Jailbreak!

So after a terribly cramped minibus journey i have finally found internet... and I have so much to tell you children.
I think we should start with a story about a shower, a language problem and 24 hours in a Kathmandu prison. Monday was just that, my first incarceration and in probably the worst country to pop my prison cherry. At 11am a dirty boy entered a dusty, small police station in the north of the city - and he was checked in for much longer than he bargained for. Wait, lets turn the clock back just 1 hour. For those reading you may remember my 'genius' plan for obtaining the showers that are unavailable to me at my home here, waiting until the 5star hotel across the road started cleaning the rooms and sneaking into an unused room two floors above where the cleaning was happening, taking off my clothes and glorifying in the now foreign pleasure of a hot, powerful shower. They caught on. And they were waiting for me. I hadn't even removed my boxers when a knock on the door sounded through my grubby ears. Fuck. I came out to face a hotel worker, i still thought i could get away with this grand theft aqua - but no. I was soon surrounded by most of the workers in the hotel shouting at me, in broken English. They called the police and soon I was taken in a truck to the nearby police station where the nightmare was just starting to become lucid, this was going to be a long day I thought.
Now I understand that what I did was wrong, stupid, disrespectful even, and i soon knew that i was going to pay for this mistake in the most sincere way - a night in a KTM prison. I was locked in a small grubby cell next to the main desk with just a wooden plank as a seat and later a bed and a equally dirty Nepali man by the name of Gobin, a nice bloke with no English who was in for fighting and interestingly the first Christian I've met out here - the interesting point is we met in a prison! The first few hours were ok, It seemed a little comical to me - the whole ordeal. And i was told by the one officer who could speak English that once the Head of Police came back at about 4 o'clock he would speak to him in my favour and i would be released, back to the life of crime i so obviously lived. This officer usefully fucked off about 2 hours after this statement and when the Head of Police did come back he turned out to be a little against me and the whole side of the world I came from. He didn't release me. I was a thief in his eyes and reminding him that it was the judge that should decide that and not him was not a great move, sometimes i put my foot in my mouth, big surprise? He locked himself in his office and then I started to get a little nervous, apparently he was the only one with the authority to release me. Ok, I thought, let's think this one through. AHA! The british embassy! I knew my rights, I knew I was by law to make a call to my embassy who would in turn get me the fuck out of there - the Nepali police obviously disagreed. The HOP also was apparently the only one too who could give me permission to follow international laws and regulations, perfect. I did my best, I befriended a timid junior officer in the hope that he might break the rules for me. He couldn't, he said that the boss would beat him - this is when i realised that the police force system in this country isn't exactly productive for the decreasing situation of the national social system! What to do next, i began shouting... that this was an outrage, that they were breaking more laws that I did, anything to get the boss comfortably sipping his chai out of his office. I tell you the Nepali police are even better at selective hearing and sight than English waiters, no cigar once more. And by the time it hit 7pm and i had used up all my broken Nepali and they're broken English I started to worry, the embassy had closed.
I was left with two obvious options, one to suck it up, curl up and try and rest until tomorrow and see if the next day would bring in a different light but due to this days current failings i doubted that this would happen. Option two, jail break. I asked to use the toilet and whilst being escorted out i scouted out my surroundings, one guard by the gate, closed and a 4 foot wall. Possible. Then at about 8pm I had my chance, Gobin was escorted also to use the toilet and the gate was open as the HOP just left the office with no glance in my direction. I build up all the strength i had inside me and ripped the padlock from the barred door, it swung upon silently and i hopped out grabbed my shoes and ran at the gate, a light at the end of the tunnel was close, i could smell the familiar fragrance of sewage and car fumes, freedom. I made it, but only for a second, i heard a shout then i felt a tackle. I was down on the ground with four oily hands restraining me, back in the cage. The on duty officer was spell struck at the broken padlock, to be honest so was I. And when Gobin returned we were locked back in with two padlocks. I made myself as comfortable as possible and when the power cut out at 9pm i tried to get some sleep.
The next day saw me at 7am, feeling desperate and still so dirty. An officer told me that I would be out at 10am when the HOP came back, apparently this time he would release me. He didn't, and at 9am I had a longer more grammatically incorrect lecture about white people and the hell we bring also to help his point out he had a gun at his hand that he occasionally pointed at me (jesus christ was i scared, this later was described by him as 'only a joke'). Again the suggestion that this was not me as i was actually here helping the very country he was 'policing' fell on deaf ears. The next two hours I spent feeling sorry for myself, repenting that consciously innocent attempt to clean my soiled armpits in a $60 a night hotel. I realised something that has unfortunately stuck with me and will stick with me for the rest of my time here and any other trips i will make here: the Nepali people as kind as they usually are, as friendly, as hospitable are by a huge majority unintelligent. I know some people will disagree, maybe even judge me for saying such a thing and I uphold their freedom to do so but as a general rule the people of this country don't try much, in school, in government, in industry, in change. I know that this isn't the population's fault, this is just the shitty situation that they have been born into, a vicious cycle: the education isn't there to allow people to actively insist upon a change and in order for there to be a change there needs to be a universal and sufficient education system to bread the intelligence that lies dormant but still with great potential throughout this society. Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills and this is something that on a grand scale is yet to happen. The police, like any developing or perhaps even developed country, are of course worse and in Nepal this is still true, their behaviour not just with me but with each other boarders simian nature, shouting, spitting, fighting. It was noticeable in their language, there was no quiet speaking, discussing, only shouting in conversation and shouting on the phone, when they speak English this is obviously different but in my time here I can only say I have met 4 people with good English, one of them lived in the states for 6 years and another happens to be one of the cleverest men i have ever met and I am sitting with him right now. I am not having a go, i love the people here but they need help and they know they need help, and for so long they have been relying on other nations to provide this help and this has become a habit which will be hard to break, something that i think will change, it will have to change - and obviously the problem is deeply rooted in the government or the lack of government and of course the lack of faith people have in the possibility of change, a need for a revolution is beyond doubt but the last two have failed who here has faith in a third? Not many but still maybe enough.
Anyway, so clearly I'm out of custody. I do very much think that i would still be in there if it wasn't for a stroke of luck, they had no intention of letting me go - I think i was interesting to them. The stroke of luck came in the form of a previous criminal of this country, turned police helper in a weird 'catch me if you can' way, anyway he found me feeling sorry for myself in a foreign jail cell. He was one of the few well travelled Nepalis that i have met, a nice guy but still not much going on upstairs apart from the usual wonderful national psyche, hospitality and generosity. He heard my story convinced the officers to transfer me to one of the city's prisons, a concept i wasn't exactly sure of. They did, after all it had been 24 hours and they hadn't charged me, a fact that i don't think would have made much of a difference without a local ally. There at the prison office I met the head of the Kathmandu district office who apologized for all I'd been through and allowed me to finally call my embassy. They immediately asked why i didn't call them from the onset and i explained. They also apologized and told me that due to the fact that i hadn't technically committed a crime I was free to go the minute i showed my passport and visa to confirm that i not an illegal, the assumption the previous HOP made. So that's done, I'm free and happy, with little bad feelings only a super huge grudge upon a man that i could never bring down so of course the anger is counterproductive and i have dropped it, there was no choice. And now i am enjoying freedom, sipping on an ice coffee and enjoying the beginning of monsoon season here, its cooling and the rain is predictable so Im almost always inside when the skies open and drench the dusty plains of the Kathmandu valley with the water not three days prior I attempted to steal.
On another note I am writing to you from the future, the year is now 2068 and its a glorious new years day. Last night the whole of Rustam and Sangita's family came to cramp around the little house that i stay to celebrate the beginning of a new time, and as always i was welcomed into the celebrations with warm family hands and a tall glass of Nepali whiskey which ain't too bad at all. We dined like kings, with papad, pickle, prawn crackers and a special dal baat, with chicken. Although i have now been successfully attempting vegetarianism for nearly two months i felt it appropriate to disregard my experiment, which is purely idealistic rather than ethical, for just this one night and as the power turned on to welcome the new year in everyone was in good spirits and festive cheer. This was also my first lie in for a long time, i didn't see the world before 11am today and i am feeling fine, sitting in an Israeli chillout lounge in the busy centre of the city, laundry is done and my suit is dry cleaned - for i have a job tomorrow. I am going to be teaching my first english class in a career development centre not far from the prison i was transferred to from the police station. I am a guest speaker and my topic is pronunciation, so i better get cracking on my lesson plan, i am apprehensive but excited - i feel i can teach this with the little experience i so far have, if it were grammar i would be screwed, i don't think i even know English grammar rules very well I just speak it. This will of course have to change soon :)
A long post and i hope you all enjoyed reading about my misfortunes and perhaps bent opinions, and the question on everybody's lips - am i clean? Yes, i took the kids up to the local waterfall an hour trek in the foothills above this smoggy city and nature provided me with the shower that society had previously denied, the hot water wasn't working though.