Saving the planet with power cuts?

As expected our load shedding schedule has been increased from 3 hours per day, 3 times a week to 3 hours every day. We will probably receive details of the exact timings tomorrow but we the last 3 days have been 0530-0830 (Fri), 2200-0100 (Sat) and 1700-2000 (Sun - that's now, I'm typing by torchlight). I think that means it will be 1000-1300 here tomorrow although it will be a different schedule at work. Not too bad - that's only 21 hours a week. The bad news is that Nepal Electricity Authority say this will increase to 40 hours a week in February, i.e. could start from next week. This will then become a real problem at work, we might need to think about relying less on our spreadsheets in favour of good old fashioned manual records. E-mails also seem to have become a problem in the last few days - I guess there is always someone in the Internet Service Providers chain that has a power cut and their back-up supplies don't last 3 hours. Hey-ho - maybe it would be less frustrating to know, like in many VSO placements in rural Africa, that there will only be electricity for a couple of hours a day, at least that way you don't become dependent on it for computers and e-mails. The positive side of the power cuts is our electricity bill should be lower. My headline is nonsense I think since over 90% of Nepal's electricity is hydro generated so I presume has no impact on the environment.

 

Enough whinging about trivia, of more concern is that political unrest has bubbled over in the south of Nepal with demonstrations resulting in some deaths which in turn fuel more demonstrations. There are now curfews in 3 cities, 2 of which have VSO volunteers. Life is pretty tough for them and there is no obvious end in sight because there is no clear cut leadership to talk with government and resolve their issues. Although the violence is unlikely to have any direct impact on life in Kathmandu, there is a real risk that it will disrupt the overall peace process - the UN peace mission boss has already expressed concerns.

 

I'm embarassed to say that whilst our colleagues down south were stuck in their houses, we've had a really decadent day with roast beef lunch at the British Embassy club (using the tickets we won at the pub quiz a month or so ago) followed by a tea and cakes (yummy chocolate log) party to say farewell to a departing volunteer. We are both well stuffed and sitting in the dark letting it go down is probably a good thing. An hour left of load shedding and 20 mins battery left in my laptop so I'll stop now and see whether e-mail works.

 

Cheers

Roshan 

Cricket joke

Not that violence against children should ever be a laughing matter, the following did made me chuckle:

A seven year old boy was at the centre of a courtroom drama yesterday, when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him.

The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with the Child Custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree possible.

The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him.

After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the Judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him.

After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the England Cricket Team, who the boy firmly believes are "not capable of beating anyone".

(With thanks to Gavin Esler of BBC's Newsnight who includes "Jokes fit for an 11 year old" in his e-mails about the programme)

Final plumbing report....

.... hopefully. Yesterday, the plumber fitted a shiny new adapter gizmo between the main pipe and the flexible connector to the heater and we now have no drips. So we have closure.

 

Cheers

Roshan

 

P.S. bus strike off 

Plumbing update

I'm sure you are all eagerly waiting to hear the next episode of our plumbing saga. Yes, the bathroom was very wet this morning but I didn't care because I had a fantastic full power hot shower! Sheila explained to Krishna ji that we still had a leak and the plumber returned (with a screwdriver as well as his adjustable spanners, although he used my nail scissors to extract a washer) this morning. He replaced both flexible pipes and used half a roll of PTFE tape so we now have only tiny drip, a mere weep, which we can live with. Mornings are going to be so much nicer with a proper shower!

 

Other less important news; we have a nationwide indefinite transport bandh (strike) so no buses, micro-buses or tuk-tuks which means Sheila can't get to her office. Apparently they are demanding more protection from the government after a load of buses got torched during a political demonstration down south. Despite, or more likely because of, our new Interim Constitution there are a couple of political parties in the southern region getting agitated and last week a protestor got killed with everyone claiming it was a Maoist that shot him. The town is now under curfew and people are demanding that the Prime Minister goes on TV to ask the protestors to cool it. The paranoid politics here are not helped by the US Ambassador continuing to put out scare stories about the Maoists. Apart from saying that the US will cut off aid to any Ministeries that Maoist politicians are put in charge of when they join government in a few weeks time, he has recently claimed that the Maoists are buying junk weapons from India to hand over to the UN arms management team that is now in place. It remains a mystery to me why the US feels it needs to interfere in a country that is about as far away from home as you can get, has no oil, no nuclear programme, definitely no weapons of mass destruction and is sandwiched between the 2 largest countries in the world that are quite capable of dealing with a naughty neighbour if necessary.

 

Is it snowing in the UK yet?

Cheers

Roshan

Back in chilly Kathmandu

Back over a week and having caught up with work, washing and tax returns (last minute filing habits die hard, thank goodness for on-line filing) my conscience (and Josie) tells me its time to do a blog.

We had a great time in Thailand, luckily got in and out of Bangkok the day before they had some bombs. We had 2 weeks of mostly glorious sunshine by the beach at a place called Cha-am, about 2 hours drive from Bangkok, doing nothing but sitting by the beach/pool, reading and eating delicious seafood - just what we needed. I concluded I must have become well adjusted to Nepal because I found it quite scary to see buildings more than 6 storeys high (thats the tallest they get in Kathmandu) and to be driven down a 3 lane highway at 120kph. The latter turned out to be a perfectly valid fear as the newspapers were full of road accident statistics and stories about how New Year was the worst time.

We got back to Kathmandu last Friday to discover the temperature had dropped another couple of degrees and we are now getting minimum temperatures of 0'C. I know the UK has had storms and is expecting cold weather next week but you have your cosy homes and,most of you, cosy heated offices. At home we have a small kerosene (parafin) heater which we use sparingly because it smells and at work there are a few low power halogen heaters that those who have them (not me) have to sit on top of to notice the difference. Our answer is just to put on more clothes and keep them on indoors so I sit at my desk in a down jacket and wooly hat over my thermal vest and long johns, trousers, thick shirt and jumper - and still shiver. Some days the sun breaks through the misty haze and you can go outside for a warm up, other days I just run up and down the stairs more frequently. Still in another month we should have UK summer temperatures and in 3 months we'll be moaning that its too hot.

This morning we had a plumbing drama that turned into a great result and is now (late evening) back to a bit of a problem. The cold feed to our hot water heater started dripping this morning, not as bad as it sounds because the heater is in our bathroom which is fully tiled and has a drain but not much fun because its directly above the toilet. A quick word with Khrishna ji, our landlord (major advantage having him upstairs), the operative word being cuhunu ("leak" in Nepali) which I don't think he understood (I'd just looked it up in the dictionary so was probably pronouncing it wrong) but he obviously understood paani (water) and my sign language as without bothering to come and look he said he would call the plumber (I understood this because he said it in English so I guess there is no Nepali word for it). An hour later a young bloke with a toolkit comprising just 2 adjustable spanners and a role of PTFE tape turned up and proceeded to do his stuff. He succeeded in stopping the drip and much to my delight the hot water flow was then more than the dribble it has been since we moved in. I'd assumed that was all we could get because the heater is only a foot or so higher than the taps - shows what I know about plumbing, the pressure is obviously determined by the cold water feed. Anyway I was deliriously happy for most of the day thinking about having a decent shower tomorrow morning (an essential warming event) only to discover it dripping again this evening. The good news is that the hot water flow is still impressive, less good is that we've got this maddening dripping noise going on and we need to take an umbrella when going to the loo. Hopefully another chat with Khrishna ji tomorrow morning will get the plumber back to fit a new washer or whatever is needed. Interestingly when I was out this afternoon, I think I spotted our plumber working at the local bike repair shop - and why not if you've got 2 adjustable spanners.

Thats enough for tonight, I had hoped to post a picture of the Himalayas I took from the plane last week but this may have to wait until I can use the fast internet connection a VSO's office.

From Nepal - Jan 2007

Hope your weather is not too bad next week.

Cheers

Roshan

P.S. I managed to uploaded some piccies (including the one above) to Picasa web album yesterday and as I have now discovered how easy it is to blog them, here's another from World AIDS Day at the Blue Diamond Society Care & Support Centre.

From World Aids Day