Five Funny Week’s

Week 1 I recently had what I like to refer to as ‘five funny week’, funny peculiar, though there was many funny moments. It all started with the soaring heats in the Terai, rocketing up to mid 45C’s at the time I remember thinking how nice it would be to make a sharp exit to the cooler weather enjoyed in Kathmandu, which I hadn’t visited for a while. Perhaps I could conveniently fit in a trip before I left for my three week holiday in the UK. Things were getting a little shaky throughout the country as the deadline to one of the many attempts at signing the Nepali constitution loomed. In Nepalgunj shops and roads were closed due to bandh’s (strikes), people took to the streets to protest or just to have fun and further west of the county a group of volunteers had to be evacuated by the UN to Kathmandu after violence broke out. This news I selfishly became interested in, would I also be evacuated to Kathmandu? I held my breath and didn’t book any flight to Kathmandu to catch my onward flight to London, in the hope that I might score a free flight and a pre – holiday holiday in Kathmandu.

The call came late afternoon a week before I was due to leave for London, I was to be evacuated. In a rather non-glamorous and uneventful fashion my friend drove me through a field on his motor bike to get to the airport and I flew safely in the small and scary plan to Kathmandu. Much to my over excitement I found 15 other volunteers in our favourite hotel, which is like a volunteer second home. We shared stories of heat, transport, food shortage and boys with sticks and set about to have a really good week. That week was my best week so far in Kathmandu, the weather was perfect and every day we did yoga or running and other random activities like basket weaving, participatory skills and hula hooping with the local children and hotel staff. We danced, we drank, we laughed and most of all we had a really good time. Like most good things though as the end of week drew on I felt that the novelty was wearing thin and I was happy to bid farewell to the sunny smog of Kathmandu and head north west to London.

I had a short transit in Bahrain in which I indulged in a mixed berry smoothie and cheesecake, my first in a year and half – when It came to paying I used this thing called a credit card which I popped in this magic machine and paid in currency unknown. During the flight I met another volunteer who was also returning to the UK for a short holiday, when we had worked out how to buy a ticket for the tube we fled to the very fancy new kings cross train station for lattes before joining our connecting trains to our respective homes. My first impression of home was just how clean everything was, ridiculously clean, very welcome after the grimy streets of Nepal strewn with litter and open defecation. After a teary exchange with my dear mother we headed off home. I couldn’t help looking round all the cupboards and gazing at their contents, especially my newly constructed built in wardrobe, which hosted all manner of exciting clothing options for the future weeks, all of which I had forgotten about. ...to be continued