Good Grief

My good friend Kaveesh was killed when he was riding a scooter and he was hit by a drunk driver, in Goa. Though hard to reconcile the death of someone so young who had his whole life ahead of him, I can be thankful for the way he touched my life in such a positive way. He was from a privileged back ground and was fortunate to go to Harvard and spend some of his life experience in London, but he never boasted these facts, he was a very modest and a gentleman. I can’t begin to describe the feeling of loss I felt from his passing, the classic symptoms of grief; disbelief, anger and withdrawal. Coming to terms with the death of anyone who has touched my life is always tough, but I continue to believe that something positive can be learnt from bereavement.

On the other side of the world my granny lies in hospital waiting to die. She has lived for 90 years, almost an unimaginable amount of time. She has lived for many years on her own, really without enjoying her life, waiting and hoping to pass away. Its ironic to me that one person is ready to die and doesn’t and another is not ready to die and is taken away too early. It’s not fair. Now at least my granny can die in peace as she is granted the Liverpool Passage, which people like my granny who have no chance to improve their health are not kept alive and pass away some what peacefully without further health intervention. Personally I think there is a place for euthanasia in some circumstances, where there is no hope and life is just being dragged on regardless of whether that person wants to live or not.

In Nepal people here deal very well with death, there is a lengthy process of public grieving, which sometimes evens continues for a year, for example Hindu’s will not celebrate any festivals for a year after their parents have died and some may dress in white for a whole year and shave their hair off. Every year on the anniversary of the death of a close relative they will mark the occasion with special prayers. In my country though I think we deal with death in a very different way, very quietly. I prefer the Nepali way much more as I feel it really deals with loss and emotions attached to that.

In my life I have lost my father and my house mate Carl, two very big losses which have made a massive impact on my life and how I choose to live it. At an early age I learnt that life is short and that I have no idea how long I will be honoured with living in this world. That has spurred me on to try to live my life as fully as possible doing the things which make me happy and that I find rewarding for myself and in someway help others. I think that I have achieved that so far in my life and I will continue to do so and I am grateful for the insight that the passing of their lives brought to me.

In the words of my good friend Tan who had known Kaveesh for three decades;

“It's time to celebrate moments of life and death...especially of a soul who completed a wonderful journey.”

The Changing Landscape of my Life

My time volunteering in Nepalgunj came to an end in October, I finished my work and headed to Jumla for a 10 day trek to Rara lake with fellow volunteers. It was a welcome break away from the every day realities of life, all communication and luxuries removed, we reverted back to basic survival, carrying all our own equipment for camping and cooking. What shocked my system the most was just how cold it was in the evening, some nights if we did not have time or resources to make a fire we cooked in the freezing cold before jumping into out tents and sleeping bags to eat before slipping into slumber. On average we spent about 10 -12 hours per night tossing and turning in our sleeping bags trying to keep warm. I had started off with a whacking great 17 kilo rucksack and was happy to feel it slowly depleting as the trek went on. We had flown in to Jumla on what I would describe as a tin pot plane, you could even see the pilots from the back of the 22 seater, fiddling with their knobs. There were genuine screams as the plane came into landing, because it looked like we were hurtling into the side of the mountain, it was a crazy moment of hysteria which we will never forget.

Returning from the trek to Nepalgunj was a strange sensation, packing my furniture, random belongings and exotic dresses to go to Kathmandu I did not feel particularly sad. Having moved around a lot in my life I have learnt to adjust very quickly to the changing landscape that has become my life, connections are made easily and not forgotten, but I have learnt to let go and move fluidly on to the next stage of my life, which has brought me to Kathmandu for now.

Life here is completely different, it’s comparatively easier to live here in some ways. The climate is much cooler than the soaring summer heats of Nepalgunj and during the winter days its freezing inside but in the sun you can still catch a tan, especially on my balcony. My new organisation is amazing, its 100% female staff and they are really intelligent and friendly people. One of the new challenges of living in Kathmandu is load shedding. Basically there is not enough electricity to go round. In Nepalgunj we sourced our electricity from India, but here it is different. Now the rains have dried up and hydro power cannot be generated we have 10 hours per day without electricity which is divided into two sessions of five hours. This means that in the morning and/or evening I may be without electricity. My organisation has a generator, but it’s a bit temperamental and sometimes doesn’t work and is expensive to run. I am glad that I work from my netbook which has a battery for 3-4 hours. Also the internet seems more temperamental here too and I am often left without connection for a few hours or even a day – terrifying how reliant I have become on the internet for daily living. My journey time to work has also increased, it can take between 20 – 60 minutes to reach the office, which actually does not really bother me as much as I thought it would, though I am still toying with the idea of buying a scooty (that’s Nepali English for scooter, they also have water tanky’s) to razz around in.

Socially there is about 100 times more exciting activities to do and people to do them with and I am really enjoying the steady flow of friends that come round for dinner, coffee and visits. My apartment lacks the beautiful setting available in Nepalgunj but is not without character and charm, I even had a chais lounge which I always wanted in UK but could never afford (or did not want to spend money on), I bought it for less than ten pounds and I have sat on it once, but it looks good. My apartment also benefits from a massive balcony which is great for sun surfing and hula hooping.

So my plan now is to stay in Nepal until November 2013, there may however be a spanner in the works, which is that the Nepali government are no longer processing visas for NGO and INGO foreign volunteers or workers, unless they are directly linked to the government. Hence if I don’t get a visa by May 2013 I will have to leave. However it’s all uncertain, technically speaking there is no government here, so anything could happen between now and then, I am not worried about it. If I do stay until November 2013, my current plan (subject to change), is to finally make it to Goa to do my yoga teacher training course there, write a book and have a lovely time for 5 -6 months, sounds ok doesn’t it! If I have to leave early then I will return to the UK for Tom’s wedding and spend the summer in the UK and then head to Goa, let’s see.

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."