Holi Festival of colour

Holi Festival of colour

Sunday 26 December 2010

New house, trekking and elephants



New house, trekking and elephants

My language classes have finally come to an end, and I begin wonder how I will ever get by with 50 verb flash cards, 1-20 in Nepali and 10 sentences about myself that my colleagues have already heard! I have really enjoyed learning a new language and I do feel confident that I can get by with what I know and I have tasked myself with studying an hour improving and learning new vocab (I really am square).

Gwyneth who has been staying with me during the language training in another volunteers unoccupied apartment, is about to leave her for her placement, which means for me it is time to go it alone. I have found a very nice house to live in, which I will move into this week when I have furnished it. The house is a bungalow with 2 bedrooms, lounge, kitchen, dining room, bathroom (in and out), pantry (very nice) and an outside storeroom. Its ironic that normally I would have no problem in furnishing this size house with all manner of unnecessary bling, in fact normally I don’t have enough space and now I have loads of space and one back pack and suitcase to fill it. One of the best features of the house includes the roof which is a giant balcony the size of the entire house and is perfect for hula hooping and other activities yet to be explored such as drying washing and flip wanging (there are no wellys here). The other good feature aside from the authentic water pump in the garden, it in fact the garden, its lovely and big and it all mine! There is a guava tree and a curious looking parasitic plant which has crawled up a tree to sprout what looks like giant marrows, very interesting. As the newbie in the community I will of no doubt be of major interest to the local community, no one lives on their own here, particularly a youngish unmarried women such as myself, tongues will wag! Although no doubt my landlady has already spread the word of the random creature who is coming to potter round her empty house.

I have just returned from my first holiday (well official holiday), to Bardia National Park, with Gwyneth. We spent Christmas Day trekking all day through the park with our guide rising at 6:00am to feast on banana porridge and nepali chiyya before setting off. It was freezing when we set off, but as the sun rose and we gathered pace we slowly peeled back the layers and by lunch time it was sweltering. There wasn’t much wildlife around in the park, but I was not disappointed, I was just glad to be in the country side drinking in the fabulous landscape of trees, forest, birds and rivers. We did see many deer, woodpeckers, parrots, humming birds, wart hogs, wild boar, a very long python, crocodiles and fish. At the end of the day, we hopped on an elephant, a rather dishevelled looking creature and ambled for a further hour through the river, long grasses and forest as the sun began to set. I did feel a bit guilt afterwards for riding an elephant I don’t really believe is exactly the right thing to do, especially when I saw one chained up like a dog afterwards but it was an interesting experience. We ended the day with a fine meal and I had a tea pot of hot toddy before a hot shower and hot water and bed at 8:30pm.

I will be spending this week purchasing essential items for my house like; bed, mattress, quilt, gas stove & bottle, crockery, fridge, water filter, table and chairs and I am going to purchase a bike. I have missed my bike and look forward to minimising length of stares from local people, though I have yet to see a foreigner on a bike, in fact I can go for weeks without seeing a foreign face at all, I am ethnic minority. I will have an incoming phone line and the internet at my new house shortly, so I will be expecting lots of calls!!!! And then finally...after all this fannying about I will start working on 3rd January, which will bring a whole new set of surprises and challenges.

I hope you enjoyed you Christmas celebrations and binge drinking and have a great new year celebration. I will be spending new years eve with Wanet the other volunteer in Neplaganji.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. By the way it’s already January in Nepal and the year is 2067, they are ahead of use which is ironic.

Please send me news and come and occupy my spare bedroom.

XXXX

Friday 10 December 2010

My Routine and I am not talking dance

So I thought it might be interesting to to tell you about my daily routine now I am in Nepalganji. Nepalganji is on the south west border of Nepla, its only 15km to the Indian border, so I can apparently nip over the border to buy bollywood outfits and coffee at raamro price.

Each morning I get up about 7:00- 8:00, take out last nights ear plugs and boil a pan of water. When the water is boiled I transfer this tiny amount into a bucket and mix with cold water-this is my shower/bucket. I have got this really handy glove thingy which makes the thimble soap and water go further. They I dress and do yoga or hooping, if I am feeling brave I will go for a run. Gwyeth, my current flat mate is up and about and breakfasted before me, so I will conjure up some random breakfast like tomatoes on shit white sugary bread, followed by yogurt and banana.

Using my bucket I will then hand wash what ever I fancy e.g. sheets, towels, underwear - there are no washing machines!

After buggering about for a couple of ours we will cram at our nepali language before our lesson begins for about two hours before a lunch of lentil and vegetable soup. After lucnh I always have a 1 exact teaspoon of fresh coffee made of the stove using Gwyneths coffee maker thingy. Then we sit and wait for our teacher who is usually 25 minutes late, during sometime I will have a strop and go to make tea, it feels like I am a teenager again-but the teacher is sometimes very frustrating and so is learning Nepali.

After 4 hour lesson, we go to the market to buy food and eat out in swastik cottage-swastik means health, not what I thought it stood for. Then we will settle down on the floor - there is no coach, me in my sleeping bag wiggling around, for some tv. Either channel 3 news, channel 21 random bollywood dancing, or channel 32 a really bad 80's film never seen before because its so shit. About 8:30 I am about ready to issue an ASBO on the neighbour who decides to put his music on really load. And as I settle to bed about 9:30 and put my ear plugs in, it is all about to start again....