Kathmandu interlude

The rains returned at the weekend, and we arrived at the airport on August 15 damp from a 8km ride on a cycle rickshaw with our luggage and David’s large cardboard box for his shopping. We’d forgotten that the aeroplane was so small that we had to crawl to our seats.
We descended into Kathmandu through dense black clouds over the mountains with soft rain falling in the valley. Our initial excitement was soon exhausted as we haggled with taxi drivers, got stuck in traffic jams, breathed the polluted air and smelt the stench of rotting garbage at the sides of the roads. (Do not let this deter you from a trip to Kathmandu – after a few days the rain had stopped, the hills were visible and the garbage strike was over). We were welcomed back to our familiar room at the Pacific Guest House by the friendly Buddhist family. The piece of waste ground outside the window had been paved over, much to the consternation of the ducks who have to waddle off to find a puddle for a swim, but the small boys enjoy flying their homemade kites with dry feet. We spent our first morning sorting out money with the VSO office, and the next queuing outside the Indian Embassy from 7am in steady rain waiting to submit the fax form to the Indian Embassy in Delhi – the first stage of the visa renewal process.
We were quickly re-integrated into VSO Kathmandu social life. It was good to meet up with friends from in-country training, share experiences and eat leisurely dinners with glasses of wine. We have enjoyed eating a wide variety of food in Thamel and stocking up on books, as when our box from England eventually arrived, the 15 books it had contained had been reduced to two. We’ve shopped for items we can’t get in Biratnagar and bought supplies of coffee and muesli for the next couple of months. We’ve also booked a trek from Pokhara for the Dashain holiday in mid October, about the only time the ETC ever closes.
We enjoyed being back at the language school, and were encouraged by our progress. We worked with two other volunteers in similar roles with the wonderfully helpful and flexible Sachita, so have extended our educational vocabulary and role played lots of teaching and learning ‘situations’. Listening and understanding to Nepali spoken at ‘normal’ speed (fast) is still a problem.
An article about us appeared in the Kathmandu Post durng the week “British couple beats heat for education”. Our requests to check it for accuracy were not heeded, and we had assumed it would never be published, and certainly not in the English language paper. It includes many gems “when the clock strikes 6 in the morning, David, 61, hops on his cycle to reach different schools. He proudly boasts of his youthful vigour……. On the other side, his wife Jordon gives training to over 100 teachers…” and so on. Interviews with our Nepali colleagues appeared in the Nepali version of the paper the following day. We have not yet managed to translate them.
The days we were expecting to have ‘off’ were spent planning a training day for volunteers in October and meeting Chhatraji who had arrived from Biratnagar. We needed to make arrangements for the 5 months he expects to be in America planning his son’s wedding.
We were able to see some of the Gai Jatrai festival, where decorated cows from each family where there had been a death in the previous year are paraded in the streets. Now children in fancy dress and face paints have replaced most of the cows, accompanied by musicians with drums and strident horns.
Our colleagues from Biratanagar arrived on Wednesday and we caught a bus out of the city to Park Village at 7am on Thursday morning. The hotel is set in beautiful gardens at the foot of the mountains, with stunning views and a huge swimming pool. The workshop on teaching, learning, monitoring and evaluation raised many challenging issues. It was good to spend time with our colleagues and meet volunteers and partners from other districts. Working together is a skill yet to be acquired, partly, but not entirely because of the language barrier.
We were glad to return home on Sunday, and took a laden taxi to the airport, with our two computer bags, two travelling bags, three large cardboard boxes packed with goodies and 2 metres of drainpipe containing a large Maithili painting. It was weighed (20kg overweight).and checked through with no excess baggage charge, to join the other boxes and sacks to be loaded onto the tiny plane. On our arrival in Biratnagar, we managed to find a World War 2 army jeep to bring us safely home. Apart from piles of gecko poo and many ants, all was well. The outside of the building was festooned with loops of string with leaves attached, presumably for some festival. It resembled an enormous transpiration experiment (biology teachers will understand). We were warmly welcomed in the market and by ‘our’ Indian shopkeeper, who insisted on us buying many things we didn’t really need. Good to be home.