Catching up

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

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

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

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

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