A Change of Plan

My placement in Nepal comes to an end in November when I will have completed 2 years. I had planned to go to India to complete a yoga teacher training course before returning to the UK to potentially work in Manchester for my previous employers. But now my plan has changed. I will be moving to Kathmandu and extending my volunteering with VSO to work with a; Women’s Alliance for Peace, Justice and Security. This is exactly the type of organisation I want to work for, over the last 6 months I have been studying a certificated course in ‘Understanding Gender in Society’, which coupled with my own experiences over the last two years has given me a fairly good understanding of gender issues in Nepal. Gender inequality is an issue that I hadn’t given much thought about until I stepped out of the UK, as the inequality here is so glaringly obviously it is impossible to ignore. Though I have really enjoyed working with disabled rights and anticorruption, gender inequality is closer to my heart and I am really looking forward to the new challenges ahead of working with a new organisation. With two year of experience tucked under my belt I am hoping that my work experience, language skills and cultural knowledge can be put to good use, though it does feel a bit strange volunteering for three years.

Leaving Nepalgunj and joining the big smog of Kathmandu will present a new set of challenges. The air pollution is vast and simply moving around from A to B can take time and be frustrating. Also financially Kathmandu is more expensive and there is fairly large ex-pat community that get paid a fair amount of money, which I don’t. Whilst I still want to enjoy some of the benefits of being part of a larger ex-pat community, I don’t want to loose my solid connection with Nepali friends and this is very important to me.

One thing I really looking forward to is visiting the Kathmandu Circus and doing some hula hooping with them and I am going to set up a weekly hoop jam to get a collective hula hoop group going. I also need to decide what to do with Ziggy (my dog), he has a good home to go to with my friend here, but if possible I would like to take him to Kathmandu.

So lots to look forward to in the future, but before any of that starts I have my 77 year old hula hoop buddy Alan coming from the UK for some random adventures in September, a 10 day trek in the mountains in October, plus I need to procrastinate about doing the 50km Annapurna trail run in March.
Life in Nepal is so good, I LOVE IT!

Typhoid

Sometimes things happen which really are very sad indeed. This weekend whilst I was off enjoying myself on a motorbike tour one of my neighbours children died of Typhoid simply because she did not have enough money to buy medicine and she did not have anyone to ask for help. Although I had never met this neighbour I wish that I could have helped this situation.

A Rant About Nepal

Although it’s easy to paint a pretty picture of my stay here in Nepal, I think it also necessary to share some of the repetitive annoyances too that occur almost on a daily basis.


Stare bears
Living in a fairly remote city in Nepal off the tourist track there is little interest or reason for tourists to visit, which actually I like. In fact I think if you have time its far more interesting staying in these random places than that of tourist traps, the culture so rich and the experience so authentic. The down side of this is that any movement is bound to cause a stare and I mean any movement. And it’s not a subtle stare it’s a stop and have a really really good stare and take in every detail gold fish style stare. There are several ways to deal with this and these vary according to tolerance level, the person who’s is staring and general mood at that exact moment. Ways to deal with stare bears include; 1) ignoring it, 2) stare back and smile this usually causes embarrassment on their part 3) say hi or Namaste 4) or rare occasions say ‘what’, look mad and slightly crazy.

Married or unmarried
One of the many many questions that curious Nepali people fire at me is ‘are you married or unmarried’. This is actually a sensitive issue as the whole of Nepali society fiercely revolves around the expectation of marriage which I vehemently disagree even though I understand the reasons for it. Therefore its never a good question to start off with, my reactions can be blunt pushing on rude; ‘unmarried’ followed by firing a question right back at them, ‘are you married and do you enjoy it?’. The truth of the matter is once you scratch below the surface most young people would choose not to be married but don’t know what else to do and to be honest – what else is there to do in this country?

Your Fat
Where I come from its apparently good to be thin and bad to be fat, these are messages and images that we have been bombarded with from a variety of media sources forever, which re-enforce these ideas into our vulnerable minds. In Nepal though it’s the reverse, people think its good to be fat as it shows health and wealth and bad to be thin. So if someone says, ‘ you became fat’ its a compliment and if some one says ‘you became thin’ it not a compliment! It’s like a reverse head fuck and actually really interesting experience to witness my own reaction to.

Nepali time and Its Cancelled
Nepali time basically means everything starts later than planned. So training that was supposed to start at 10:00 am may start at 13:00, someone who I have arranged to meet at my house may come 1 – 2 hours late if at all, without informing me. Plans get cancelled at the last moment and sometimes never happen at all. Now you might think that Nepali time and cancellations may have caused me some annoyance and despair, but actually it doesn’t. I won’t lie that is hasn’t taken some time to adjust to this way of life, but now I have I actually like it because it means I can cancel things too and be late without any major consequence and I really like this as its so not allowed in the UK. I wonder if I will ever be reliable again.

Can I Have Your Phone Number
Without doubt the single most annoying thing in this country is people asking for my number and then calling me on it for no apparent reason other than for novelty factor. And if I don’t answer they just keep on ringing and ringing and ringing. It’s quite hard to avoid giving out my number the only real way round it is just to say no you can’t have my number.

Montage dance performance to Dirty Dancing Part 3 of The Funny Five Weeks

The third of my funny five weeks began as I landed in Gerona Spain. We dragged our suitcases and hooping paraphernalia off the bus to our hostel for the night. Although on the outside the hostel look really nice and quite funky, the inside our room resembled that of a prison cell, god I hate these uniform rooms in hostels they make me loose the will to live. The room clinically clean, dark and dingy. The mattresses decked in thick black rubber and windows displayed bars, it felt like prison. After a day of snoozing we met with fellow hoopers for dinner in a quaint street square which housed a display of alfresco restaurants beginning to team with glamorous looking Spaniards. Now I used to speak Spanish, but since learning to speak Nepali just about everything was lost, but slowly a tiny bit came back and I mean un poquito. Who cares though because the next day we set off to our luxury Spanish villa where there wasn’t a single Carlos or Pedro in sight. The villa was set on a hill over looking the beautiful countryside, large gardens, a swimming pool and two houses made up our villa. A whole a range of activities were scheduled for the week ahead including; pole dancing, bollywood dancing, yoga, acro yoga, 80’s dance, plus all manner of hula hooping delights. We were in for a good week. And it was, the weather was brilliant, the food fresh and the people rocked big style. Highlight of the week included doing a montage dance performance to Dirty Dancings’, Now I’ve Had the Time of my Life with my new Irish friend at the Renegade Show, plus watching everyone else’s performance was totally awesome. Low light of the week was being kept awake whilst a handful of people partied on the dance floor above my ceiling! (and yes I am getting old)

Before I knew it the week came to an end and it was time to head back to the UK for Jess’s hen party, with a few new hoop tricks up my sleeves and a host of new memories to boot.

Text message recieved 10.07.12

"a warm hello to my most respectable madam...apparently, only 2day in the spambox i came across the sms usent me in recent past... n d credit goes to my hitler wife b4 going 2 her parents home...a womans' mind is horrifyingly unpredictable almost kind of cryptic for us to read, leave alone understand it...by d way how r u doing... must b having heavy workload... mayb i cud b some help free of cost...now i m free 24/7 since my wife gone 4 a long stay..take care c'ya."

Part 2...Whistle Stop Tour of Manchester

The second of my funny five weeks was my first week in the UK. I don’t think people realise just quite what it is like living in Nepal in contrast to the UK and I had difficultly trying to explain the differences. Although people might perceive that my role here is quite easy, because of the slower pace of life and less demanding job role there are a major everyday challenges that I have to overcome like soaring high temperatures of up to 45C, no electricity, no water, no waste management, poor transport, speaking Nepali, being in a patriarchal country, positive and negative discrimination towards me, the list is endless. That is not to say that I am not grateful and happy to be here, it’s just to point out that it is not easy and very few people could hack this experience. So that is why I appreciated returning to my own country so much as all of those difficulties were removed. I couldn’t believe how pleasant the weather was for my first week in the UK, it was beautiful, I watched as my family got sunburnt at our family barbecue and my brothers adorable children bounced carefree on the trampoline in the afternoon sun, as I sat sipping rosé from a proper flute glass, what a treat. My mother and I did our usual trawling around the various shops that we love to shop in, buying must have and must not have but have to have items to take back to Nepal and everyone seemed so nice, it was almost like my mother had pre-programmed everyone to be overly nice and friendly. My two most ridiculously overpriced and inappropriate items being a play suite and sort gold crocheted waistcoat that I will rarely have the chance to wear in Nepal, but when I do it will feel amazing!

Having rested and rejuvenated at my mothers beautiful country home it was time to travel north west to Manchester my previous stomping ground, where I was met by my wacky friend Andrew in my favourite racing green Mazda MX5. As I was only staying for one day and two nights, time was short and I had booked a tight schedule. First stop a visit to my previous employers the Big Life Group, who I totally love. Visiting that office was like putting on a pair of comfortable slippers, it was great to see all the old faces. We talked about possibilities for my future with the organisation all of which sounded very exciting. Highlight of this visit though had to be their 10 year celebratory video which was montage of office tomfoolery to a badly sung ‘working 9:00 – 5:00’ by Dolly Parton, I loved it! I sped off to Salford for a quick catch up with the old work gang and a sandwich in the community cafe, it was great to see everyone, but all too brief! Then I dropped in to see my friend who is six months pregna

nt and the size of a house, seriously I have never see anything like her bump it was huge, water retention apparently! Mean while back at Julie-Andrews gaff we sipped gin and tonics in garden and readied ourselves for dinner. Dinner was excellent and I met up with some very special friends who had life changing stories (like divorce) and all looked fabulous. The next morning I arose early at 3:00 am and headed to the airport with my new hooping friend Rachel who had overslept and was therefore discombobulated. Manchester airport check in for Ryanair hosted a spectacular visual of pre- Brits abroad all wearing shiny new this season holiday wear from Primark. Sometime later we boarded the cheap and not cheerful plane to Gerona, where they tried to in sell every know item possible including; smoke free cigarettes, scratch cards and £2:00 bottles of water, I refused to buy anything on principle and sat back in relaxed anticipation of my one week hula hooping holiday in Spain.

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