sheila and roshan

Pheri betaula Nepal

2009-07-08T21:22:00.006+05:45

As expected the last few weeks did become manic and hence no blogging...

Work was busy with redrafting of documentation, still working around load shedding and Nepal once again sliding into crisis.

A particularly memorable day, when unable to use power in office or at home I was once again working on laptop in the embassy club, sitting with the manager as Prachanda the Maoist Prime-minister made his resignation speech. "So sad" my friend said quietly as he translated "when we had all had so much hope for change … but when the president just over-rules him …. they just do not want an integrated army. This will not be an easy time again for Nepal".

A week later and clearing and packing up the flat proved far less stressful than I had anticipated mainly due to the help of my replacement. Thanks go to volunteer friends who took most of the contents to furnish their own deras and to the helpful, well organised www.packersmovers.com recommended by VSO, and later to Sharon who made it so easy for us the UK end.

My last evening was with my Nepali colleagues, ending up with a typical dahl baat. Then having said goodbye to my landlord and family, I finished my time in Nepal in Hotel Manaslu, warmly welcomed by the staff and treated to a beautiful, newly renovated room with many volunteers calling in to share a drink in the sunny garden.

Pheri betaula Nepal and to all my very special Nepali friends who allowed me to be alongside them and share in their lives as they work towards their vision of the future for Nepal's children.

Love Sheila xx

Breaking news!

2009-04-30T13:06:00.003+05:45

Well it's done! Flight is booked and 3 weeks today I expect to be back in Felpham - scary! But I won’t be able to just sit and sew cushions, shop, eat and lie on the balcony watching the sea for all the summer as I plan to go back to Singapore at some time in June. There, I'll let Roshan work whilst I further explore the city filling my self with spicy seafood and cold white wine – both much missed whilst in KTM! Well, maybe…I’m not sure I will have finished enough to step completely away from our task here of writing the standards and already my boss has said "Sheila-ji you will continue by email?"

During the past week I have had my replacement staying with me at the flat so we have been able to chatter away about work. I am not sure which one of us talks the most - me probably! Although she was not able to go on "the village stay", a memorable time for Roshan and I three years ago, she and I have really been able to use the time to catch-up and start the process of handover.

Much of the time these days I go to and from the office sitting with window seat on a government bus, with colleagues from other offices chatting, whilst I switch off for 40/50 minutes trusting the driver to take me though all the jams and queues for fuel until safely back in KTM, when I then walk for 10 minutes home. However, this evening was different. Firstly my bus was not in its usual place (fuel shortages again apparently) so joined those on the only government bus (usually 3 large and 2 micra) that was running. Before we left our office it was full with three people to a double seat and aisle full but then it continued to fill up at two more sites!

So a cheerful but noisy ride back into the north of the city where I transferred onto a white micra (mini) bus, only to find that a couple of hundred yards down the road traffic police stopped us and sent us into a small side street. All those going to my area got off and began to walk home. As so often here, I was immediately joined by a young man from the bus concerned that I knew where I was going, keen to talk about his family, studies and job and with an invite to call in for tea and meet the family. Later someone suggested the traffic stoppage was not related to this week's fuel problems but was very localised, connected to the ongoing dispute between Prime Minister and Chief of Army Staff, whose "fate was (yet again) to be decided today", and interventions from supporters of the chief from the Radisson casino!!

Wednesday 29th

Having agreed that I should work from home today at 2pm I took a break and walked past the British Embassy expecting to see retired Gurkhas outside and thinking I would stand for few minutes in solidarity for the ongoing fight for staying in the UK, but all had gone by the time I walked by. So, I went inside to ask Ramesh, the ex-Gurkha who manages the Stirling Club in the Embassy.

He said that two groups had been outside earlier, I assume with petitions. He stressed that all had been calm and dignified and I suspect from the way he spoke, also very moving. Unlike, he reflected sadly, so many now in Nepal who demonstrate and get noticed by damage and hurting people and throwing stones. A depressing but unfortunately reality. Whilst the the club was empty he was watching BBC World News and I was very glad I had gone in and talked with him.

And even more pleased when on Thursday morning I woke up to email from Josie:

breaking news - MPs just voted against govt settlement plan for Gurkhas

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8023882.stm

Hooray!

Right, I’d better get on with work - home again today as probable traffic bandh and threats of demos later (but I might pop back to see Ramesh again to reflect on announcement and time lunch with a quick charge on laptop battery!).

Best wishes to all and I'll see some of you soon!
Sheila

A bit of a break

2009-04-25T23:56:00.001+05:45

Sorry for the lack of updates, all left to me now and I’ve been away from Nepal as Josie and I met up for a few days holiday. We met in Kochi and spent time with Roshan's step mother Pauline, who has lived there many years. As her house is not in centre of the town we stayed in a hotel where we had great views. Pauline joined us each day and we spent most of the time chatting and enjoying being together in Kerala. Girlie fun – lovely!

Great to see the sea again too!

From Kochi, Josie and I went to Singapore. Easy direct flight and Silkair had promised good service and we got it and Roshan was waiting for us at Changi Airport with a wheelchair-friendly black cab to take us into the city. A bit surreal but the best accessible vehicles there apparently!

And then a week of lots of walking, exploring, socialising and for me fish eating. All very enjoyable although poor Roshan was up to his neck in work.

A funny old world

2009-03-15T12:17:00.006+05:45

So there I was in Kathmandu just getting to know the new VSO partner organisation I was going to work with and I get this e-mail from an old friend. "Need a Finance & Ops person in Singapore for 3 months, can you start next week?" Really difficult decision to leave VSO early but delaying until May, when we were due to finish, was not an option. Sheila thought I would need a new adventure post-VSO so encouraged me to say yes - I think the prospect of some time in Singapore blinded her to the reality of being on her own in Ktm and having to pack up the flat with no assistance from me (what's new she said). My bosses at VSO said they would be sad to see me go - although the Country Director's first question was "Will Sheila be staying?" - but understood that there is life after volunteering. A crazy 2 weeks finishing up in Kathmandu then 2 weeks ago today I arrived in Singapore.

As this is an interim job (the guy they thought they had recruited decided not to take up the offer), no gentle introduction back into the corporate world, I have been thrown in at the deep end including 2 days last week in Vietnam. Although I have no idea whether my new employer has a policy on blogs, it's probably not appropriate to tell you more about the job than it's finance & ops back in my old world of private equity (but not with 3i). After the first week staying with my friend/boss and his family, I'm now in a serviced apartment just 20 mins walk (pretty steamy even at 8am) from the office and close to plenty of late opening food courts. I'm on the 28th floor with a great view of the Padang and ships at anchor in the bay, I'll try and get some photos up soon.

My rapid departure from Nepal saved there being too many emotional farewells. There is no time now for reflection on 3 years in Nepal but I'm sure when I've finished 3 months in this dramatically different world, my memories of the place, the people, the work, the whole experience will remain hugely positive and continue to have an impact on how I view life - thank you Nepal, thank you VSO. I'll leave Sheila (with help from Josie) to keep up the great stories and pictures - and coping with load shedding, bandhs and packing up the flat, I'm sure she'll make me pay for this in due course!. For me, its not goodbye Nepal just pheri betaula (see you again).

Cheers
Roshan

Changes

2009-03-14T21:49:00.009+05:45

Looking back I realise it is over a month since we last posted and lots has happened since then.

Whilst we were enjoying Srijana and Etienne's wedding party, Roshan took a call from Singapore which led him leaving Nepal two weeks later to take up very different work there. I'll leave him to fill in on this at another point.

So back to the wedding...

Etienne and Srijana met through VSO whilst Etienne was working as a volunteer and we wish them well as now wedding ceremonies and honeymoon over they are settling down to their new life together here in KTM.

And I'm still here too! I am staying on for a few more months as originally planned as there are still lots of things I want to be part of before leaving in May, such as working on standards for learning and development for children as they come to the end of the ECD stage. Nonetheless I am also very keen to visit Singapore again so will go for a few days in April with Josie, once we have spent a few days with Pauline, Roshan's stepmother, in Kerala. Then I will return for another month of work and the clearing and packing up of our Lazimpat flat.

There are other changes here too. A new six lane highway is being built, from the ring road to the east of Kathmandu, and each morning as I sit on the bus in a traffic jam I watch men in hard hats with a huge crane, piling machine and diggers only a few yards from where women are sitting on the ground selling a few peanuts, girls are washing carrots in the river and women and children are collecting water from a tap. And when I buy carrots in the little kiosk/shop behind our flat I remind myself of the filthy water they have been cleaned in and boil thoroughly or wash again with added iodine!

Another change is the renovation of the ground in front of the Ministry of Education - this is central KTM, 10 minutes walk from the flat and I am able to take a government bus from here to my office in Bhaktapur. As the rubbish was cleared this statue was uncovered and subsequently turf put down and paths laid.

Unsurprisingly the area has become an interesting place for this little girl to explore each morning.

And she has become very entertaining for some of the guards and me! Yesterday I was treated to her new word, "Welcome" and today to a salute and a dance.

Once again, with children my limited Nepali poses no problem and we communicate with gestures and the odd word or two!

Fuel shortage are reoccuring: "As the government fails to impress agitators...to guarantee proportional representation of indigenous and excluded communities...a fresh wave of national agitation is likely" states yesterday's Kathmandu Post.

Load shedding is still 16 hours a day and for the past two weeks we have had rumours that this is very likely to increase to 20 or more. But at this stage it has only been a rumour and whilst the power goes to schedule it means at least you can prepare a bit to be without it - I can charge my laptop and phone and am fortunate in having an internet package that I can use even when the power is off, so I can Skype Roshan and the UK. It is very difficult for businesses though and for the Department of Education there are three days with two hours and three with none during work hours..

And now, tonight my laptop battery won't last much longer either so time to go...best wishes to all, Sheila xx

Another mad friday and picture books

2009-02-08T20:28:00.002+05:45

Another good Friday and one I wish I could have videoed.

Going to Bhaktapur this morning on local bus, at bus park in street, I sat in seat near front. Instead of starting off, suddenly the driver backed bus across the road and then bus boy and another pushed it backwards into a petrol station. I assumed it was for fuel - buses do refuel with their passengers on here - but no, something to do with starting problem so we sat there until it was bump started. I had sat next to a woman probably a bit younger than me who spotted the picture books in my carrier bag, so for a while we looked together talking in my limited Nepali about the pictures - she couldn't read the text - and we were then joined by bus boy.He could read the short Nepali text as I could hear, and having taken a book was then standing on the bus step shouting for passengers and taking fares, whilst reading picture books! Suddenly a nudge on my leg and I had a very large goat tied up next to me. Later the woman next to me and the goat got off and I was joined for the rest of the journey by a woman, her husband and a girl of about 7 sat in front of us. Her mother explained quietly / sadly to me "my daughter is mentally retarded". (I think she probably has Downs Syndrome). I asked if she goes to school and was told no, her mother taught her at home. Then this mother also showed interest in the picture book in my bag, reading then turning it over and seeing the shop name and price on the back. A quick few words with her husband and I like to think that maybe sometime that little girl will be looking at picture books too.It was lovely to see the father holding and caring for this child on the bus, encouraging her to say Namaste to me, as here much of the lives of children with special needs is hidden away, shunned, in the home. All smiles as we went our own ways.

Then to the ECD facilitator training where I had a couple of hours again sharing picture books, puppets, feely bags and low cost materials to encourage curiosity and problem solving with young children. Rushing from there to try to get back here while power on, got on bus and then stuck in jams. Finally got off at ring road hoping to pick up another the other side. No, even more jam probably back into centre . I knew if I walked I would not get back whilst power on so gave in and got in cab to go round another way. 20 mins later, after hearing on the radio re jams in centre, my taxi driver shouted at a friend who said he was charging flat rate as jams so bad. My taxi driver turned off meter and said a ridiculous amount. I got out and paid what had been on meter and to his surprise walked off. Walked a bit and then got another cab, this time on meter rate but soon stuck in another jam. Got out again and walked and later picked up a third. He drove me most of the way home, but a bit put out when I got out, because I like most Nepalis generally do not tip, and would not round the fare up by a third! Home and had 2 hours of power and should get 2 more on battery to do some of the work on early learning standards that I have not managed to do all week.

So another good Friday, much warmer than yours and a day off tomorrow but masses of work to do. Then back to the training on Sunday.

Oh and have just paid Rs105 (£1) total for 3 dvds, Australia, Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire.

What will I do from late May?

Lots of love and keep warm

Sheila

Poesie & the Fags

2009-02-01T20:18:00.002+05:45

A pleasant afternoon at a concert. I met these Dutch guys last year when they visited Blue Diamond Society; one is here teaching at the Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory, they are both talented singer/musicians. They have a band called "Poesie & the Fags" (Poesie is the nickname of the 3rd member of the band - a girl - pronounced "pussy" in Dutch). Apart from playing at various hip, trendy (and therefore ones that we don't go to) venues in Ktm, they have been coaching a choir from some transgender members of BDS. The concert this afternoon was the first public performance for the Transgender Choir (or as Sunil, my old boss, said the Queer Choir).

And a great success it was, particularly their rendition of Om Shanti Om, a big Bollywood hit from a couple of years ago.

And, by the look on their faces, they obviously all enjoyed it. A great confidence boost for some of them who are still on their journey of being "out".

Charlie Haviland, the Beebs man in Ktm (hijacked by Sunil from the leaving do of our top UN man which both of them were at) did a couple of interviews so if its been a quiet day for news, this might yet make it on BBC. My only fear is that any publicity will get the Performing Rights Society chasing the choir for royalties on the CD they have made.

Shouldn't be saying this seeing the weather forecast for London today, but the temperature here is gradually rising. Very pleasant during the day and not too cold at night. If it does snow in London tonight, I think my friend Sanjay, who is there on a short work trip, will be happy to have experienced it although he must be freezing. I did warn him that London in January could get very cold but he was probably not ready for -7 windchill.

Way past our normal bedtime (8pm) and the powers off until 4am so good night all.
Roshan

Update
It did make the BBC news, we heard a short piece on World Service radio news on Monday morning and its now on the BBC News website.
Nepalese choir with a difference

Happy Australia Day!

2009-01-26T19:42:00.001+05:45

I did a double-take as I walked past the Radisson Hotel's storage house (next door to us) yesterday. I didn't register the kangaroo pictures but I did think the funny pink things looked like the Opera House and sure enough that's what they were meant to be. I guess they are having an Australia Day party - shame the Radi is too expensive for us!

Load shedding reduced - only 14 hours per day!

Cheers
Roshan

P.S. There's something for Mardi Gras - turn the Opera House pink.

More about my new job

2009-01-11T18:50:00.002+05:45

Bit of a crazy week, dramas on the selection of organisations that will receive grants from a major donor in the HIV programme (Global Fund www.theglobalfund.org) so lots of lobbying which I get involved in to help write petitions/e-mails that say more than "We woz cheated, it's not fair!". We'll see what use this does, I'm not optimistic about the outcome and therefore pessimistic about the programmes being delivered well (if at all in the case of some) by the organisations that have been selected. But enough of that, it just gets me bitter and twisted about the way things work in development.

I promised to tell you more about Richmond Fellowship Nepal, the organisation I will spend most time with for my remaining 4 months here. It runs addiction programmes, mainly for drug users although there is one in Kathmandu for alcoholics as well. The drug programmes focus on rehabilitation and reintegration with the HIV angle covered by education and a Harm Reduction Programme (needle exchange – if a drug user does not want to give up, at least make sure s/he gets a clean syringe etc so the risk of transmitting HIV and/or Hepatitis is significantly reduced). The main office where I work is based at a rehab centre on the outskirts of Kathmandu – makes absconding more difficult – and there are about 35-40 clients in residence at any time. Almost all of my colleagues are alumni of the programme, i.e. they were drug users themselves, so they are teaching me about how rehab works and what it feels to be a client. So what am I going to do at Richmond? Still working this out but my main reason for being there is to discover what, if anything, they need from a long term volunteer so VSO can find someone with the right background (and I'm thinking that isn't an ex-Chartered Accountant with experience of private equity investing!). Admin work is really becoming a challenge with electricity and therefore computers off for at least half the day. As this means we adjourn from the extremely cold office to sit outside in the sunshine, I am not heartbroken when the power goes off. From this week, I'll be a lot warmer as our new load shedding timetable of 16 hours per day started today. On a good day we will get 4 hrs of power during office hours, on a bad one, 2 hrs.

A lighter moment this week was the draining of a pond – more like a mini-reservoir - at Richmond. Flopping around in the mud was a load of catfish which the guys bailing out the pond managed to catch by hand and we had fish (macchu) for lunch. Fun to watch and good to eat. Sorry I didn't take pictures of the fishermen at work

Being on the upslope of the hills that are the southern border of the Kathmandu valley, we get a good view back to the city and beyond. Its still a bit hazy at this time of year, I'm sure there will be better views in a couple of months time.

In case you are feeling sorry for us having to manage with such long power cuts, don't worry, we are managing fine. The problem is that the country is suffering badly; hospitals are grinding to a halt, factories are laying off staff and kids can't see to revise for exams. Even those with invertors (batteries that get charged whilst the power is on) can't escape as 4 hrs is not enough to charge the batteries. And the few places with generators are discovering how expensive it is to run them. Apparently the current demand for power is 500MW during the day and 800MW in the evenings with generating capacity only 300MW. If (and it has to be a big if!) a new hydro plant reaches full capacity and a transmission line from India is repaired, things are meant to improve next month. Meantime, although the government cannot magic up electricity, there have already been some demonstrations and I'm sure there will be more as the effects spread. To put this into perspective, something like 40% of Nepal has no access to electricity at all and the electricity usage per person in Nepal is one-eightieth that of the UK .

Time to go, only got just over an hour to get this and piccies uploaded.

Cheers

Roshan

A quick couple of photos

2009-01-01T19:59:00.003+05:45

I'll tell you more about Richmond Fellowship Nepal, the organisation I am now working with, another time but a quick photo of our Christmas tree:

The centre I am based at runs a residential drug rehabilitation programme and my colleagues very thoughtfully found out when and where Christmas church services were for one of our Christian clients. He went but never came back.

Yesterday I stopped off at a Blue Diamond Society centre on the way home for their New Year's Eve party. It was load shedding when I arrived so singing and dancing was only accompanied by a small drum. This is called dhori (probably not spelt like that) where groups of men and women (or, it being BDS, metis) sit on opposite sides of the room and sing backwards and forwards to each other. I'm afraid I didn't stay long enough to see New Year in with them, I cycled home in the dark (always an adventure) and joined Sheila for a quiet night at home with a DVD on my laptop.

Powers gone off now (8pm to 2am then 8am to 2pm) and its cold so I'm off to bed.
Best wishes for 2009 to all.
Roshan

Bike update

2008-12-27T19:20:00.003+05:45

Apologies if worrying about my bike ride to work with a dodgy tyre spoilt your Christmas festivities :-). E-mail on Xmas Eve was a particular problem because immediately after our 6hr spell of load shedding the builders of the new block in front of the Radisson did something that cut off our power for the rest of the night.

Anyway, back to what you are really interested in, my bike. I'm pleased to report that the front tyre, with a threatening bulge where the temporary repair was, survived my trips to and from work. I tried harder than usual to dodge pot holes and when bombing down the hill near the office did slow down after I contemplated what would happen if the tyre burst and jammed in the front fork. Safely home I went to my repair shop as arranged but no tyre, come back tomorrow evening. Well to cut a long story short (I sense you might be getting bored by now) they didn't have one the next day either but after trying 2 more shops I got a brand new tyre fitted. This is what I love about life here, the sense of satisfaction you get from such small things.

So that was on Christmas Day. Not much else to report about it really other than that neither of us went to work, we had a lazy day and nothing special to eat apart from extra choccies that the kids had sent, oh and Sheila made some yummy mulled wine. No need to feel sorry for us, we could have had a traditional turkey dinner in Thamel (the tourist area) with 30 odd other volunteers and their friends but that's just too much sociability for me.

Back to work yesterday for me but Sheila was told there was a lock-out (protesters padlocked the door) at her office so didn't go. Cheerful news in yesterday's paper was that after just over a week of 10 hrs per day load shedding it is not enough and we go up to 13 hours per day load shedding from Monday. We wait to see how bad the schedule is for work.

Off to bed now (yes, it's only 8pm but it's cold and the bed with 2 hot water bottles is warm) to watch one of a selection of DVDs we bought today. Fingers crossed that the dodgy pirate copies play properly.

Cheers

Roshan

P.S. I see power is currently the top story in the BBC News link in the right hand column.

Bike repair

2008-12-23T23:12:00.001+05:45

I am now a long distance (3 -4 km which for me is long) bike commuter so it is getting more use than ever. Today, after going between offices on a particularly bumpy rough track (trying to keep up with a colleague on a motor bike!), a bolt fell off my chain guard. Not a major problem, I took the whole thing off and tucked it in my bag. I stopped off at our local bike repair shop and the guy had almost finished a quick and simple fix of it when BANG the front tyre exploded! No reason for it, but I was very happy it happened there not while I was riding it on a busy road. Given the noise, it was no great surprise that there was a 2 inch hole in the tyre with a matching pair on the inner tube. So new tube needed – but not so easy because all the shop had were some old ones (good recycling policy) none of which fitted. After explaining this to me (fortunately I understood a few words and the obvious signs) the guy hopped on his bike to get one from another shop. I did understand what he said when he got back "No electricity so the shop is closed. I will get a new tyre tomorrow". Now of course you would expect things to end at this stage but not in Nepal (or probably anywhere else apart from the "developed" world). An old tyre was cut up and stuck inside the burst one and the inner tube was patched with another recycled tube. I cycled the short distance home and it seemed OK so I'll ride it to work tomorrow hoping that it will last until I can get back to the repair shop in the evening. I'll let you know tomorrow whether this is a foolish decision resulting in a long walk pushing the bike.

Oh and the cost for about an hour's fiddling around – Rs20 (about 17 pence). I wonder whether the shop thinks that all bideshi's (foreigners) have exploding tyres? A friend literally blew his up at the same shop when inflating just a bit too much with a high pressure air hose.

I've posted it before but a long time ago so a reminder of what my faithful old push bike (christened Rosie by another vol who insisted on giving all bikes names - her's was called Barbie) looks like:

Cheers

Roshan

Apologies

2008-12-20T13:28:00.000+05:45

I'm sorry that my last post selfishly focussed on the challenges Nepal faces with a severe power shortage. A friend in the UK has pointed out that you have crises there:

Cadbury switches chocolate Heroes amid credit crunch

Cadbury has cut two old favourites from its popular Heroes selection amid fears it is trying to costs. The changes have sparked a barrage of complaints from chocoholics, who accuse the company of wielding the cost cutting spatula a cut too far. Dreams and Crunchies have been dropped from the tins, to be replaced by Bournvilles and toffee Eclairs.

Sad to see Crunchies disappearing but give me Bournville over Dreams any day.

Happy Christmas chocolate eating.

Roshan

What I want for Christmas

2008-12-18T21:27:00.000+05:45

… is some electricity! With talk about it in the papers ever since we got back, its finally happened, we have 63 hours a week load shedding starting tonight. The schedule (when power is off) for us is:

Sunday 0430 – 1030 1630 – 2030

Monday 0630 – 1230 1700 – 2100

Tuesday 0830 – 1430 1730 – 2130

Wednesday 1030 – 1630 2130 – 0130

Thursday 2000 – 2300 Yes, only 3 hours!

Friday 0030 – 0630 1600 – 2000

Saturday 0230 – 0830 1615 – 2015

In the last 3 years we haven't had load shedding with 6 hr off at a time, nor has it been so many hours per day at this time of year. Many businesses are really going to struggle with so few hours of power and I don't think the general population will be too happy so my guess is that there will be demonstrations soon. We'll manage but our laptop usage may be curtailed because even my nifty little Eee PC won't last 6 hours. I was thinking at least the electricity bill will be low next month but I fear our candle and torch battery bill will use up this saving and more.

Not really a whinge, just a gentle sigh.

Cheers

Roshan

P.S. Had our annual pig out on sausage rolls, mince pies and rum punch at the British Embassy last night. Oh and the garden was all lit up with fairy and spot lights and warmed by patio heaters – I say, Your Excellency, did you know there was an energy shortage?

BBC Sports Personality of the Year

2008-12-14T00:18:00.000+05:45

I can't resist a quick blog to plug BBC Sports Personality of the Year which both our kids are involved in, Josie is a researcher and Ben apparently is guarding the trophies! It's on live from 1900 – 2100 GMT tomorrow (Sunday) night so make sure you watch. And if you don't know who to vote for, go for Ben Ainslie, a sailor has never won it before.

Cheers

Roshan

Beauty & Brains

2008-12-03T20:33:00.024+05:45

As I'd been involved in the original concept, my friends at Blue Diamond Society invited me to the

The journey to Pokhara was a bit of an ordeal - 6 of us in a car about the size of a Peugeot 306, 4 of us on the back seat. Allowing for a couple of stops (including travel sickness related ones - me included) it took about 6 hours. Quite cloudy when we got there but the next morning ........

..... spectacular views of the mountains (Annapurna range)

The contestants' aptly named hotel. That's Macchapucchre (Fishtail Mountain) in the background.

Contestants getting made up

There were15 contestants who had come through 5 regional heats to get to the final.

A bit of traditional dancing whilst the contestants changed costumes (evening dress and saris, no bathing suits!)

It may not be very clear but that is a bicycle wheel which she spun and then placed on her head like a gyroscope. It didn't look like a lightweight racing wheel either. I'm not sure how traditional this is or whether it was her own innovation.

The winner (3rd from left) and the 5 runners-up:

The winner will spend the next year as a National Ambassador spreading the word about HIV & AIDS and human rights. The 5 runners-up will carry out similar work in their local regions.

It was great to be part of this final event in the program and fantastic to see the confidence of the girls when they walked out on stage - apart from the HIV & AIDS message, that was what it was about. A moist eye moment.

Cheers
Roshan

View Album

A bit of a touristy day

2008-11-23T14:11:00.011+05:45

Alright, alright, I know its 3 weeks since we got back and all you've had is one short dull posting. It must be a sign that even with 6 months break, we have been here long enough for life in Nepal to seem quite routine because I can't think of anything interesting to write. But I'm hopeful that some of what we consider to be routine is interesting to you or at least gives you a break from endless news about a forthcoming global recession.

Based on news items and gossip we have been expecting load shedding to increase to 10 hrs per day but this has not happened yet. This is good news but it is a bit confusing not to have a clear schedule to know when we will get power cuts. Some friends including the BDS office have no load shedding because they are on the same circuit as the President or Prime Minister. Lucky for them but a real shame that the concept of the elite not sharing the challenges of the masses has crept in. This was the norm in Delhi but did not happen here until the change of government. Maybe it will change when load shedding hours increase - which inevitably they will because generating capacity reduces from now until April/May next year when the Himalayan glaciers start melting again.

Yesterday we did a bit of touristy stuff. We met Rick, our dentist from the UK, who was here to help run a dentistry camp for the Gurkha Welfare Trust and joined him for some sightseeing and shopping. Good for me as I hadn't been to either of the places we went to, Baba Mahal Revisited - part of an old palace that has been redeveloped into a trendy (i.e. expensive) shopping/eating complex - and Patan Durbar Square - a UNESCO heritage site of old palaces and temples. In Babar Mahal, it was lovely to have a waiter from one of the bars rush over and say hello; when we first got here he worked at Bawarchi's, our regular local restaurant. By the time we got down to Patan, it was dark and our efforts to take atmospheric night photos were foiled by long exposure times and wobbly hands. A couple of mine follow but if you want to see some decent photos of the buildings, here's a gallery from a proper photographer.

Lions on guard and door of the Golden Temple:

I can't resist posting this next one covered in "orbs"

Rick's photos of this temple were also covered in orbs and when he experimented by taking shots facing the other way, they were not. He feared this proved the theory of one his patients that orbs are in fact paranormal phenomena associated with religious sites. Let's see whether I get any "interesting" comments to the blog sending me scientific proof of this.

Maybe I'll visit Patan Durbar Square again in daylight to get a better view and some decent orb-less photos.

We thought we'd eat down there but were pleased when Rick spurned a touristy restaurant with western menu in favour of a decent daal bhaat, tandoori chicken and naans at our favourite Fast Food Tandoori in Lazimpat - half the price and twice as good.

That'll do for now I think.
Cheers
Roshan

P.S. Buddha boy has reappeared again followed by a return to the jungle.

"We have never seen him eat or drink and we believe he's a god in human form," said Bed Bahadur Thing, president of the Buddha Jungle Meditation Conservation and Prosperity Committee. "Many people say we're just doing this for the money, but we have expenses for volunteers, food, security and maintenance".

Back in Kathmandu

2008-11-02T15:23:00.000+05:45

A very quick post to say that after a longer than expected break in the UK (Sheila got a new hip whilst we were there!) we got back to Kathmandu on Friday night. The flat was in remarkably good shape - not taken over by rodent or insect squatters as Sheila had feared - and after a day's binge cleaning yesterday we have all essentials unpacked from the boxes and bags they were stored in. No dramas getting mobiles and internet (still only dial-up unless I can persuade the Radisson Hotel that we can use their wi-fi) back connected so we are in full working order, so much so that Sheila has gone to work today (govt offices are open on Sundays) to find out what has been going on/what is in store for the next 6 months.

It feels good to be back, not least because the weather is warm and we've really missed the great food such as the channa masala/veg curry/naan we had at Fast Food Tandoori last night (no offence to the Simla but it beats their's out of sight and costs less than £1!). Weather should remain decent for a month or so and we've still got mo-mos and Bawarchi's wraps to sample again so it will be a few weeks before I revert to moaning about life here. Oh and its sooo good not to see "recession" or "global financial crisis" all over the newspapers. OK they are slim and today's were full of Ban Ki-Moon's flying visit but hopefully Nepal remains gloriously unaffected by these, certainly no sign of them from the tourists numbers.

Finally, a special thanks to Jem for dropping us at Heathrow on Thursday - we owe you a beer and curry.

Cheers for now, will try to get some pictures up next time.

Roshan

P.S. Spoke to soon, just a little moan about this being my 4th attempt to send this. Got spoilt by broadband.

Life in England

2008-05-27T20:31:00.004+05:45

It is now 2 weeks since we got back from Nepal. Still suffering culture shock from the complication (and cost!) of life here. I think the move the other way was much easier to cope with.

You may have read here a couple of months ago that Ben had persuaded me to join him in a sponsored abseil down Guy's Hospital Tower in London. Well, we did it on Saturday. Despite earlier forecasts, it was a glorious sunny day although pretty windy at the top of the tower. Apart from the first step over the edge, it was remarkably unscary - I was pleased to get to the bottom not because of nerves but because my arm was aching. Compared to other much shorter abseils I've done it was hard work due to the weight of rope hanging below you. Instead of just letting the rope zzzz through with an occasional pull down to brake, you had to heave up slack to make it run. Anyway I'm glad we did it, we raised some money (you can still donate at www.justgiving.com/roshandescends) for the Jennifer Trust for Spinal Muscular Atrophy and, particularly for Ben who is not a great fan of heights, laughed in the face of danger.

And yesterday I went sailing. In a brisk breeze, managed to stay upright and even beat a few of my less rusty competitors. Mind you I am now feeling aches and pains in muscles that had had little or no exercise in the last two and half years.

Whilst we are in the UK I don't plan to update the blog much, if at all, so its au revoir for a couple of months.

Cheers
Roshan

A particularly gay May Day in Nepal

2008-05-01T15:24:00.003+05:45

After the final election results were announced, we were 99% sure it was going to happen and yesterday afternoon we got confirmation - my boss has been chosen to take a seat in the new Constituent Assembly. Sweets and a mood of celebration in the office today!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Nepal_ready_for_first_gay_representative/articleshow/2999871.cms
The wind of change that swept through Nepal in the form of a historic election this month, dethroned its king, once revered as god, and instead gave power to the former Maoist guerrillas, will also see a fresh social revolution with the first gay representative being nominated to the new constituent assembly.

Sunil Babu Pant, a 35-year-old crusader for gay rights who founded the first organisation to protect the rights of the sexual minorities and ushered in a social revolution, now becomes part of Nepal's political history as well after being chosen by a minor communist party to represent it in the 601-member constituent assembly.

"We are honoured to send Pant as our representative to the constituent assembly," said Ganesh Shah of Communist Party, who’s Communist Party of Nepal-United (CPN-U) has won five seats in the assembly under the proportional representation system.

"We hope it will improve the lives of a people who are the most repressed in Nepal, disowned both by society and their own families," he added.

Pant, a computer engineer from Belarus, founded the Blue Diamond Society in 2002. It is now one of the best known gay rights groups in South Asia, fighting for molested and detained gays, spreads HIV/AIDS awareness, runs a hospice for terminally ill gay patients and provides training and jobs to members of the community.

Although I think Ganesh was referring above to the gay community, Sunil will be fighting for a Constitution that protects the rights of all repressed and marginalised groups. I know he will do a great job.

Cheers
Roshan

Change!

2008-04-15T12:07:00.000+05:45

The election last week passed remarkably peacefully and very quickly it became apparent that the Maoists (who when we arrived 2 years ago were in a shooting and bombing war against the then government) had far more voter support than anyone had expected and will be the single largest party. I had believed that it would not be possible for one party to have outright control under a voting system that had more than half the seats decided under proportional representation, but the Maoists have got such overwhelming support in the results declared so far that I am having second thoughts. It will be another 2 weeks or so before final results are in (there will be re-polling at a small proportion of voting booths where there was found to be dodgy practices) so we have to wait and see.

From media reports and speaking to friends, it is clear that this is a vote for change. The public has had enough of the same old politics delivered by the same old politicians – many of whom have not been reelected. To their credit, leaders of the 2 other main parties have resigned - accepting the blame for policies that were obviously not what voters wanted - with little or no mud slinging at the Maoists. In turn, the Maoist leadership has been talking about including other parties in its government. All an amazing demonstration of grown up democracy at work that was unthinkable 2 years ago. Having witnessed a people's revolution in our first 2 months, it will be great to see a democratically elected government in place as we leave (albeit temporarily – as Sheila's last post mentioned, we're coming back in August).

I guess most foreign governments are waiting for final results to be declared before sending their messages of congratulations and support. The one from the US is the most significant as they have to remove the Maoists from their list of terrorists or cut off all aid to, and contact with, the new government. Foggy Bottom (what a great name for the home of the US State Dept!) has had at least 2 years to think about this possibility so hopefully they can do the right thing in the next few weeks and avoid causing major disruption to development work here.

Back to normal life: in the nick of time before my laptop battery ran out, my colleagues have managed to get some petrol for our generator. Petrol is now available but only for vehicles so 2 of my colleagues fill up their motorbikes, come back to the office and siphon it into a container before going back to refill their bikes. The petrol fumes hovering round the office is a good incentive for me not to smoke but it is slightly disconcerting to have the petrol container kept in our room.

Cheers

Roshan

An April update from Sheila

2008-04-07T18:32:00.005+05:45

Finally, over two years on since our arrival and it looks as if the elections in Nepal really will happen on Thursday (for the first time since 1999!).

Government offices are mainly closed and although it means a weeks holiday for some, most of my education colleagues will spend the time being election officers and the majority seem very pleased that they are being deployed locally. So, a positive and cheerful atmosphere appears amongst those who are part of this. In the last few days they have gone to meetings about their election responsibilities and finally yesterday most heard where they would go today to begin duties. And others who now have the 8 days holiday are even more cheerful despite the ban on alcohol over this period!

So, for me this means that the education office is closed until next Tuesday at least and VSO will wait to see what the security position is before I can return. But still plenty of work to do as only a few weeks left for me now and there are many projects that I am part of - so good job I have good laptop!

However, instead of sitting at home and watching what is happening across the country (even without understanding the commentary at least we can watch if news is available) all of us from VSO are due to spend the next few days in a hotel in the centre of Kathmandu for the the annual conference - a well timed event which will ensure that everyone working throughout the country is in one place in case there are any security issues following poll day on Thursday. If the hotel does not have television, and I don't think it has internet access, then you are all more likely to know what is happening before we do!

An extra bonus on this very sunny morning is that we did not loose our power for the first time since er, December??? Maybe this is a sign that we will not have load shedding all this week - a bonus of the election procedure perhaps?! Although a bonus for us at the flat with our planned schedule, no power is only a very mild inconvenience. In comparison it is really difficult for small businesses and for offices as generators are of course only useful when fuel is available for them.

The weather has certaintly warmed up in the last few weeks since I got back from my brief stint in London. And it shows as everything is growing just outside the front door of our flat and looking bright and green after the last few evenings heavy thunderstorms.

And so, only a few more weeks to go as our visas run out and we will be returning back to the UK and only 10 days before Roshan and Ben make their big fundraising leap off the top of Guy's hospital!

http://www.justgiving.com/roshandescends
http://www.justgiving.com/bendescends

Recognising that I haven't got a replacement though, and that there is so much I can be part of with VSO and ECD (early childhood development) here it maybe that I am back for a few months in the winter. But who knows - first we have elections!

PS. And just for the opportunity to post the photo: when walking with friends though the centre of town, in between two houses we spotted this. I think it has been recently renovated. As ever Nepal offers never ending surprises!

Sport

2008-03-10T18:54:00.001+05:45

Not very often that I show an interest in football (soccer) but I heard the news this morning that all the glamour clubs have been knocked out of the FA Cup leaving Portsmouth as the highest ranked survivor. Nice one 'Arry. Although they are my local team, I can't say I support or know anything about them but for all my other friends who have supported them through plenty of bad times, I hope you get to Wembley. For Steve in particular, I hope it soothed the pain of England's thrashing by New Zealand in cricket and the Scots sneaking a win in the rugby.

Eating well despite.....

2008-03-09T20:25:00.004+05:45

…… being on my own for the last 6 days whilst Sheila is in London. Had dinner at the Radisson twice last week (twice more than in the last 2 years) as guest of a group from India that we are working with on a South Asia regional HIV & AIDS proposal. I'm sure they won't mind me saying that they are camp as you can get which, in addition to the food, made for a good couple of evenings. Last night's meal was courtesy of a wedding party at our associated oragnisation's office in Lalitpur. I was slightly worried about going to this as a couple of friends had said they were going to get me dancing. As some of you will know, I don't even shuffle on a UK dance floor (at least when I'm sober) let alone wiggle provocatively to Bollywood hits. So I kept well back from the dance floor and thankfully avoided making a fool of myself.

Bride & groom

Three times round, garland each other and you're married

Dancing's best left to the girls

For those of you currently being blown away in a stormy UK (I discovered a new term in the Shipping Forecast today, "phenomenal" referring to sea state – don't want to experience it), you might like to know that it was a lovely hot, sunny afternoon here today. I've even given up hot water bottles at night.

New volunteers, including my successor at BDS, arrive next week which is a reminder how scarily close we are to leaving. I really must look at the large pack labelled "Leavers Pack" that VSO gave us a month or so ago.

Enough of this, I must check the TV5 website to see if, and at what time, they are showing Wales v France next week.

Cheers

Roshan

P.S. 32 days to the election and things are remarkably quiet. Good thing I didn’t try to give you political updates 2 weeks ago – news on the talks to settle the strikes by political groups changed by the day, settled, not settled and finally an agreement that may or may not be implemented. So the strikes are over and Ktm is getting fuel again although the queues at the petrol stations suggest that people are stocking up in anticipation of future problems. Load shedding still a PITA despite Nepal Electricity Authority kindly reducing the hours of power cuts last week (we get an extra half day without cuts but as this is in the middle of the night for our area, its not much use. We still have 5 days with between 6.5 to 8 hours of cuts)

Very interested in all Commie parties - not!

2008-03-02T23:50:00.001+05:45

In case you share the view of a friend who found my news about the number of Communist parties in Nepal less than riveting I thought I should pass on her exciting news from Bognor.

Somebody in Barnham was fined £155 for throwing a fag butt [for Americans I should explain that this is a cigarette end] out of a car window.

Rabbit baiting by the beach huts at Blakes road. [fantastic, maybe this will stop the little b****rs nesting under the floorboards of our house]

Ireland short of priests, and people enrolling as teachers for peace and quiet due to increased truancy. [maybe this item wasn't in the Bognor Observer]

Boy it's going to be hard to cope with all this excitement when we return. Anyway, thanks to Heather for keeping us up to date and standing in for me on Mothering Sunday.

Cheers

Roshan

Parties galore

2008-02-20T22:49:00.003+05:45

Having seen various different Communist Parties mentioned in the newspapers, someone visiting from India asked me today how many there were in Nepal. I knew there were quite a few but having looked it up (have recently discovered Wikipedia) thought I would share the list with you.

Current groups (CPN = Communist Party of Nepal)
CPN (Unified Marxist-Leninist)
CPN (Maoist)
CPN (Unity Centre-Masal)
CPN (United Marxist)
CPN (Marxist-Leninist)
CPN (Masal)
CPN (United)
CPN (Unified)
Nepal Workers Peasants Party

Defunct groups
Communist Party of Nepal
Nepal Communist League
CPN (Rayamjhi)
CPN (Pushpa Lal)
CPN (4th Convention)
CPN (Marxist-Leninist)
CPN (Masal)
CPN (Mashal)
CPN (Manmohan)
CPN (Marxist) (1st)
CPN (Marxist) (2nd)
CPN (Democratic)
CPN (Unity Centre)
CPN (MLM)
CPN (Samyabadi)
CPN (MLM Centre)
CPN (United)

Yes, I know there are some in both lists, I don't know why but I'm sure Wiki has a reason. And no, Masal and Mashal are not just mis-spellings, they were 2 separate parties.

All very "Life of Brian" Peoples Liberation Front of Judea isn't it!

Cheers
Roshan

P.S. 22 petrol tankers got through to Ktm today and the Prime Minister said the shortage will be over by tomorrow so all is well.

2 years already!

2008-02-17T21:55:00.001+05:45

It really doesn't seem like we've been here 2 years. It certainly doesn't seem like there has been 2 years of political progress. After dramatic changes in our first 3 months, things got stuck and with less than 2 months before elections are due it really doesn't look good. Most obvious in Kathmandu is the load shedding and fuel shortages but in the south and east political groupings have called strikes so life there has pretty much ground to a halt. Last Friday a group of us were trying to return from a meeting near Bhaktapur (where Sheila used to work) and a transport strike was called on a short stretch of road. After waiting a bit we decided to walk which was fine, about an hour, lots of other people walking and it all seemed quite calm. Then in the papers the next day we read that later on there had been a demonstration followed by a curfew during which the police opened fire and one person was killed. The police are meant to have had crowd control training from international experts including the Brits but it seems they haven't learnt much. They claim they were firing over the demonstrators' heads yet managed to hit someone who, based on average height here, was well under 6ft tall. Fortunately it sounds as if things have quietened down there now but with tempers frayed due to the fuel shortage, incidents like this can easily get out of hand particularly if the police are allowed to use live rounds. The politicians continue to make wild promises that are very quickly broken. The Prime Minister was quoted as saying that he had "given orders to solve the petrol shortage" without any indication how this was to be achieved and a Minister said he would "pounce" on anyone who described it as a "crisis". The government really doesn't seem to have much grip on reality. Very depressing, can only hope that the Nepali talent for delivering things at the last minute will show through.

We escaped all the difficulties facing the average Nepali with an indulgent afternoon sitting in the British Embassy Club garden – all right for some.

Cheers

Roshan

Happy Lhosar 2135 (2008)

2008-02-09T16:47:00.000+05:45

Lhosar is the Tibetan New Year which is celebrated on the New Moon in February. I'm not sure whether it's today or yesterday but there was a street festival being set up today and lots of Tibetans in their best.

Pretty much got into the routine of 8 hours per day load shedding at home. Minor frustration is that it looks like the France v Ireland rugby match is being shown on TV5 tonight but we have no power then. I'm not going to hunt around for a bar which is willing to have the TV on a French channel showing rugby - it could be a long search.

Weather is definitely starting to warm up, positively hot in the sunshine today. However having got used to cosy hot water bottles (3!) in bed, it may be some time before we get out of the habit.

Cheers
Roshan

Life's a beach........

2008-01-31T22:07:00.000+05:45

…. and then you have to go back to work. Yes, we are back in chilly Kathmandu after 2 gloriously hot weeks in Kerala. Josie keeps telling me to stop whining about the cold because its colder in the UK but what she doesn't understand is that we get no warmth even when we are in the house or office, the only place that's warm is in bed which is where I am now at 7.15pm. It will be slow typing by torch and my laptop battery now only lasts about 45 mins on full charge so I probably won't finish this until after the power comes back on at 8.30pm.

Our itinerary for India was:

Flight to Delhi, with a day there to have a look at how much it has changed

And it has changed a lot! There is building work everywhere. They are extending the Metro to South Delhi and building lots of flyovers and roads so it is one big construction site. Surprisingly modern sites as well, gone is the bamboo scaffolding and labourers with shovels and buckets the place was full of very modern equipment (apparently JCB sell more excavators in India than in the UK) and men wearing hard hats. We visited Khan Market which 10 years ago was a very basic shopping area and is now full of incredibly expensive clothes boutiques, trendy home furnishing shops and upmarket coffee bars. The Red Fort hasn't changed

nor has my old office

but transport at that end of the city has – a modern, clean and smart Metro (although slight disconcerting to have security personnel join you in the carriages complete with sub-machine guns – India has become very security conscious), I apologise for believing that it would be covered in red betel nut spit, this and chewing gum is banned).

Fly to Trivandrum (capital of Kerala state, which has adopted its original Indian name but I can't spell it)

Just overnight there but long enough to take a bus ride out to Kovalum beach which was completely undeveloped when I last visited aged 11 years. There are now plenty of tourist hotels, shops and restaurants although not over the top.

Train and bus frequencies were not quite so often as we'd been led to believe by the Lonely Planet so it was at 4.30am that we took a…

Bus to Kanyakumari (in Tamil Nadu state, the southern most tip of India)

A bit of a fright when we got to the bus station and, contrary to what they'd said the previous afternoon, there was no bus to K'kumari at 4.30am. But don't worry you can get a local bus to a place beginning with N where you can get a connection. Sounded good until the bus came in; it was packed when it arrived and there was no way that we were going to fight with the crowd trying to get on so we were resigned to Plan B (wait for the 12.30 train). Then the nice official who had told us which bus to get saw us, said there will be another one running soon and grabbed a driver to take us over to the yard where it was parked and put us on it before it pulled into the main bus park where the masses awaited. Fantastic, we had seats for what was to be a 2 hour ride. Thank you Kerala State Transport Co, very tourist friendly. Connection worked fine and we were in Kanyakumari at 7.30am. Now this was the one and only place we had reserved a hotel for what good it did us. We hadn’t thought to check festival dates and we had arrived on the first day of Pongal, a Tamil harvest festival. The town was packed with jeeps and buses full of people

making a pilgrimage to the famous island temple at Kanyakumari.

So the hotel had let our room. So across the road to a slightly more expensive looking place and much to our relief we got a room. We had an afternoon of wandering around, nice to see a fishing beach again but it was very windy and you got sand blasted. Off the next morning by….

Train to Varkala (beach resort in Kerala)

This really was a resort, masses of hotels, bars, restaurants, shops and touts. It is perched on a cliff with the main beach reached by some precipitous steps. The small place we had hoped to stay at was fully booked but after walking all the way along the front rejecting the ridiculous prices being offered by the touts we managed to get a room for Rs400 (about £5) with a sea view balcony and behind a nice family run restaurant. Two days there lazing on the beach (North beach slightly easier to get to!) and pigging out on sea food. A beautiful place but very touristy.

Train to Allupuzha (otherwise known as Alleppey, the start of the Kerala backwaters)

Got a room at our first choice place, more of a home stay than a hotel; very friendly and complete with a litter of very small kittens in the bottom of our wardrobe (sorry, picture didn't come out). The owner also ran a houseboat and looking through his brochure we wished we had allowed time for 24 hours on this – another time maybe. The guide book was disparaging of the beach so we were surprised to discover it was miles of glorious white sand, alright nothing in the way of bars but beautiful.

In the middle of the beach was a decrepit old pier which was slightly puzzling.

On investigation this turned out to be the pier for the Port of Alleppey; I think of ports as having some shelter for ships rather than just a pier which might explain why it is no longer operating. Although in true Indian bureaucratic style it still has Customs and Port Offices, no doubt fully manned. I should not mock the Port of Alleppey because I learnt later that my grandfather used to work there as the Chamber of Commerce Official Measurer, I guess he would have retired about 50 years ago so maybe it was still a thriving port then. Our host also introduced us to his "Secret Beach". A real picture postcard place with absolute nothing other than sand, coconut trees and fishing boats

One night there, thankfully under a mozzie net because they were big and hungry, before…

Train to Kochi/Ernakulum (the commercial centre of Kerala developed around a large harbour by the Portugese, the Dutch and then the Brits who called it Cochin)

We had intended to stay with my stepmother who lives just outside the city but she had very kindly booked us into a hotel in the city and came to stay there with us. I had been here twice before, once when I was 11 yrs old and then 10 years ago. I remember nothing of the first trip and recognised little from the second. In 10 years it has got a new international airport which makes it easily accessible for the huge numbers of Keralans who work overseas; from labourers in the Gulf to brain surgeons in the US. As a result property development is booming with apartment blocks and shopping centres springing up everywhere. It has also become popular with tourists, both backpackers and more up-market types. Fort Cochin, which is the old colonial centre, has some beautiful historic buildings many of which have been renovated to make top of the range boutique hotels where guests are pampered with ayurvedic massages and seafood cuisine before strolling out to see the traditional Chinese fishing nets on the beach. These are still operating commercially although apparently this is becoming more difficult as big trawlers are now landing catches – hopefully they will work out a way of getting some income out of the tourists rather than pack up completely. Kerala (motto "God's own country") is really pushing tourism in a big way and I'd just read that Kochi had been made a stopover port for the Volvo Round the World Race next year so it wasn't a total surprise to see Ericsson, a Volvo yacht,

coming in as we crossed on the ferry. To host this they have promised to develop a dockside area so maybe Kochi will finally get the marina that has been talked about for years. The sponsors want an India stopover for commercial reasons and I'm sure the Volvo race management are aware that this will be slightly more challenging to organise than Sydney. A good reason to visit again next year.

Apart from looking around Fort Cochin, eating and shopping we also had an afternoon at yet another gorgeous beach just north of the city. On the way back, more festivals, not sure what it was but it involved a lot of elephants

Flight to Delhi

I forgot to mention that our internal flights were on cut price airlines, brilliant and half the price of the much shorter Ktm-Del flight. Just one night in Delhi staying with my old Delhi Rugby Club mate, Robin, and his girlfriend, Annelise. The shock of returning to chillier climes was eased by a boozy evening and delicious food (he's an artist but also a great cook) with them.

Flight to Kathmandu

Where we discovered we had missed a couple of days of bandhs (strikes) and tyre burning in protest against the government having increased diesel and kerosene prices. Same as last year, 2 days of protests and the price rise was cancelled. Although I don't think the price rise would have solved the problem, there is now a chronic shortage of diesel so the buses, lorries and diesel generators (essential for major businesses now we are up to 36 hours per week load shedding) will grind to a halt shortly. Not an ideal lead up to an election on 10 April. The question is whether the electorate will take revenge on any particular party. I'm sure I'll be writing more about fuel shortages, load shedding, politics and election preparations in the next few weeks. I bet you can't wait.

Cheers
Roshan

Happy reincarnation Ed

2008-01-11T17:21:00.001+05:45

Sad to read that Ed Hillary died yesterday. He was a special hero in Nepal because he gave equal credit for climbing Everest to Tensing Norgay (in those days Sherpas were generally treated as menial servants) and for the last 50 odd years had been supporting health and education projects in the Sherpa districts that he visited when climbing. Today there will be thousands of Sherpas lighting lamps and praying for his reincarnation.

It's January...

2008-01-11T08:38:00.001+05:45

…. so load shedding hours are cranking up. Last week they went up from the 4 hours per week (2 hours x 2 days) it has been since the summer to 15 hours per week. We were struggling to work out the schedule (difficult because we also had a series of technical power cuts) until yesterday when a timetable was published. It only lasted for one day! We went up to 36 hours per week (2 x 3 hours for 6 days) today. Last year the Nepal Electricity Authority talked about 12 hours per day in March but it never happened, the maximum was 6 hrs/day. I'm not sure we will escape so lightly this year unless we get some heavy rain which is unlikely. As we are meant to be having an election in mid-April (no date announced yet) things could get interesting with politicians not wanting power cuts to upset the voters (who are already pissed off with gas and petrol shortages) and doing a King Canute by telling the NEA not to increase load shedding hours. Of course the other possibility is that some will exploit the situation by blaming the Indians - always popular even when it has little justification – and whipping up a hate campaign that targets pro-Indian politicians.

All good fun but I won't care after Saturday because we are leaving then for 2 weeks holiday in Kerala (south India, where my Dad was born). Nice warm climate, sea, beaches (sorry to rub it in for all of you with a couple of months of winter still to go) and seafood. For some crazy reason we decided to have 2 days in Delhi en-route so we'll also get a chance to see how recognisable it is after 10 years of frantic development (I lived there 1995-97). Sheila is really excited to see the Metro; if I know Delhiites, it will not be as shiny as the pictures she's seen.

Cheers

Roshan

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T19:37:00.001+05:45

As I write this, most of you in the UK will be preparing for your big Christmas lunch (or if you follow our family's tradition, just recovering from a large late breakfast) and those in the southern hemisphere will probably already be asleep after having eaten and drunk too much. We've just finished our Christmas dinner of tandoori chicken (a real rarity for us on our almost veggie diet) and roast potatoes followed by a delicious mini Christmas pud and even some wine. All this leaves me, in proper Christmas style, well and truly stuffed. All I need now is some junk TV to fall asleep in front and it would be a totally traditional Christmas. However as it is distinctly chilly in the flat I think I'll follow normal practice and curl up in bed with a hot water bottle and a book. Back to work tomorrow.

Hope you have/had a great Christmas.

Cheers

Roshan

PINK LETTER DAY!

2007-12-22T14:13:00.001+05:45

Nepal's Supreme Court has ordered the government to scrap laws that discriminate against homosexuals – BBC News

Gays, transsexuals ‘normal’ people - Kathmandu Post

SC strikes a blow for gays, lesbians - Himalayan Times

The result of this legal case initiated by Blue Diamond Society is fantastic news and everyone at work is incredibly excited. Although it may take a generation or two to change public attitudes, to have legal backing for equal rights and non-discrimination for LGBTI is a huge step forward and in this judgement Nepal has gone further than many other supposedly liberal countries (thanks to a legacy from the British Raj and a tortuously slow legal system, homosexuality is illegal in India). As front page news, it also raises public awareness which in turn makes it easier for my colleagues to carry out their HIV & AIDS and human rights work. Altogether a good result!

Still a bit of work to do with the media though. One of the papers has a picture of 2 of my transgender (male to female) colleagues with a caption describing them as lesbian.

Never was any good at sending Xmas cards in time so hope you don't mind an electronic one

2007-12-15T16:20:00.000+05:45

www.sheilaandroshan.blogspot.com

World AIDS Day 2007

2007-12-09T14:49:00.000+05:45

A week late in posting I'm afraid due to problems trying to get the pictures uploaded and into the blog.

A more coordinated World AIDS Day than last year with most of the HIV & AIDS organisations working in Kathmandu getting together for a single rally. This started in the sports stadium at the south end of town - a good place to gather although maybe not appreciated by participants in the Masters (as in veterans) Athletic Championship which was taking place on the track.

The WAD organising committee must have a decent budget this year, enough to hire an elephant to lead the parade.

Our 2 organisations working in the Kathmandu valley each had contingents.

A couple of surreal sights:

I guess he was warming down after his run

It took me a while to work out that the man in the fluffy white suit and cap was probably meant to be Condom Man - he was looking pretty hot by the end of the day. The bearded guy with the story on his night shirt describes himself as "Cleaner of Nepal" (nope, no idea why) and turns up to most big events. Good to see he is HIV aware.

After the obligatory delay for no apparent reason, the parade started and we headed up the road creating a bit of a traffic jam.

We were heading for a park in the centre of town but to maximise exposure the parade took a circuitous route through the market areas - good plan but it did get a little congested.

At one point there was a change of route and the front of the parade doubled back on us. Fine but remember the elephant? It came trotting back down the narrow alley leaving everyone to leap out of the way. My photo of this ended up slightly more close up than was intended.

The elephant leading the way down another alley. That's the driver with his hands up trying to lift the overhead cables up so he doesn't get garotted

Finally got to the park for where the dignitaries were gathered to make speeches. The Prime Minister was meant to be principal guest but, surprise surprise, never arrived.

It was not just dignitaries making speeches, this is my friend Sanjiv addressing the masses. He had short notice that it was going to be him making the speech for Blue Diamond Society and cool as anything he scribbled some notes and gave a confident presentation.

A well attended day with good media coverage. However if I had posted this last Sunday as intended it would have finished with a tirade against donors who on 1 December were bragging about all the HIV & AIDS programmes they are funding despite the fact that a large number of organisations, including us, were still waiting for contracts to be signed for programmes that should have started on 1 November. We finally got the contract signed on Tuesday so you are saved from my mouth frothing rant. Still waiting for the cash of course, that'll take another week or so.

And that was World AIDS Day 2007 in Kathmandu.
Cheers
Roshan

P.S. Looks pretty nasty weather in the UK this weekend. Although it is pretty chilly at nights here now, most days there is bright sunshine with temperatures up to 20'C for a couple of hours.

Thanks to our guest bloggers

2007-11-28T15:58:00.001+05:45

I hope the contributions from Josie, Matt and Heather gave an interesting break from my normal drivel. And have you seen the video in Matt's? All the bells and whistles on this site!

Nothing to report really since the visitors left. Sheila helped her boss at a good training for ECD facilitators last week and is off tomorrow to visit a district to see how it is being put into practice. She thinks it might involve an overnight stay so is worrying where they will stay (I think that really means "will there only be squat toilets") and how cold it will be. I'm still churning out spreadsheets to finalise our UNDP project funding. Relations with UNDP are a lot more friendly than last year but the situation is the same; the programme should have started on 1 November and 4 weeks later we still haven't got a contract - cash will take at least another week or 2 after that. Hopefully my colleagues will manage to scrape up enough cash to run some activities on World AIDS Day this Saturday.

Thinking of unreal world that donors work in, I was amused by the following instructions on a World Bank proposal form:

INSTRUCTIONS
1. All questions are mandatory.
2. If you want to leave any question blank, please write NA.

Will stop now before my laptop dies. We have an unscheduled power cut which apparently will last until 5pm (1.5 hours more).

Cheers

Roshan

Guest blog by Heather: Memories

2007-11-27T15:57:00.000+05:45

Most annoying: Continual hooting of traffic for no apparent reason.

Most surprising: Ability of battered tempos to carry so many passengers without breaking down.

Most exhausting: Bartering in Thamel.

Most deserving: Declan's boys, who had been living on the streets.

Most exciting: White water rafting.

Most scenic: Deep blue sky and mountains seen at Nagarkot.

Most generous: Thank you Sheila and Roshan so much for putting me up (and putting up with me) for 6 weeks to enable/empower me to experience a small part of Nepal. Loved it!

Guest blog by Matt: Up a mountain, down a valley and over a dead body...

2007-11-19T19:49:00.000+05:45

Ok, so I’m no longer in Nepal. Wish I was rather than being back home freezing to death with the happy prospect of work. And yes, I have been nagged to write a guest blog so here, in brief, is a review of my fortnight away…

Trekking: so there we are with our guide and porter venturing forth into the Himalayas. Whilst their names escape me already (Lima? Larma? Darma?) they were very friendly. In fact, they even offered to carry our bags and narrate our journey! How lovely.

As our Nepali and their English was a little restrictive gestures became the main source of communication (not easy when the conversation moves on to discussing Phd in Psychology and the rights and wrongs of Marxist theory). Alas we did manage to gather that, unfortunately, we were told that the weather was the worst it has been since the beginning of time. Not so lovely.

None the less we were assured that some snow-capped mountains lay beyond the thick grey clouds.

Can't completely complain as the poor weather did abate on our way back down and we were left with some really amazing scenery. The landscape in the lower parts of the valley resembled fish scales. It looked really quite surreal.
And yes, I have now got a taste for more trekking - Tibet perhaps?

Kathmandu and Bhaktapur both fantastic: a maze of temples, medieval-like streets, self-assured cows, rubbish and non-stop noise of horns. I particularly enjoyed watching Josie negotiating such items on the busy streets and even more entertaining when dark and using a headtorch to light the way. Needless to say the pavements were vastly inaccessible but quite an adventure!

When off exploring on my own I visited potty-posh-not (Lonely Planet's phonetics??!!) aka Pashupatinath. An ancient Hindu temple, flanked with shadhus, praying temples, burning bodies, cows and beggars. At one point I found myself straddling a dead body, surrounded by mourning family members. Obviously I hadn’t intended to get so familiar with the locals, it was simply a poorly calculated short cut to avoid the wailing family. Apologies!

Obviously there are many more memories; Everest flight, becoming slightly obsessive with prayer wheels at Boudha stupa, Bawarchis veggie and paneer wraps (Mmmm) and so I just want to give a BIG thank you to Sheila and Roshan for allowing me to stay and for arranging so many unforgettable activities. They are both stars. But we knew that anyway!

If not cash, donate some brain power

2007-11-19T17:10:00.001+05:45

The FreeRice website I mentioned a couple of posts ago seems popular so I have added a permanent link to it on the right just below the pretty "Going to Nepal" widget (of course you could click that instead and give real cash to VSO so they can keep us in the style we have become accustomed to).

Keep checking for Matt's guest blog. You might have to wait a few more days for Heather's as she is on her way home – the last of our visitors gone leaving us to a cold, lonely winter :-(

Cheers

Roshan

No talk, just pictures

2007-11-12T19:37:00.000+05:45

2007-11-11T18:47:00.000+05:45

As you've seen from Josie's post, we're back from Pokhara and are enjoying Tihar (Divali) in Kathmandu – the roads may be quiet but the firecrackers (banned by the government but as one of the papers said, not much point making laws if you don't implement them) are very noisy!

A few more photos from Pokhara.

Watch out North Sails, you have competition

A limited view of the boat I took out but you get the idea what it was like

Cows wander freely round Pokhara which, as Josie discovered, you need to watch wear you tread. Interestingly despite there being plenty of vegetation around we saw a couple of cows really tucking into cardboard boxes – a really good recycling solution.

In Kathmandu yesterday we got up early and met one of my colleagues at Durbar Square to watch a Nepali New Year procession. Colourful and noisy!

The intrepid trekkers got home yesterday. The weather wasn't so good for much of the trip but they have got some great photos, I'll let Josie nag them into doing a guest blog.

Another early start tomorrow to go on an Everest flight – hopefully it will be nice and clear first thing.

Cheers
Roshan

P.S. You may already have seen this in the news. A website that checks how good your word knowledge is and donates to the World Food Programme for every correct answer (www.FreeRice.com). Be warned it starts easy and gets tougher quite quickly.

P.P.S. Couldn't resist taking a picture of the dashboard of a coach I was on a couple of weeks ago. Nepali roads really get the nodding dogs working.

Guest blog by Josie: We're all going on a November holiday…

2007-11-08T20:19:00.000+05:45

OK, as I nag S&R to update this regularly I couldn't really refuse to do my own guest entry!

Now back in KTM following a relaxing few days in the lakeside tourist resort, Pokhara.

Most days spent pottering up and down the main street (avoiding pot holes and cow dung where possible), chattering to fascinated locals who wanted to know how my wheelchair works ("batteries, like car") and tucking into yummy grub (thanks in particular to hospitality of all at Mike's - best brownies by far Mmmmm!). Well I am on my holidays after all!!!

Not a bad spot to stay, Hotel Fewa is right by the water (my usual sunny morning spot to sit with cuppa was just above the man in white shirt on left).

View from the lake (taken by Roshan whilst messing about on a boat!)

However, weather not too kind to us - too overcast for decent spot of the snowcapped mountains. A brief peak of a peak was all I got and even that wasn't as good as this photo mum got…

Alas, should have been like this…
Annapurna mountain range - views from Pokhara seen by Sheila during work visit in Sept

Hopefully cloud cover and mist has shifted enough over last 48hrs or so for Matt and Heather to get a good look. They embarked on a 5 day trek up to first significant spot on Annapurna Circuit, Poon Hill - left at 7am on Tues with guide and porter, walking approx. 10km a day and dossing at teahouses along the way. All being well we expect them to arrive back in KTM c/o bus on Sunday and news of their adventures to follow…

As well as devouring a good book or two whilst sitting beside the lake (Phewa) it was great to watch the local life going on, especially the daily routine of kids coming across the water to and from school. In the mornings they are noticeably more conscious of time but on their homeward punts are far more leisurely and two or three boats full of girls gather mid-lake and seem to float home alongside each other as they focus more on chatter than getting to the other side!

On the way to school…

Now back in Kathmandu it is clearly festival time as bright and glittery decorations and garland for sale decorate shop fronts and firecrackers going off regularly in streets. Four days of celebrations has started, worshipping crows yesterday and dogs today - lucky old Whisky the mutt from upstairs got tikka'd this morning (could this have been something to do with him sitting so quietly beside me - S&R never seen him so well behaved!)

So happy Tihar (festival of lights aka Diwali) and er, Ben please note that Sunday it is time for brothers and sisters to show their love and respect for one another. We may have to do it from afar but I'm quite happy with an IOU: "sisters offer small gifts of fruit and sweets to their brothers while the brothers give their sisters money in return". So dear baby bro I look forward to my return, as I am sure you do too!

More news from dad and the trekking twosome in the near future I expect (and will insist upon!), in the meantime Namaste from me, Josie x

Visitors

2007-11-02T20:24:00.000+05:45

Josie and Matt arrived safe and sound this afternoon. Lots of goodies!

Condom Day here tomorrow so if they are up in time I'll take them down to meet my BDS friends.

Cheers
Roshan

P.S. Re the earthquake, I got a mail from someone called Roshan in California where they had a 5.9 earthquake the same day as we did. He found my blog when googling "Roshan" and "earthquake" – spooky eh?

We had an earthquake!

2007-10-29T16:58:00.000+05:45

THT Online Kathmandu, October 29 - Kathmandu was rocked by a tremor measuring 5 on the richter scale this afternoon at about 3.35 pm. The tremor lasted just a few seconds rattling walls and windows and forced people to come out of their homes and offices. According to Department of Seismology the tremor measuring 5 on the richter scale had its epicentre in Sharamthali VDC of Nuwakot district.

It was literally just for seconds and I didn't even have time to dive under the table as instructed in our earthquake training. No sign of any buildings being damaged and the flowerpots resting on the balcony of the house opposite are still there. I guess from the news item above that there have been no injuries or damage.

And whilst I'm online, and before I get inundated with e-mails giving advice :-), I can reassure you that I do not have a detached top rib, I have costocondritis, an inflammation of the costal cartilage. Unfortunately to find this out I had to break my record of not having visited the doctor since arriving in Nepal, bummer I thought I might make it all the way.

Cheers
Roshan

Petrol and politics

2007-10-28T15:29:00.001+05:45

Well they've finally done it, fuel prices have been increased. From an economics point of view it was inevitable, shame the politicians haven't learnt the democratic way of doing things with the result that there have been a couple of demonstrations, maybe more to come. The decision appears to have been reached in private between the normal huddle of politicians with no proper cabinet discussion to bring all the parties together on this issue let alone the opportunity of a debate in parliament (its members may not have been democratically elected but at least an open debate would give the impression of transparency). There are quotes in the press that the decision was made because some politicians own petrol pumps – it seems easy to convince the public that all decisions are made for corrupt reasons. I think the more likely explanation is that India just refused to supply more oil until they got paid. This would not go down well with those in Nepal who are paranoid that India pulls the strings of the Prime Minister but at least it is better than leaving the general public thinking it is all about corruption. Apart from groups who wish to make political capital about this decision, the general public reaction seems to be that the price rises (in addition to petrol and diesel, kerosene and gas which are used for cooking have gone up by 20%) are acceptable provided it means supplies are now available; they have been paying these prices on the blackmarket anyway in the last few months. So the real test will be whether the notoriously inefficient (other descriptions are sometimes used but I could not possibly comment) Nepal Oil Corporation can get supplies moving again so people don't have to queue and/or pay blackmarket prices.

On the wider political front, it is deja vue all over again. The Maoists were persuaded to postpone the special sitting of parliament they had demanded until after the Dashain festival so we now have this tomorrow. It seems unlikely that their resolutions to declare a republic and change the voting system will be agreed and it remains to be seen what action they will take if they aren't. With conditions in the mountainous areas making elections impractical during the winter months I am now starting to doubt that elections will be held before we leave in May next year – failure to hold elections and Constituent Assemblies have been a major part of Nepal's 50 year journey towards democracy so the current situation is not new.

Sheila and Heather have been doing some sightseeing over the holiday period but I've mainly stayed at home nursing aches and pains in my neck, back, chest, arms…. I think these are a reaction to what appears to be a detached top rib, I can't remember doing anything to cause this but it is sticking out a bit and is slightly tender. I suppose I ought to break my duck and go to the doctors about it but thinking how useless the medical profession was when I broke a rib 15 years ago, I'm not sure what they can do. I'll give it a couple more days and see if it magically pops back into place. Any of you out there with experience or advice on this?

Should be back to normal tomorrow, I was in the office Thursday and Friday but not many colleagues were. Then with Josie and Matt who arrive on Friday we are off to Pokhara next Sunday. Fingers crossed for nice weather so Josie can get some sunshine and see the mountains. Its been beautiful during the days here for the last week or so although it is getting noticeably chillier at night.

Cheers
Roshan

P.S. I did stay awake to watch the Rugby Final – credit to England for playing way better than looked possible a month ago, shame no tries though.

Out and about over Dasain

2007-10-28T13:25:00.001+05:45

Holiday from offices for the Dasain festival has given us time to get out of city and into the Kathmandu valley. Heather is here with us although had a slightly scary introduction to Nepal arriving early through from custom hall to the sea of hopeful porters and taxi drivers and no sign of us.

Travelling out of city on full buses on outgoing journeys

An everyday dashboard garden or specially for Dasain?

Still quite empty but we hadn't left the bus park and plenty more came on.

Some so full inside and on top they wouldn’t even take more locals and led Heather and I to have a 10 km walk returning home, but mostly down hill and great views.

Sunrise at Dhulikel

View from Budhanilkantha

Walk home from Pharping

Dancers in Patan entertain locals and tourists

Love
Sheila

More ECD

2007-10-28T13:24:00.000+05:45

Nepal has targets for provision for large expansion of centres and pre primary classes to meet the Education For All goals, but wide expansion of enrolment does not ensure quality. In the last couple of months, much of the work in our department with the ECD network is beginning to build a picture of provision across the country.

For me a trip to Pokhara gave me 5 days to look at school and community based centres and to talk with another volunteer about provision in villages that she had reached by bus and then a steep all day walk.

Whilst in Pokhara I stayed at a guest house, whose owner works towards improving early ECD in the locality. With the help of sponsorship and donations, www.butterflyfoundation.org

has established and fully covers costs of one centre, and also supports several others in the locality.

A week later I went to Kavre , east of Kathmandu. After a 2 hour drive, which included the 4 by 4 being stuck (this is not my usual method of travel but we were with a prospective donor) and having to reverse some way out of the mud and back down the hill (we walked ), we saw 2 school based centres then a walk across a field and up a narrow muddy track before we reached another centre. This was in a small community in an old Newari building close to a tiny temple. The children were not used to so many visitors and at first sat and watched us.This centre had been set up with small advance from the district education office and some training from an NGO. It is now run and financed by the local community, families who can pay something between them make up 600rps adding to the government 1,000 so that the 2 staff share 1,600rps (£12) a month between them.

Here, for my first time in Nepal, I was able to see some planning for individual childrens learning and the material is shared with parents and families! This is a centre that we would like to use as an example of good practice both for the community involvement and the quality provision for children's learning but it is not easy to access. But maybe we'll consider video.

Love to all
Sheila

Busy day, still not over

2007-10-06T23:48:00.001+05:45

Ooer, that wasn't meant to happen, just got back from watching England beat Australia in the Rugby World Cup quarters. My England supporting friends (not sure I have any others when it comes to this match) will gloat at the fact that I was expecting and supporting Australia to win and I won't even try giving any excuses. England's scrummaging meant they controlled and even if the backs showed no sign of scoring a try, good 'ol Jonny kicked them to victory. It has spurred me to stay up and watch All Blacks v France (k.o. 0045 our time) in the hope of seeing some classy back play and some tries.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with the title of this post. It has been a busy day, with me leaving the house at 5:45 am to get to the Kathmandu Marathon. No, don't be stupid of course I wasn't running even in the 5km event. VSO had encouraged all the organisations we work with to enter runners and mine had entered 7 runners in the 10km and 5km events. A large number of volunteers were also running including a couple in the full marathon. Cycled down to start area to meet my colleagues at 6am which is when the full marathon was meant to start and then stood around for 75 mins before it finally did. The other events followed shortly afterwards and I cycled the 5km course to support my BDS friends. After last week's miserable quite chilly and very wet Saturday, today was gloriously sunny and hot – great provided you weren't running or cycling. Hung around the stadium to take photos as various volunteer friends completed 10km and half marathon before setting off on the bike again to find our by now lone representative in the full marathon (the other one who started the full took the wrong turn so ended up on the half instead). We did find him after another 5km bike ride on a, by then, busy and very hot road with a nasty long uphill bit. Then back to the stadium to clap him in and take more pictures. By that time it was nearly midday, so straight off to the VSO annual picnic (I think the Country Director who had run the half marathon was starting to regret having this on the same day). The good news was that this was only a short bike ride from the stadium. A fun, despite being non-alcoholic, picnic before cycling back home in Saturday afternoon shopping rush hour traffic. There was then just time to grab a shower and check e-mail before trotting off the British Embassy club to watch rugby and enjoy sausage, egg and chips. I know you serious cyclist's knock off 20 miles before breakfast but for me this is the most cycling I've done in a day (total probably 20km) since we've been here and remember I have an old clunker of a bike. I did think when cycling home that 18 months ago I thought I was risking life and limb on roads here where everyone weaves in and out – now as I do the same myself I think how dangerous the British roads are going to be if I don't revert to Bicycle Proficiency Test standards as soon as I get back. How easy it is to get used to different norms.

Before giving political news and views, some photos of the marathon:

The Blue Diamond Society team before….

…and some of us after

I think he was pleased to see the tape

Right, politics. The elections to the Constituent Assembly due on 22 November have been postponed as the parties can't agree to various Maoist pre-conditions. These elections are a key plank of the Peace Agreement signed almost a year ago so it is not good news. It is not clear what happens now; a special sitting of Parliament (don't be misled, it is not a democratically elected body) on 11 Oct may make things clearer but is more likely to be used by all sides to deflect the blame for causing this situation. We had a security briefing by an expert yesterday and he is not optimistic that the politics can be settled in a transparent democratic way but they might be by murky deals between the parties done in private. Certainly Nepal's politicians have more experience of the latter. However having raised Nepali's hopes of a New Nepal this may not be an acceptable solution for the various minority groups (new ones popping up all the time) round the country. This is unlikely to have any security implications in Kathmandu but in other areas, as I have said before, there is little control by the security forces so the local groups and their criminal friends get away with violence which begets more violence. As long as the Maoists still keep their soldiers in the UN monitored camps, the Peace Agreement still has life but is fairly meaningless if other groups are the ones closing down parts of the country with their protests. If the Maoist soldiers start drifting out camps because they haven't been paid there is the risk that they will join other groups to fight because that’s what they know how to do. Maybe things will become clearer this week and maybe, with festival season almost here, everything will just bumble along for a couple of months with no resolution. We are happy that Kathmandu remains safe but it seems inevitable that we will see more disruption making work, at least for Sheila, very difficult. Add to that the petrol crisis which could deepen if the Indian government, which is not impressed by this turn of events, becomes less inclined to continue supplying fuel that they don't get paid for and you have a mess. However Nepal is adept at getting out of messes or at least lurching from one to another, so one has to remain hopeful.

An hour to kick off and I'm struggling to stay awake so I'll upload this and have a little nap that might turn into a long one.

Cheers
Roshan

P.S. The idea of VSO Nepal's participation in the marathon was to raise funds for the organisations we work for so if you fancy giving, go to www.smallenergy.com

'Worrying' HIV ignorance in young

2007-10-02T15:23:00.000+05:45

No, it's not Nepal - "Nine in 10 young people [in the UK] rarely or never think about HIV when making decisions over their sex lives, a BBC poll shows." (BBC News). Shame on you.

This has prompted the BBC and Terence Higgins Trust to launch a 2 month campaign. Fantastic! But why did they decide to call the campaign's website "GI Jonny"? Do any modern yoof even know there used to be a soldier doll called GI Joe? Is a message delivered by a US Army soldier one that they will think is credible - "Listen to me otherwise I will take you prisoner, put you in an illegal jail and subject you to inhumane torture".

Anyway I couldn't resist going to the website and customising a GI Jonny (had to rename it because "There is only one GI Jonny") to show you:

Mustn't make light of it, the message is serious and I hope the campaign has some impact.

Cheers
Roshan

Nervous diplomats?

2007-10-02T13:47:00.000+05:45

Impressed though I am at the speed at which they updated the Travel Advice and their obvious concern for my safety, the Foreign Office may have been a bit too quick yesterday. Yesterday one of my colleagues came back to the office to say that there had been a bomb at the Japanese Embassy which is less than half a mile away (under 1km for metric types) from our office. We didn't hear anything and no one seemed worried when I queried if it was a good idea to go for lunch in that road shortly afterwards. When we got to the main road and traffic was moving as normal, I concluded it was just another rumour. So it was a surprise to get a Travel Advice e-mail from the Foreign Office (no, I don't have a personal minder there, it's an automatic mailing list) stating that there had been a bomb – maybe they should have checked with the local police first, the statement in the papers this morning was that it was a box of fire crackers thrown by a couple of guys on a motorbike. Not exactly a weapon of mass destruction but I suppose it's the thought that counts.

To Anonymous who added a comment on my last post thanking me for the information on how to watch the Rugby World Cup here – no worries, mate, just click that "Donate Now" button to show your thanks. Good luck finding a TV to watch at midnight in Pokhara!

Cheers

Roshan

Other stuff

2007-09-23T22:04:00.001+05:45

Sheila was in Pokhara (we did a touristy trip there earlier in the year, see March blog Shimmering peaks ) Mon-Fri last week. She was visiting a NGO running Early Childhood Development centres that a new volunteer might go to work for. I'll leave her to tell you more about this and post some amazingly clear photos of the mountains (one of the Annapurnas). I wish I could tell you that I made the most of her absence with wild partying but I had a thoroughly boring week working late and being limited to eating very soft food after having another dental procedure on Monday (don't ask).

I've not managed to see any of the Rugby World Cup so far. The only channel covering it that we can get is TV5 (French) and funnily enough the only matches they are showing are those involving France. To make matters worse there are a lot of evening kick-offs which meant that the France v Ireland match was on at 1am Nepal time which I didn't stay up for. The good news is that TV5 are showing all the matches from the Quarter Finals onwards and the first one which should be Australia v England (assuming England manage to beat Tonga on Friday which will not be a walk-over) is on at 6:45pm, Saturday, 6 Oct. Although the final (?All Blacks v South Africa?) is at 1am, it is on a Sunday morning so I think I'll manage to watch this.

I have watched a couple of the TwentyTwenty cricket matches including India v Aus last night - a cracking match. Looking how pumped up the Indians were for this, god knows what they'll be like for the final against Pakistan.

That's enough for one night, I've still got the photos to upload. Have a good week.

Cheers

Roshan

Last week in politics

2007-09-23T22:03:00.001+05:45

After less than 6 months as part of the eight party alliance government, the Maoists pulled out on Tuesday in protest against the failure to agree their 22 demands for changes prior to the elections in November. Their headline demand is that a republic be declared and the King sent packing before the election takes place. Most political parties now support a republic but the whole point of the Constituent Assembly elections is that major constitutional changes such as this are taken by a democratically elected body rather than an unelected Interim Government or Parliament. There are mixed messages coming from the Maoist about their support for the elections and they have a programme of rallies coming up culminating in a national strike 4-6 October. There doesn't seem much concern that this move marks the end of the peace process so I guess everyone thinks it is a negotiating ploy by the Maoists. Who knows? Probably not even their leaders who are having to deal with internal conflict from elements that had been persuaded to give up the armed struggle in favour of gaining power democratically only to find that they haven't got much power and, at best, will have to share it with other parties after the elections. [Slight sense of urgency injected into my writing now as our Sunday/Monday load shedding has started so I've got about an hour to get these blogs finished, posted and photos uploaded. And I'm typing by candlelight – I'm sure it wasn't dark last week at 6pm]

The drama of this political move was immediately overtaken by the more pressing problem of taxi drivers protesting against fuel shortages by blocking some major roads in Kathmandu. I must have explained the background when we had the last fuel protests but a quick recap. Nepal Oil Corporation (government owned) buys all of Nepal's oil requirements (petrol, diesel and cooking gas) from the Indian Oil Company (government owned). The problem is that world oil prices have risen but domestic prices have not so NOC's buying price is higher than its selling price (not a good business model) and it ran out of money ages ago. The government won't put up fuel prices (riots last time they tried and not a good political move to make 2 months before the elections) so every month there is a loss to pay for plus a bit more to reduce the hefty arrears owed to India. Things have stumbled along for months like this with the Indians being told "don't worry the cheques in the post" until they get fed up at not getting the promised money and cut off supplies. It sounds as if the government's solution is to ask those nice Indian politicians in Delhi to instruct their minions at the IOC to keep supplying fuel even if they don't get paid. Commercially, this is a joke so it's down to politics. The Election Commission pointing out that fuel is needed for all of the election processes may swing things. Funny I seem to remember 11 or 12 years ago the Indian Oil Company being in exactly the same situation, I wonder whether this will make them more or less sympathetic?

Further depressing news last week was of violence in Kapilvastu, a border town in the south west, which has resulted in about 20 deaths and houses and vehicles (including a World Food Programme lorry carrying emergency food supplies to flood victims) being torched. The violence started with a local politician being murdered and then got out of hand with the police taking little or no action. This highlights the real challenge to holding the elections, basic law and order. There is a great risk that in the South, political rallies and electioneering will degenerate into violence which the police are unable or unwilling to control or if they do intervene it will be with more violence. And of course for anyone who wants to prevent the elections (I guess that's monarchists, maybe some Maoists or anyone who thinks they will lose power) stirring up trouble is their best chance of success. We have an interesting couple of months coming up, hope its not going to be too disruptive for our various visitors

[at this stage I gave up trying to type and took a break for a candlelit supper – including ice cream and a yummy chocolate sauce, thanks to Josie for sending the cooking choc]

Enough serious stuff, next posting will be just trivia.

Cheers

Roshan

P.S. On the fuel front I do feel a bit guilty to contributing to the shortage by buying a new cooking gas cylinder a couple of weeks ago although we still have probably a month or so left in the old one. Does this make me a hoarder? I like to justify it as prudent advance planning bearing in mind that we have festival season coming up (lots of cooking) and I am only accelerating the purchase by a month or 2. I'm keeping my conscience clear by promising to give my old bottle to anyone I know who is completely out of gas.

Catching up

2007-09-23T21:59:00.000+05:45

I owe lots of friends (and a cousin, sorry Sue) e-mails so since I'm not going to get them all (any?) done, a couple of posts to the blog. If I owe you a reply just think of this as being a personal mail to you.

It's been a busy couple of weeks at Blue Diamond Society. Two weeks ago we had a 1 day National Seminar on making Nepal a more tolerant and inclusive society (apart from it being the right thing to do, the most realistic way of getting equal rights for sexual minorities is to have a constitution that gives everyone equal rights and bans discrimination on any grounds) concluding with the drafting of a declaration demanding equal rights for everyone. This was followed by a Celebrating Diversity event with cultural activities (singing and dancing) and speeches by politicians and human rights activists responding to the declaration. All good stuff, it just remains to be seen how much notice the political parties take of it in their manifestos for the Constituent Assembly elections in November.

Different dances and costumes reflecting the ethnic diversity within BDS (I've just thought that I should have videoed these for Martin Fitch-Roy to add to his repertoire of dances from around the world – sorry mate, another time):

Speakers looking spellbound :-) . The guy on the right is the Kiwi head of UN human rights here who having only been here a week couldn't have understand a word of the other speeches (as opposed to me who could understand all of 2 or 3 words). He was impressed that we were allowed to have a public rally – his last posting was in Afghanistan where he had to intervene to stop a gay man being executed:

A march down to Maitighar, a traditional gathering place for rallies which is actually a roundabout in the middle of a busy junction, where we had a picnic – swelteringly hot and wreathed in exhaust fumes but an opportunity for more dancing:

Last week was a spreadsheet week as we put together our proposal and budget for next year's (sounds good advance planning until I tell you that this year's funding runs out on 30 Sept) HIV & AIDS programme funded by the UK's Dept of International Development. This funding is managed by the UN Development Programme which, under a new boss, is a completely different organisation to the one last year that we had big fights with over their arbitrary slashing of our budget. This year they are pushing us to be more ambitious and increase our activities so we've planned for centres in new cities and additional services. Let's see whether this new approach by UNDP translates into a friendly and reasoned budget negotiation rather than the dictatorial micro-management style of last year (no, honest I'm not bitter at all). Of course getting the budget approved is only the start, the real hard work is actually setting up the new offices and trying to make sure that they have some basic financial discipline; glad I'm just a back-office boy in all this.

Ok that's enough for this post.

Cheers

Roshan

Safe and well

2007-09-02T23:10:00.000+05:45

In case you see a news item about bombs in Kathmandu, a quick note to let you know that we are safe and well. It would be wrong to downplay the seriousness of the bombings - 2 people were killed and 25 odd injured - however this is not Baghdad so don't worry, we aren't.

Cheers

Roshan

It's Gai Jatra festival again

2007-08-29T21:07:00.001+05:45

Boy, it really feels like we've been here a long time now I'm saying to people "Yes, I remember what Gai Jatra is, I was here for it last year". I probably explained it on the blog last year so I won't try again in case I say something different. Basically it’s a traditional Nepali festival (festival of the cow) that Blue Diamond Society has adopted as a gay pride festival. With the metis (male-to-female transgenders) dressed up in their finery, we walk/dance (no, of course I don't dance) along behind a band through the streets of Thamel (the main tourist area) before lighting candles for those who've died in the last year and returning back to our office for food - not quite on the scale of Sydney or Rio Mardi Gras (our metis would go down a bomb at those) but great fun. I'm knackered after, what was for me a long, very hot walk so no more words, here's some pictures.

Cheers

Roshan

P.S. Sheila went to the same festival (the strictly straight version) in Bhaktapur so she might have some photos of this to post in a couple of days.

Eyes likes jewels in a pool of wine

2007-08-24T19:18:00.000+05:45

That's rubies in claret, we've both had a nasty dose of conjunctivitis for the last week. Sheila came down with it first and on Sunday morning with an eye like a cricket ball went to the clinic where the doctor told her it was the nastiest case he had ever seen (I bet he tells that to all his patients) and was given drops, cream and pills. I'd got it by the afternoon. A friend who came round for dinner on Sunday evening reckoned her eyes were itchy after a couple of hours with us (no hugs or kisses) before phoning us the next morning to say she'd got it. Just a bit contagious! It’s a seasonal thing I think, we escaped it last year although I do remember having it in Delhi (along with everyone else in the office) and it sounds like there is a mini-epidemic in various places in Nepal now. Sheila's eyes are still puffy but they have dried up so she went to work today. I haven't been at all this week because apart from struggling to read I was terrified of infecting everyone at the office or, even worse, our Care & Support centre where there are some pretty sick people who really don't need the added complication of "eye flu". One of mine is still a bit gunjy but hopefully will be clear in a day or so.

Josie wanted us to post photos of our horror film eyes. Since neither of us are fans of seeing photos of ourselves at the best of times and not everyone shares Josie's taste in technicolour medical pictures, we declined. Anyway, the camera is supposed to get rid of red eye. Just take my word for it they were messy!

Should be back to work next week. It's Gai Jatra on Wednesday, the Nepali cow festival that Blue Diamond Society has taken over to be our annual gay pride rally where everyone dresses up and we do a march round Thamel. I will try to post some pictures of this.

Cheers

Roshan

Cowes Week winners

2007-08-11T14:48:00.000+05:45

Having followed Cowes Week (the UK's biggest sailing regatta) on the internet and seen my ol' mate Howard Sellars was winning his class in the same type of boat that we sailed together about 20 years ago, I sent an e-mail to Cowes Radio wishing him good luck for Friday's race. I guess an e-mail from Kathmandu is a novelty for Cowes Radio so they read it out on air and apparently will be sending me the prestigious prize of a t-shirt! Modesty prevents me from mentioning my previous prize from Cowes Radio – oh all right if you must know, a bottle of champagne for pulling off a blinding start in 2004. Not sure whether Howard would consider it good luck to have yesterday's racing abandoned due to lack of wind but, if my calculations are right, it does mean that he has won Class 8 for the week whatever the result of today's race. I'm sure he and the crew had a few drinks last night to celebrate.

Cheers

Roshan

For those who like cake

2007-08-07T18:41:00.000+05:45

A few months ago we inherited an electric table top oven from another volunteer. Real luxury as we all usually cook on 2 burners. But I’ve been a bit cautious – not wanting to make it any hotter than already in the kitchen, price of electricity and the possibility of load shedding half way through cooking – and so we have used it very little although expect to more in winter.

But when we returned from our UK visit I decided to experiment…

This was a successful recipe – and especially for my dad, Harold, and all those who also have a sweet tooth and may wish to try it!

Obviously changing or limiting the possibly excessive quantity of fruit would be fine, especially if proper sultanas are available. Alternative alcohol would also work or could be changed for smaller quantity of orange /lemon juice.

Recipe for Sheila style Sweet Kathmandu Fruitcake:

Place 2/3 spoons of rather dry local raisons (???) in bowl and cover with a couple of spoonfuls, or more, of local (very cheap) rum.

Add 1 spoonful of dried cranberries and pretend they are cherries. Also add 2/3 dried apricots, (yes, Roshan good for you as high iron content), but remember to chop very small as can then if needed pretend they are sultanas

Add about a heaped table spoon of finely grated carrot and 5/6 small bits (about size of small grapes) of peeled apple if available.

Eat rest of apple and or carrot. This is particularly good for those who would otherwise pick at the mixture as if too much mixture is eaten at this stage there may not be enough for finished cake.

Leave to soak for 20 mins or more but remember to cover very tightly as will attract ants and this cake should be suitable for vegetarians.

Place 3 approx 1 inch cubes of soft butter in bowl and add 3 dessert spoonfuls of local crunchy white sugar (hoping that any black bits in it are meant to be there and are not weevils or cake will be not suitable for veggies)

Add 1 spoonful of good soft expensive imported brown sugar (if available).

Add small spoonful of marmalade if in Kathmandu and such luxuries are available and mix to a creamy consistency. If the butter has not been taken from fridge in time, this mixture will tend to be lumpy rather than creamy but do not worry.

Whilst fruit is soaking whisk one egg with fork in a small bowl.

Prepare 5 or 6 inch cake tin with foil carefully saved from local take away "vegetable wraps". This foil conveniently is the perfect size to protect cake and cake tin and saves washing up. Alternatively new foil can be taken from the roll as this is available in Kathmandu.

Turn on oven if power supply is available. If not do not be concerned, combined mixture can be left and rest of recipe followed when power returns.

Combine mixtures by firstly adding fruit, rum etc and if any real cherries such as those imported into Kathmandu by previous guests, they can be added at this stage. Then slowly add whisked up egg.

Remember if keen to check the taste of the mixture by taking a fingerful it is probably not a good idea after adding raw egg. Add a small teaspoon of cooking oil, sunflower is ideal if available but others if not strong should do. This discourages the cook from picking at the mixture and probably helps to give good consistency to the finished cake.

Then slowly fold in approx 5-6 spoonfuls of flour after checking that it is in date and has no foreign bodies. The mixture should be a little more than dropping consistency but not nearly as solid as raw pastry. Better to have too little rather than too much flour.

The mixture should not come up to the top of the tin and foil should be at least an inch higher than the tin. This should protect the mixture when cooking, when the oven door is ill fitting or has to be opened.

Place in previously turned on oven and hope and pray that the power supply is not terminated in the next half hour. The temperature of the oven is difficult to judge if one is unable to read the dial, so cake cooking times may vary.

When cake smells waft from oven, any thing from 20-40 mins depending on temperature, stab at centre of cake with clean dry knife. If knife comes out clean then cake is done, or overdone. If knife is still messy from mixture, the cake needs a little more cooking, or the cook was over generous with the rum...

Remove from oven and leave to cool in tin foil or as long as one can leave before tasting/eating. Any cake left overnight needs wrapping carefully and storing in ant free zone.

And enjoy - I recommend the taste and as a good, nutritious way to spend a cold, uneventful afternoon!

Bon appetite, Sheila

Not just a vacuum cleaner

2007-08-05T23:23:00.000+05:45

Useful though the vacuum cleaner is, an oven is more exciting. We bought a little table top oven from a departing volunteer a couple of months ago although until last week had only used it for grilling homemade pizzas (I'm not Jamie Oliver so that's what I call tomatoes on bread with a bit of cheese and a home grown basil leaf chucked on top). Last Sunday, Sheila had a play with it and cooked a veggie bake and a cake. Fantastic! Obviously the veg bake was delicious but to have a real freshly baked fruit cake was just heavenly. It was quite small and only lasted 2 days (as I finished it on Monday evening maybe it is more accurate to say 1 day) so having got the hang of it, she baked another one yesterday and is talking about flapjacks in the future. I'm looking forward to many more cakes in the winter because the oven throws out a lot of heat and I'm guessing Sheila will start to bake whenever she gets cold. Although the next household innovation is not exactly hi-tech, it is new to me even if almost every household in Nepal has one. After working out how to get the lid on and off, we finally got round to using the pressure cooker that we inherited from more departing volunteers last year. What a wonderful gadget it is; considering how much quicker they cook things why doesn't everyone use them to save on gas/electricity?

I hear reports of the floods in South Asia are now making UK news. In Nepal these were in the southern lowlands that form the border with India. It sounds as if the worst of the floods are over but there are still landslides and hundreds of thousands of people are homeless in Nepal, far more in India and Bangladesh. Most worrying is the disease and food shortages that inevitably follow a flood that has wiped out safe water supplies and crops. Red Cross and the World Food Programme are down there delivering emergency relief, however there are likely to be food shortages until next spring in many places. When you are a subsistence farmer, having all your crops destroyed is a bit more serious than not being able to go shopping because the local Tesco's is flooded. If a Red Cross collection box appears in your local Indian restaurant (which is probably run by Bangladeshis), think about having one less naan bread and donating the cost.

On a more cheerful note, another bit of modern technology that worked today is the telly on my laptop. I haven't tried it for ages because sharing a cable connection with the 3 or 4 households in our landlord's family means it is a pretty dodgy picture. But today I managed to get an only slightly fuzzy picture for Star (Asian equivalent of Sky) Sport and watched the Hungarian (or is it European?) Grand Prix. Bit short on overtaking and the most exciting bit was probably in the Ferrari pit during qualification yesterday when they forgot to put petrol in the car. My top tip for them is always put the chamois leather on the dashboard to remind yourself to fill up. Thinking Formula 1, in case anyone who knows him is reading this, does Spesh still get minute by minute updates on the Honda team sent to his phone?

Cheers

Roshan

P.S. Apologies for all the acronyms in Sheila's post yesterday, poor editorial control I know but apparently some of her friends will understand them. For others, INGO = international non-governmental organisation (a charity like Save the Children) and ECER = Early Childhood Environmental Rating (must be some measure of a child's carbon emissions).

Back from UK

2007-08-04T15:24:00.001+05:45

Since we have been back we decided to finally give in and treat ourselves to a vacuum cleaner. With carpet in all three rooms, sweeping with our short Nepali broom, has never been a skill that we have accomplished well, so last Saturday we went to the supermarket and came home with a small cylinder one that is as efficient as any we have had in UK. Hopefully it will continue to work for the next 9 months.

An expert sweeper

We have had rain most days and every night but as usual Kathmandu has had an easy time and the most I have been affected is picking my way round puddles and cars on my way up to the main road. Sometimes the bus park has been a bit of a quagmire but my bus is usually parked by a convenient dry rock. This of course is very different to life in the south of Nepal, in the Terai where as you may have heard on the news there have been worse floods than any one can remember. This morning's paper shows another 300 families affected by last night's rain.

It was good to be back at work and to be greeted so warmly. Lots to do, including a useful report re the position of school based v community based early childhood centres to consider; planning for some ECD awareness raising on International Literacy Day next month, (more later if we do it), discussions and planning with VSO re extending future involvement in ECD here as well as being part of meetings with the INGOs and Nepali consultants who work in ECD.

Updates and materials gained from colleagues whilst in UK, are proving really useful. Thank you Sheena and Carole. It was certainly worth finding space in our bags for the new Foundation Stage 0-5 documentation from DfES and these along with other international ECD materials, including a particularly useful document from the Philippines, support our thinking as we begin to plan for compiling minimum standards and indicators for children in ECD here ( Any further suggestions for on line materials other than UK, NZ would be really useful, ECERs etc)

Work is not all meetings and office though and I have spent a couple of days visiting ECD provision alongside a Nepali colleague. The second of these days demonstrated the importance of monitoring minimum standards and the huge need for support for provision here. I stood in a very dark, low ceiling, long thin room with 20 grade I children packed onto benches facing a teacher one end and 22 3 and 4 year olds squashed onto benches facing the ECD facilitator at the other. There was hardly room for us even to stand just inside the doorway. The only resource in evidence was a blackboard at each end. No materials to support children's learning. This would be a difficult situation to work in for any one, but made even more difficult for the ECD facilitator, who having recently had training re the use of a developmentally appropriate curriculum with emphasis on children's right to learn through play, has less status and far less pay than the girl at the other end of this small dark room.

But, as the sun shines here in Kathmandu on a Saturday morning, Roshan and I are going out for breakfast and aim to have a fairly lazy day and tomorrow I am off on buses to see more ECD centres with my colleague and back in the office on Monday.

Love to all

Sheila

Back in Kathmandu

2007-07-16T22:38:00.001+05:45

Got back yesterday to be greeted by proper South Asian monsoon weather, none of this namby-pamby British version that you've had for the last month. (Apologies to anyone who was flooded out of their house for making light of this. Mind you to put your troubles in perspective, 27 people died last week in Nepal following a rain induced landslide).

It was great to catch up with lots of friends and family over the last 2 weeks, apologies to those we missed (assuming you would have wanted to see us). However it was also nice to get back to our little flat in Kathmandu. After a big traffic jam getting into Heathrow and long queues to go through security, it made us appreciate the speed of things at Kathmandu airport and having a car to meet us courtesy of our travel agent. We would not have been saying this had we arrived the day before when there was a traffic strike in Kathmandu (apparently to protest against the police roughing up taxi drivers at the airport) and we might have had to take a cycle rickshaw home. Thinking of traffic, I realised last week when crossing the road at Victoria station how I've become acclimatised and feel safe in anarchic Kathmandu traffic but have become nervous of grand prix style traffic in London.

The flat was in good shape, we always worry that we have spilt a grain of sugar in the kitchen and will come back to a massive ant invasion. However a slight panic tonight when in addition to a power cut I discovered we had no water. So far we have escaped the impact of the water shortage and it seemed surprising that there should be any problem now the rains have come. We were relieved to hear that the problem was that the electricity had gone off before our landlord had switched on the pump to get the water up to the roof tank, hopefully he has done this now the power is back on otherwise we will be going without a shower in the morning.

Both of us were back at work today. Alex, one of my colleagues at BDS, was feeling the worse for wear having been beaten up by police over the weekend (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Rest_of_World/Cops_assault_Nepal_youths_for_carrying_condoms/articleshow/2205972.cms). He seemed remarkably cheerful despite this, possibly because he has received worse beatings from the police in the past. Apart from the obvious issues regarding police treatment of gays and transgenders this incident highlights the law and order problem in Nepal. A recent newspaper described the police as either not caring or not daring. They either take the law into their own hands ignoring due process and human rights or they take no action at all because the perpetrators have political connections that make them above the law. I'm sure that there are some good police out there but if this is how a serious national newspaper views the situation, it is not a great position to be in with elections due in November.

So much for an early night to catch up on the sleep we missed when flying on Saturday night.

Cheers

Roshan

I will find something more interesting to write about soon

2007-06-21T23:44:00.001+05:45

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

Doomsday response

2007-06-14T22:19:00.001+05:45

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).

Doomsday ahead, warns Nepal godman

2007-06-14T10:00:00.000+05:45

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."

Last week's outing

2007-06-10T22:30:00.001+05:45

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

Another good week at the office (Sheila's)

2007-06-10T22:30:00.000+05:45

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…

After planning, policy, strategy, on Thursday I went out visiting centres and Early Years classes to see some of what is really happening in our part of the valley, well in an easily accessible part. Arrived at District Educ.Office to find it still padlocked, as it has been for weeks now, due to agitation by private school teachers. Joined my colleagues by using back door and stairs, sat and listened whilst they talked about possible all Nepal bandhs (strikes, closures) planned for next week and Nepal politics in general. (As you might expect I could only follow a few words and the body language.)

Then out with a colleague to see ECD classes, all in government schools. Firstly a class of 14 children in a room in a big secondary school. Great to see, that following training and my last visit, children all busy playing with the few materials they have. One chalking on a blackboard, several devising their own games with some cards, some rolling, carrying brightly coloured plastic balls and some stacking 15-18 Duplo type bricks.

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 winding through the Newari streets to a dark old wooden building that would make a good historical film set but not a primary school in 2007. Through a low door only just wide enough for me and my bag, up a few steps, through the middle of a very dark room with desks and about 20 children who told me they were grade 4, out on to a narrow walkway? ledge? with a very strong smell of urine and up a steep wooden staircase to a room that was the staff room. Another staircase led up further. We did not go up to see the ECD class which apparently is at the top of this scary building as the facilitator had not turned up that day. For 1000 rupees, I am not surprised! but I am unclear what had happens to the children, whether they were with another class, gone home or not on role at all.

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!

Then a school where training and support, nagging?, had led to a separate room being given to the smallest children. Previously they had sat on the floor next and just watching the grade 1 class. Now they have a room to themselves with mats, 3 shelf units, a few toys. Some good wooden bricks and a metal trunk full of equipment are waiting in the staff room for their use.

Next time one of us goes there, will the equipment be with the children or still in the wrapping?

Then after quick meeting in another school, back to KTM. I made the wrong decision in choosing to sit in the front next to the driver. This seat was not fixed to the base, so made for part of an interesting journey. Luckily this driver was not a boy racer and we rarely went out of 2nd gear. When we got to ring road, all buses stopped. A protest, following an incident earlier in the day. So had to get off, leave my interesting seat and walk a bit before finding that this time the blockade was small and I could get a very full tuk tuk back in to centre.

Friday, back to office, the unlocked one, where I am so spoilt with working computer, clean new desk etc, and very occasional views of Himal,. Here to finish some work from earlier in the week and write up notes from Thursday etc and sort some of my photos. With captions added in Nepali, hopefully thanks to the lovely team in the office, I can then use them for visits like the ones this week and other training. I might be able to manage bartering for shopping in pigeon Nepali but talking children's learning is a no no!

Another great week

I love Nepal,

What will I find to do next summer?

See lots of you in July

Love Sheila

Well it feels like monsoon's arrived

2007-06-05T23:29:00.001+05:45

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.

Work for me is currently extremely varied as I'm supporting several colleagues doing completely different things. Today was another example of doing something I could not possibly have envisaged doing 15 months ago. I was sitting on the floor in a room with 12 gay and transgender colleagues, some of whom are HIV+, trying to explain the objectives of the Care & Support (for people living with HIV & AIDS) project that they work for, and how these are going to be achieved and monitored. I did frequently make the point that I really didn't know what I was talking about, I just tried to explain in plain speak (English I'm afraid - my friend, the Project Director, then translated into Nepali) the jargon the development world does love to use. A particular challenge today was trying to describe what positive living counselling meant – my colleagues wanted to know what they had to teach people. I desperately tried to remember what my mother and friends had told me about counselling not being giving people solutions but helping them find their own (is that right?) and ended up giving some waffle about a counsellor not being a teacher but a friend who can listen. Of course my instinct is to fall into the trap of becoming an overnight expert by looking up some website which tells you in 12 easy steps how to become a qualified counsellor. The trap is that my colleagues are very happy to believe that because I am a bideshi (foreigner), I must be an expert on everything. Those that know me well (as a congenital smart-ass) will be surprised to hear that I resist this badge. I feel that part of our job here is to explode the myth that foreigners have all the answers and saying "I don't know" helps achieve this. So ke garne (what to do)? My guess is that our field staff are natural counsellors, they just don’t know that's what they are doing. I'll have to work out how they are going to discover this for themselves.

Another early night missed with both of us doing e-mails. Still it meant I stayed up long enough to find out that Team New Zealand are 4-0 up in the Louis Vitton Cup. C'mon Kiwis, 1 more win and then you've got your chance for revenge on Alinghi.

Cheers
Roshan

P.S. Went to Chorbar, a nice village just south of the city, on Saturday. Sheila has promised to do a blog with photos about it.

Happy holiday w/e

2007-05-27T22:49:00.001+05:45

Having spoken to Josie from a cold, wet and windy Felpham this afternoon, it seems cruel to mention that it is pleasantly hot here – too late I said it. Hope this does not spoil your bank holiday BBQs.

Apologies for the lack of postings recently. Been busy and no real news to tell you – the latter never stopped me before you may say. So what can I ramble on about? Various teachers unions have closed down schools and most District Education Offices for the last 10 days. Teachers preventing children getting an education is a sensitive issue in any country and it is particularly bad here because the dispute is heavily politicised. It has not been helped by the Minister of Education referring to the unions as "terrorists" and the police getting stuck into a crowd of demonstrators (some of whom probably were teachers) on Friday, injuring 70 including 12 seriously. Sheila got stuck at her office for a couple of hours on Friday because they had a 2 hour transport strike and today, in protest against the police action, the whole of Kathmandu was more or less shutdown for the whole day – no transport and most shops closed. A couple of friends were due to fly out today and I'm not sure how they managed to get to the airport. Either they managed to get a tourist bus (identified by special licence plates and big signs in the windows saying "Tourist only") which are normally left alone by the pickets or a cycle rickshaw. I'm sure the cycle rickshaw wallahs pray for transport strikes because they do great business and can pretty much name their price.

Of course the other thing you'll want to know about is our latest plumbing news. Our toilet has become increasingly temperamental to flush in recent months. This does encourage us to save water by collecting our washing water in bowls/buckets to chuck down the loo. Fine for "short toilets" as we politely describe them here but not always effective for "long toilets" so Sheila asked the landlord if he could fix it. As has been mentioned before, the Nepali language doesn't have many of its own plumbing terms and he quickly confirmed he understood "cistern no flush". The plumber was meant to come this morning but didn't, presumably because of the strike, and turned up this evening just after the power had gone off for our twice weekly 2 hour load shedding. With our landlord holding our rechargeable torch to illuminate things there was much banging and crashing and the bathroom floor was covered in more parts than I knew existed in a cistern before they proudly showed me a seriously knackered washer. Shortly afterwards, now working by candlelight as the torch had run out, it was all back together again and we have a smoothly flushing loo – fantastic! Yet again it reminded me of the benefits of renting, with the landlord on the spot, as opposed to owning. In the UK, I would have been stupid enough to try and mend it myself which would have involved at least a whole day, several smashed knuckles, multiple trips to B&Q to get parts/tools and water everywhere – DIY I do not miss!

On the sporting front, I've managed to get Americas Cup results on the internet. I'm rooting for the Kiwis although it is worrying that they let the Spaniards win a couple of races and if the Cup stays in Europe I'm more likely to get to see it next time round. Good on the Spanish for getting to the semis – goes to show what a new team can do. I watched some of the early stages on a DVD my brother-in-law sent and apparently he has recorded hours more for me – Reg, if you read this, no need to send me all of the semis but if you can record the LV final and the AC final that would be wonderful. Saw a couple of interesting rugby results earlier, Wales, who had been accused of sending a 2nd team, nearly beating Australia and South Africa thrashing a very weak England. Need to start seriously investigating where I'm going to be able to watch the Rugby World Cup later this year. If I could have been bothered to find a bar showing it, I could have watched the Monaco Grand Prix this evening. I'm not sure whether its my little TV tuner box or the cable shared between 5 households that is the problem but I can't pick up Star Sports which showed it. Will check the internet when I send this to find out if Lewis Hamilton managed to get his first win. Apart from being an amazing driver he seems like a nice well brought up boy – always thanks his team and doesn't slag off the other drivers. Obviously not trained at the Jensen Button School of Communications.

After my opening gloat about the weather, I should mention that I'm just shaking off the last of a stinking cold that I've had for 2 weeks.

Cheers

Roshan

P.S. Almost forgot, we will be in the UK in the 1st 2 weeks of July so hope to catch up with many of you then. Normal note to the Ktm criminal fraternity – our landlord, his 5 brothers and his fierce dog will be looking after our flat whilst we are away.

All aboard!

2007-05-13T19:33:00.003+05:45

After the excitement and unpredictability of tuk tuks and buses to work in Bhaktapur, travelling in UK will never be the same again – here’s a few of my travel tales from the last week to give you an idea of what I mean…

- Enjoying the luxury of a seat but then being joined by 3 large goats and then 3 lorry tyres which had just been retreaded and still had wet rubber

- Getting a seat behind a woman with 2 large live (well, only just for one of them) chickens sitting on her lap

- Standing squashed next to four poles 4" by 4ft that kept falling on me

- Getting caught up in a sack of greens (coriander?) nearly as big as me and that were then later carried dragged off the bus by a girl smaller than Josie!

- Having a bit of a seat (Nepalis insist on getting even a 10th of one's bum perched where poss) surrounded by 5 of the dirtiest small kids you have ever seen and the littlest one scratching her head hard!

- A bus that went off in the totally opposite direction than expected, something that happens regularly here with traffic jams etc. But somehow I still ended up at correct place in the end?!!

- Getting a seat behind the driver and sitting on left side of bus that, unfortunately, ultimately gave me to much of a view of us hitting or being hit by a motorbike right under my window. After much shouting the bike rider jumped on the bus (leaving his bike and bus completely blocking one of the busiest junctions and rush hour…oh well), pushed past me and all other passengers and grabbed the bus driver’s keys and continued to argue. There was a huge crowd in road and petrol everywhere from bike so I decided to walk a bit and look for another bus...

And today my 1st bus had another live chicken, this time loose and just dumped on floor near driver and owner. On the 2nd bus I was surrounded by family who laughed and pointed at me! And half way home the 3rd bus stopped by road block where just all buses had stopped. We were fairly near airport on the junction of the city ringroad so I got off for the long walk home.

I saw some taxis running but all werefull except for 2 who would not use meter and I would not negotiate silly fares. More than half way home from (walk was not too bad as less traffic and so fewer fumes) a bus on a different route came along packed. I joined a string of students and managed to get just up steps and inside and stood on one foot holding bar with 2 very sweaty hands! 500yds further all stopped again and the bus took a u-turn as whole of the next road was also blocked with a sit down protest and red flags. So finally, I got on no. 5 and had the fun on a very bumpy narrow, winding up hill track on the fullest bus I have been on yet until I reached an area I know and pushed, squeezed my way through until I finally fell out the door and walked the last 10 minute home, very hot and sticky!

Apparently there is halla (rumour) that the Department of Education office will be locked again tomorrow, this time by striking private school teachers who are demanding permanent contracts. The trouble for me is that I won’t know until I get there so it could just mean another day of entertaining travel tales rather than actual work!

Each day different - I love Nepal!
Love S

Learning to learn (part 2)

2007-04-29T21:45:00.000+05:45

ECD is considered by some here, to be a time when children are "Learning to learn"

This week I am involved in discussions and proposals re radically increasing enrolment for ECD to be closer to reaching the EFA targets. There is also some understanding that enrolment is not enough and it is the quality of experiences that is important! This was certainly brought home to me when I went to visit a class yesterday. The eight/ ten day training for facilitators does include some making of materials from local, low cost but none in evidence here. The room had roof and walls, a barred window space, too high for the children to see through, common to most schools I visit here, a new (rare even for a new class) piece of carpet, 10 x 3year olds, one new facilitator, a small shelf unit with 1 ball , I pen and a water bottle, some of the children's tiffin (these lunch snacks varied from a bag of dry beaten rice, a packet of biscuits to share with a sibling and for one little girl a white radish about the size of a big carrot )The children are in ECD from 10 am -3 pm!

And the children are in ECD from 10 am -3 pm! The facilitator did try using singing and stories and a game with a ball but for 5 hours!!??

Learning to learn?

Later when walking back to the office I passed a child who I see quite often sitting on a step outside his/her (?) family home/workplace (?)

Low cost no cost resource, included one old plastic bottle, 1 piece of stick, a tiny stone, I rupee coin and a small shiny sphere, possibly a ball bearing which unlike the other objects rolled every-time it was dropped and the small hand had to be very quick to catch it.

Holding the bottle like this meant the contents could be seen as each new piece dropped down and did not fall out.

When enough, or all available contents were in the bottle shaking it meant it made a good sound, the pieces went up and down, but held this way up didn’t fall out either…

Involvement and concentration levels high. Learning explored; materials have different properties, objects move in different ways e.g. some roll, gravity, volume, sound, and, and, and...

So learning lots!

Although sadly no adult interaction to help take the learning any further (and if ever I get close he/she runs inside).

Last time I saw them studying a 5 rupee note, turning it over and over and folding it in different ways for several minutes, but then this strange foreign woman was spotted watching and vanish!

Learning to learn? Yes!

More news soon, Sheila x

Road safety

2007-04-25T21:08:00.001+05:45

The roads round Darjeeling are pretty hairy yet there were no obvious signs of crashes (or mishaps as we call them here). Could this be because of the wonderful signs they have painted on the road side?

Hurry Burry spoils the curry

If you are married, divorce speed

Donate blood at blood bank not on this road

Don't be rash, avoid a crash

roads are hilly, don't be silly

on my curves, don't lose your nerves

As I write, things not looking good for the South Africans. It would mean staying up to until 4am so I won't be watching it to the end. Shame the Kiwis went out last night but at least Sri Lanka keeps a bit of South Asian interest.

Cheers

Roshan

The trip back

2007-04-24T21:40:00.000+05:45

Saturday, 21 April

We woke to a torrential downpour, hope it has helped top-up the water supply. As promised, we'd hired a car to take us back to Siliguri – not a jeep but Sonam in his trusty Maruti 800. About half way down he forked off Hill Cart Road and the railway route to take us on a short cut. The reason it was shorter was because it had less zig-zags, i.e. the road was steeper! I'm sure the views would have been great but probably a good thing that most of the trip we were in clouds so couldn't see the drop on the corners. We stopped off at a tea estate on the way down and saw real Darjeeling tea being processed. The smell is fantastic and it was amazing to watch the machinery, most of which is over a hundred years old, in action.

Our tea stop on the way down – part of the estate we visited

In Siliguri we switched to the car the travel agent had organised to take us to the airport across the border. Or at least that was the plan. I had seen in the papers that the Madhesi Forum (a political group from southern Nepal) had called a strike and thought this might create some delays. It did, they had closed the bridge at the border by having a mass meeting on it. Having cleared the Indian border post, our driver informed us that he could go no further. So off we go on foot following everyone (only 1 other, quite nervous, tourist who was rethinking her plan to get a bus in Nepal) else and then discovered that they were avoiding the bridge by going under it and fording the river! Fortunately this is the driest time of year so the river bed which was about 200 metres across only had a couple of little streams running down it and at the deepest these were only 2 ft so, shoes off, trousers rolled up and bags on our back we waded through them to get to the Nepal border post on the other side. Hot though it was, even climbing up the steep bank the other side was not too bad and made me realise how much thinner the air had been in Darjeeling (elevation 2,000m) where we had been puffed out walking up the smallest of slopes. Another confirmation that I don't want to go to Everest or Annapurna Base Camp and discover how thin the air is there.

So finally we got to the airport only to discover that having rushed to make it in time, the plane was late due to bad weather in Kathmandu. And when an hour and a half later we did take off we quickly discovered that it was very bad weather. It was easily the most unpleasant flight I've had, a small (19 seater) airplane is pretty uncomfortable in a thunderstorm and we were pitching and yawing all over the place – though not needed I felt better having checked there was a sick bag in the pocket in front of me. It was good to finally land at Kathmandu even if it was in a huge downpour with torrents of water flowing across the car park.

Back home and glad to have one day to get sorted out before we are back to work on Monday. According to the newspapers we should have another day off on Tuesday to celebrate the first anniversary of Loktantra (democracy) when the King handed over power following the people's revolution. Seems a long time ago now.

Cheers

Roshan

P.S. Hope you've spotted the neat little widget from Justgiving that links to our fundraising site. If you haven't donated already, please feel free to do so – it will make me feel that writing this and the pain of uploading the pictures over a slow dial-up connection is all worth while :-)

Darjeeling Zoo

2007-04-24T18:55:00.001+05:45

Friday, 20 April

Last day so we thought we would take a tour with Sonam, our friendly Tibetan taxi driver, starting with the zoo.

The zoo was very well maintained and rather than cram it full of every species concentrated on those indigenous to the region.

Red Panda – never knew there was such a thing

Leopard – gave everyone a fright by rushing at the fence and snarling

Behind the very clear picture of a chain link fence you might spot a tiger

Black bear – seemed to very happy posing for the cameras

Attached to the zoo is the Himalayan Mountain Institute, an Indian Army owned climbing school. Although of Nepali origin, India considers Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who with Edmund Hillary was the first to climb Everest, as Indian and to cement this claim the HMI was founded very soon after his ascent and he was made the Chief Instructor. He spent most of the rest of his life in Darjeeling, his ashes are buried here and his son runs a local tour operator. As one might expect of a tourist attraction owned by the Indian Army, it is was pretty dull. The museum could definitely do with a makeover.
Other stops on the tour, a tea garden (factory was closed so we couldn't see the tea being processed)

Happy Valley Tea Estate

and a Buddhist monastery

Leaving for Siliguri tomorrow morning.

Cheers
Roshan

Kalimpong - flowers and a shared jeep ride

2007-04-24T18:04:00.001+05:45

Thursday, 19 April

Kalimpong is another hill station about 3 hours drive east of Darjeeling. Its main claim to fame seems to be that they grow lots of flowers there, in particular orchids. We were lucky enough to have our first clear day in Darjeeling and could look out at the hills of Sikkim and beyond them to the Himalayas

imHimalayas

The drive to Kalimpong also gave us some amazing views as the road descends down to the river Teesta before crossing it and climbing back up to the town.

Having checked out a budget hotel and not been too impressed with it, we went to a very nice one where Sheila managed to haggle them down to a reasonable room rate. Unfortunately a combination of guilt about the water shortage and the lack of a plug meant we could not indulge in its greatest luxury – a long soak in the bath.

In case you were not impressed by pictures of the train here are some of flowers and cacti:

We (all right, me) decided that having blown the budget on the car up and the hotel, we should economise on the return journey back to Darjeeling and take a shared jeep like the locals do. I hesitate to mention actual prices otherwise you would think I was plain stingy so best just to say that a car/jeep to ourselves would have cost more than our joint daily income whereas seats on a shared jeep were a fifth of this. Anyway it was an experience, shame I didn't think to take some photos.

The jeep was a Mahindra (Indian make) semi-soft top (i.e. no side windows) slightly bigger than a Land Rover short wheel base but definitely smaller than a long wheel base. It had 3 rows of bench seats, shiny rear tyres and a roof rack for luggage (and the odd passenger). Sounds OK? Now fill it with 11 adult passengers, 1 toddler, the driver plus up to 2 on the roof or hanging on the back. It was our luck to be on the same seat as a large bottomed lady (no, not Sheila) and her matching husband so it was a bit cozy in our row. The 2.5 hour journey was pretty uneventful, the only moment of concern was rolling back down the hill after we stalled on a very steep, very tight bend. The weather could have been kinder, having been 25' in Kalimpong, it got progressively colder and then a real monsoon downpour. The short sleeved shirt I had on was appropriate at the start but by the end, my left arm (remember, no side windows) was pretty wet and cold.

We'll hire a car to ourselves for the trip back to Siliguri on Saturday.

Toy Train

2007-04-24T17:12:00.000+05:45

Tuesday, 17 April

Having missed out on travelling up to Darjeeling on the Toy Train, we went for a short local trip on it. This is very tourist orientated and uses the old steam engines rather than the diesel ones they use on the long trips. Apart from being more powerful, these are more reliable, our trip was slightly delayed whilst they carried out some repairs

and 10 minutes after departure we had to park in a siding for some more

You can see from the picture above how the track runs along the road (yes, this is the main/only road into Darjeeling).

A quick stop at the Gurkha War Memorial which is at the top of a loop (the track goes round and over itself to climb without doing zig-zags)

and off again to our destination, Ghum, all of 8km from Darjeeling. This is about 200m higher than Darjeeling and for much of the time is enveloped in cloud, hence it was nick-named Gloomy Ghum.

A 30 min stop here to visit the Railway Museum, not much in it but well presented

Map showing how windy the route from Siliguri (bottom left) to Darjeeling (top right) is

And back to Darjeeling.

Our afternoon outing was down a steep winding path to the Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Centre. This was started in 1957 when Tibetan refugees from the Chinese invasion first started arriving in India. Two generations on, most younger Tibetans who were born and educated in India are integrated into the local community leaving the carpet, wool and leather workshops to their parents and grandparents. Darjeeling is probably the second largest home for Tibetans in India, the first being Dharamsala (to the west of Nepal) where the Dalai Lama is based. It is sad seeing how many of the older generation cling onto the hope that they will be able to return to a free Tibet. After 50 years, this seems increasingly unlikely despite high profile campaigns by Hollywood celebs and others. The harsh reality is that relations with China are too important for any government to take a real stand. Best hope is that China improves its human rights so that Tibetans don't feel the need to escape and those in exile are able to visit their homeland.

Tomorrow, Kalimpong.
Cheers
Roshan

Nepali politics

2007-04-22T21:37:00.001+05:45

A quick change of subject to give you and me a break from Darjeeling.

Last week the inevitable happened and the Government announced that Constituent Assembly elections will not take place on 20 June. Probably because by now most people had worked this out for themselves, there was little fuss. The Maoists were very relaxed about it and are now focussing on Plan B (which was probably their Plan A all along) – to scrap the monarchy and declare a republic before any elections. Who knows what happens now but at least it gives more time for elections to be planned properly (not to say that they will be and no matter how well planned they are, some groups are going to be unhappy).

Keep tuned (might be a day or 2) for the next instalment of the Darjeeling trip – the Toy Train!

Cheers

Roshan

Darjeeling

2007-04-22T20:05:00.001+05:45

Monday, 16 April

For those of you who don't have a Rough Guide for India handy, it says "Part Victorian holiday resort, part major tea-growing centre, Darjeeling (from Dorje Ling, "place of the thunderbolt") straddles a ridge 2,200m up in the Himalayan foothills and 600 km north of Kolkata (Calcutta)". I guess the original attraction of developing the town was that it has a much cooler climate than Calcutta and enabled the British sahibs and mem-sahibs to escape the heat in the summer. It also gave the tea planters a place to meet other chaps and sink a peg or 2 of whisky over a game of billiards or cards. The climate still draws holiday makers as do the spectacular views of Kanchenjunga and other ice-capped peaks. However it seems that for most foreigners it is mainly a staging post for the more glamorous tourist destination of Sikkim(with even better views, its own culture and trekking) a couple of hours drive north.

View of Darjeeling as you approach looking west

Looking back eastwards

The disadvantage of being built on quite a narrow ridge is that it gives little scope for horizontal development. Not that this has stopped expansion and the infrastructure is now creaking, not least water and roads. 60 years ago water came from a couple of mountain spring fed tanks (reservoirs) up the hill and these were adequate for the population of about 20,000; the population is now more like 200,000 and additional reservoirs are still (as they have been for 30 odd years) only at the planning stage. Water is therefore scarce and the limited piped supply is topped up by tankers bringing water from mountain springs to sell to the hotels. For domestic use, porters push carts up the hill with containers to fill – even with empty containers, it looks hard work on the way up and on the way down with a full load difficult to keep the cart from running away.

Cart with water containers (and a taster of the Toy Train, more pics to come in a later posting)

Surprisingly our hotel had no notices pointing out the water shortage so I'm sure many tourists blithely continue to take their daily shower and flush the toilet after every use. More positively ecologically, the council banned plastic bags from last month as they were blocking drains and impossible to dispose of in a town that appears to burn most of its rubbish in the street – land fill not really an option here. The roads were built for horses and pony carts, and although vehicles are banned from a couple of streets the rest are clogged with large jeeps and buses which are the main form of transport here. Although not always apparent, there is a one way system and Traffic Police, who do an amazing job avoiding complete gridlock, are everywhere. Freight and luggage is moved around the town by porters – we are used to seeing these in Kathmandu but here everything is on a steep slope, they really are tough.

Off on a short trip on the Toy Train tomorrow.

Cheers
Roshan

Tea time

2007-04-22T19:51:00.001+05:45

Monday, 16 April

Sorry for the lack of news in the last few weeks. After a hectic time at Blue Diamond last week, we are having a weeks leave in Darjeeling (north India, close to Nepal's eastern border).

Darjeeling is famous for its tea although apparently most of what you buy in packets described as Darjeeling is grown elsewhere. It is a hill station in the sliver of IndiaNepal and Bhutan and was where the British Raj used to escape to when it got too hot in Calcutta. Although it is part of West Bengal state, it is ethnically Nepali and that's the language they speak. We got great views of the eastern Himalayas including I guess Everest and Kanchenjunga that lies between

on our flight to Bhadrapur, just inside Nepal and crossed the border to Siliguri in India by car. From there, our original plan was to take the "Toy Train" to Darjeeling but for one reason or another (3 different excuses given by the travel agent why it wasn't possible) we ended up going by car. The Toy Train (proper name – Darjeeling Himalayan Railway) is a good name, it is just like the train in (is it still running?) Hotham Park (that's in Bognor for any foreigners reading this) running on 2 foot gauge track. We are going to get out the anoraks and take a joy ride on it in the next couple of days so I'll do a trainspotter's piece with pictures.

Although we couldn't put the train in the log book, we still had much the same views as the road follows the same route up (strictly the other way round, Hill Cart Road as its called was built before the railway) with frequent crisscrossing (all unmanned crossings because you can easily see and hear if a trains coming and it only travels at about 10mph) to allow the rails to take the outside of the more severe bends. Despite having got used to hill climb roads in Nepal, the views are amazing although if you are of a nerdish inclination (what, me?) you spend more time marvelling at the crazy engineers who originally decided they could build a road and then a railway. Probably Scottish.

I'm writing this and the rest of the Darjeeling travelogue long hand ready to type up when we get home so to keep this manageable I'll take a break now with more to come later.

Cheers
Roshan

Have a nice day!

2007-03-29T14:53:00.000+05:45

Someone who visited BDS here last week has just e-mailed from London that it is rainy and miserable there so I thought I would have a quick gloat. It is a gorgeous Goldilocks day here - not too hot, not too cold. Although Sheila may disagree because I imagine her bus ride back from Bhaktapur will be a bit sweaty. I can't even whinge about load shedding, our power should have gone off 50 mins ago but we still have it.

Cheers

Roshan

Shimmering peaks

2007-03-25T21:12:00.001+05:45

We did make it to Pokhara last weekend so I will bore you with the holiday snaps.

We caught a pretty comfortable tourist bus which took about 6 hours – would be quicker without the 2 (3 on the way back) stops for drinks/lunch which I could happily have done without but I guess they have to make allowance for tourists with weak bladders (sorry Ma) or Delhi belly – to meet up with Sheila's sister and brother-in-law who had arrived there the day before having come directly from Chitwan.. After being hijacked by a tout on arrival at the bus park who tried to take us to his hotel, we managed to get to ours albeit at a rip-off fare. Following a friend's recommendation we had booked at the Hotel Fewa which is run by the same management as Mike's Breakfast, a legendary Kathmandu restaurant that dates back to the hippy days. It has a beautiful lakeside position with a tranquil garden and waterfront restaurant that makes you forget the road full of garish tourist shops and restaurants that is only a short walk away. Most tourists go to Pokhara for the trekking but as we only had one full day and I am not convinced that the pain of trekking is worth it (I imagine it to be like offshore racing – good when conditions are perfect but most of the time you wonder why the hell you want to go through so much physical discomfort in the name of fun), we only did a short walk along the lakeside. There were some great views of the mountains although these pictures may not do them credit.

All along our bit of lakeside were canoes for hire and directly in front of the hotel some sailing boats. I suppose I should have hired one to remind myself how to sail but the wind looked flukey and the boats flakey. I think the rigs must have been designed by the same person that does the plastic sailing boats that kids play with in the bath. It was fun at breakfast on Sunday watching the kids, some very young, paddling across from their homes on the other side of the lake to go to school our side. They were very skilled at getting ashore without stepping in the mud.

You might have seen news from Nepal that violence has returned in the south with 28 people killed and many injured at a rally. There were some demonstrations about this in Kathmandu last week which fortunately were peaceful. In other districts, Maoist soldiers left their camps to hold protest rallies which as the UN Representative pointed out is a breach of the Peace Agreement and gives people an excuse to claim that they are not playing by the rules. There seems to be no political resolution to these factional disputes which makes it increasingly doubtful that it will be possible to hold a proper election in less than 3 months time – the question is which will be worse, the backlash that will come from postponing the election or the arguments that will follow if there is a botched election. Also last week we had a business strike for a couple of days in protest against a Kathmandu hotel owner being beaten up. The Maoists were blamed for this and they did expel a couple of members for their involvement but they also claimed provocation because the owner mistreated his staff and pro-monarchy agitators stirred things up. This claim is no more unlikely than the business organisations saying that he was a saint who was subjected to an unprovoked attack.

Enough rambling, time to get the photos uploaded.

Cheers

Roshan

P.S. Happy sailing to those starting a new sailing season at Felpham SC – looks nice brisk weather for the first race!

Happy Birthday Dr Matt!

2007-03-23T00:19:00.001+05:45

Can't find your e-mail address so it has to be by blog. Have a great party, I hear the DJs are really good.

Cheers

Roshan

Learning to learn (Sheila style!)

2007-03-13T20:13:00.000+05:45

I’ve just finished being part of a training course for ECD facilitators in Bhaktapur district - after a fairly easy time in past month it was a bit of a shock to work for 12 days in a row, which were only broken by a day of bus strikes and a day hiding indoors during Holi!

Several days were also lengthened by some very long bus journeys home including one when I was on the wrong side of a complete nakajam, a blockade of buses and other vehicles across the main road back into KTM. I got off and walked around it with another bideshi (foreign) female, before finally picking up another bus the other side…eventually!

Some of the trainees have already centres/classes up and running whilst others are about to set them up. The schedule was to include both theory and practical sessions for making resources as these are very limited in Nepal. As I understand it facilitators get 1000rps (about £8.50) to resource their new centres. So these 24 girls and I man (mostly just school leavers) were very earnest about their new role and listen carefully to my colleagues who are giving them the theory (from the new curriculum manual which appears to be really good but of course I can not read the Nepali script and only pick up the technical words that are in English, social and emotional development, thematic approach etc).

After watching some rather subdued trainees on the first day we, Richard (another vol usually based down south in Birgunj who joined us for a couple of days) and I, established that training should be fun and practical so we demonstrated some of the more entertaining and practical parts that is so important for young children - singing and playing, lots of noise and fun. I think they were all are a bit surprised that this short bideshi woman and the towering 6ft4 man can be so enthusiastic, loud and busy encouraging them to play and think themselves in the place of a small child!

Luck for us the experienced trainer was really great, with good knowledge and skills. She even produced ink and string for folding pictures, symmetry etc and some flour so we could make play dough!

And here they are playing a clapping and singing game. The class is in a scout hut - it is bizarre to have a picture of Baden Powell staring down from the wall! It seems that Nepal has a big scout programme and their room in Bhaktapur makes a good place for training and even has electricity between the power cuts, a real luxury!

We really encouraged the trainees through providing coloured card and pens for book making and cloth and scraps for puppets, beanbags and other bags to make books. On the final day they displayed all they’d done - I now expect to see washing lines and string with things hanging across their centres!

It was also great as they seemed to be really empowered through the training and became increasingly able to speak with visitors from the DEO and Bhaktapur municipality about what they were doing. One of the best bits for me was seeing one trainee, who was so quiet when I first met her (in her new ECD centre in the bamboo hut on top of the hill) and on the first day of the training hardly spoke at all, telling the head of the DEO why it was important for very young children to play and how low cost materials like beans, lentils, and other small things could encourage sorting, classifying, extending fine motor control etc. Result!

Of course I can't do any of this in Nepali but luckily for me when talking child development words such as social, emotional etc all are English…

Following this training I have agreed to go and visit these facilitators in their own classes/centres and will be able to do some on-site individual support and coaching. I am really looking forward to this (unless they are very far out and like the class that Geraldine and I walked UP the hill for 3 hours to reach!). It will certainly take me to villages and schools in the district that I have not yet seen and of course it is always great to see any creative learning in practice – with any luck I might get to sharer one or two of these trips with my sister too whilst she is out here (as a tag-a-long ex-Primary teacher it will also be right up her street!).

And I hope this success session will encourage some refresher courses for other teachers and I shall continue collecting ideas for low cost/no cost resources (thanks for the coffee in foil wrapping Ben, perfect for cutting and sticking!).

More news and pix soon – second time lucky and we’re hopefully off to Pokhara this weekend to rendezvous with Gill and Reg who have spent the last few days seeing some other parts of Nepal whilst Roshan and I continue to work.

Best wishes, Sheila x

Will I be able to watch England v France?

2007-03-11T20:37:00.001+05:45

Sitting here waiting for the power to come back on at 8:30pm and hoping that the cable TV station does not lose theirs then because TV5 Monde is showing the match live! In case you get the wrong idea I should mention that cable TV for us is on a shared line with at least 3 of the landlord's family's houses and is a very fuzzy picture on my laptop. I could go round to watch it at the Hotel Manaslu where Sheila's sister is staying but if the picture is any good here I'd prefer to watch it in the comfort of home.

Gill and Reg are off to Chitwan tomorrow followed by Pokhara on Friday. If our plans work out, we'll join them in Pokhara on Saturday for a short stay before returning on Monday. I discovered this morning that in between I've got to go to Lucknow in India for work – leave Tuesday, return Friday so hopefully all the travel arrangements will go smoothly. Almost 10 years since I've been to India, although Delhi must have changed a lot I'm not expecting Lucknow to much different.

OK, power's on, we've got a TV signal and the match starts in 10 mins.

Cheers

Roshan

What gas shortage?

2007-03-06T19:35:00.000+05:45

I've been worrying for the last week or so that we were getting low on gas and there is a shortage here due to the strikes in the south which have disrupted supplies from India. A friend of ours ran out and found she was No 147 in the waiting list so had a week or more with no gas and only occasional electricity. I went to the shop a couple of times and the shutters were done so I thought the worst. But today the shop was open, I thought I understood the bloke to say that they had gas so I took the empty spare cylinder down only to discover that no they didn't but expected some this afternoon. Now being an eternal pessimist I took this to mean sometime/never only to get a pleasant surprise when Sheila rang to say there was a gas cylinder waiting on the doorstep when she got home – fantastic! Continuing my cynical thinking I expected to be charged a rip-off price but no, the delivery man called round just after I got home and only asked the proper price. Thank you Sunil at the Nepal Gas depot in our chowk, I hope your reward is India winning the cricket World Cup.

Other news today – Sheila's sister and brother-in-law arrived a couple of hours ago and we have just left them to settle in at the Hotel Manaslu round the corner from us before we take them down the road to eat. They have seen a bit of Kathmandu traffic on the way in from the airport and already Reg has asked whether there is such a thing as no-claims discount here. I explained that insurance is a rarity and I doubt whether anyone would qualify for NCD.

Cheers

Roshan

Holi

2007-03-04T22:33:00.000+05:45

Had my night in a nice hotel for the VSO Partner Conference on Thursday, the long soak in the bath was wonderful! Got back on Friday night and before a volunteer forum today (getting a bit fed up with these 6 day weeks) we had a day off yesterday for Holi. This traditional festival originally involved just being daubed in bright colours but has turned into a mass waterfight so we planned to stay in and keep dry. Good plan - Sheila had even declined our landlady's kind offer of participating in their family's celebration - then I was stupid enough to go out to get the newspapers. I thought the front way would be safe and so it was until I got to the main road. Just shops and no kids, should be OK – forgot about the Upstairs Bar (it’s a bar that's upstairs) directly above the paper shop, where the staff and regulars, including some supposed friends, were chucking buckets of water from the roof. Then a self inflicted wound when I went up to see them and was greeted with handfuls of coloured powder.

From Nepal - March...

Sheila's still doing her training in Bhaktapur which has turned from 8 into 10 days and we've got the UN auditors in at Blue Diamond so another busy week coming up. And much excitement because Sheila's sister and brother-in-law arrive for a visit on Tuesday. Apart from thinking that they might have some goodies for us in their bags, it will be great to see them and show them our little world.

A quick update on load shedding. The timetable has gone a bit awry the last couple of days, we don’t seem to be getting all our scheduled power cuts or like the other day when it went off at the designated time and came back on 5 mins later. We suspect that the man in charge of pulling the plug may have decided to ignore his higher-ups and reduce the inconvenience of 6 hours per day load shedding. Maybe we were right in our original thinking (based on experience from Delhi) that living at this end of town where there are VIPs and lots of hotels would reduce the power cuts. Whatever the reason, as I sit here with the lights on when they should be off, thank you Mr Electricity Man. Of course this selfish attitude does not help the power shortage so we'll suffer for it in a month or 2. Or maybe others will.

Cheers
Roshan

P.S. If anyone has a cheap job lot of 6' fence panels going, please deliver to Culver Road which is missing a load after the recent gales. Special thanks to Guy who is sorting this out for me.

Pot calling the kettle black?

2007-02-26T22:17:00.000+05:45

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

2007-02-25T15:14:00.000+05:45

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

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.