Advertisement
Published: October 18th 2008
Edit Blog Post
So here is finally my next entry to you all. Last week, due to the ongoing festival, we decided to delay the rest of our orientation until the end of the festival since most places we were planning on visiting were going to be closed. So since that also meant that we couldn't start our volunteer placements, we had nothing to do. Myself and 5 other ladies decided it would be a good opportunity to go for a short trek so that we could get all this travel stuff out of the way before we start working that way we can focus on our work once it began rather than wonder "oh...when am I going to get a break from work to go on a trek!". Anyway we headed out to Pokhara to do a 4 day trek up to Poon Hill (yes....I know....). This is at the base of the Anapurna region so it offered amazing views of the ranges there. I'm not going to lie, this wasn't easy but it was a ton of fun. We had an amazing guide who was half Tibetan and half Indian who was super charming and helpful and fun, as well as two
porters who in my eyes were basically Supermen. We stayed in Tea Houses along the trails and there was amazing food at each place. Half way through our trip we realized that Snicker Rolls (and other deep fried chocolate bars) are not the super food we required for our long days of uphill trekking so we had to cut back on those luxuries. The pictures will not do the actual views justice so imagine everything like a million times more amazing than the pictures and then you'll maybe get the feel for what we witnessed.
After getting back to Kathmandu, we took a trip over the Pashupatinath (Shiva's Temple), which is the place where all cremations take place. It is said that Shiva used to come to this place to take a break and rest from his duties and it is considered to be a very important sight for Hindus to travel to. On the same day we went over to Bouddha which is a Buddhist Stupa which is believed to have some of Buddha’s bones buried inside. This is a very important place for Buddhists to travel to.
Finally we also had a cultural evening to finish
off our official orientation to Nepal. All the ladies dressed up in Nepali cultural dress (Saris) and the guys were in Nepali suits. In typical Nepali fashion at the very moment when we arrived home to get ready for our fancy evening out, the load sharing for the day began so we had no power at our house. In Nepal they load share every day twice a day for 3 hour intervals. So this means that we have a lot of candlelight dinners here and on this particular night we were all trying to tie our saris by candlelight as well. I think we all turned out pretty good. We had amazing food and watched traditional dancing.
Finally I've also had an opportunity to head over to my volunteer placement. I'm working with Environmental Camps for Conservation Awareness (ECCA). This is a group whose primary focus is in health and sanitation (with respect to environment) as well as renewable energies and sustainable technologies. This sounds like a vague area of focus but they seem to manage to get their foot into many projects and find people to keep them going. This organization is pretty cool since they focus on
Pokhara
Outdoor PONG by the lakeside youth empowerment so many things are managed by the senior people but the action comes from people in their late teens. So these people will be representatives from various schools across Kathmandu and then they will gather together and teach each other things and implement new projects then they will separate and go back to their schools and teach their peers all that they had learned and then the information filters down and eventually ends in the communities. It seems that my primary focus there will be to develop a basic computer training course for the teachers in a particular school and then also to teach some of the older students as well. I'll be developing a curriculum for them and work to address their particular needs. Furthermore I'll be working with the renewable energy group to determine new applications for some of the local technologies as well and working on building of some new drinking water filtration systems in schools that have limited access to clean water. It sounds like quite the mix of things but with the amount of time I want to put in I think it's going to be feasible; especially since some of that work
is more related to planning and researching rather than the final building. I'm just hoping that I know enough to make a difference and not waste anyone's time.
Ok that's enough from me now, hope you enjoy the pictures!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 5; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0541s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jodie
non-member comment
Leya, these are amazing pictures! I'm so glad you are posting your experience. Good luck on your project. I know you'll figure your way out of any problems that might come up, so no worries. i don't think you'll be wasting anyone's time. Enjoy!