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Dawa Sherpa's visit to Mukti Nepal

orphaned & lived on the streets much of his teenage life. The article mentioned he was interested in helping orphaned children & as Goma knew the journalist who'd written the story, she made a few calls & invited Dawa to visit Mukti. I had no idea what to expect as the photograph included in the article showed a very strange looking character. There was the multitude of piercings, heavy jewellery & odd buzz cut complete with a bleached halo & the letter 'H' on top, just like a helicopter landing pad. The man himself was quite different than what his picture portrayed. He listened to Goma intently about Mukti & watched the children's traditional dancing display until a power outage put an end to the music. His English was very good & when I thanked him for taking the time to visit us, he actually said it should be him thanking people like me who come to Nepal to help the orphaned children. I was amazed, I didn't expect somebody so famous to be so humble.

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