Mukti Nepal - 8 weeks

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Tuesday morning I took the children to Lucent Kinchin Boarding School, so I could talk to Bijay about extending my Nepali visa. His brother works in the Immigration Department & we arranged to meet with him on Wednesday morning. It was Bijay's wife's birthday & they gave me some tea, sweets & a tikka as part of the celebrations.

In the afternoon Jessica & I spent five hours cleaning out & rearranging the kitchen cupboards, because food is still being stored in the first aid room & we wanted to get it into one area. It took so long because not only was the grime pretty thick, the cleaning products weren't very strong & it a lot of elbow grease was required.

In the evening Camille visited Mukti to say her goodbyes before returning to France on Thursday. She brought a stack of medicines for Goma, which were explained to me so I can translate onto a condensed instructional sheet for Shanti. It was good to see Camille again, but I am sad that she is leaving. I will be in London for five days in late January & am now considering a side trip to Paris for a day or two to catch up with Camille, Isabelle & Monesha.


The most part of Wednesday was spent at the National Dental Hospital waiting for Suraj to have his wires removed. We sat around for ages waiting for the doctor to finish surgery on another patient before it was finally our turn & ten minutes later, the procedure was complete. I have concerns that Suraj's jaw is not symmetrically aligned, but the doctor assures me this is normal & the bone will grow back within six to twelve months, fixing the problem. The remainder of the day I spent downloading photos onto my blog & also managed to finish reading my current book The Kite Runner.


Bijay & I met with his brother for coffee on Thursday, after Wednesday's appointment was cancelled due to him being called away on urgent business. Turns out if I go to Tibet next week when my visa is due to expire, I am entitled to a free thirty day visa upon re-entering Nepal. The same applies when I go to India next month, so the meeting was most worthwhile as it saved me over USD$100- in unnecessary fees that I am sure immigration would not have informed me about had I gone through the regular channels. After the meeting, I went straight to the travel agent & booked my trip to Tibet; I leave early on September 9th.

Upon returning to Mukti, I had a meeting with Goma, Kavita, Jessica & a man who assists with foreigners' adoptions of Nepali children. We discussed the current adoption situation & I discovered what Goma & Kavita had told me the other day is only partially correct, so the email I had drafted earlier to the prospective parent is near useless. The lady rang right in the middle of our talk, asking to speak with me & was obviously quite upset as she'd had a meeting with the adoption people the next day & was missing essential paperwork from Goma. I explained there was nothing I could do right then, that we were actually in the middle of trying to fix her problems & I would send through an email explaining everything as soon as possible. After much discussion, it was decided that she had to complete her file & send it to Nepal before anything further could be done. With the help of the others, I wrote an email explaining the situation & advised I had done all I could & she would have to direct all future correspondence to Goma. I don't mind trying to help out, but the emails back & forth were getting a bit too demanding & I felt like I was being dragged far too deeply into the whole affair. A decision has been made as to what the next step should be & all parties involved have been advised, so I feel it's my time to step back.


Friday was the first day of spring back home & I received some wonderful news; my best friend Sylvia & her boyfriend Kaden have become engaged. It is something she has been waiting for, for a long time & she was so ecstatic she text me the good news at least a dozen times. I had to call home straight away to find out all the details & I made her promise not to get married until I return from overseas.

Jessica & I went into Thamel for our now mandatory Friday night out. We found a little out of the way place that screens DVD's on request, have two for one cocktails from 6-8pm & a fairly extensive menu. A French photographer beat us to the movie choice & we ended up watching part of an Italian revolution film with English subtitles before the power went out. Thamel have load shedding from 7-9:30pm every Friday, so we ate our pizza & pasta by candle light. Afterwards we returned to our little bakery for half price desserts, hot chocolate & a chin wag. A short stroll across the road & we were back in Sam's bar for some alcoholic beverages & a chat with some Nepali men, who turned out to be guides looking for work. After they left, we joined a table of English tourists who had just completed a trek & were celebrating their last night in Nepal. We were joined by their guide, the owner of a British pub in Thamel & a couple of Nepali waiters & ended up leaving when they kicked us out at closing time; seems to be a theme emerging.


Saturday I awoke feeling slightly average from too much beer Friday night. Jessica & a few of the girls went to the British & Japanese libraries, whilst Pradip & I followed later. I borrowed Dead Famous by Ben Elton on Pemas membership & Pradip stayed at the library while the rest of us headed down to the DDC (dairy place) for ice cream. We ran into Anil who was on his way to visit Goma with a friend & chatted for a while. The girls finished their ice creams & returned home, while I headed off to Thamel to obtain tickets for the upcoming Australian Embassy Film Festival Roadshow. Unfortunately all the tickets had been handed out, but I managed to score a couple from the concierge at the Ratisson & another from the waiter at Himalayan Java & both indicated we should just turn up on the night & hope there are spare seats from no shows. I whittled away a couple of hours reading at Himalayan Java, met Jessica, Shanti & Pema at five & headed off to the Russian Cultural Centre to watch Floating Life, the first film of the festival. I spoke to the organizers to explain how I had been messed about with the tickets & to see if there were any more available. I was told there weren't any spare, but to just turn up on the night & non ticket holders would be allowed in ten minutes after the doors opened. We waited around & they let us in shortly afterwards. The movie was a bit art house for me & I think much of it went over Shanti & Pemas heads, but it was the first movie I'd seen in a while, so it was an enjoyable evening.


I spent most of Sunday reading & rang home as it was Fathers Day, but only managed to get through to dads answering machine. Jessica, Shanti & I visited the department store for supplies & ice cream and then in the evening Jessica & I went to see Love Serenade, the second film of the Festival. I am enjoying the small budget Australian movies because they are quirky, a little left of the middle you could say. I probably wouldn't hire these movies back home, so it's nice to see something a bit different than the usual crap Hollywood churns out. It was load shedding night in Panipokhari, so we arrived home, ate dinner & had an early night because there wasn't much else to do.


I managed to complete my first aid medicine list for Shanti on Monday. Mukti is beginning to accumulate a fairly large amount of medicines & like those donated by Camille, some have instructions written in foreign languages. I decided to make a chart listing medical problems (ie headache) with matching medication & dosage (ie panadol). I am trying to get Shanti more involved when the children are sick, so she will know what to do when I am not here. Unfortunately a child died at Mukti in the last couple of years & so there is a tendency for initial panic whenever the children show signs of illness. Most of the problems whilst I've been here are minor ailments like conjunctivitis & colds, but I have purchased a thermometer & told Shanti to monitor any children with high fevers, keep up the fluid intake & if their temperature gets near forty degrees, get them to a doctor.

After four hours on the internet & lots of stair walking, I was glad to get to the screening of Radiance. Jessica had already seen this movie, so I went alone, but I'm glad I went because it was very good; the movies are getting better each day.

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Photos

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Nicolle, Camille, Goma & Jessica, Mukti Nepal

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Jessica, Goma & Camille, Mukti Nepal