Fourth day in Pokhara

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Today again we were at CWH at eight in the morning. The mason man wasn't there yet this time as the cement, sand and bricks weren't available. But they did arrive today. The mason man started to cement up the wall and we witnessed a very unusual way of doing that (he more or less threw it up in the air and hoped that it would stick to the ceiling..), would have tried to do it differently but I'm not a masonman. Couldn't do much about the electrics today. We first had to get a load of new stuff from a shop to replace the old switchboards, powerpoints etc.. Try that without knowledge of the Nepalese possibillities in electrics in a shop where the people helping us didn't speak a word English (and I still don't know the Nepalese words for those things ;-). So we tried it the old fashion way by bringing some examples with us and pointing and talking loud ;-)). At least it worked... and we didn't have to pay for it (was a job for Himalayan Encounters) so we were a bit happy after all that. Did you know that an outside switchbox in Nepal is actually just a wooden box, and not even a straight one too? Well it is. Also discovered that wiring starting as red and black might appear as two white wires at the endpoint, somewhere in the concrete wall(!) the wires are connected so you can never find anything back when it's broken. As a result the wiring was a shocking experience for me, had a few shocks ;-(. In the shop I couldn't find everything I thought I would be needing so might have to find alternatives.

There was not much else we could do today except repairing a leaking waterpipe. The waterpipe turned out to be a mainpipe and it had been leaking for quit some time already, we discovered it was leaking at two previous mended places. Still thinking European style we thought we needed some repair materials, like a socket to put around it or something similar. But no. The method is cutting up an old rubber inner tube and winding that (without using glue!) around the rubber/ plastic tube. Just put a single knot in it and voilá it's fixed (for as long as it lasts) however dodgy...

Tomorrow we will be beginning to dig a trench for the new garden wall. We went into town to buy some games for the children because we found out that they were really bored (except for the mandatory dance practise they did nothing). We bought them a badminton set, a frisbee and a boardgame. After that we worked on some ideas for decorating the classroom. We are thinking of hanging up a map of Nepal and separate pictures of all the children with threads to the map pointing out the place they are from and also let the children make drawings and things of paper and hang them up in the classroom, things like that. Majella, the volunteering coordinator of the projects turned up today and we had dinner with her. Tomorrow we will spending some more time with her. We bought a lot of drinks and candy today just because we felt like it. We also had a few thoughts about getting the kids out of the home, i.e. a sports afternoon and an evening show at Himalyan Encounters headquarters (HEHQ) where they could demonstrate their dances and maybe even play some music.

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Photos

Carrying bricks by hand
No choice but to carry the bricks from the trailer through the kitchen as Didi was cooking. Arrgghhh!

Dodgy job if you ask me!
Note the chunk of cement missing at bottom right of the cement work.