Reflections

Having failed to post blogs in September and October I now find myself writing a blog after being in Nepal for almost a year - 15th of November is the anniversary of our arrival – so it seems appropriate to reflect a little.
The last two months have been remarkably busy. As part of VSO’s 50th Anniversary celebrations they recruited a number of British MPs to do short term placements as volunteers. The only conservative MP to volunteer came to Nepal and we acted as hosts for almost two weeks in the middle of September. He used his political expertise to run some training sessions for the new Constituent Assembly members here which went down very well. It was really interesting to have him here. So much of what he observed reminded us of our early days here and made us realise how much we have come to accept.
October in Nepal is festival month and we had the first long breaks we have had since got here (no wonder we were feeling tired). In the first weeks holiday Anil and I went to Varanasi in India . We were lucky enough to be there at Durga Puja which sees the whole town in festival mode. Imagine Christmas, bonfire night, carnival and Blackpool illuminations all rolled in to one and you have some idea of what it was like - great fun and very noisy. If the Oxford Street traders and Hamleys want to know how to do street lights and Christmas window displays then I suggest they visit Varanasi !
The second week, Tihar, was spent with 8 other VSO volunteers at Bardia National Park in the far south west of Nepal. This is where the Tharu people live and there houses are lovely. Made of wood, straw and mud with cream washed external walls they dot the landscape with there pretty little gardens full of flowers. Some of the houses are huge and accommodate extended families. The one we visited was home to 22 people. The walls separating each sleeping area were actually rice storage vessels.
We had gone to Bardia to see some wildlife and in spite of walking, rafting and elephant riding through the park we saw remarkably little, one glimpse of a wild rhino and its baby being the high spot. We had to make do with plenty of deer and lots of tantalising footprints of tigers, rhinos and wild elephants. The footprints felt like a calling card “we were here two minutes ago but you were out!”
I cannot believe that we have been here almost a year. The change in the weather (cold at night) is acting as a reminder and I am just waiting to see the street sellers with masses of oranges which is what greeted us when we arrived. With so many new experiences the time has gone by really quickly.
I feel sad that I have not mastered Nepali as well as I would have liked to. I can understand quite a lot but I find speaking very hard. Maybe that will get better next year. After a year of getting to know and work with my counterpart he is about to leave the organisation and join VSO as a programme manager. This is a really excellent opportunity for him but a little sad for me. I think I have learnt to listen a bit better than I did a year ago but that old tendency to want things to happen quickly is still there and causes me no end of grief some days!
It is very interesting to me that something that really bothers you a lot when you move to a new house, or country, soon becomes absorbed as the norm. In my first few days in KTM I slept very badly on account of the dogs. The dogs of KTM have a routine which is totally at odds with their human cohabitants. When it gets dark and sufficient numbers of people have indicated that they are in bed, by turning out their lights, the dogs start barking. Some of them are street dogs who wander around barking at each other, others are house dogs who have to bark at the wandering street dogs as this is, of course, their job. Apart from the dogs; KTM is fairly quiet at night so you can hear the ripples of dog barks stretching out across the city. It might not be beautiful but it seems organized to me and hence we call it the dog orchestra. When our daughter came to stay she remarked one morning that she hadn't slept well but she now entirely understood the term "dog orchestra." The MP was also disturbed by the dogs and as he was only here for 10 days he didn’t get past what I call the dog shooting phase, when you get up in the morning bleary eyed with lack of sleep it is a tempting fantasy.
Of course with all this night time activity the dogs are worn out in the day. By 9am on my walk to work the whole of KTM is paved with dogs completely spark out. They play a similar game to the cows simply lying down where the fancy takes them, the gutter seems a favourite spot. A car going within 1 millimetre of its nose will, I guarantee, not wake a KTM dog, they are oblivious. For those suffering sleep deprivations the urge to give them a swift kick is often quite strong.
I depart for the UK on the 18th November and I am wondering what will strike me on my return. We have a hectic six weeks with 80th birthdays to attend in Yorkshire and New York and lots of relatives and friends to catch up with.
Blog service will be resumed in January 2009.
Namaste
Julie