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
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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 .
Cheers
Roshan
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