2 years already!

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