Goodbye and Namaste

(written 25.04.11)

Nepal’s wonderful element of procrastination has clung onto my trip until the very end; my flight to Bangkok is delayed without apology. Now I have three hours to kill before going through security once again where I will have to once more take off my shoes, be asked where I’m from a thousand times as the airport officials inquire into what exactly the durex packets in my toiletry bag are… (Giggles) they’re for sex? Aaaah, interesting…!
So at least I know how to keep myself amused… I don’t mind waiting in airports, and now I have time to use the power points here my flight, albeit three hours behind schedule, will be more enjoyable with the comfort of one or two of the illegal movies I stocked up on before leaving Boudhanilkantha. I left the project a day premature for various reasons, which I do not particularly want to go into too extensively. My host father, Rustam, appeared to show his true colours. Not to me, he has been wonderful throughout but to Connor. Maybe for good reason in a delusional mind but for me it was unacceptable and on Saturday I made up some reasons and left my acting house for an extra night in the RCDP hostel in west Kathmandu.
I have been boring you with the problems that face the orphanage that I worked for all but three months and each entry a new problem is uncovered and an old one misunderstood. One thing that I now know for sure is that the darn place just don’t work, it’s as corrupt as anything involving rupees out here is. The money sent to that place is with out a doubt lining at least 2 out of the 3 present committee members’ pockets, and then they still have the nerve to pretend that everything there is fine. They have vegetables they say, enough food, which is an incredible lie to tell to someone who has been there every day for 8 weeks. With the addition of two more kids to the 19 already there and already malnourished and under cared-for things needed to change and after two meetings with the committee and about 10 lies in each meeting, things weren’t going to be changed themselves, not by the committee and unfortunately not by me.
Connor had decided to go ahead with the project he has been planning for all the time I have known him, to start a new orphanage with 5 of the kids, there’d be a cold day in hell before the men ‘responsible’ for the kids let that happen so he went in the back door and started gaining permissions from the kid’s families. Rustam found out, confronted Connor and threatened the man who has been looking after the kids for almost every day these past 18 months with sexual abuse claims, completely unfounded with no supported evidence and utterly ludicrous. Connor will be fine, as I said there is no tangible evidence, but it’s the thought that counts and it’s a thought that drew me to the end of my tether and here I am.
It is certain that the orphanage will be disbanded. It turns out that actually is operating pretty illegally even by Nepali law and now the guns are out there will be no hesitation from shutting that place down and that will be that. Connor, last time we spoke, and Deepika are doing a good job finding homes for the rest of the kids that won’t fall into Connor’s hands, in better, more facilitated and hopefully less corrupt institutions. I am aware I have left at a bad time, either too late in order to keep my faith in the organisation I have been previously dedicated to (naivety is underrated), or too early to both realise the truth and see out the outcomes. It’s a shame that I have no idea where I can safely make a donation to at this period, and also a crying shame that the kids will most likely be separated, but that’s life I guess – at least for them, and they will be fine if they’re looked after well and always remain aware that nothing about their situation is their fault.
For our last day Carrie and I took the kids up into the hills to one of their favourite spots for a picnic and a swim in the waterfall. The 40-minute hike in mid-seventies heat was like any other, severely unpleasant but ineffably satisfying. The kids were incredibly well behaved and even picked up all their litter (Nepal watch out for the new generation!). The waterfall is beautiful, with a large cascade falling from the shelf where we were sat below a smaller one. This perfect spot, like any, is a little difficult to get too and rock climbing was necessary for the last stretch. Most of the kids have no problem with this, nor do I but the little ones needed some help to get down the last rocks before we made it. Unfortunately in the process of helping little Rachana down, my bag came open and out came both my HTC desire and my camera phone and plopped into the fast flowing water, sinking to the bottom. I heard that pure water doesn’t actually damage electronics as it’s not H2O that carries electricity but the ions floating in it but this is useless knowledge as there is no such thing as pure water outside of a lab, and especially not in Nepal. They were frazzled, and I was in a shit situation.
No more videos, no more pictures and I’d lost the emails of many of the people I have met out here. There had to be something I could do that wasn’t just leaving them in the sun for longer than the sun was due to be out… and then I remembered, four weeks ago a friend of mine in passing conversation had told me that if I was ever in a situation such as this what I was to do was to find salt… lots of salt. He said that the salt absorbs the pesky water out and hey presto, good as new. At the time I remember doubting this a little, especially the ‘good as new’ part but after three hours of both my phone and the camera dunked in two 1kg bags of salt they returned to life. The video camera is buggered, the filming part of it doesn’t work but the phone, with my emails and my camera is ‘as good as new’. You win some and you loose some and being that the video camera cost little over a hundred pounds, I am amazed that it lasted this long and I think it may have been a little creepy to some people (Amelia) – although I never thought to listen.
So I have officially run out of stories and I am excited to collect some more, further eastern ones to bore ya’ll with. I am due, if not delayed again, to now arrive in Thailand at around 16:30 local time, just enough time to get on a bus, then a tuk-tuk to find a cheap hotel, go out, get some street food and a Leo Beer or two, probably two. I can’t remember if Internet phone calling centres are as frequently found in Thailand as in Nepal, so Lucas if I you don’t here from me today – Happy Birthday Buddy! I miss you lots and I will call as soon as I find a place to do so. Ok, enough of this – doing this on word allows me to see the word count and I can see that you all are wonderfully patient with my ramblings; I could almost hand this entry in as A-level course work.