New Years Resolutions

Well what a year it’s been, it probably couldn’t have been more different than any years that have passed before. This year, I think will be even more different to the last as I hurtle towards the end of my placement and chose what direction I want to got to next.

So here is what I want to do in 2012:

Find my true love
No one will be more surprised than I am to find out that I am ready to settle down and meet the man of my dreams. I have already lived a thousand lives and had more than my fair share of adventures, but now I feel like I am ready in my heart to share these adventures with someone. So this year I will have a look and see who I can find, there must be some out there who will make the perfect partner in crime and I am sure I will find him.

Switch to Nepali
One year in, it is time for me to switch from English to Nepali language and really push myself to feel comfortable with the lingo.

Start a new radio show
One thing I have really enjoyed over the last year is having my own radio show, it’s finished now but in the new year I will start something new!

Write short stories in devanagari माँ देवनागरी लेखन सिक्नुपर्छा
Devanagari is the funny looking shapes that people write in, in Nepal and India. I have learnt the very basics but now I want to step it up start using is regularly and what better way than writing short stories.

Ride by motorbike to another district
There really is only one way to travel around Nepal and that is by motorbike, so this year I want to learn how to ride a motorbike and then I will go on a road trip!


And that’s it really.

Happy New Year to everyone and don’t forget to set yourself some interesting resolutions for the new year, life is short and there are many adventures to be had, don’t sit too comfortably and watch it pass by.

Big love and peace
XXXX

Manners over board

Over the last two months, ever since my holiday I have not been feeling very well. I had a cold which turned into one of those coughs it’s really hard to get rid of and two months later it was joined with a terrible bout of tonsillitis.

In between illnesses I had a trip to Dailekh for my host organisations board meeting. Now I always have a love/hate relationship with field trips, because they are really uncomfortable and full on but at the same time I always learn a lot and get to see a new place. So I wasn’t exactly full of beans to start with and being crammed in jeep with over excited young people shouting didn’t really fit my mood, luckily I was able turn to Enya on my MP3 player for some respite, but it wasn’t really off to a good start. When we arrived we were paraded through the streets wearing flower garlands and we joked that this dilapidate looking building would be our hotel. As it turned out, it was our hotel.

The meeting went well and I was able to contribute to the meeting and learn about what some of the important issues are that the organisation are facing, though I did spend some of my time sitting under a blanket thinking about the next tea break. Still on the bright side one of my friends had moved from Nepalgunj to Dailekh for work and he invited me out for dinner with him and his boss one night. I was given a curfew of 8:30 pm for my night out from a very stern young board member, he had also asked me (and five other people) not to sit under the blanket during the meeting, but I refused to and after five minutes the other five people returned to the blanket, much to my delight. I never like to be told what to do and these days my polite English nature has been modified into a more direct approach, really you can’t afford to blunder around here doing things you don’t want to do just because your too polite to say no.

Following my delightful evening out I was cursed with post lunch diarrhoea the following day and missed out on a bit of sight seeing to one of the local wonders, fire coming out of the rocks! Luckily I had already seen this wonder in turkey, and once you have seen fire coming out of one rock you have seen them all, right??

Luckily every thing dried up in time for the journey home and I couldn’t wait to get home and have a hot shower and not talk Nepali for a few days.

Following a one hour facial some days later, which cost £3.50 I developed very swollen glands and a very sore throat, the dreaded curse of tonsillitis had arrived, complimenting my 6 week old chesty cough, after a few days of near death experience (massively exaggerated) I went to the local ENT doctor who gave me a shed load of pills and sent me home to rest for five days. Five days passed and back to doctors for check up and another batch of pills adding to a total of 12 days antibiotics.

Good news is that now I feel amazing in my post illness energy surge and even my chesty cough has nearly gone after I discovered the miracle of inhaling steam over a saucepan with a towel over my head.

During my time of illness I had time to revaluate every part of life from top to bottom and had no major epiphanies.

Trip to Lord Bhuddha’s birth place, canyon swing and cycle of torture

Well its been a very long time since I wrote a blog, which I suppose is a good sign because it means that I have been really busy and engrossed in my adventures to write. So what’s been going on?

Firstly I went to Lumbini which is apparently Bhuddha’s birth place and I stayed in this amazing nunnery. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, I had visions of sound of music with nuns in habits prancing around. Well I was completely wrong about that one, it was basically a Buddhist monastery with female monks with shaved heads gliding around with a very cute yet noisy dog.


The monastery itself was stunning it really took my breath away and was a great setting for our two day VSO meeting, on the upside aswell alcohol was banned so energy and participation was high, so I managed to redeem myself from the volunteer conference some months back when I had sat with a piece of bling material over my head after the Bollywood party. After the two day meeting I was rescued by my Nepali friends brother and taken to his nearby house where I quickly recovered with vast quantities of beer. The next day we went of to visit my Neplagunj friends’ birth place and no my friend is not Bhuddha.

After our borrowed motorbike broke down I had the opportunity to have a nosy round this beautiful house that took my fancy and had a chat with the owner a stunning woman. Motorbike resurrected we visited what remained of lord Bhuddha’s house (or something like that) not much to look at but there was a really beautiful pond.

The next day we visited lunbini development centre where monasteries from all over the world are situated, there must be about 20 different monasteries there all beautifully constructed with minute detail.

I returned to Nepalgunj for one day to rest and tidy myself up (basically I was fu***** after sleeping in a shared room with up to four Nepali friends and I had no clean clothes) before meeting my friend from Manchester in Kathmandu. I had planned a full two weeks detailed itinerary for my friends visit to Nepal and I had been very organised in doing so. Our first destination was ‘the last resort, this fancy smancy resort is nestled in the hills north of Kathmandu 15k from the Tibet border. It cost a bomb, but fortunately my dearest mother had kindly given me some holiday spending money, so I was able to over look the fact that two nights accommodation, transport travel, food and activities was the same amount as my monthly budget. And it was totally worth it, we did an amazing canyon swing with the most beautifully stunning back drop. The canyon swing basically consisted of being harnessed to 160ft rope and then jumping off a bridge into the canyon, free falling and then swinging, it was really really scary honestly but what a rush as I plunged through the air my red hair in tow! (the canyon is the top picture followed by the bridge)

After the canyon swing we scarpered to the top and set off mountain biking, when I had booked the mountain biking I hadn’t really enquired what exactly this entailed and was slightly perturbed to find out it was a 30 km round trip to the Tibet border, 15km up hill – shit!


After we reached half way with our Nepali guide it became obvious just what we had got our selves into, it was obvious from the start that my friends fitness levels were lacking somewhat and with that and a dodgy knee he had to turn back after half way, I on the other hand being the pig headed individual I am, continued the torture up the hill till I reached the Tibet border and then enjoyed the cruise all the way back, I have to say though it was as hard as running the half marathon I once embarked on!

What came first the policy or the funding proposal?

Article for local newspaper:


Whilst we all talk about good governance, how many of us are actually practising what we preach.
Does every person in your organisation know what your gender policy is and what it means to your everyday work or does it just sit on a shelf waiting to be pulled out for the next funding proposal?

Volunteers, who volunteer for Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), are often faced with difficult decisions when it comes to supporting their assigned organisations. The role of the (VSO) volunteer is to act as an organisational development advisor, building the capacity of the organisation through skill sharing and support.

Many volunteers have experienced their organisation jumping through the obligatory hoops to obtain funding, for example to satisfy the funder you must have a gender policy, administration policy etc. Whilst both are valuable, they are not worth the paper they are written on if they have been copied and pasted from another organisation, they are meaningless.

I am hopeful though that the completion of policies to satisfy funders would be the starting point of the policy to come, that later the policy would be implemented in a meaningful way. The process of completing a funding proposal is definitely an effective way for organisations to highlight weaker areas for improvement.
Whilst the UK is full to the brim of policies on every small detail, at least in Nepal you have the opportunity to decide what is and isn’t relevant to support your organisation to grow and improve. What is written in your policies should give enough leeway to support creative thinking and provide people working in your organisation with a framework for action that helps them get on with the job they need to do.
So instead of your policies sitting on the shelf collecting dust, pull them out implement them and see if you can practise what you preach.

An extra extraordinary day

My extra extraordinary day started with a run at the stadium to a recording of Buddhist chants, I thought what a lovely way to start my day. At my office a friend of mine was celebrating his birthday, I asked him how he wanted to celebrate his birthday and he told me that he wanted to do two things; 1) to have a gathering in the office after work and 2) he wanted to give some clothing to a disabled boy. I questioned him further about the latter and he told me a really heart wrenching story. There is a severely disabled boy who is mentally and physically disabled, he had polio when he was young and consequently he could not use his legs. His parents chain him to the wall when they both go to work and he is left all alone chained all day like an animal. Many organisations have tried to help with the situation, by giving the parents money, but the situation has not improved. Organisations have also offered to give seed money for the parent to help start a small shop from home so they can look after their son, but the parents have turned the offer down.

I try to remain objective because there are always two sides to the story and I try to see if from the parent’s point of view, they have to earn money and there are no facilities for this boy to go to and no carers are provided here, this is not the UK where every social need is pampered to and some that are not needed are also provided. But when I join my friend on his visit to give two new sets of clothing really I am very shocked, he is conscious and lively and understands that we are bringing him gifts. He is wearing only a pair of dirty boxer shorts and a equally dirty t-shirts and he is filthy, we cloth him and give him some fruit and exchange words with the parents, I feel uncomfortable, upset and very foreign but I bite my lip and keep composed for now. The parents are willing to talk about setting up a shop.

We stopped off for some drinks on the way back to the office and my work friends asked me how I feel, I reply that I feel sad and start to cry, I am really so sad that I have no reservations about crying in front of my work friends.

We return to the office and to my surprise a group of girls from my office have already started cooking a delicious birthday feast and the music is set up in the meeting room, which co-incidentally used to be my dancing room as this is the first house I lived in, random. When all work friends are gathered a cake is brought out and candles blown. He cuts the cake and then proceeds to feed a small piece to each of his sisters and friends who in return feed him, what a nice idea. Of course there is dancing and then towards the end of the night it is time to open his presents.

And this is what he received; an ornament of a pink hand with a ring being placed on the wedding finger, several picture frames, a bunch of plastic flowers, several Hindu god figures relating to love and marriage and several other things which all related to marriage and love. It was like a pound shop super sweep (with all due respect, very kind and thoughtful). It seems his friends all had one thing on their mind they want him to get married.

I returned home feeling pretty hyperactive and thoughtful from the day, I logged onto facebook and got chatting to a friend who is a Radio Jockey, he was presenting a local Nepali radio song request show at the time and I requested one on line, but that was not possible so I told him I would call but with 10 minutes until the show ended he called me and before I knew it I was live on the radio talking Nepali – eek. Yes I made mistakes, plenty, but what a fun experience it was.

That night I only slept for four hours because a million different things were spinning through my head, but one thing that has not left me and never will is that poor boy chained in his house.

Content

For the first time in my adult life I feel content. I don’t want to change anything or anyone including myself. I am not thinking about the next thing I need to achieve, what others think of me or what I think of them. I accept myself as am, not perfect, not striving to be perfect but as a human being like every one else who laughs, crys, sleeps, eats and feels compassion and joy. I am not special or different, I am just as I am, content.

Moving house and cultural adjustments

I have been reading this book lately called ‘Culture shock nepal’, which was written about 20 years ago by someone who was a Peace Corp Volunteer in Nepal. Peace Corp for those of you that don’t know is an American Government run organisation for young people to volunteer overseas. Peace Corp often get compared to VSO as they have a similar approach in terms of trying to integrate their volunteers into the community, but I always like to point out that we VSO volunteers are professionals and our organisation in an INGO not government led, slight rant.

So in this book I got right to the end of it and written in the last few pages, it talked about the different stages that foreigners go though in adjusting to the culture here and in the second stage it said, “During the next period those rose-coloured glasses you’ve been wearing slip off and shatter. From the highs of living in Shangri-La, you suddenly find yourself in purgatory. The country is the pits, your stomach hasn’t been right for a week, you can’t get a pizza, a newspaper, a letter. You can’t bear to look at another plate of rice. There’s dirt everywhere, no one understands a word you say and people can’t do anything anyway.” And I realised I had reached the second stage and thankfully was now entering the third stage, “you start to regain your even keel. You see the good and bad in Nepal, in your job, in yourself. Things about Nepali Culture interest you again, but you look at them with clearer eyes, taking in both the beauty and the ugliness. You even start to think you understand a little about what’s going on around you. You start to make judgements, not just react to things as terrific and terrible.” Whilst over the past few months I had riding the waves of euphoria, it kind of wore off and I was left feeling almost exactly as the book described. Moving house into this peaceful enclave has given me the mental and physical space to think about where I am at in terms of adjusting to the culture here. The culture here is incredibly complex because there are some many different ethnic groups and tribes which make up the population of Nepal each with its own language and cultural beliefs, some of which over lap some of which don’t and the caste system, which was abolished over 50 years ago is still very much practiced. Every thing is about status, if two new people meet in this culture one of the first questions will be about surname, as this will signify a persons caste and they will be able to work out who has the higher caste and thus the higher status, less so in the younger generation living in urban settlements, but very much practiced still in villages here.

To understand the difference in culture here I have to understand my own, the other day I was commenting on how loud the temple was blasting out its music (in my old house) at 12:00 at night and again at 4:00am and my friend said well that’s our culture and I thought, well our culture is binge drinking but it doesn’t make it right! Although I am respectful of Nepali culture there are some nonsense parts I don’t agree with. Like women who are menstruating having to sleep outside or in barn outside the house and not being able to cook for four days. And Brahmin’s only being able to eat rice which has been prepared by a fellow Brahmin (highest caste). The whole marriage thing I just can’t rationalise, either marrying who your parents want you to marry, usually of equal status, or deciding an age to get married and then start looking. The other day my friend (22) asked me if I thought he was too young to get married, I told him to wait until he was in love and then get married, he hadn’t thought about doing it this was round and was quite pleased with this idea.

I have an inquiring mind, maybe that’s part of British culture and I don’t accept things the way they are just because that’s the way they have always been done, but the majority of people do here. The western mind is trained to operate in a completely different way to that of Nepali people, so it takes a while to adjust to their way of thinking and to understand their rationale for decision making, for example its perfectly acceptable to not go to work if its raining, you can wait until it stops and then come. There are still some things I find difficult to do in this culture, communication is one of them, can you imaging working in a foreign country where simple communication is a challenge, like going to the shop to buy something, trying to be understood at work, because Nepali language is difficult for me to learn, I study nearly every day both language and the devanagari script and although I have made a lot of progress, I still have moments when I really get frustrated and can’t understand and feel myself breaking out in a sweat. And this is every day life.

“The only way to really overcome culture shock is to jump into the new culture and experience it. We can read and study about the new culture all we want, but the only way to really understand human relations is to take part in them, to become active members of our new community and culture. We can only truly learn and understand a new culture by experiencing it”. So over the next month I am going to set myself a few cultural challenges of doing things I feel uncomfortable doing, e.g. walking to work-yes I normally cycle to work because its faster and it reduces staring time but I am going to start walking once a week and see how that feels. So lets see where the next stage takes me, being the eternal optimist, probably some where fantastic and amazing, though even my optimism has recently been put to the test!

(Top photo is in Kathmandu in the 'Garden of dreams' and the bottom photo is taken in Tikapur park at a picnic I was invited to)