THE PEOPLE OF NEPAL

A lady,  taking a brake, in Lake Fewa Tal  in Pokhara who's job is to row tourist's around.

A girl and her sister in the village of Dunche where I ended my trek, with the empty look in her eye's that is typical  for many kids who already had a tough life at a young age.

From the temple area where I went to observe the cremation of the dead, people were living in little rooms  adjacent to the temples.

A lady in the Langtang Mountain range, with her baby in front of her small house where I had my first yak curd. 

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A lot of chilly peppers at the Ashan Market Thamal, Kathmandu and time for a little nose picking between customers:-)
  

A woman with her baby, along a busy street there everyday begging for money, covering herself from the hot sun exposing her baby in hope of money.

THE MAOIST DEMONSTRATING.

Things are apparently not going to be so peaceful  here any longer, according to the news then there will be 500,000 extra people in Kathmandu starting from now coming from all over Nepal to demonstrate on Saturday. The Maoists want to have  the majority seats  so they can be in control of the country, they are communists so things will be even worse than they already are,  and will close everything down until they get their way, and nobody dares go against them in fear for their lives.The Maoists are forcing the people in the villages who are not even Maoist supporters to come here to demonstrate, and some do not mind since it gives them a chance to come here for free which would otherwise be impossible for them to afford.  I would like to be in the middle of it all taking photos as my lost passion  to be  a photo journalist.  I will see if one of my friends will be my body guard. So I guess no school for the kids for a while still but that means I get to spend more time with them, now I only have less than 2 weeks left  off working. I will keep you posted of any exciting news, if any, and please do not worry about me my time is not up yet since I just started living my life, I will not be that easy to get rid off. Politically  everything is a mess here the country is run very poorly and has for years so maybe a good thing that I will return soon.Will let you know what happens on Saturday. Until then Namaste Inger

MY TRIP TO POKHARA APRIL 22.

The dust has settled. Another 3 days off work and a chance to escape the hustle and dust in Kathmandu, all though the last days have been pretty pleasant dust wise since we had some great thunder showers a few nights in a row which makes a tremendous difference on the dust level. I decided to go to Pokhara a bigger village 206km west of Kathmandu, close to the Annapurna mountain range, so a real shame I couldn't stay longer to do some more trekking higher in the mountains, that being one of the most popular places to go trekking, but mind you not at this time a year, the air is to hot and hazy and the visibility is not the best no great mountain view as there would be in the colder season, like when I first came here, even from the plane I had an amazing view over the whole mountain range at my arrival to Kathmandu. I decided to take the bus again to see the beautiful countryside, were driving along a river most of the 8 hours it took. I walked to the bus park at 6:00am on April 22^nd, arrived in Pokhara at 3:00pm found my hotel, Blue Heaven, along Lake Fewa Tal a pretty big lake and relatively clean, I hired a rowboat with a guide and it was very peaceful to be on the lake for about an hour before we could hear thunder rumbling in the distance and clouds started moving in on us.We agreed to head back just in case, we noticed big raindrops further out and eventually falling on us.. made it back to shore just before a massive hail storm that lasted quite a while. The next day I wanted to take a taxi to see the sunrise and to do some hiking, but there was a forced strike by the Maoist's so everything was closed all shops, no cars, motorbikes or busses allowed, so everything was very peaceful, a most welcoming brake from the constant honking of horns on the roads every day. I will elaborate on that later, how the many strikes they have here work. I then rented a bike and rode around again with a guide partly for company and to make sure I didn't miss anything interesting on the way, everything was so quiet with no motor noise, very pleasant. There were big groups of Maoist supporters walking down the street with their big sticks to make sure everybody had their little shops closed. Later in the day we went back to the lake to row to the other shore to hike up to the top of the mountain there to see a Buddhist Stupa, World Peace Pagoda, when we arrived after a hot midday hike up to the top after watching the monkey's jumping trough the treetops over and along the trail, one of the monks was hitting and pushing one of the visitors away from there and was quite mad with him even though he apologized profusely, only for us to see them later back bowing down in front of Buddha under the supervision of the monk who ordered them to do so, not sure what they had done wrong to get such treatment. The temperature there was 36C so I was sweating buckets and wish I could have gone for a swim in the lake but was afraid it wasn't maybe as clean as it appeared to be. Back to an even more hot room, with no air condition, but with a fan they call air condition on the 5^th floor, which seems to be my floor whenever I am in a hotel and there are of course no elevators, but lots of stairs, but what can you expect for $ 12 a night, everything here is very inexpensive.Saturday the strike was lifted and I could again be transported somewhere, so I went to see some bat caves, which was pitch black, but with the help of a guide and a light and four young men that latch on to me to not have to pay for a guide to get them through it, I made it out alive, the exit was extremely tight and upwards so we had to snake our way out through a slippery, seemingly way to small passage to get through, found out my arms are so much weaker than my legs, since I had to pull myself out as there was no room to move my legs, as if I didn't already know that, my boys are mortified that I can't do push up's, and have on many occasions showed me how and instructed me to practice it, but to no avail. Pokhara is a real hippy town so I had fun chatting to and watching all different kinds of people there, I enjoyed everything to the fullest. The best part is that I can travel around on my own and I feel totally safe with no fear of anything or anybody, well maybe apart from the two elephant sized cockroach's that was in my bedroom, that was pretty freaky, I had somebody get rid of one only to discover another on my headboard. So sleeping was not the easiest after discovering that. Guides are very inexpensive as well so at times I go with one of them, there are lots of nice one's here. Then there are a stream of other young guys who are very friendly in hope I will give them all some money if they are extra nice to me, even though I tell them I am working as a volunteer and giving money to the orphanage and am not making any money, but I sometimes get very interesting conversations out of it. Later in the afternoon I went by a small plane back to Kathmandu again which was only half an hour. The last three days, and by the sounds of it probably the rest of the week, the schools the kids go to are closed, meaning I have to teach again every day. There are big political problems here, still lots of controversial's with the Maoist party, right now they have decided that the private schools charge to much and forced all of them to close, there are 8000 schools closed at the moment, they have a lot of private schools here because the government schools are not that great, and even the private are way below our standard, the real reason might be that the Maoist are against private schools so by forcing them to lower the price they might go out of business, and the timing right now could be because they will be having a major demonstration on May 1^st here in Kathmandu, so Maoist supporters from the whole of Nepal will be here, so they need places for them to sleep. They have so many strikes here, but mostly forced by the Maoist's , they decide from day to day that now they are not happy with something so they will let us know that tomorrow you are not allowed to work, so everything is at a still stand, no busses or taxis driving, no stores, airport or business's open so if you have your trip planed on a day like this you are out of luck. Everybody obey's nicely, feeling they have no choice in the matter since if you don't you are attacked by the Maoist supporters. I was reading in the paper yesterday that the police seized a truck load of wooden sticks heading here to be used by the Maoist demonstrators on May 1^st.The strike in Pokhara was because of a Maoist supporter that had beaten somebody up at the airport and was arrested so they wanted him free, and everybody are afraid to go against them so they usually get their way. Here before another government party decided that the Nepali passports should be made in India so we had a day strike because of that, because the Maoist 's didn't agree with that, so now they are made here. As you see the meaning of the word strike here is a little different than we are used to. Sleeping here has been difficult because of mosquitos, it is so hot so I need my window open, but now I sleep under a mosquito net so all is perfect again, it keeps other little creatures out as well, today a little lizard was testing it out. I have meet lots of nice people but mostly tourists which then is just a fleeing thing, and then all the locals, I am looking around to maybe find other places to support, since the needs here are endless!!! OK I will stop now before you get bored to tears, and have me excused of any mistakes, since I am short of time when I write, will try some more pictures, but downloading is very slow here.I feel really great!!! Cheers Inger

PS and please do write me as well it is always nice to know what is going on with you all. Thanks.

PICTURES

A little  boy walking along the river that runs right behind one of the schools that the kids go to, I think more garbage than water, a pretty sad sight. But you had to be there for the right effect, the heat and smell, and looking at the sheds along there where people live in these conditions.

 

From the same spot just in the other direction. To get the right feeling from this photo don't flush your toilet for a week and then look at this, I know that sounds totally gross, but garbage mixed with sewage waste is exactly that, extremely gross!!!

 Just a picture from a typical butcher, if you look close enough then you can see all the flies, I am not sure what kind of beast this is, but I call it a wilder beast, I think it is hilarious..now maybe you can understand why my meat consumption is minimal. 

Pictures

First Picture from the  Holi Festival on my second day here, the crazy colour and water fights.

Some guys playing in the street for Holi Festival..

Finally the moment some of you have been waiting for in great anticipation for a long time, my new boy friend, I promised not to bring back a Sherpa and I don't think this cute guy would be classified as that so that should be OK right?

Just a few of the many sleeping dogs I pass on my way everyday. At night they are  unfortunately not so peaceful, another thing to add to my list of reasons for not getting a dog.

EVERYDAY LIFE AT THE ORPHANAGE.

Now I have been here working for over 4 weeks already and I find it very rewarding. The kids are all very unique in their own way, very polite and well behaved and gives me great respect, maybe because of my age since they are taught to respect their elders, sometimes being one of my age has it's advantages and trust me there are fewer as the years go by, no... more like fly by, so I will enjoy the ones there are. I start every morning by getting up at 6:15 to get ready for my daily meeting with Karna where he tells me what my schedule for the day will be. At 7:15 we all have tea where one of the kids talk about a word everyday, afterwards we share any dream we might have had, or more like nightmares some of them sounds like.The kids go to 2 different schools and now they are both done with their exams so they are home everyday for 3 weeks, just my luck since now I have to teach them something everyday for 1.5 hours which might not seem long to you, I guess the biggest challenge would be that there are 23 kids between the ages of 5 to 17 , so trying to come up with something that would interest them all is a job in itself, the class is called analysis class so I have to go more into depth of whatever topic I choose to teach them. After morning tea I do exercise with them for 60 min which is great for me to try to stay in shape, this takes place outside in the yard which is cobblestone and dirt no grass, no running shoes but slippers, they only have that and their school shoes. The only problem is, and that is one of very few and one I will never get used to here, that lots of times it is to the smell of smoke from burning garbage that people put a match to when the piles gets too big in the streets, so not sure how good exercising like that is for your health. Dal Bhat time for the kids is then at 9:00 where I help serve that, and after time for brushing teeth, then finally time for the adults to eat breakfast, I am even getting used to eating rice and lentils and the spicy curry vegetables at breakfast time. Now prepare for my 10:30 class, they finished writing a book each that they have to publish, before I was on the topic of happiness, which branched out to lots of different topics trying to make them believe in themselves, positive thinking , visualizing +++ and then we did some meditation which they all love to do. I know what my boys are thinking after reading this. As you can see everything is very punctual which is necessary when you have so many kids.. we got 3 new boys so now there are 23 kids, 7 boys and 16 girls. I have free time in the afternoon, time depending what is going on, the kids are doing their duties, cleaning the house, washing their clothes, which I by the way have to hang up on a clothe line that wraps around the 3^rd floor and there is a 2.5 foot cement ledge to walk on, no railing so a bit scary, I just have to make sure not to look down, I have gotten used to this too. When the kids are at school I would pick them up at 4:00 and then 4:45 is teatime where they eat a big plateful of beaten rice, so just raw rice beaten flat with a little bit of nuts and spicy squiggly things, that is the only thing I cannot eat, just too dry and tasteless. On Saturdays which is their only day off school they have fruit or carrots instead, for lunch they get fruit or carrots every day, so that is what they have every day for food never anything else, oh Fridays they have popcorn at tea time. The reason for no meat is because it is just too costly and they are on a very tight budget. After tea it is play time for 45 min. And then we have chatting where we can sing, dance, read, tell stories, play games or whatever we feel like, but we have to be in the girls bedroom to do it. I am in charge of that as well, when they go to school they do homework instead of exercising and chatting which I help out with, in all this I think I have leaned more than they have:-) today we went to pick up report cards and they are all at the top of their class in one school but probably not in the other one which we will find out next week. After chatting, where I read a book at the moment and they sing and I love to listen to that, the sound of their Nepali songs are so beautiful!!!The kids have their night Dal Bhat at 7:45 and they brush their teeth and do more homework if needed, so they go to bed at 9:00pm and we adults finally get to eat, by then I am really hungry, but with the help of a lot of little bananas I manage to survive to then. We then chat to about 10:00 and to bed, that I have even gotten used to by now,  I am usually really tired and sleep very well, no worries here, I have gotten used to all the different noises, another added one though  is security guards walking around in the streets using their whistles really loud in the middle of the night, not sure what reasonable  reason they would have for getting away with that one,  but no problems, I sleep like a baby.  This didn't sound very interesting maybe, but we have lots of fun in between, one thing the girls take great pleasure in is hiding my things when I forget it in the dining/ study room.. and try to play tricks on me, they ask me many questions and love to hear about my life, but their lives are very restricted in many ways, no computer no TV, no video games no leaving the place at anytime only for school and buying fruit for afternoon tea when there is no school, but by being here they get a great chance of getting an education, food and a bed to sleep in, even though they do sleep 3 in each, which they otherwise might not get. It feels good for me to be here helping out and to see how life is on the other side of the globe, it is an eye opener for sure and I really am so glad that I came here to be part of the kids lives.I hope I can make a difference somehow, I am already starting to worry about leaving them behind, the little 5 year old is so cute I might have to bring him home with me, but really they all are. All for now

Namaste Inger

MY TRIP TO NAGARKOT APRIL 1.

Before I left in the morning to catch one of the ever so enjoyable local busses here... not.. the kids tried their best to play some tricks on me to try to get me to be the fool of the day, with no luck though. Vibeke came from Denmark as a surprise on March 30th and staying 22 days. Her and Karna were going to get 2 more kids from the village of Gorka where all the kids are from. So before they went on that journey I had to take 2 days off, my first since I started. I decided to go to Nagarkot 30 km outside Kathmandu. Arjun took me to the bus station, if you can call it that. He found me a bus that went half way, which was to the Historical City of Bhaktapur where I had to transfer, which was pretty much, the drivers helper,( they have young boys helping with collecting the money from all the people getting on the bus, since there are so many the driver couldn't possible deal with that) telling me to get of the bus and walk 5min up a street to catch the next bus, so just walking along clueless as to where to go but by luck the only bus I saw after a 10 min. Walk was just leaving for Nagarkot 2 min. later, my destination, so couldn't be more perfect, of course it all was the same as my trek bus, apart from it only being a 2 hour drive, but with a ton of people again getting on and of, packed inside and on top of the bus, along the dusty road..

I arrived around noon and found a place to stay, named At The End Of The Universe with a view over the mountains. I went on a 3 hour hike up to a view point at the top of a mountain, where supposedly you could view Mt. Everest from, but all I could see was a vague outline of the mountains in the distance. I got back just in time before dark after walking through a small village, followed by a great dinner and a much needed but way to short hot shower, that I had to wait for the power to come on before I could enjoy.
Next day I decided to get up at 5:00am to see the sunrise, at the same view point but got a ride up there,
behind the mountains, the sun came up but the mountains were covered in a fog, so all I saw was a tip. Unfortunately not the right season for clear skies here, it is too hot and hazy now. After a hearty breakfast I started out walking back to Baktapur through the mountains and a lot of little farm villages,
that is so neat to observe, the endless mountain slope terraced rice, potato, wheat and vegetable fields, love to watch the people and all the animals, the little goats, big buffalos, chickens with their little chicks, dogs of course they are everywhere, which was great, not the dog part but hiking in the beautiful mountains, I didn't meet any other tourists so I just enjoyed every step of the way, hard as it was in the heat of the baking afternoon sun, but being out trekking in the mountains again was worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears. Just kidding there was no blood and tears just sweat, a big blister on my big toe and the appreciation of being out hiking in the clean mountain air what bliss!! There were so many cute little kids along the way, a lot of them with their runny noses and dirty clothes.
On the way I saw the Changu NarayanTemple which was one of the 4 spectacular Historical sites of the Kathmandu valley, and then walked back to Bhaktapur with it's own temples and the famous Durbar Square. By the time I got there, 7 hours later, still carrying all my gear that I brought with me. I was really tired, sweaty and dirty after a well worth it hike, but decided since I was there still an hours bus ride from Kathmandu I would wander around to see Bhaktapur so another couple of hours before I had to find a bus to go back home. I told the helper to tell me where to get of closest to Thamel, and now after dark fell he said, you get of here, which was on a big road where the cars were zooming by and he expected me to just jump into the traffic in the dark, so since I hesitated the driver just started to drive again, I really had no choice but to get off in a hurry, the things I am forced to do at times are very uncharacteristic for me, but most of the time fun and exciting. I then had to cross the big road which was a challenge on it's own, to catch a taxi since I had no idea where I was, and most taxi drivers have no idea where you want to go, so you pretty much have to lead the way yourself, which could be a problem at times. Back to Hotel Lily where they were kind enough to give me a room where I had my first really long hot shower in a month, wow that was soooo amazing, these days it takes very little to feel appreciation for the small things that I used to take for granted.
Yesterday was new years day, it is now January 2, 2067 here in Nepal, so at this moment I am way ahead of you all, but still as young :-), so we took the children on a picnic to a park close by, thanks to the money I raised we were able to make some nice food to bring, we played scavenger hunt, they had never played that before so they took great pleasure in that, the park is called Balaju water park, so lots of water but of course very dirty by our standards and then we could go into the forest as well, I meet a group of locals that had music playing and they wanted me to dance, so I did that to humour them, some of the kids came by and had a great time laughing at me while watching, one of the boys joined in as well, so a fun day, but tiring after spending the day in the hot sun. The walk there and back was rather interesting or should I say disgusting, first along the sewage trench and then along the river which is so filled with garbage and sewage that it looks like a dump more than a river, the people living along there in houses or more like sheds must be immune to the smell I guess, other wise you couldn't possible live there. After all that said I still love it here and the kids are still amazing. That is it for now.
Namaste Inger.