Pot calling the kettle black?

I had to chuckle at the following item in yesterday's news:

 

The Bara unit of the Nepal Transport Free Workers' Union has called an indefinite Bara district bandh (strike) from Sunday to protest against continuous strikes called by different organisations and parties.

 

Spoke to soon

It's been grey, drizzly and cold today! Anyone want to tell me whether Ireland played well or were England just poor? The report I read talked about England being "demolished". I promised some photos and although these are old I don't think I've posted these pics of the Blue Diamond offices before.

From Nepal Sept 06

From Nepal Sept 06

From Nepal Sept 06

The finance office, my desk on the right. After all those years of ignoring the clear desk policy at 3i, I've finally achieved it.

Cheers
Roshan

P.S. Thanks to the 2 Davids for you comments. Will try to reply soon.

It feels like spring

Last week we celebrated our 1st anniversary of arriving in Nepal and the weather is much the same as it was then so hopefully winter is over. It was a lovely sunny day today; I was in short sleeves for the first time in months. You can now count the days before I start complaining about the heat!

 

Another sad farewell last night as we went for drinks to say goodbye to Lucy. Fortunately she did not want a hard drinking night so we got back sober and at a reasonable hour. I know she reads this, so good luck in settling back to life and work in the UK Lucy and start planning the reunion in 2008.

 

It's been a busy week at BDS with a couple of unscheduled events, the start of a UNDP audit and a meeting called at less than 24 hours notice supposedly to finalise the National HIV/AIDS Plan. This Plan is for 2006-2008 and should have been finalised before the start of the financial year last July. Having listened (although the discussion was in Nepali, the document is in English so I could understand enough) to 3 hours of debate I now understand why it is still not finalised. In good participatory style, all the organisations working in HIV/AIDS are invited but it seems to be dominated by just a couple who, in arguing their own corner, appear to have no regard for getting the Plan agreed. After 3 hours we still had not got to the Budget and most people had drifted away. However as the meeting broke up, my colleague and I did manage to make a couple of points which hopefully will be incorporated. The meeting reconvenes on Monday so lets hope some progress is made so everyone can focus on the next stage without which it is all pointless – getting donors to come up with the funds to actually implement the Plan.

 

We were expecting the UNDP audit sometime but with very little notice it throws out our other work which is already proving difficult to keep up with when load shedding means we can't use computers for 3 hours of 4 days every week. We have power for the entire working day tomorrow (the first cut starts at 5pm) so hopefully we can get salaries done and print any reports the auditors need.

 

Sheila starts 8 days of helping run a training course tomorrow. Quite handy because her District Education Office may not be open next week due to two lots of protests. On Friday, one group padlocked the office whilst another gheraoed (picketed – not always peacefully) it. In the bigger picture, there are a whole load of bandhs (strikes) scheduled for next week which are likely to foil plans for the HIV & AIDS volunteers to visit some projects in Hetauda and Birgunj next week. Hopefully they will not disrupt our quarterly meeting on Thursday and Friday – apart from its importance to the programme, it is being held at a nice resort hotel just south of Kathmandu and I was really looking forward to having a bath.

 

Just remembered that my last post talked about going to Pokhara last weekend. Didn't make it because Sheila was a bit dodgy and definitely would not have managed a 4-6 hour road trip. Shame but hopefully there will be another time.

 

A quick break for a phone call from Josie including the news that Italy are currently beating Scotland – apologies to all Scots fans but I'd like to see Italy win, it sounded as though they played really well against England. Again no TV or even BBC World Service radio coverage of any of the matches so I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to find out the Ireland v England result. Sorry, for my non-sporting readers I should explain that I'm talking about rugby.

 

Right enough for now. I'm conscious that I haven't posted any photos for ages so I'll try to do some soon.

 

Cheers

Roshan

 

 

Global warming, my backside!

We (including my Nepali friends) keep thinking winter is almost over but we got a shock yesterday. We had heavy rain in the morning and it got progressively colder before we got snow early afternoon. Apparently it has not snowed in Kathmandu for 62 years! It did not settle in the city area, which was pretty waterlogged, but it did outside and the papers are full of pictures of snow scenes. Sheila has been at a conference to the south of the city for the last 3 days and the hotel is in the foothills so they got a lot more than we did. After a grey start this morning, the sun is now out and although the temperature is still low, it does feel better when you can find a sunny bit to stand in. I was feeling envious of friends who are on holiday in Florida this week until I looked up their weather to find minimum temperatures below freezing – hope its warmer during the days.

We're waiting for load shedding which is meant to increase to 6 hours per day today. This is slightly complicated by the timetable not having been updated so we don't know when to expect it. We also have a transport bandh (strike) today which is a bit of a concern for Sheila and the rest of them trying to get back this evening. Tomorrow is a public holiday (Shiva Ratri when thousands of Hindu holy men hit Kathmandu and find enlightenment by smoking dope). All being well, we are going for a long weekend to Gorkha and Pokhara (about 6 hours drive east) with my boss and some friends. If the clouds lift there should be some spectacular views of the Annapurna range.

Cheers
Roshan

Three weddings and a leaving do

My Editor (you know who she is!) tells me (a) it's time for another post and (b) it needs to be more upbeat with less whingeing about power cuts etc. This will definitely fulfil the 1st and let's see how things go on the 2nd.

Since the last post, we have had a run of wedding parties – 3 in 2 weeks. This is not just coincidence, it is (was?) an auspicious time of year to get married. The first 2 were work colleagues (both straight so no more groundbreaking same sex unions) which were different but both great fun. Sheila was a bit poorly for the first so I went straight from work with other colleagues. It was at a community hall where after drinks on the top floor (I decided I like rice beer) we went downstairs to a large very bare concrete hall to join probably 100 people sitting on mats in rows to eat. A convoy of servers went down the rows handing out leaf (banana?) plates which were then filled with rice, dal, veg and meat curries – all eaten by hand and delicious. After we'd finished we moved out and were replaced by the next sitting, apparently there were 750 guests in total! Last Saturday our next party was by contrast held at one of the smarter hotels in town with waiters in white jackets serving drinks. What made this fun was that many of the metis (transgenders) from work came in their glam party gear and pretty soon were dancing. Foolishly I was chatting with someone a bit close to the dance floor and got dragged on to it. Someone was taking photos and if I can get them I will post a few here.

The last wedding was in our landlord's family. His daughter came round to deliver the invitation explaining that it was her brother which highlights how close the extended family is here as her brother is only 12 and we guessed (correctly) that it was in fact her cousin. Various parts of the wedding ceremonies take place over several days and I saw preparations for some of these as I walked through the courtyard on my way to work. When I went through on the morning of the party, food preparation was underway with all the ladies of the family sitting in a circle making leaf plates (that's what I though they were but it now occurs to me that we were served on plastic plates – whatever) and the men chatting and keeping an eye on 4 tethered goats which I guess didn't have much longer for this world. We joined the party for a buffet style dinner and chatted with various members of the family and neighbours before escaping back to the house because it was freezing – I don’t know how the women in party saris did not turn blue. Following our normal habit when cold we retired to bed with hot water bottles and a DVD on the laptop at about 8pm only for the door bell to ring about half an hour later. The landlord accompanied by one of the neighbours who speaks excellent English had come round to tell us that the food had finished and now the drinking was starting, would I like to join them – I got the impression that a few drinks had already been partaken of. I declined with some feeble excuses, wished them a good time and assured them that we would not be disturbed by the noise of partying next door. It probably would have been a great bonding session with my landlord's family but I have a suspicion that the main drink was whisky and I would not have been able to last the pace.

However I did have my drinking hat on the next night when we met volunteer friends for a farewell meal for one of our best friends from Birgunj. Sheila had some work to finish off that evening so when she said she needed to be back early I of course said that I didn't want a late night either and then got shirty when she expressed disbelief at me leaving a party early. And who was right? Having been elected an honorary member of the Birgunj crew, we finished drinking at 5 am and after a quick kip on a friend's spare bed I got home at 6:30.

OK, is that upbeat enough? I'm off to my bed and hottie (bottle that is) to do some revision before our first language class in 3 months at 8am tomorrow – seemed like a good idea when Sheila booked it last week.

Oh, I suppose after earlier comments it would be rude not to congratulate England on their magnificent 1-day cricket result. Managed to watch most of it on the big screen at the Pacific Guest House before the power went off (did I mention we are getting 3 hours per day load shedding?), went home and caught the last few overs on the laptop albeit with very dodgy reception. Despite checking all the cable TV schedules could not find any of them showing this weekend's rugby. Report of the England-Italy match made it sound as if I didn't miss much. Hope to pick up the Ireland-France result when I log on to send this.

Cheers, have a good week.

Roshan