Giant leap forward

That was the headline in The Himalayan Times yesterday for the news that the Maoist Chairman (what else would you call a Maoist leader) and the Prime Minister had met and agreed a time-bound (a fine English expression much used in South Asia) program to bring about peace and democracy in our time. This involves forming an interim government with representatives from all the parties including the Maoists to govern until elections some time next year. I bet cabinet meetings will be lively - the Maoists gave a taste of what's to come by accusing the "old regime" of organising a "disorderly press conference" (surely an oxymoron?). The program was announced as an 8-point plan with the first point being to implement the 12-point agreement of last year, I think there was previously a 25-point plan so they are becoming more modest. They must have been padding it this time or  7 was considered an unlucky number because the 8th point stating that the previous 7 would be carried out seemed unnecessary. I was amused to read that the Maoist leaders had been flown to the meeting by helicopter accompanied by the Home Minister. The previous day the papers had said the Maoists had declined the government's offer of a helicopter, I guess they decided that if they had a hostage there was unlikely to be an "unfortunate fatal accident".

 

We've had a busy weekend starting with a wedding reception on Friday - Sheila will tell you about this and maybe even a photo. Yesterday we took 3 different buses down to Dhapakhel to visit the Khadkas. Poor old Deepak (Dad) had a motorbike crash a month ago and has a broken leg. He proudly described (mainly sign language) how he had a large pin screwed into the bone and showed me the X-ray of it. Although I saw a pair of crutches, I don't think he is mobile because his bed has been moved to a ground floor room that was a store room when we were there. I also spotted a bed pan the purpose of which one of his visitors only discovered after getting a wet foot when he tried to move it. I tried not to laugh but was saved when everyone else did. We did not see Gomala (Mum, Deepak's wife) at the house because she was down in the fields cutting grass to bring back for the cows. However when we left and were walking down the road for the bus we saw her and some neighbours walking back up the hill carrying what looked like hay stacks. We met her half way down where they were taking a breather, had a quick chat (with her correcting our verb conjugations as usual) and got a close up of the size of the tightly packed bundle of grass. I reckon it must have been close on 50kg with the weight being taken on a strap round her forehead and her back bent at 45%, not surprising that most of the old women of the village walk with a severe stoop. Boy, they are tough. Finished up yesterday at a Bartabandh party for the son of one of the VSO Program Managers. We still don't really understand what this is but I guess it was the equivalent of a bar mitzvah with the boy (I think he's 12 years old) getting a No 2 haircut.

 

I was very disappointed with the footie last week. I thought and hoped the gallant lads from Trinidad & Tobago were going to hold out for a glorious 0-0 draw but it was not to be. Shame that their very cool looking consolation goal was disallowed. My Blue Diamond colleagues are enjoying watching the World Cup - Ronaldino (Portugese? plays for Man U?) is the favourite. Funnily enough no mention of Wayne Potatoehead as a gay icon.

 

Cheers

Roshan

 

P.S. Not all VSO volunteers have the sheltered city life and office jobs that we do - have a look at http://chasandjune.blogspot.com/ .