MotherCare

I've been promising to write about MotherCare for ages and, just as my time there is nearly up (tomorrow will be my last day), I'm finally getting around to it. I'm pretty sure I've already written some of this is earlier posts, but I can't remember what and I don't want to waste precious electricity time rereading my blog, so my apologies if some of this is repetitive.

MotherCare is run by Sapna, who is an extremely commited educator. It's a pre-school, taking kids up to six years old. It's based on Montessorie principles, although I don't know enough about that to tell how well they're upheld. All the teachers are well trained and committed and the school is well staffed; each classroom has a main teacher, at least one assistant and a didi (a woman responsible for cleaning up, serving lunch etc).

The kids are from a very comfortably off section of Nepali society, with many parents being prominent business people, doctors, etc. There's also a sizable, though not overwhelming number, of foreign kids.

The school is has a large, shady playground, full of climbing frames, swings, a sandbox and even a small pool. Here's a section of it:

The classrooms are huge. Each year group actually has a suite; a main classroom, a carpeted area for indoor play and reading and a changing/bag storage area. The rooms are immaculately clean and tidy, light and well-resourced, with colourful poster-boards and displays, alphabets and number charts adorning all the walls:

The photo above is of Jupiter class, in which the pupils are aged 5-6. This is the class in which I've spent my time. Sapna is the main teacher although she's frequently occupied in the school office. That leaves Sveta is charge, with me and another assistant, Sharmila, helping out however we can.

The school year runs from May-April, so it was already nearly over when I arrived (graduation is tomorrow). From the maths point of view, the curriculum had already been covered, so there was no actual teaching to do. I was, however, put in charge of the maths lessons, which happen twice a week. It was all revision, mostly of addition and subtraction. The challenge for me was to think of ways to make it fun, fresh and interesting. I got off to some false starts, particularly when trying to explain things in a way that was familiar to me from teaching in England and Canada but went down like a lead balloon over here (the concept of the number-line, for instance). I also had a tough time keeping the class under control and getting them to listen to me. But eventually I broke through and by the end had devised a few good games which the kids enjoyed, whilst simultaneously practicing their number skills.

Other than maths, the kids also learn Nepali, practice their English reading and handwriting, do lots of drawing and painting, learn special topics (in the time I've been there they've covered the continents, land and water forms and food and nutrition), and have weekly music and occasional dance lessons. They also have plenty of time for play, both inside and outdoors. It's a small class but they're a mixed bag, from the quiet and studious ones to the real troublemakers, but I guess that's what you'd expect from a bunch of kids anywhere in the world.

There's one small annoyance. Because of Nepal's electricity problems, it's troublesome to get stuff photocopied. That means that every time I've wanted to create a worksheet, I've had to write the entire thing by hand 18 times! It's not that bad though. There's always plenty of time.

As you can probably tell from what I've written and the photos, MotherCare is completely the other end of the spectrum from OGN. The kids are all clean, well-fed and healthy. The school itself wouldn't be out of place in England or Canada. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to experience both. I've learnt a great deal from each.

Double meanings

One thing I still find disconcerting about being in Kathmandu is the abundance of the following two symbols (here seen together on a balcony):

As a Jew, these of course conjure up certain images and emotions. The swastika is particularly hard to take. Yet here the swastika is a sanskrit symbol for good luck and what I call the Magen David (Star of David) is a sanskrit symbol for wisdom.

Some more OGN snaps

There seems to be a general consensus that the OGN kids are adorable, so who am I to hold back on such cute photos as I took today?

Playing up before nap time:


Susmita, after a breakthrough. Last time I mentioned her, she wasn't talking or moving. Today, suddenly, she did both. She just got up and started walking around. And once she started she barely stopped, whilst all the volunteers looked on in amazement. But it got better. When she was put down to her nap, Jenny, another of the volunteers, was playing peek-a-boo with her. Susmita started to gurgle happily, the first noise (other than crying for her first few days) that we'd heard her make. A few moments later and she was stringing together syllables (nonsensical, of course, but that's all you'd expect at a year old). The volunteers were entranced. She's like a whole new child from the miserable lump of skin and bones that was first brought in about a month ago. Here she is today:

Gore (pronounced as two syllables, Go-re), is regarded by all the volunteers to be without question the cutest kid at OGN (and, as you've seen, there's some serious competition for that distinction). Here he is, with Maria, having just made a huge mess of himself consuming some snack-time nutrient-rich powder:

In addition to all the cuteness on display here, there was also the enchanting sight of the kids running around in an amazed mass after the bubbles which one of Jenny's friends had brought from America. I don't think they'd ever seen bubbles brought before and they probably wouldn't have been more in awe if the Messiah appeared in front of them.

Also, I had the delightful task of telling Bina that my Mum has agreed to become an education supporter for a little girl there called Jenisha, a most needy and worthy child for such support. It is her house and family situation that is described and shown in the 'Poverty and OGN' post. Bina was over the moon and, as much as Jenisha really understood what was going on, she seemed pretty pleased as well.

It was a very happy day.

The next few weeks

Having settled well into the pace of Kathmandu, MotherCare and OGN, the next few weeks will bring a complete shake up. I can't believe how much cool stuff I'm going to be doing in the next short while. My itinerary is as follows:

On April 2nd I'm heading to India for a week. I'm going with Sapna and Sandhya (Rabi's sister) and we'll be joining with Supreet and Sangita, who now live in Delhi. The main purpose of the trip is to visit Uzir (Sapna and Rabi's 15 year old son) who is at boarding school in Moussourie, a north Indian hill station, a six hour train ride plus an hour and a half drive from Delhi, way off the beaten track. Apparently it's beautiful there, with lots of good hiking. Everyone in the party except Sapna is keen on walking, so I imagine we'll do a fair bit. We'll also have a couple of days in Delhi and I plan to use one of them for a day trip to visit Agra and see the Taj Mahal (rather more on the beaten track).

I then have a couple of days back in Kathmandu before heading on another Sacred Summits motorbiking weekend. This time the destination is The Last Resort, right on the border between Nepal and Tibet. At The Last Resort we'll have a chance to experience one or two of the adrenalin pumping activities on offer; bungee jumping, canyoning swinging, mountain biking, white water rafting. Needless to say I'm pretty psyched.

And as if that wasn't enough, the day after we get ack I'm heading off on a 16 (or so) day trek around the Annapurna circuit, supposedly the best trek in Nepal. The reason it's considered as such is because it offers the greatest variety of scenery, villages and peoples. The highest point is over 5400m, about as high as you can get without climbing a mountain (it's about 600m higher than Mont Blanc). I anticipate the trek to be one of the highlights of my entire gap year. Vivek will be the guide. I've also found a couple of other people to go with; Maria, one of the other OGN volunteers, and a guy called Henry who's doing a photojournalism internship in Kathmandu and living in the same place as Maria. I think we'll all get on pretty well. It should be more fun with a couple of other people, plus it splits the cost.

It gets even better. On the way back from the trek, I'm going via Chitwan National Park for a couple of days in the jungle; elephant safari, jungle walks and canoe rides await.

Seriously, how did I get to be so lucky? Only downside, I probably won't be blogging much (certainly not whilst I'm trekking), but I'm hoping (electricity permitting) to put up a couple more posts before I go. I took some photos at OGN today that are so adorable that they need to be seen to be believed. So you have that to look forward to.

Nishant (and Kathmandu schools)

As you may have gathered from my previous posts about OGN, I have become rather attached to the place and the children there and want to help them as much as I can. As I have mentioned before, one of Bina's main concerns is that the kids receive a decent education once they leave OGN. As far as she's concerned, this involves sending them to a private school. Government schools in Nepal are dire, especially in Kathmandu. At private schools, unlike government schools, most of the teaching is done in English, a distinct advantage when it come to securing a decent job.

Needless to say, private schools cost money, something which the OGN families distinctly lack. So sending the kids there requires 'education supporters', people (usually Westerners) willing to commit to paying for a child's education for its duration, at least 10 years. To cover the yearly cost of private school fees, uniform, textbooks, exercise books and stationary, lunches and extra curricular activities, Bina asks for 20,000 rupees, approximately 175 pounds. Although not a totally insignificant amount of money, it seems like a pretty good deal.

There are concerns, though. One worry, and this has been a problem for OGN kids receiving sponsorship before, is that sending kids from such poor socio-economic backgrounds to an expensive private school will result in them being badly bullied. The caste system is still very much in play in Nepal. Also, exposing such poor kids to the ways and means of richer ones might make them miserable in wanting for things that they cannot have. (Something that has often struck me about OGN kids is how happy they are and I can't help but wonder if this is because they haven't yet had the experience to realise just how dire their situations are).

Another worry (raised by Rabi after noticing a similar problem with kids from Khokana leprosy colony that have been sent away for a basic education) is that there's a risk that once the kids finish their ten years of schooling, they still won't really be ready for a decent job (that would require a +2 - equivalent to A-levels or grades 11 and 12 - as well as university), yet they will consider themselves above the manual jobs that without such schooling they'd be destined to go into. Nor will they have apprenticed in a particular skill or craft. Thus they'll be left in a kind of limbo. I suspect the way round that is for the education supporter to be prepared to keep up support throughout the latter stages of education, provided the child has shown an aptitude and keenness for their studies.

One other question concerns the amount. I know I mentioned that it doesn't seem like much, especially to a Westerner (what my father would have given to only have had to pay 175 pounds school fees a year!), it is actually a small fortune here and there are less good private school than the one that Bina has in mind that cost less than half what she is asking. Perhaps it would be better to send two kids to a less good school than one to the better place. I don't know.

I think these are all valid concerns and I will talk them through with Bina when I get the chance, yet I'm convinced that the benefits of providing one of the OGN kids with a good education outweighs the worries. Education, after all, probably offers the best chance of allowing the children to pull themselves, and hopefully their families too, out of their current rather miserable lot in life.

Thus it is that I have become the education supported of a boy named Nishant (pronounced Nees-hant, with the 'a' as in 'father'). He's five years old and an absolute sweetheart. He's bright and hardworking and good-natured. He's a happy kid.

That he should be a happy kid seems to me quite extraordinary, given his family background. He is, needless to say, from an extremely poor family. His mother is a labourer on a building site; menial, poorly paid and irregular work. I'm not exactly sure what his father does, but it's equally menial. He's an alcoholic and whatever he earns goes to feeding that habit. He does not support his family and has disavowed any responsibility for his two children (Nishant has a two year old brother). It's a good thing that the education support will be managed entirely through Bina - none goes to the family directly. There was also an older brother but he died recently, at the age of six, after a three year battle with cancer. Caring for him sucked up all the very limited money the family had. They are so poor that they could not even afford the 5p/10 cent bus fare to take him to the hospital. Instead the mother had to carry her ailing son for the one hour walk in each direction. It was the death of the son that turned the father into an alcoholic, and that's on top of his mental health problems. Because the couple married for love, rather than the expected arranged marriage, Nishant's mother's family disowned her. But so much for that love now. It's not a happy story, and I haven't even got to their living conditions, about which you'll hear more at the end of this post.

Given that I'm sponsoring Nishant, I wanted to see where my money will be going, so I asked Bina to take me to the school that she wants to send him to, a government school for comparison and to his home. She did so, and more, actually taking me to visit six schools in the neighbourhood, four private and two government. For someone who wants to see all aspects of Nepali society, and especially for someone with such a keen interest in education, this was a fascinating tour.

The first school she took me to is a private school which some of the ex-OGN kids currently attend. For someone whose image of a private school is along the lines of SPGS or Branksome, this was quite a shock to the system. The place was far more basic than even the most basic of English state or Canadian public schools. It seemed to lack any notable resources, the rooms had rickety benches and desks, a blackboard and teachers desk and otherwise was totally bare. Classrooms faced out onto a courtyard and weren't fully enclosed, which meant that during lesson time, everyone would hear what was going on in everyone else's classroom. Since it's exam period there weren't any kids there, which gave the place an extra bleak feel. I appreciate that I'm judging on appearance, and from a Western perspective at that, rather than on the quality of the curriculum and teacher, but nevertheless I left with the thought that if private schools are so much better than government schools, I was dreading what the latter must be like.

The second private school we visited was even worse. This time there were kids there, which only served to intensify the impression that the place was crowded, squished and dank. This one didn't even have any outside (or indeed inside) play area. We couldn't get out of there soon enough, as far as I concerned.

Next Bina took me to the school to which she hopes to send Nishant. After the other two, this was a breath of fresh air. Although the grounds were still far more dilapidated and the classrooms and resources more basic than anything you'd find in England or Canada, the place immediately struck me as an improvement. The first thing you notice is that there's a decent sized play area with climbing frame and swings. The classrooms were covered in the children's work, which livened the place up a huge amount (as a side note, though, in Hungary classroom walls are left bare but they have an excellent education system). The kids all seemed pretty happy and attentive and the teachers, as far as I could tell, seemed warm. I can see why Bina wants to send him here and also why it's relatively expensive. Other important considerations are that the headmistress is particularly sensitive to the poverty/bullying situation and also that the kids are allowed to stay at school until 5:30, which is a necessity given that both Nishant's parents work full days. This is a photo of the current year ones at the school:

After that, we went to a government school. There were no kids there. Aesthetically it wasn't so bad, having received money from various embassies and trusts for cosmetic improvements, although Bina assured me that the standard of education wasn't up to much. Next was one of the best private schools in the city, which Bina's own daughter attends, and that was leaps and bounds above anything we'd seen so far. That school wouldn't have been out of place in England or Canada. Unsurprisingly, it was terribly expensive. Finally we went to a typical government school. Unfortunately it was closed, but the view from the outside and peeking through the window confirmed the fear I'd had at the first school.

Later in the day I met with Nishant, his brother and mother and we went with Bina first to the mother's workplace and then to their home. This is the workpace. The woman in the photo isn't Nishant's mother, but that of another of the OGN kids. The strap on her head supports a basket into which she shovels sand and then carries it to the builders.

And then to the home. This made Jenisha's home, which I'd visited the day before, seem positively palatial. Again, it was a one room affair, I reckon about 2.5m wide to 5m long (for a family of four). It was dark and dank and dirty and squalid. At one end was the one bed. There was a set of shelves onto which clothing was stuffed, and a kitchen surface on which there was one hand-pump gas hob and lots of dirty pans (gas has to be bought in canisters and carried to the room). The only electrical item belonging to the family was a bare lightbulb (the TV in the photo below is being briefly stored for the husband's cousin). There was a disgusting hole-in-the-ground toilet in the courtyard outside but no water nearby. The mother has to walk 20 minutes to get any. It was too dark and small to take decent photos. This is the best I have. Nishant's on the right.

We stayed for about 20 minutes. The mother told me about her life and family (translated through Bina), whilst I played ball with the boys. But I couldn't wait to go. The place made me feel sick, both physically and emotionally. I found being there far more affecting, even, than being at Khokana leprosy colony. Although the conditions there are horrible and the LAPs suffer terribly, leprosy is, thankfully, relatively uncommon these days. Relatively uncommon, that is, compared to the daily poverty experienced by Nishant's family and millions, even billions, like them. What particularly tweaked me was realising that I had cycled past his home almost every day on the way to and from the gym, without ever stopping to think about who lived behind the walls and the kind of life they have. That's to say, whilst I've been having a very comfortable time in Kathmandu, I've been surrounded by poverty all the while and barely noticed it outside of OGN.

Poverty and OGN

On Monday Bina took me to see the homes and workplaces of the families of a couple of kids at OGN.  Their poverty is shocking and I found the visit terribly upsetting.  I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

One mother, recently widowed and left with three children under the age of ten, outside the shack in which they all live.  Generously estimating the dimensions of the place, the family lives in a room no bigger then 5m by 5m:

Inside the shack.  That's all there is too it, apart from one small storage until just out of frame on the bottom right where a few kitchen utensils are stored:

The field outside.  The shack is just out of shot on the left.  On the right you can see the outhouse, with the blue door.  In between is where the mother works, making paper, some of which is drying in the stacked frames:

It's not much of a life, to put it mildly.

'Women in Concert' concert and a day of luxury

A while ago I mentioned that I had joined a choir and would be performing in a concert on March 21st.  I promised a post-event post, so here it is.

Between my first enthusiastic post about my musical exploits and the day of the concert itself, I had begun seriously regretting the undertaking.  Rehearsals were held far away and cut into precious weekend sightseeing time.  I wouldn't have minded so much if the rehearsals had displayed any semblance of organisation (like, say, not having to wait for an hour for it to begin or getting there to find that most members of the choir either hadn't been informed of the rehearsal or hadn't turned up) or if there was any sense of improvement as the weeks wore on.  On one particularly frustrating occasion, Sapna and I spent the entirety of a rehearsal stuck in a traffic jam as a result of roadblocks, eventually arriving one and a half hours after we set off on the usually twenty minute journey.  On that day only, the rehearsal had started on time and had just finished when we arrived.

But, in much the same way as the wedding came together at the last minute, the concert turned out to be a success.  It was held at a beautiful five star hotel, the Gorkana Forest Resort, on the outer edge of Kathmandu Valley.  The concert was held outside, the stage set up under massive ancient trees.  The whole thing felt much more like a rock concert than I expected, with a high stage, impressive sound system, lack of seating and surprisingly vocal, cheering crowd (more so as the evening continued and bar stocks became increasingly diminished).  Here's a shot of Sapna performing her solo:

By the time the choir came on, last act of the night, everyone was exceedingly jolly.  It was quite clear that not everyone on stage was entirely sober but that just added to the fun.  I couldn't hear myself sing at all and therefore have no idea if I did so in tune.  Despite being entirely sober, with all the jollity around me I threw caution to the wind, belted in out and danced along with full gusto.  It was huge amounts of fun.  Rabi took the following photo on my camera.  It's not great but it's the best I have.  I'm second from the right.  For better pics, check out the gallery here.  

We stayed overnight at the resort and I spent Sunday making the most of the spa.  Delighted to have an opportunity to swim for the first time in months, I dived right in and, to my great surprise, swam 150 lengths, approximately 2250m, or double what I normally swim.  I seems that all those aerobics classes are paying off in terms of improved fitness and stamina.  I also had a message, a facial (only the second in my life) and enjoyed a few stints in the sauna and jacuzzi.  It was utterly indulgent.  It was only when I got back to Kathmandu that I reflected on the diversity of my week, starting at Khokana and ending at Gorkana, about as far apart on the spectrum as two places can be.

Swayambhu

Another Saturday, another temple. This week it was Swayambhunath, the famed hilltop monkey temple (so called because of the troupe of monkeys who haunt the surrounding hill and amuse visitors with tricks). The view of Swayambhunath from afar is striking, one of the most recognised symbols of Kathmandu, the stupa flanked by two white temples in the tall, thin Indian shikhara style. 

Getting to Swayambhu involved a rough, sweaty, uphill half hour bike ride.  It was therefore with some dismay that I faced the 365 steps up to stupa platform.  It actually turned out to be an enjoyable climb, with plenty of interesting stone sculptures of the Buddha and various animal carvings along the way, all under a leafy shade.  The view at the top would have been wonderful had it not been for the smog.  

The stupa platform is not large and the stupa itself seemed rather less impressive than the one at Boudha.  It is, however, older and considered just as important.  Whilst Boudhanath is popular with Tibetan Buddhists, Swayambhunath is frequented by Newari Buddhists.  (Note: Swayambhu and Boudha are both names of places, the -nath suffix refers to the temple there).

I was surprised by how crowded it was, not with tourists but with locals Hindus who had come on what transpired to be a festival day to worship at the adjacent Hariti Temple.  One of the things I like so much about Nepal is the peaceful coexistence of Buddhism and Hinduism.  The photo below shows both the stupa (left) and the temple (right), in the foreground are centuries-old tombs holding cremated ashes.

Also around the stupa is the another beautiful and very old temple or gompa (I'm not sure which).  The inside is covered by exquisite murals depicting, I think, the life of the Buddha.  Unfortunately my photos of the inside didn't come out well, but here's one of the outside:

Inside the temple/gompa, locals were performing various puja:

I had a non-super-informative guide whose one saving grace was that he took me to the nearby Amideba Buddha Park, which I didn't know about and hence would not have found by myself.  The massive gold sculptures are only a few years old and quite intimidating in their size and brightness.  I'm not sure how tall they actually are, but the photo below should give you an idea, using the people at the bottom for scale:

My guide deposited me back at the stupa, at which point I was very glad to be rid of him.  After another hour and a half at the stupa for lunch, more wandering around and photo-taking, drops of rain began to fall.  I quickly headed down but couldn't cycle home quickly enough to stop myself getting completely drenched.

Politics and escaping it at the Garden of Dreams

Last Thursday there was a half day at MotherCare. Nepal's student union elections were to be held that day and there was a worry that there would be rioting in the afternoon, so Sapna wanted to assure that everyone got home safely first. Thankfully there was no trouble in Kathmandu although elsewhere in the country rioting led to several injuries and at least one dead. Just imagine the NUS elections leading to rioting and death. (I'm not sure of the equivalent Canadian body)

I only have the shakiest of a grasp on Nepali politics. I've just started a book about it and will post on the topic when I know more. Politics only has a tangential impact on my daily life but enough to know that things aren't as they should be and trouble is brewing. This usually manifests itself in strikes (bhands) that can be called at a whim by any political party and can effectively shut the city, Kathmandu Valley or even the country down. There have been a couple since I got here. Quite frequently, certain roads get shut down and cause even greater chaos in the traffic than usual. I think this has something to do with protecting nearby embassies.

Other than that, I notice the soldiers on the road and find them a little ominous, with their big wooden sticks.

Anyway, the half school day on Thursday afforded me the opportunity to escape it all in a haven known as the 'Garden of Dreams'.

Once you're inside this pocket of tranquility, it's easy to forget that you're just moments from one the cities' main intersections. The garden and it's pavilions were built in the 1920s, inspired by visits to English Edwardian estates, by the son of the prime minister, who won a small fortune in a game with his father.

There is a particularly good continental restaurant in the garden and I treated myself to a delicious lunch. What made it particularly special was tasting flavours that I haven't had since I arrived (in case you didn't already know or couldn't tell from my blog so far, I'm something of a foodie.) I don't think I've ever enjoyed a caper so much. It was like a tiny explosion of salty goodness in my mouth. And the tiny spring of fresh basil, my goodness, I was momentarily overcome with a paroxysm of joy. I still love Nepali cuisine but I didn't realise I missed continental flavours so much.

Although the garden is only 1.2 acres, I spent nearly an hour walking around. It has recently been lovingly restored and is full of gorgeous things; beautiful trees, well-arranged flower beds, interesting statues (for example a European-style woman who was later remodeled as the Hindu goddess Laxmi), ponds and fountains. Despite my earlier comment in a recent post in which I commented on the lack of rain and the unlikelihood of it in the near future, there had been a massive thunderstorm the night before and there was consequently a freshness and lushness in the garden that made it an exceedingly pleasant place to be.  So after walking around, I settled under a tree and read for an hour or so, only leaving when the sun went in. A lovely afternoon.

More from OGN

I absolutely love being at OGN. I don't have a lot more to add right now after my previous long post about it, except to clarify that Bina considers the place a day care center rather than a pre-school. I just wanted to post a few more photos.

This is Bina, during circle time. One way that I hope I have been useful is that I've made various resource cards for the school. I was a little concerned that although the older kids can recite the numbers up to twenty, that they didn't actually know what they meant and that they couldn't actually count things. So I made cards showing each of the numerals from one to ten, coloured each number in a different colour, and then made corresponding cards with one to ten dots, colour coded with the numeral card. They have proved to be a big success.



A group enjoying some shade before circle time:


This is Susmita, the girl that I described feeding in my last post. She is still terribly small for her age but has put on weight in the last month. She is about a year old and, other than crying for the first few days when she was new to OGN, she doesn't make a single peep. Nada. She also doesn't make any attempt to move. She doesn't roll over or crawl or try to pull herself up. She sits totally quietly and will remain in that spot until picked up and put somewhere else. She is, however, starting to come out of her shell. Last week she smiled. The next day she waved and put her hands together in the greeting gesture. All the volunteers got very excited!


On the potties:

Khokana Leprosy Colony

On Monday I spent the day with Maggie and Rabi at Khokana leprosy colony. It was an eye-opening and very moving experience and I fear that I will not be able to find the words to express it.

I should probably say a few words first about leprosy itself. Although I'd known of the disease for years, it was only in preparing to come to Nepal that I really learnt anything about it. I'm not good with the medical side of things. It's a bacterial infection which is contagious but only after prolonged contact in a small, unsanitary spaces and only if you're already malnourished, ill or otherwise feeling the effects of poverty (in other words, there's no way that I could contract it from a day visit to Khokana). Although contagious, it is not highly infectious and about 95% of people are thought to be immune. It is absolutely not hereditory (which makes the fact that until 1996, male LAPs in Japan were forcibly sterelised even more barbaric). For those unlucky enough to contract the disease, symptoms include skin legions, collapsed noses, nerve damage, shrivelled hands and feet and inablity to shut ones eyes which leads to blindness. Because of the nerve damage, leprosy affected persons (LAPs) cannout feel any pain. As a result they often don't notice that they have vut or burnt themselves (which frequently happens when they have to walk over rough ground or cook for themselves, which their poverty demands) and as a result they suffer terrible infections which result in amputations.

As if the physical symptoms weren't bad enough, leprory carries a huge social stigma. Originally thought to be a curse from the gods, LAPs were thrown out of their families and placed in colonies. Khokana, for example, was set up sometime during the 1860s or 70s at a time when having leprosy was actually illegal.

Although not preventable, leprosy is totally curable and, if caught early enough, all physical deformities can be avoided. The cure is in the form of multi-drug therapy and the pills are made available by their manufacturer free of cost in all endemic counties.

As a result, all the LAPs at Khokana are technically cured of leprosy, in as much as they are no longer affected by the bacteria. But one look at them and it's plain to see that they still suffer greatly from complications of the disease. (The pills only halt progess; they don't reduce the physical deformaties). Unfortunately, at this point the WHO wipes their hands of the LAPs, claiming they are cured. Maggie knows better and is currently campaining for a new disease classification, post leprosy syndrome, which would at least give the people at Khokana and other such places an umbrella under which they could receive more support.

To keep the LAPs out of sight, Khokana was set up in the middle of nowhere. Even now, it's difficult to get there; though it's not that far from Kathmandu, the last stretch is several kilometres down a steep dirt road that requires a four-wheel drive. The countryside around there is quite lovely. The view from the distance does little to prepare one for what they'll see up close.

On arrival, Maggie showed me around the colony. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't what I saw. The colony is far more like a village than I'd imagined (minus anything commercial). The LAPs living there are given a monthly allowance of rice and a small amount of money and then are essentially left to get on with it. That surprised me. I was shocked to hear an extremely disfigured old man with no fingers talk about how he cooks for himself. One woman, who could barely walk and was having serious trouble breathing was out gathering vegetables. There's definitely a communal atmosphere there and some unexpected showing of humanity; one badly affected woman has even adopted a baby.

Maggie was quick to point out what she described, quite rightly, as the medieval living conditions. The outhouses were particularly primitive, not to mention totally lacking in privacy. The residents of the oldest building (see photo below) have one room each, maybe about 2m by 4m. Those on the second floor have to navigate a staircase that's hard enough for someone with full use of their limbs - quite how the LAPs handle it is beyond me.

Before I came to Nepal I went to a lecture that Maggie gave in London about leprosy. It was to a class of students of tropical medicine, so in part was quite technical but she also included dozens of photos of leprosy affected people (LAPs). I therefore knew what to expect in terms of the physical deformation of LAPs so perhaps wasn't quite as shocked by the residents themselves as I might have been. Below is a photo of one guy who's been living in the colony for over 50 years. I'm embarrassed to say I've forgotten his name. Note the collapsed face, damaged eyes and deformed hands.

One resident died whilst I was there. It was my first sight of a dead body and, needless to say, it was a chilling experience.

Here's the unfortunate tale of one now elderly resident. Decades ago, her aunt contracted leprosy and was sent to Khokana. On realising that the colony allowed a small provision of food as well as shelter, the aunt contacted her sister, who was very poor and could not afford to look after all her children. The aunt suggested that one of the kids was sent to live with her in the colony. The sister agreed and a girl was sent. The child contracted leprosy and has been there ever since.

It wasn't all bad. As one would expect when a group of men and women are segregated from society, many have formed relationships, married and had children. As noted above, leprosy is not contagious. There was one particularly adorable child there, just over a year old, the grandson of two long-term residents. Both the grandparents are leprosy affected. Their daughter (the mother of the boy) is perfectly helpful and absolutely delightful. She is now a nurse at the colony, having risen above her rather inauspicious start.

There's an interesting religious mix at Khokana. As is the case throughout Nepali society, there are both Buddhists and Hindus there. But because of missionary involvement, there are also a number of Christians. For the 250 or so residents, there is therefore a temple, a stupa and a church. They all seem to live in harmony. The most notable difference between them is that for some reason that I can't explain, the Christians keep their rooms and environs much cleaner and tidier than their Hindu or Buddhist counterparts.

It was extremely difficult to be there, witness the hardship and feel so incapable of helping. I've never been more thankful for my health and the extraordinary comfort that I've enjoyed throughout my life than when I was at Khokana.

Daily life

My Mum wants to know about the details of my daily life in Kathmandu and I thought I may as well share the answers on the blog. To answer her specific questions:

Do I wake up to birdsong or traffic?
Neither. I usually wake up to the far less exciting sound of my alarm clock. I sleep with earplugs in because of the general cacophony outside - a combination of birdsong (there's some sweet twittering but it's largely drowned out by an unpleasant squawking) and the dozens of stray dogs in competition to see who can bark the loudest. On my first day, as Rabi was driving me here from the airport, he told me how quiet the neighbourhood is, and in as much as there's very little noise from people or traffic, he's right. It's probably one of the quietest neighbourhoods in Kathmandu. Yet the animal sounds I've described seem louder to me than the traffic at the intersection of Bay and Bloor (that's a very busy intersection, for my non-Toronto friends.)

What's my daily routine like?
On weekdays, I wake up around 8am, get dressed and have a breakfast of warm bread (not to be confused with toast - there's no electricity on weekday mornings so Sita briefly heats the bread in a pan but never for long enough to actaully toast it!) On Mondays and Tuesdays I'm at OGN from about 10-4 and I've already described a day there in some detail. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays I'm at MotherCare from 8:45-3:30 and I'll write about that in a separate post some time soon.

After school I either go to the gym and then rest at home or vice versa, depending on whether I time my visit to a scheduled aerobics class or just go to use the machines. Either way, at Banu's I get to have a long, hot shower that I can stand under which is appreciated since the dust and smog in the city always make me feel dirty, and that's even before it's mingled with work-out sweat.

At some point in either the afternoon or evening, it's usually possible for me to spend a little time on the internet, checking emails and writing this blog. Otherwise, I read. I've been reading voraciously - eleven novels and short story collections in the last five weeks. Whole new worlds are opening up to me. Sapna and Rabi have more than enough to keep me going.

I usually eat dinner at home with Sapna and Rabi and the evenings are pretty quiet; more reading or possibly some television. Sapna's got me hooked on American Idol season!

Of course, there are exceptions; afternoons with friends rather than the gym, dinner and drinks out, choir rehearsal etc.

On weekends I enjoy the dual pleasure of proper toast and the opportunity to go sightseeing.

What's the weather like?
Temperature wise, it's perfect - mostly in the high twenties and getting hotter. It's a dry heat and there's rarely any wind and certainly no rain. But, as I've already mentioned, Kathmandu is dusty and smoggy and polluted and that makes being outside in the city for any length of time rather unpleasant, particularly for someone who is turning out to be rather suseptible to bronchitis. This is another reason why I can't wait to get off trekking into the clean air.

So, those are some of the little details of my daily life.

Anything else you'd like to know?

Food

I've been getting lots of questions about the food here, so here's what it's like.

The staple of the Nepali diet is daal bhaat - rice and soupy lentils - which is entirely more yummy than in sounds. It is usually accompanied by a meat curry (chicken or buff, and far less oily than Indian curries), saag (a generic term for vegetables like spinach, kale and chard) and potatoes. There are slight regional/tribal variations on this. I've had a few versions in Kathmandu and no doubt will try many more as I pass through various villages when trekking (still a month to go until that adventure and I can't wait).

Another popular dish are momos, which are like the Tibetan version of gyoza, but a little bit doughier. Also delicious.

Unfortunately, I have developed a fondness for Indian sweets (unfortunate in the sense that you can feel your arteries clogging up as you eat them, but that's a small price to pay for such deliciousness). My favourite are 'gulab jamun'; dense, squishy deep fried dough balls in cardamon scented sugar syrup, best served warm. There are also a dazzling array of cold sweets which are based either on condensed milk or nuts or dried fruit. They always look beautiful, often covered in silver leaf and are delicately and deliciously spiced with flavours I can't identify. (The image below is not my photo but pulled from the web.)

As well as the local foods, you can get any kind of foreign cuisine in Kathmandu and I've had some very good restaurant meals with Sapna and Rabi, who know the places to go. At home we mostly eat Nepali food, but Sapna will sometimes cook something with a more continental or oriental twist. I made a fish pie once and that went down very well.

All the produce you can buy here is local and seasonal. You can get some imported stuff in the bigger supermarkets but at prohibative cost (a pack of three tiny salmon steaks was selling for 45 pounds/CAD$80!) A couple of times I've had a brief craving for a favourite food from back home - fresh asparagus, a hunk of cheddar, a juicy steak, decent ice cream - but overall I love the food here.

I also love the Nepali attitude towards feeding visitors. It is the custom for Nepalis to always cook too much food so that any visitor, or even stranger, who turns up at their home can be fed. This custom is upheld in the Thapa household (Thapa being Rabia and Sapna's surname - I don't think I've mentioned that before). Moreover, the Nepali equivalent to 'how are you?' is 'have you eaten?' and should the answer be 'no' that situation is quickly remedied.

So much for thinking that I would lose weight in Nepal.

Not again!

After nine days of a hacking cough, at Maggie's insistence I went to the doctor. Much as in Israel, I can't now understand why I didn't go sooner. In any case, for the second time in as many months, I have bronchitis.

At least that accounts for why I've been feeling lousy. Now I'm on antibiotics, taking a day in bed (very much regretting having to take time off from OGN) and anticipating a speedy recovery.

Supreet and Sangita's wedding

Following three mad weeks of preparations, Supreet and Sangita's wedding went off without any noticeable hitches.  In fact, the whole thing turned out to be rather magnificent.

The religious ceremony was last Thursday morning, beginning at the auspicious hour of 6:30am.  It was held on the roof terrace of Sapna and Rabi's house.  It was my first Hindu wedding and I watched in fascination as the priest laid out the preparations for the multitude of pujas (religious rites) that occur during the ceremony.  The ceremony itself lasted about four hours and was a joyous, colourful, messy affair, with various powders, flowers and liquids being scattered as part of the pujas.  I understood relatively little of what was going on (even Sapna couldn't explain all the symbolism) but it was fun to watch nonetheless.  The whole thing seemed to me to be rather informal, with the forty or so guests coming and going throughout and the family joking with the priest.  Below are the happy couple during a brief break in the ceremony, the once meticulously arranged offerings by this point looking rather less immaculate.

After the ceremony, there was the official meeting of the two families and gifts were exchanged.  Then downstairs for drinks, lunch and more drinks which lasted until the early evening.  I must admit that I made myself pretty scarce for much of the afternoon.  I still wasn't feeling well and was finding the crowd a little intimidating.  I used the moments by myself to speak to a friend back home and write a long letter to my parents and I think that was the turning point when I started to feel more perky after a few days of being just shy of my usual chirpy self.

The next night was the wedding party and therefore the opportunity to dress-up in my new finery.  Here it is, folks:

The photo doesn't do justice to the embroidery and bead-work of the kurta (top) but does amply show of just how much the surwal (trousers) resemble clown pants!  Nor can you really see the jewellery or admire the heals in which I am somehow managing to stand.  But you get the overall effect.  I got so many compliments on the outfit all night and I lapped every one of them up.

The party was held poolside at the beautiful Dwarika's Hotel, which has won a Heritage Award for rescuing traditional Nepali wood carving and terracotta work and superbly integrating them into the hotel buildings.

I should note that I'd been to a couple of wedding parties with Sapna and Rabi in the past month at two different hotels and was surprised to find the identical buffet at each - there is a typical 'wedding menu'.  Since it is now an auspicious season for weddings, guests are being subjected to the same boring meal over and over again.  Not so at Sapna and Supreet's wedding.  The traditional Newari buffet was spectacularly good.  In this, and all other respects, this wedding totally outclassed the other two.  It was far more stylish even than the wedding we went to at the Yak and Yeti, supposedly the smartest hotel in town.  

What made the party so much fun for me, at least, was that, unlike the previous wedding parties, I had a number of friends there.  The teachers from MotherCare and the staff of Rabi's company, Sacred Summits, were all invited.  Maggie was also there, visiting from England (Maggie, if you remember from a much earlier post, is the reason I'm in Nepal at all.  It was her charity work that inspired me to come here and it is she who is a mutual friend of my family and Sapna and Rabi).  It was great to see her.

The evening stretched into the night and long after most of the guest had gone, the stalwart core group (including myself) was still drinking cocktails in the bar.  Here's a photo from that stage the night.  Left to right: Sangita, Sapna, Jyotsna (a friend of Sangita's from Delhi) and me.

Sapna was particularly drunk.  Thankfully she is a happy drunk.  She is also a bossy drunk and, once we got home, insisted that beer MUST be consumed.  That was at 2am and I was seriously flagging but there was no escape!  Sapna, Rabi, Jyotsna (who was staying here) and I stayed up chatting and drinking for another hour or so.  During that time Sapna declared that I was '8 out of 10'.  Apparently that's pretty damn good.  The last girl who stayed only rated 1.5.  I finally made it to bed at 3am, tired but happy.  Just don't ask me how I felt the next morning.

A tainted day in Patan

A few weeks ago I went to Kathmandu Durbar Square and have already written about it on the blog.  Patan Durbar Square is the same kind of place, a concentration of temples and a royal palace, but much better.  The architecture is superb, with temples and sculptures ranging from the 14th-18th century.  Most are Newari in style, with tiered roofs and beautiful wood carvings, but some show Indian mughal influence (see the temples on the right and left respectively of the photo below).  Unfortunately, none of my photos come close to doing justice to the place.

I spent a very happy 90 minutes or so wondering around the square, admiring the architecture and watching the crowds.  I particularly enjoyed sight of the locals collecting water from the beautifully carved crocodile head water spouts of Manga Hiti:

I also rather liked this elephant guarding the entrance to the Vishwanath Temple:

After exploring the square, I went to Patan Museum, housed in the old Royal Palace.  It is reportedly one of the best museums on the subcontinent and it's easy to see why it's so highly praised; it's full of exquisite objects which are well presented with interesting captions.  The whole museum is extremely informative about Hinduism, Buddhism, the gods in their various manifestations and the symbolism in the statues and shrines.  It was tough to pick one example to include in this post.  Below is one of my favourite objects, a 12th century copper sculpture of Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha.

The accompanying label reads: "This superb example of Nepalese metalcraft depicts the historical Buddha in his most typical pose, seated in meditation, one hand in his pap, the other pendant in earth-witness gesture.  In keeping with traditional representations, this Buddha has a cranial protuberance (ushnisha) signifying supernatural wisdom and a mark between the eyes (urna), signifying spiritual illumination.  His distinctive coiffure represents the curls with grew back after he cut off his long, princely locks with his sword.  The curl-covered ushnisha is also surmounted by a knob representing a symbolic jewel (cudamani).  As an unusual feature, the sumptuous earrings the Buddha wore as the prince Siddhartha Gautama have been restored to him here, and although he wears a monk's robe its decorative borders are more in keeping with princely raiment."

After the museum, I left the square to explore some more of the town of Patan.  Although the main streets are a little touristy, you can still get a sense of the place as an old Newari town.  The streets around the square full of lovely houses and quiet courtyards as well as over six hundred more temples and stupas, from the very simple to the mighty five-story Kumbeshwar Temple.

By 3pm I was all templed and architectured out and still facing the prospect of the unpleasant cycle back into Kathmandu.  The ride should only be half an hour but along roads with heavy traffic.  I'd got lost on the way, which had almost doubled the time, and was wary of a similar misadventure on the way back.  I decided to stop for a bite to eat before attempting the ride.  I went to a restaurant that I'd read very good reviews of and ordered an apple spring roll with ice cream and chocolate ginger sauce, a very promising sounding treat.  It arrived and I took a big bite.  It was not an apple spring roll but - horror of horrors - banana.  Some of you already know of my hatred of bananas.  It is passionate and intense, verging on a phobia.  Even saying the word 'banana' makes me feel sick (writing this post is beginning to have the same effect).  So, as I'm sure you can imagine, I was not very happy to have swallowed a mouthful, to put it mildly.  The way the management responded to my complaint did not help the situation.  I'm not actually physically allergic to bananas but given how sick I felt, I may as well be.  And, on top of that, I felt totally contaminated, even violated.  I had a severe case of the emotional hives which lasted several hours.  It felt like my whole day was ruined.  Only now, a week later, am I able to think of Patan and remember the wonderful temples over and above my horrible time at the restaurant.

Wedding preparations

On February 20th, Sapna's brother Supreet announced that he was planning to marry his old friend Sangita.  As is customary, they made a trip to an astrologer to determine auspicious dates for the wedding.  The astrologer declared that they had to get married on March 12th.  After that there was not another auspicious day for the next fourteen years.

Anyone who's ever been involved in the planning of a wedding will know that 20 days is not a lot of time to organise everything, yet this was the task that fell to Sapna (it would have been the responsibility of the groom's parents but they're not around anymore).  Attempts to keep the wedding small quickly fell by the wayside.  As well as organising both the religious ceremony and the party, she also had to coordinate family coming both from Darjeeling and Delhi.  Needless to say, she was pretty stressed.

Meanwhile, all I had to worry about was getting dressed, which turned out to be a rather exciting prospect.  I needed an entirely new outfit.  Sapna decided that I would have trouble managing a sari, so I should get a kurta instead (a kurta is a long, sleeveless top worn over trousers and with a scarf).  Normally I hate shopping, but I was excited by the prospect of kurta shopping, especially as I was going with a group of teachers from school who know all the best places and would know exactly what I should get.

My excitement was not misplaced.  We shopped for both kurtas and saris (some of my friends were planning on wearing the latter).  We went to two different shops, one specialising in each.  The method of shopping was the same; we sat on a row of chairs in front of a large, padded display area.  Behind were shelf after shelf of folded garments.  The shop assistants laid out dozens of these fabulous items for us to peruse and try on if we wished.  They pulled out anything we asked and much more besides.  The array of colours was spectacular and the embroidery, sequins and beading magnificent, especially considering they were all hand made.  Of course, there are much simpler kurtas and saris, but we were looking at the party ones.

The picture below gives a sense of the shop.  I was just trying on a sari for fun. 

That day I bought a beautiful kurta and shoes.  The day of the wedding I shelled on matching jewellery.  Namrata lent me a bag and bought me a decorative tika.  The entire ensemble cost 5900 rupees which seems like a small fortune here but in Western terms is a perfectly reasonable £50 or CAD$90.

As well as the clothes, Namrata also arranged for a group of us to have mendhi (the name of the paste made with henna powder) on our hands and arms.  This is mine (I had the backs of my arms done as well).

The combined effect of the outfit, jewellery and mendhi was quite stunning.  But you'll have to wait until I post pictures of the wedding to see it!

Orchid Garden Nepal

I've now had time to properly settle into both of the pre-schools at which I'm volunteering. This post is about the charity school, Orchid Garden Nepal (not Orchard something, as I reported in a previous post). I'll write more about MotherCare another time.

The first time I went to the school I was surprised because it was physically a nicer place than I expected.  There's a reasonable sized front courtyard which is used as a playground and washing area, made colourful by the laundry hanging to dry.  There are some garden areas, but filled with weeds, not orchids, as the name so promisingly suggests.  The school house consists of two main rooms - a large room for circle time, indoor play and napping and a smaller room which is used as a classroom for the older kids.  The rooms are colourfully decorated and have some cartoon pictures on the walls.  The smaller room has an alphabet along one wall.

I've already written about the founder, head and sole teacher at the school, Bina, and her warmth and affection. I've also now been able to witness her enthusiasm and dedication, not just to the school as it is, but to expanding it to accommodate more and older children (using the currently weed-filled land). Since new buildings will have to be constructed to house them, that's a substantial task and at the moment something of a pipe dream, financially speaking. Most of the money raised goes straight to educational scholarships for the students, who are all from incredibly poor backgrounds and cannot afford school once they leave Orchid Garden (in fact, several families cannot afford to feed the children, let alone educate them). £175 or CAD$300 provides enough for one child to study at a good school for a year (including uniform, books etc). Unfortunately, however, given their socio-economic background, the kids often face discrimination from both students and teachers when they move on. That's part of the reason for wanting to expand Orchid Garden Nepal (OGN).

I spend Mondays and Tuesday at OGN. I arrive at about 10am and play outside with the kids until approximately 10:45. There are a few toys scattered around the playground. Actually, other than three rocking horses and a small slide, all the toys in the playground are broken - a couple of punctured balls, bits of toy cars and lego blocks that have been so bashed around or chewed that they no longer fit properly together. Yet it's amazing how easily some of the kids can amuse themselves with these bits and pieces and whatever else they find lying around. I say 'some of', because others never seem to play at all - Sapna speculates that any kind of play is forbidden at their homes and they just don't know how to do so. That said, I always have a group of kids around me to give me with whatever they're playing with - somehow I can always find the enthusiasm to be pleased with a present of a doll's head. On my second day there, I gave a boy a piggyback and ever since then, whenever not playing with toys, I seem to have at least half a dozen kids grabbing hold of me, attempting to climb up any available limb.

Then there are the really little ones to hold. You can guarantee that at any time, at least one of the babies will be crying and in need of comfort, particularly the ones who are new to the school. And there are always a multitude of noses to be wiped. The combination of the poor nuturition and sanitation condition at these kids' homes means that many of them are permanently ill. Also, I spent a lot of time pulling up trousers. Most of the kids have clothes that are far too big for them (I presume from older siblings, or else the parents can't afford to keep replacing clothes and buy bigger ones that the kids can grow into), so I'm often chasing after kids with their pants around their ankles and dressing them again. 

It seems to me that what the school does best is look after the physical well-being of the kids. They range from about 9 months to 4 years old, but few of them look their age. Several of the young ones who are new to the school weigh about half of what they should at their age. At OGN they are fed a couple of times a day, a banana at snack time (about 50 of them suddenly appear and I run as far as possible in the opposite direction), and lunch. For the babies, there's milk and a mushy egg/rice/milk mixture available throughout the day. One of my highlights of my entire time in Nepal so far has been feeding a little girl, about a year old, though you'd never guess it she's so small.  Once I got over the grossness of the mush that I was spooning into her mouth, I couldn't help but wonder at how much and how gratefully she ate.  There is something marvelous about being able to satisfy such a basic need for a child completely unable to fend for herself and so obviously not getting what she needs at home.

As well as being fed, the kids are also given toilet training, washed all over, groomed and their clothes laundered (although they're all so stainted that washing makes little visible difference). These are all totally necessary services.  It also gives the staff an opportunity to spot any other physical problems.  There was one case, soon after I arrived, of an 18 month old boy who was found to have a horribly infected growth coming out of his belly button.  When Bina checked with the parents, it turned out he'd had this problem since he was just three days old.  Just let that sink in a moment - he'd had this growth a year and a half.  It could have been cleared up by a simple operation but his parents couldn't afford it.  Bina notified Dr Pradhan (from Sewa Kendra) and Sapna and between them they organised for the operation to go ahead and the cost to be covered.  But here's the sobering part.  The cost of this operation that was so prohibitive to his parents and had allowed this child to suffer for so long was 5000 rupees, which is equivalent, at today's rates, to about £45 or CAD$75.  I had spent that much on a pair of running shoes the day before.

Back to a day at OGN.  Around 10:45, the kids go into the bigger of the two rooms for circle time. This is my favourite part of the day, around 50 kids in a big circles, the littlest ones crawling or running inside as they see fit.  Bina leads them first in various songs, both English and Nepali, accompanied by various movements or dances.  The older children then recite days of the week, months, the alphabet and numbers up to 20 in English, though it's not entirely clear that they understand what they're saying.  They may also learn other little bits of vocabulary like 'open and shut' or 'rough and gentle'.  I have a little problem with the latter.  They are taught this difference first by hitting one hand into the other and being told 'rough', then stroking their arm and being told 'gentle'.  However, there didn't seem to be any value judgement attached to the relative merit of these types of behaviour, resulting in several kids coming up to me in the playground, whacking me and proudly declaring 'rough! rough!'  I have raised this with Bina.  What they cover in circle time varies, but it may end with somersault practice, one kid coming into the middle at a time and trying their darnedest to flip their legs over their head to the encouraging chants of the others.  It is utterly adorable.

After circle time, the inside toys (mostly stuffed animals) are brought out and the kids play with those.  Then the eldest half of the kids are taken into the smaller of the two rooms for a class.  The volunteers are then usually left alone with them.  There are three of us, but there's only once where we've all been there together as one of us always seems to be ill.  This class is chaos.  We just can't seem to hold the kids' attention - maybe we'll get them just long enough to go through the alphabet, or identify some colours or body parts, but that's about it.  We may bring out the school's half a dozen jigsaws, but the kids have done them so many times that they finish in a couple of minutes.  Or we may get them to do drawing (there's no paper so they scribble on newspaper scraps) but there are usually fights over the stubby and broken coloured pencils.  Resources are minimal.  Throughout the class, the kids are climbing all over the furniture and up the walls.  There's usually at least one kid in tears over something.  As I said, chaos.

That lasts about 45 minutes and then, thankfully, the kids go out to play again.  Then they're fed lunch and put down for their nap.  The emerge again at about 3:30 and play outside until they are picked up, which may be as late as 6.  I usually leave around 4.  

So that's a day at Orchid Garden Nepal.  I love it there.  I think what gets me the most is despite the daily hardship that these kids face they mostly come across as very happy.  There's nothing quite like walking through the gate in the morning and being greeted in the typical Nepali way, a chorus of 'Namaste' with hands together, bowed heads, by all these adorable, smiling children so pleased to see me.

Friends

I've been getting questions from my parents about various aspects of my daily life in Nepal.  They want me to write about the details of daily life here, as well as the big adventures.  So, over the next couple of days, I'll be answering some of their questions on the blog.

They want to know if I've made friends.  The answer is a resounding yes.  One of the advantages of living with a Nepali couple and working in a Nepali school is that I'm meeting and making friends with locals.  I hang out a good deal with Sapna and Rabi and they're always happy to take me out with them whenever they meet their friends.  I've met good people that way.  I also get on well with the guys and girl who work in Rabi's office.  I got to know them on the motorbike ride my first weekend here and I usually go to the office, which is right next door to MotherCare, for a bit during my lunch hour and hang out with them there.

But the people who have really taken me under their wing are the teachers at MotherCare (see photo below), in particular Namrata (second from left).  She often invites me over for meals and parties, took me shopping for clothes and jewellery for the wedding (I'll be writing about that separately) and had me over when she'd organised for a lady to put henna on our hands.  She's lovely.  Lhaden, whom I wrote about as a friend I made as soon as I arrived, left a week later to look after her very ill mother in India and hasn't come back yet.

As for non-Nepalis and a social life independent of Sapna and Rabi, there's relatively little.  I've met a couple called Julie and Anil who are friends of my aunt and uncle in London and are over in Nepal doing VSO.  They are delightful and I've met with them a couple of times and will continue to hang out with them every now and again whilst I'm here.  Closer to my own age, there's Jenny, an American on her gap year who is also volunteering at OGN (organised through an agency).  We get on well but have yet to socialise outside of school.  I'm not meeting any other travelers but that doesn't bother me at all.

My hair

Some of the posts that I'll be publishing over the next few days will be accompanied by pictures featuring myself. Before you see those, a disclaimer is necessary. Just before I left for Israel, I decided I would neither wash nor cut my hair for the duration of my travels. At that point, my hair had already not been cut since mid-October, I think.

The reason for deciding against washing my hair is that hair is supposed to be self-cleaning. Plus, there are water shortages in both Israel and Nepal, so I figured I'd be doing at least a little to conserve water by not standing under the shower for ages. It turns out that whilst hair may be self-cleaning of its natural dirt, it is not self-cleaning of Kathmandu muck and pollution, so after two months, and seeing the grossness that had accumulated on my comb, I caved in. Once I washed my hair, my head felt at least a couple of pounds lighter!

I have not, however, cut my hair. It is now the longest it's been in over ten years and it looks awful. It goes through rough periods, then settles down into a new, reasonable-looking style, then grows out of that too. I have very thick, dense hair and this length and heaviness really doesn't suit me. But I'm going to keep growing because I may as well take this opportunity to see what happens if I don't cut it for several months - I can't imagine myself conducting a similar experiment once home. And my trusted hairdresser back in London will have plenty to work with for a possibly interesting new style once I get back.

So, just bear that in mind when you see the photos!