Could you check tomorrow morning for news of any earthquakes.
Do you like my new little button, apparently it gives you an update of news on Alan Johnston and a link to the petition for his release. Hopefully I will be able to remove it shortly. I have also added some small print at the bottom which will keep my conscience clear if and when I write about the dreadful politics surrounding HIV & AIDS funding in this country.
Cheers
Roshan
Should not have been concerned that yesterday's posting about "godman's" prophesy would worry the folks back home. Our loving daughter's reply was that just in case it comes true I need to line up an interview for Newsround with the landlord's children (long term readers might remember they gave an interview for CBBC when we were under curfew last year).
Now I could be made to look very stupid by having a chuckle at the following. Mind you looking stupid will be the least of my worries.
Kathmandu : Doomsday with devastating earthquakes will smite Nepal and its neighbouring countries in less than a fortnight, a Nepali godman has warned, a prophecy that is, however, being contested vigorously by the country's leading soothsayers.
The dire prediction comes from Bishweshwor Chaudhary, a former small-time builder from Sindhuli, a district east of Kathmandu, who left his trade about four years ago to become a self-proclaimed godman. (Ed: an interesting career change)
Chaudhary, who now lives in Kathmandu, calls himself Trishuli Baba and carries a trident whose touch, he claims, can cure people of their ailments.
"The first tremors will hit Nepal at 6.15 a.m. on June 22 and the devastation will continue till July 10," he told a Nepali weekly. "The worst disaster will occur on June 24 and July 10."
The godman told Ghatana R Bichar weekly that he was given supernatural powers after a holy spirit entered his body.
Since it was now his duty to protect mankind, he was sending out the detailed warning, complete with dates and the time, so that people would be alerted and be able to save themselves when the killer quake came, the godman said.
Besides Nepal, the disaster will also hit Pakistan, India and other countries in the neighbourhood, he has predicted.
His followers have been distributing pamphlets in the capital with warnings about the apocalypse ahead. People are being asked not to reside near rivers and to move out of mud houses.
However, till now, there has been little alarm at the dire predictions. Also, Nepal's leading astrologers have hotly contested the black warnings.
The National Astrology Service Committee issued a statement (Ed: good to know they've consulted the earthquake experts), saying they had checked the position of the planets and found no signs of disaster in June and July.
Astrologer Bishwa Prem Bhattarai, spokesman of the group, said people should not heed the alarmist call but carry on with their lives without fear.
Nepal is located in a belt that is prone to earthquakes and in the past, there have been major tremors, killing hundreds.
The baba meanwhile remains unfazed by the thought that he could be proved wrong.
"I am not going anywhere," he told the weekly. "Meet me after June 22. I will still be here."
Woke up yesterday to drip, drip, drip, perhaps not unusual for a summer day in England but our first wet Saturday morning for a long time. Last Saturday was a beautiful day and knowing that monsoon was likely to start on 6th June, we (well I) decided we needed to get out of city for a few sunny hours. Easy bus ride, 9rupees, took us out of city south and wound up a hill past the village of Kirtipur, to the bus stop nearest to Chorbar. Walking up a winding road then took us up the hill to the village.
Great views of Lalitpur beneath us, although that day no distant views.
We were heading for a Newari farmhouse converted by a Frenchman and termed a "resort". Although not exactly my idea of a resort, it is a beautiful building, with three lovely rooms for residents and what may have been and will be a lovely garden. At present some of it is a building site for another dwelling. Leaving Roshan with newspapers and cold drink, I wandered round the village of narrow paths, I would be exaggerating to call them streets, between houses, several with tiny shops in their front rooms.
Rounding corner it was bizarre to hear a little voice singing "ABCD, EFG" to a very familiar tune. He, poss 6yrs, was sitting by his mother piling up sticks as she cut them with an axe, safety regulations not a priority here. Away from the centre, it was as if .I was surrounded by allotments, vegetables, corn, beans, tomatoes, peas, onions, so many varieties of greens, everywhere on tiny bits of land with hedges and interwoven fences. Although daily, I see this sort of veg, growing, as I travel on buses, here it was different as I was close, on sloping paths that wound through these beautifully looked after vegetable plots. Every few yards there were ducks or chickens, many of them followed by tiny offspring.
Passing women washing at a tap, a young monk, maybe 8 yrs old dashed up the path.
Seeing the prayer flags, I followed him up to the monastery wall but the wall was high and gate shut.
Re joining Roshan, we enjoyed a toasted tomato and ham sandwich, with a plate of warm new green beans and a sour cream sauce and some delicious chips ….yes the kitchen at this farmhouse definitely had a french influence too.
Wandering down the hill, we past a pickup truck which seemed to have died on the bend on the steepest part of the path, a group of monks carrying carrier bags laden with tomatoes and potatoes
and then a grave yard for lorries.
Back to KTM on one of the fullest buses I have ever been on and this was a big bus. One foot
on a huge sack of recycled bottles and the other sometimes on the ground, I had a window frame to grab when needed. As the bus began to empty a little, Roshan was encouraged, with lots of grinning from those involved, to make his way to an empty seat at the back. The seat had been vacated, although not quickly enough, by a poor girl who was by then hanging out of a front window and still throwing up!
A good relaxing sunny day before 6 busy, well by volunteer standards, days of work.
Sheila
I feel privileged to have been part of the ECD team this week, busy with parental education packages, using observation to support children's learning, planning for more sharing between health and education practitioners, revising basic training for Early Years facilitators…
I have never seen those before in government provision in Nepal. Here was good individual learning by motivated children. Whilst I watched, played and made notes my colleague gave further support and advice to this committed facilitator, who is still only paid 1,000 rps the equivalent of £8 per month
Then to another secondary school which has 2 classes for ECD These are both reasonable sized rooms, recently painted with some carpet and attractive low tables, a high blackboard, and tatty narrow lined notebooks and a pencil are the children's only materials and a teacher was holding one three year old's hand and very firmly establishing that he would copy from the board! Back to the staff room, with tea, ugh, of course, where my colleague reminded staff that last year one of them had attended training. I showed the new curriculum for ECD and talked about young children's learning. I agreed to leave my copy (Nepali script ) and when staff agreed to read it, that I will go back!
Next to another big school with one very large room possibly built as a hall. At one end in a curve facing a blackboard, on high old benches with empty desks sat 24 children. 3 asleep, heads on desks. The teacher was sitting talking to another adult who did not seem to have anything to do with the children. We asked some children their age etc but although some would say their names, few could give their age and certainly not link age to nos of fingers. Off to another long session in the staff room!! This time with lots of interest and questions re my photographs of children learning and locally found low cost materials and of course more tea and also for me some slightly strange coloured but thankfully recently boiled water!
Next time one of us goes there, will the equipment be with the children or still in the wrapping?
I love Nepal,
Love Sheila
Although the weather boffins assured us last week that monsoon would not arrive until 6 June, it feels like it's here. The temperature in Kathmandu after a couple of steaming days in the mid-30's (apologies to my friends in the south who consider anything less than 40' is cool) has dropped a few degrees and we had some pretty heavy rain last night and today. I'm happier with the cooler weather and the rain doesn't really affect me, I have a short walk to work and only a few puddles to dodge. Poor Sheila on the other hand has a mud bath to contend with at the bus stop she normally goes to plus a bit of a walk at the other end. As you've seen from her earlier posts, she does actually enjoy the bus and tuk-tuk rides – most days.
Cheers
Roshan
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