After a slow rickshaw ride to the airport on October 2, we were rewarded by stunning views of the Himalayas all the way to Kathmandu. We were able to collect the tickets for our holiday and buy essential supplies (coffee, muesli, pasta) from the supermarket before having dinner with friends. After a day preparing materials and activities at VSO, we really enjoyed delivering the ‘Training for Trainers’ workshop for a group of volunteers and programme staff. It felt very good to do some real training again!
The annual security conference to focus on the election was scheduled for Friday. The morning’s headlines announced that the election process had been ‘suspended’. Fortunately, the Risk Management Officer from DfID is an extremely well informed and engaging speaker and was able to provide an interesting analysis of what might happen next. Many possible scenarios, none of them very positive for peace and development.
An unintentionally amusing presentation about what to do when the next earthquake occurs followed, with useful advice about attaching one’s fridge to the wall with Velcro to prevent being crushed beneath it and the apparent inclusion of salt and pepper in one’s emergency evacuation kit. The last major earthquake occurred in 1934, but a ‘local’ one in the eastern Terai in 1988 destroyed the Dharan clock tower. At the end of the day, the T-shirts and numbers for the Kathmandu marathon arrived, having been stuck by bandhs in Biratnagar on their way from a factory in Bangladesh.
Suitably prepared to cope with emergencies, we went to dinner in Thamel with some friends, where Rosemary fell down the restaurant stairs, cutting her head and fracturing her wrist, so we were able to put some emergency plans into action. She is now making a good recovery and expects to set off trekking next week.
Saturday was the first ever Kathmandu marathon, and we assembled at 5:30am in semi-darkness at Tribeshwor stadium. The organisers were just starting to erect banners, and a lorry was stuck under the starting gate. At 7am, only an hour behind schedule, the full marathon runners started, followed by 5km, half marathon and 10km (us). By this time it was getting hot and the traffic was building up. The route was not marked and there had been no attempt to divert traffic. By the time we set off, the street sellers had covered the pavements with their goods, and people were out shopping. There was sufficient water for the first 100 runners and nothing for the other 9,900 and shops along the route quickly sold out. We managed to get lost very early on, so trotted with Neil to his house and then for breakfast in a very pleasant garden. The men’s event was won by an army officer, but the Nepali woman who finished well ahead of any rivals was disqualified having been sent the wrong way by a steward in Bhaktapur, thus forfeiting the $5000 prize. VSO then hosted a picnic for staff and volunteers, to celebrate the success of the several volunteers who completed full or half marathons. There we learnt that there had been a Madhesi uprising in Biratnagar on Friday and that the city was now under 24 hour curfew, so we were told we could not travel home on Sunday.
On Sunday morning we received a phone call from our landlord, Chhatra, who was still in Kathmandu, but leaving for the USA the next day, so we were invited to visit him and his wife and daughter in their Kathmandu house. The family greeted us with their heads encased in a kind of black mud pack, presumably some pre-departure beauty treatment, and plied us with tea and sweet fried pastries. Tara has been buying wedding gifts and all the paraphernalia for her son’s marriage puja for the last 2 months. The wedding will take place in Washington in February, and they expect to return to Biratnagar some time in March.
After some persuasion and discussion with our colleagues in Biratnagar, VSO allowed us to fly home on Monday afternoon. Biratnagar seemed much as usual, and we were able to get to the market and buy food before it got dark. At work the next day, I was treated to a tour of Anil’s new motorbike and an account of Durga’s adventures in Pokhara, where he had been attending an NCED training workshop. I had been invited to contribute, but this clashed with the VSO programme in Kathmandu. I heard little about the training, which was held from 6-10am on 7 days, to leave the rest of the time free for sight seeing. He has lots of photographs of Durga-as-tourist to prove it, and a new hat similar to David’s. We will now deliver similar training to English teacher trainers as soon as the NCED ‘packages’ are printed. He was glad to get home safely and had a police escort as far as Itahari, where he had to abandon the bus and take a rickshaw the last 25km home. Most of Sunsari and Jhapa is now under curfew and there has been no movement along the highway east for several weeks. This has had a devastating effect on supplies of yoghurt to accompany our muesli mountain. According to the newspaper, vegetable prices have ‘puffed up’ as a result of the transport problems.
I went to Shankapur for the last day of school before the Dashain holiday. Rekha abandoned me for an hour with some very excited and completely uncontrollable grade 2 children while she went to the bank to collect salaries. I am not sure how many children were supposed to be in the class; they were very small and kept disappearing through the door and windows. No-one else was making any attempt to teach, but teachers had closed the windows and were sitting with their feet up across the doorway to try keep children in the room. The small ones crept out under their legs. When Rekha returned, we all assembled in the grade 5 room for a ‘special programme’, with many children – and teachers – and me, doing a ‘turn’. Memories of trying to keep it all together on the last day before Christmas.
The ETC and DEO were closed on Friday for Ghatasthapana, when soil is brought from the holy river and barley seeds are planted in special clay pots and worshipped for 9 days to evoke Durga, the goddess of power. Everyone was in festive mood, and the market was seething with people, inspite of the ‘puffed up’ prices. We spent the morning chatting with Dinesh in his shop, eating laddoo (sticky sweets) he had brought back from Kakhabitta.
Back to Kathmandu on Sunday and off to the mountains on Tuesday – our first holiday for more than 6 months.
Dashainko shubhakamanah!
The annual security conference to focus on the election was scheduled for Friday. The morning’s headlines announced that the election process had been ‘suspended’. Fortunately, the Risk Management Officer from DfID is an extremely well informed and engaging speaker and was able to provide an interesting analysis of what might happen next. Many possible scenarios, none of them very positive for peace and development.
An unintentionally amusing presentation about what to do when the next earthquake occurs followed, with useful advice about attaching one’s fridge to the wall with Velcro to prevent being crushed beneath it and the apparent inclusion of salt and pepper in one’s emergency evacuation kit. The last major earthquake occurred in 1934, but a ‘local’ one in the eastern Terai in 1988 destroyed the Dharan clock tower. At the end of the day, the T-shirts and numbers for the Kathmandu marathon arrived, having been stuck by bandhs in Biratnagar on their way from a factory in Bangladesh.
Suitably prepared to cope with emergencies, we went to dinner in Thamel with some friends, where Rosemary fell down the restaurant stairs, cutting her head and fracturing her wrist, so we were able to put some emergency plans into action. She is now making a good recovery and expects to set off trekking next week.
Saturday was the first ever Kathmandu marathon, and we assembled at 5:30am in semi-darkness at Tribeshwor stadium. The organisers were just starting to erect banners, and a lorry was stuck under the starting gate. At 7am, only an hour behind schedule, the full marathon runners started, followed by 5km, half marathon and 10km (us). By this time it was getting hot and the traffic was building up. The route was not marked and there had been no attempt to divert traffic. By the time we set off, the street sellers had covered the pavements with their goods, and people were out shopping. There was sufficient water for the first 100 runners and nothing for the other 9,900 and shops along the route quickly sold out. We managed to get lost very early on, so trotted with Neil to his house and then for breakfast in a very pleasant garden. The men’s event was won by an army officer, but the Nepali woman who finished well ahead of any rivals was disqualified having been sent the wrong way by a steward in Bhaktapur, thus forfeiting the $5000 prize. VSO then hosted a picnic for staff and volunteers, to celebrate the success of the several volunteers who completed full or half marathons. There we learnt that there had been a Madhesi uprising in Biratnagar on Friday and that the city was now under 24 hour curfew, so we were told we could not travel home on Sunday.
On Sunday morning we received a phone call from our landlord, Chhatra, who was still in Kathmandu, but leaving for the USA the next day, so we were invited to visit him and his wife and daughter in their Kathmandu house. The family greeted us with their heads encased in a kind of black mud pack, presumably some pre-departure beauty treatment, and plied us with tea and sweet fried pastries. Tara has been buying wedding gifts and all the paraphernalia for her son’s marriage puja for the last 2 months. The wedding will take place in Washington in February, and they expect to return to Biratnagar some time in March.
After some persuasion and discussion with our colleagues in Biratnagar, VSO allowed us to fly home on Monday afternoon. Biratnagar seemed much as usual, and we were able to get to the market and buy food before it got dark. At work the next day, I was treated to a tour of Anil’s new motorbike and an account of Durga’s adventures in Pokhara, where he had been attending an NCED training workshop. I had been invited to contribute, but this clashed with the VSO programme in Kathmandu. I heard little about the training, which was held from 6-10am on 7 days, to leave the rest of the time free for sight seeing. He has lots of photographs of Durga-as-tourist to prove it, and a new hat similar to David’s. We will now deliver similar training to English teacher trainers as soon as the NCED ‘packages’ are printed. He was glad to get home safely and had a police escort as far as Itahari, where he had to abandon the bus and take a rickshaw the last 25km home. Most of Sunsari and Jhapa is now under curfew and there has been no movement along the highway east for several weeks. This has had a devastating effect on supplies of yoghurt to accompany our muesli mountain. According to the newspaper, vegetable prices have ‘puffed up’ as a result of the transport problems.
I went to Shankapur for the last day of school before the Dashain holiday. Rekha abandoned me for an hour with some very excited and completely uncontrollable grade 2 children while she went to the bank to collect salaries. I am not sure how many children were supposed to be in the class; they were very small and kept disappearing through the door and windows. No-one else was making any attempt to teach, but teachers had closed the windows and were sitting with their feet up across the doorway to try keep children in the room. The small ones crept out under their legs. When Rekha returned, we all assembled in the grade 5 room for a ‘special programme’, with many children – and teachers – and me, doing a ‘turn’. Memories of trying to keep it all together on the last day before Christmas.
The ETC and DEO were closed on Friday for Ghatasthapana, when soil is brought from the holy river and barley seeds are planted in special clay pots and worshipped for 9 days to evoke Durga, the goddess of power. Everyone was in festive mood, and the market was seething with people, inspite of the ‘puffed up’ prices. We spent the morning chatting with Dinesh in his shop, eating laddoo (sticky sweets) he had brought back from Kakhabitta.
Back to Kathmandu on Sunday and off to the mountains on Tuesday – our first holiday for more than 6 months.
Dashainko shubhakamanah!
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