I know, I know... it's been too long but I am not tied down to you, you do not own me...:) Too busy? Sometimes; Too far back in time? Before for sure; Just a little bit too lazy? Ok, i admit. But its so nice here :) :)
Where to start to get where I've been. Well there's no easy way to say this: I, Leo FW Romyn-Fabbri, walked for 14 days (gasp) - I have no idea why i chose to walk for a fortnight but i daren't regret it. It was fantastic! I wish I had the map with me so I could go every tiny minute little detail, I know how much you'd all looove that - but I don't so you're off the hook. What is necessary to mention is still numerous so I'll try and dilute it a tad.
3 weeks ago, a friend of mine (Dana) and I took the crowded micro out of town for the first time in, well ever, too Besi Sehar sitting at 1400 feet, the front porch of the mighty Mountain God region, an area still every day pushing up further and further into the sky. The first sightings of the crystal, glazed peaks, unseemingly high above this little town was a reminder of how far we have to travel and a good idea of how cold it was going to get. I still stuck by my naive (yet actually right) opinion not to gear up for the trip. This meant that I owned absolutely nothing North Face (A shock to everyone who has been to this country) but stuck with a woolen jacket, woolen gloves and jeans and city boots all the freaking way.
But this wasn't an early issue, the forementioned all wieghing down my backpack at the still humid temperatures of Besi Sehar. So we walked, and we walked, we walked some more then stopped for lunch, this continued with more walking and after that some walking for good measure. They call it teahouse treking as since the 80's the Manang trail is littered with guesthouses, tea shops and in colder, darker places; bakeries and one cinema :) The first day was hard, my shoulders were crying out "for the love of God! Why?" And i disliked this, but when i came out of my room to realise just quite where we had found the pain, for the rest of the trip, subsided. We were in a beautiful valley, but it wasn't a valley as a valley is just on two sides of you - it was a bowl. A bowl and we were on the rim on one little east facing side, barely low enough to touch the milk. We could see the next set of foothills over the opposite side as the mountains are now, for now, hidden from view. The fact that we were on the top of bowl and we had to get to the top of the otherside of the bowl meant that we would have to walk down, cancel our day's gain in altitude only to walk up again to the very same hight. This did become recurrant all the way through the trip - each day with just slightly steeper ups than downs - I think that if I were to only count the amount I walked up on this trek and not the down I would pass the summit of Everest... Its funny that Im not even kidding.
For four days after our stay in the Bahandanda bowl we remained below snow level and out of sight of the Anurpurna range, the giagantious mound of scar-tissue in the earth's skin 50 million years old caused by the collision of the Asian and Oceanic plates. This range would stay on our left all the way to Jomsom, our end point - 140 or so miles away, and on our 5th or 6th day the first glimpse into the Himalayas (Himal -snow, Alaya - Home) as Annurpurna IV said 'hello'. I can tell you all about the pleasure of sighting the roof of the world, the feeling that things are finite, nothing ultimate, nothing impossible. But a much better feeling is watching these incredibly high peaks turn into smaller, almost more impressive. They almost become animated - the details changing with the angle of the sun, dark textures rushing quickly across them, the clouds are low here, so low sometimes your in them!
By Manang and 8 days into the walk we were exhausted. Manang is the end of the donkey trail and is officially where cheap supplies run out (not that the previous restaurants took any notice of this obvious fact when writing their menus - it got very expensive). It is also the largest town I had seen since the start and where it is suggested to take a two night rest period to allow your body to catch up in its red-blood cell production to handle air almost half as thin as sea-level at a huge 11,000 feet, anyway we took three nights. Here I ate a lot of food, spent evenings in the local cinema met an old friend from Kathmandu (random but awesome) and attended an AMS lecture from volunteer doctors at the local clinic. AMS (Or accute mountain sickness) is a nasty, nasty thing and everybody, young or old, fit or healthy, nepali or whitey has the chance of suffering from it at any altitude above 10,000 feet or so. The mild symptoms will always come first, a cracking headache, nausia, gradual dizziness, and a loss of apetite blare out the body's incredibly convenient warning signal of "hey man, this is too high, too fast and fluid is starting to leak into my brain". It's nasty and two friends of mine said that someone died of it a few days ahead of them on the Everest basecamp trek. Bu fortuantely you have to do a lot wrong to die of this - you have to physically ignore the messages your body is sending and would have been sending out for hours. Walk high, sleep low and if you can help it never ascend more than 1,200 feet in one day.
After Manang, the world once again changed... we left behind the strikingly beautiful entourage of The Anuurpurnas II, III & IV to head in, further north towards Thorong Phedi, our highest point of our trip and only 4 days away. Two days after leaving Manange I noticed that the settlements and people were shifting into an almost entirely Tibetan vibe... Prayer wheels dominated the paths, and prayer flags the forests - Namaste was even, on occasion, replaced by tashi delek. Huge boulders with colourful inscriptions of verses past including of course, Om Mani Pedme Hum. This is a mantra particularly associated with the four-armed Shadakshari form of Avalokiteshvara. Mani means the jewel and Padma the lotus. It is the six syllabled mantra of the bodhisattva of compassion and I think its lovely... 'Om' of course has no lingustic meaning, it is a legend in itself that it is the sound, or rather vibration of all being. The phrase also has the honour as being the only lyrics in most songs pumped out of Nepali souveneer and trinket shops!
It was a joy to be out in the crisp air again, and already I have forgotton the summer happening under 100 miles south. My breathing was great, the rest days did their job and now, we could head to the top. It took us two days after we rose above the tree line, a line that in winter signifies that every inch of skin should be covered to preven frost bite. The last two days were hard, the first because of the bitter wind and prevailing cold, the last becuase it was the last and it led us for 7 hours through the snow after departing at 4:30 am in the dark to reach The Thorong La Pass. And made it we did, the day before we attempted it we walked passed many people who had attempted and turned around because of cold and icy conditions, many friends had we saw heading in the opposite direction of when we met them. Luckily for us the morning brought more snow, and more snow meant more grip so after many many hours of climbing up and down rock formations and large hills I saw the first glimpse of the paryer flags littered endlessly around the stone that marks the Pass, standing at 18,000 feet high - for those metrics thats 5,400 metres above the sea. If I may illustrate just how high this is for purposes of ease and arrogance (!) Mount Blanc stands at 4,900 metres... I was half a kilometer above Mount Blanc, and I felt it. The AMS had kicked it 3 hours before i got to the top and I had persisted, headaches worsening and loosing balance. But you have to carry on on the last day, going over the pass brings you down to an old part of Tibet, Muktinath of the Legendary Mustang Province. Muktinath sits at just 12,000 feet and takes 4 hours to get there from the pass, so strictly speaking it was a quicker descent to go over the pass then head down than to turn back... and this is what I did.
Now I am in laid-back Pokhara, where i have a room in the north of Lakeside, further away than many, from the strangely Cambodian tourist area, littered with nightlife and con artists. Here I am spending next to nothing, 200rps a night for a room with a fan (I find it crazy to need one after the trek) and the best bakery IN THE WORLD opposite my turning selling apple strudles for 25rps. I have to walk over paddies to reach my hidden guesthouse, which although hidded from the road and the bass, isn't hidden from the Phewa Lake, and the Peace Pagoda stares at us on the opposite bank, a 40 minute hike up. I am also glad that i have met very good friends here, from South Africa, Canada and New Zealand. The last few days have been spent with them doing macromi, a renting boats to swim in the crystal (this time of year) waters in the centre. Two days ago we left the shore at 5am to reach the Peace Pagoda by sunrise, at 6.15 the ether-lit peaks that have been my challenge the last couple of weeks bent low to let the sunshine first hit their glacia, solarized and shimmering in the dawnlight, pink and clean - served as my reward, a realisation that mountains are more beautiful from afar, but that is not why one goes up to them ;)
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
One 24 hour U-Turn and confirmation in a fatalist, diestic-present universe. Oh and one middle finger to an overly expensive establishment.
So as quick as anything: it has all changed, life, problems, the future. It's a strange world it's a wonder how many people view it as ordinary. Friday was an incredibly stressful day but not without it's metaphysical merits.
As aforementioned, we decided to take Sardip to a local medi-care unit to see a doctor specialising in intestinal problems. This was a 30 minute drive in a dusty car to the East of the ring-road. We got there, awaited at reception only to receive the news that the doctor would not see a child due to the social backlashes whenever a child dies in care here (entire hospitals have been know to close down for days). Shit. So, having come all that way we thought we would try the children's hospital in Lanzimpat, which is the one I mentioned that dogs roam around! We proceeded directly to the emergency room and found an on-call doctor to take a look of him. With this we had little luck, Sardip's sickness had been coming in bouts and due to the fact that he was presently ok and incredibly shy to answer the doctor's questions the doctor couldn't tell us anything, but the bruise like forms on his body did worry him, as us, so he scheduled the boy in for a blood test and a chest x-ray. Getting better. The X-ray results came but the blood would take another 90 minutes so I sent Sardip and Auntie back up to the orphanage to avoid the sweltering wait. As I was following them out the door, chest x-ray in hand, I saw two white young guys standing near the entrance - my luck had changed I thought, medical volunteers, the hardcores. Little did I know how much of a helping hand the next hour would be... I had happened to have run into a group of traveling surgeons from St John's and Great Ormond Street hospital, who after setting up a temporary surgery in a village in the mountains had come to the Kindi Hospital to drop off some medical supplies from The NHS and drop off the two medical students I saw for a week's volunteering.
The doctor in charge of the group met me warmly as i explained my situation and after taking a look at the x-ray invited me to tag along on their guided tour of the hospital lead by the chief pediatrician, a graduate from Delhi medical school. First of all the sheer coincidence of such a meeting, I believe, lies not in chance but in fate, in help. The idea that i can be in low-key children hospital fretting over a potential desperate situation and be given 5 angels from my own city like that, in the 2 hours i was there, increases my faith in Him ever so much more. They saved the day... they increased my faith in the Nepali medical system by allowing me to see every nook and cranny, every ward, every sick child, baby and mother. The introduction to the chief of medicine was all we needed, after the gracious introduction he gave me his card and told me that he will, if needed, put sardip on high priority and even lower the costs of his treatment as well as understanding my doubts about the country's medical care and assuring me that, again if needed, a British surgeon would operate if that's what it came down to. I picked up the blood results in high spirits to find they were negative for any none, testable blood or live condition. Good news, no India was needed and we could just keep an eye on him for the next month and see what happens. The chest X-ray, luckily taken, caught him to be suffering from pneumonia and i bought the pills to take care of that relatively cheap. End of one story, happy faces all round :)
This helped to lead to something even more wonderful. I don't know exactly what did it, between the meeting held between Rustam and the businessmen, the children's reaction to the split-up, or the compassion everyone showed to Sardip - a boy the businessmen are responsible for - but they decided on that very day, not to pull out of the orphanage. They have just stared paying off the debts occurred and hopefully by the time I return from the circuit there will be fresh fruit, vegetables and constant running water - as well as more random medical checks. It is truly breathtaking, to me, how so many things can change in just 24 hours and i feel all this didn't happen on its own, if you fight the good fight things have a way of working themselves out ;) I thank whoever is listening.
So i leave to the Annapurna range with Dana the day after tomorrow and tonight is my last night for a month with Rustam, Sangita and Bulsa. I will miss them and their hospitality but I am yearning for a change and the mountains, after my glimpse of the yesterday at Pharping, are calling me. Pharping in a mainly Buddhist area 20km south of kathmandu. I spent the day there yesterday as many of my friends volunteer in a monastery there are it was the start Tibetan Losar so we partied hard with the monks and nuns, and what started as a school-like performance followed by a delicious lunch overlooking the crystal clear mountains with the yellow city acting as if their front porch, it turned into a western disco where we and the holy-people strutted our stuff to dirty hip-hop and rnb... i have videos, they will be up soon - i can't tell u how funny they are!
Ok, i am aware for how long this is getting so bless anyone who has made it this far, i just have one little thing left to say. Once again, my old school - a place i used to call home, have showed just how little they know about rational, distinctive thought by expelling my sister for a crime she did not commit based on video evidence which allegedly also shows her innocence. I am not going to express my anger in entirety for the head of that establishment in public as I fear I will only make the problem worse. But I will say that since the entrance of a new force to that school, nothing good has come out of it. I have witnessed 3rd and 1st hand the unjustly hand of justice and force come down on many good people and evade many guilty. I include myself in both categories, much to my previous enjoyment but my lovely sister I can only place in the former. She is an innocent, sweet girl and no matter what Ms Thomas likes to say hiding behind her desk and distorted ideas, she is no thief. And i do very so much believe that a thief caught at the school, not-including the macbook snatching Charlie Moore, receives a suspension only especially if the charge is the loss of 15 pounds. It frustrates me to think that a human can come so far in life, to find themselves in charge of such a potentially wonderful institution full of happiness, music, intelligence and mischief and only come out hurting it, as well as their non-existent reputation from student, alumni and I fear many teacher alike. Alas ms Thomas that you do not have the common decency to speak to a grieving, confused parent over the telephone when that parent is lining your pocket with the money, the house and the free education you so clearly do not deserve. Do you not consider the irrational nature of your actions? Do you really believe that human being are to be disposed of like bad milk? Needless to say, I thoroughly disagree with everything that you stand for and possibly everything that goes through that mind of yours - and I will leave it at that. Eliza, my good sister, You are better than that place, and already at the age of 17 you are more of a person than your disposer could ever dream of being - count this as a blessing, for every evil is an angel in disguise.
I will speak to you all as soon as I can but due to high altitude it will probably be in a few weeks. I love you all.
As aforementioned, we decided to take Sardip to a local medi-care unit to see a doctor specialising in intestinal problems. This was a 30 minute drive in a dusty car to the East of the ring-road. We got there, awaited at reception only to receive the news that the doctor would not see a child due to the social backlashes whenever a child dies in care here (entire hospitals have been know to close down for days). Shit. So, having come all that way we thought we would try the children's hospital in Lanzimpat, which is the one I mentioned that dogs roam around! We proceeded directly to the emergency room and found an on-call doctor to take a look of him. With this we had little luck, Sardip's sickness had been coming in bouts and due to the fact that he was presently ok and incredibly shy to answer the doctor's questions the doctor couldn't tell us anything, but the bruise like forms on his body did worry him, as us, so he scheduled the boy in for a blood test and a chest x-ray. Getting better. The X-ray results came but the blood would take another 90 minutes so I sent Sardip and Auntie back up to the orphanage to avoid the sweltering wait. As I was following them out the door, chest x-ray in hand, I saw two white young guys standing near the entrance - my luck had changed I thought, medical volunteers, the hardcores. Little did I know how much of a helping hand the next hour would be... I had happened to have run into a group of traveling surgeons from St John's and Great Ormond Street hospital, who after setting up a temporary surgery in a village in the mountains had come to the Kindi Hospital to drop off some medical supplies from The NHS and drop off the two medical students I saw for a week's volunteering.
The doctor in charge of the group met me warmly as i explained my situation and after taking a look at the x-ray invited me to tag along on their guided tour of the hospital lead by the chief pediatrician, a graduate from Delhi medical school. First of all the sheer coincidence of such a meeting, I believe, lies not in chance but in fate, in help. The idea that i can be in low-key children hospital fretting over a potential desperate situation and be given 5 angels from my own city like that, in the 2 hours i was there, increases my faith in Him ever so much more. They saved the day... they increased my faith in the Nepali medical system by allowing me to see every nook and cranny, every ward, every sick child, baby and mother. The introduction to the chief of medicine was all we needed, after the gracious introduction he gave me his card and told me that he will, if needed, put sardip on high priority and even lower the costs of his treatment as well as understanding my doubts about the country's medical care and assuring me that, again if needed, a British surgeon would operate if that's what it came down to. I picked up the blood results in high spirits to find they were negative for any none, testable blood or live condition. Good news, no India was needed and we could just keep an eye on him for the next month and see what happens. The chest X-ray, luckily taken, caught him to be suffering from pneumonia and i bought the pills to take care of that relatively cheap. End of one story, happy faces all round :)
This helped to lead to something even more wonderful. I don't know exactly what did it, between the meeting held between Rustam and the businessmen, the children's reaction to the split-up, or the compassion everyone showed to Sardip - a boy the businessmen are responsible for - but they decided on that very day, not to pull out of the orphanage. They have just stared paying off the debts occurred and hopefully by the time I return from the circuit there will be fresh fruit, vegetables and constant running water - as well as more random medical checks. It is truly breathtaking, to me, how so many things can change in just 24 hours and i feel all this didn't happen on its own, if you fight the good fight things have a way of working themselves out ;) I thank whoever is listening.
So i leave to the Annapurna range with Dana the day after tomorrow and tonight is my last night for a month with Rustam, Sangita and Bulsa. I will miss them and their hospitality but I am yearning for a change and the mountains, after my glimpse of the yesterday at Pharping, are calling me. Pharping in a mainly Buddhist area 20km south of kathmandu. I spent the day there yesterday as many of my friends volunteer in a monastery there are it was the start Tibetan Losar so we partied hard with the monks and nuns, and what started as a school-like performance followed by a delicious lunch overlooking the crystal clear mountains with the yellow city acting as if their front porch, it turned into a western disco where we and the holy-people strutted our stuff to dirty hip-hop and rnb... i have videos, they will be up soon - i can't tell u how funny they are!
Ok, i am aware for how long this is getting so bless anyone who has made it this far, i just have one little thing left to say. Once again, my old school - a place i used to call home, have showed just how little they know about rational, distinctive thought by expelling my sister for a crime she did not commit based on video evidence which allegedly also shows her innocence. I am not going to express my anger in entirety for the head of that establishment in public as I fear I will only make the problem worse. But I will say that since the entrance of a new force to that school, nothing good has come out of it. I have witnessed 3rd and 1st hand the unjustly hand of justice and force come down on many good people and evade many guilty. I include myself in both categories, much to my previous enjoyment but my lovely sister I can only place in the former. She is an innocent, sweet girl and no matter what Ms Thomas likes to say hiding behind her desk and distorted ideas, she is no thief. And i do very so much believe that a thief caught at the school, not-including the macbook snatching Charlie Moore, receives a suspension only especially if the charge is the loss of 15 pounds. It frustrates me to think that a human can come so far in life, to find themselves in charge of such a potentially wonderful institution full of happiness, music, intelligence and mischief and only come out hurting it, as well as their non-existent reputation from student, alumni and I fear many teacher alike. Alas ms Thomas that you do not have the common decency to speak to a grieving, confused parent over the telephone when that parent is lining your pocket with the money, the house and the free education you so clearly do not deserve. Do you not consider the irrational nature of your actions? Do you really believe that human being are to be disposed of like bad milk? Needless to say, I thoroughly disagree with everything that you stand for and possibly everything that goes through that mind of yours - and I will leave it at that. Eliza, my good sister, You are better than that place, and already at the age of 17 you are more of a person than your disposer could ever dream of being - count this as a blessing, for every evil is an angel in disguise.
I will speak to you all as soon as I can but due to high altitude it will probably be in a few weeks. I love you all.
Friday, March 4, 2011
To Delhi and back in 4 days..... Possible?
Ok, hello.
This is all written in haste as its the first time Iv had internet in AAAAGGGEEESSS and as you can tell from the title, some major shit is going down.
Sardip, one of the youngest boys (7) is seriously ill. It has been going on apparently for nearly a year and this bout of sickness is the worst it has been. To cut a long story short we don't know what he has as there are so many bloody possibilities, unfortunately none of them positive. He is extremely unresponsive and weak, he is in and out of fever fits and dark legions have appeared all around his body as well as having an incredibly bloated stomach. Due to the sickness coming in bouts, we believe it may be or have initially been a nasty parasite - but the legions after a second opinion from a good friend of mine, a med-student, is a sign that he has a blood condition - its not doing its job. So unfortunately that points to something prevelently urgent from a liver problem to worse. In an hour I am taking him to a medi-care station in central Kathmandu to see a doctor who specialises in gastric-intestinal cases, something that is unlikely to be relevent but in this country it is the best chance we have. Now here comes the problem, we are going merely for a diagnosis, not admission. His case may require a long-term hospital stay (as he is also vastly malnurished) and maybe the need for surgery. Neither of those things Connor or I think are beneficial in this country. Dogs live in the hospitals here and all rooms, including surgery rooms, are seperated by only curtains. Unless we get an absolute garuentee from the doctor today that it can be cured by pills alone, I will have to take him to Delhi to get him admitted into a hospital there along with his mother who is the woman who looks after the orphanage. The flights are cheap, around $30 each way, and Nepalis do not need a visa or a passport to travel into India, it is an open boarder. If this does happen I aim to leave tomorrow or the day after to return 4 days post, with or without Auntie and Sardip. We believe the trip will cost around $300 including the medical expenses unless he is admitted for a long duration something that I, quite frankly, believe will be the end case - I pray I am wrong.
So yeh, that's me at the moment. If all goes well and he makes positive improvement or whathaveyou, I will return and almost immediately leave for the Annurpurna Range for 3 weeks of trekking. I met this lovely girl from the states the other night who is leaving for the Pokhera very soon and hopefully, if all goes well, with me too. I need a break from the city, its becoming chlostrophobic and tiresome. I have now been in Nepal for a month and am yet to see mountains at a ground level, my mind is pining for an adventure at high altitude and luckily as Danna is experienced in this kind of shiz, we won't need a guide so we can cut down the expenses of the trip to just about what Im spending weekely anyway. Plus due to the fuck-ups happening all around the orphanage from finicial to managorial descrepincies, I feel I will be more needed there in one month that now, when things that are just thoughts at present begin to be written in stone. I may be even meeting Connor after trekking in Pokhera to scout for a new home outside the city for the remaining children not taken by Parkesh and adopted by another potential orphanage. You see on the board of comitee there are 7 people, 2 people don't even know they are on the board of comitee so technically its 5 people. Now 3 of those have pulled out, these men are businessmen. They own a tea shop in Thamel and a percentage of their proceeds are donated to the orphanage and this charitable donation is well advertised in the shop. However it is not so simple, this is not a charitable donation as it increases the revenue of the shop, it is purely a business strategy to windle more tourists out of more money. Because of this those three men are pulling out so they can invest in an institution closer to the shop so they can show customers where this money is going. Fucking business, its terrible. This is resulting in a few things;
1. The children who have parents in the city have to go back, to no education and no hope.
2. The children who have been found by the three business men are going to the orphanage in the city.
3. The rest's future is more undecided. Either a new board of comitee is found and they can stay where they are, or in a better situation (as a new board of comitee will just procrastinate the whole situation just as re-animating a corpse, after a brief period of life it can only go wrong.) Connor will go ahead with his plan to open up his own and have it partnered with a potential NGO in Pokhera, where there is little polution, it is cheaper, and the kids who are all more or less children of farmers will actually possess land to learn this vital skill, something which they don't have. Again we shall see....
I apologize for the frankness and shere depressing values of this post, it's just what's going down and I'm not one for censorship. Mum if your reading this before I call, I will call you between 11am-1pm your time to explain this all over the phone so sorry if you found out this way. I will fill everyone else in when I know if India is the only option. Love xxx
This is all written in haste as its the first time Iv had internet in AAAAGGGEEESSS and as you can tell from the title, some major shit is going down.
Sardip, one of the youngest boys (7) is seriously ill. It has been going on apparently for nearly a year and this bout of sickness is the worst it has been. To cut a long story short we don't know what he has as there are so many bloody possibilities, unfortunately none of them positive. He is extremely unresponsive and weak, he is in and out of fever fits and dark legions have appeared all around his body as well as having an incredibly bloated stomach. Due to the sickness coming in bouts, we believe it may be or have initially been a nasty parasite - but the legions after a second opinion from a good friend of mine, a med-student, is a sign that he has a blood condition - its not doing its job. So unfortunately that points to something prevelently urgent from a liver problem to worse. In an hour I am taking him to a medi-care station in central Kathmandu to see a doctor who specialises in gastric-intestinal cases, something that is unlikely to be relevent but in this country it is the best chance we have. Now here comes the problem, we are going merely for a diagnosis, not admission. His case may require a long-term hospital stay (as he is also vastly malnurished) and maybe the need for surgery. Neither of those things Connor or I think are beneficial in this country. Dogs live in the hospitals here and all rooms, including surgery rooms, are seperated by only curtains. Unless we get an absolute garuentee from the doctor today that it can be cured by pills alone, I will have to take him to Delhi to get him admitted into a hospital there along with his mother who is the woman who looks after the orphanage. The flights are cheap, around $30 each way, and Nepalis do not need a visa or a passport to travel into India, it is an open boarder. If this does happen I aim to leave tomorrow or the day after to return 4 days post, with or without Auntie and Sardip. We believe the trip will cost around $300 including the medical expenses unless he is admitted for a long duration something that I, quite frankly, believe will be the end case - I pray I am wrong.
So yeh, that's me at the moment. If all goes well and he makes positive improvement or whathaveyou, I will return and almost immediately leave for the Annurpurna Range for 3 weeks of trekking. I met this lovely girl from the states the other night who is leaving for the Pokhera very soon and hopefully, if all goes well, with me too. I need a break from the city, its becoming chlostrophobic and tiresome. I have now been in Nepal for a month and am yet to see mountains at a ground level, my mind is pining for an adventure at high altitude and luckily as Danna is experienced in this kind of shiz, we won't need a guide so we can cut down the expenses of the trip to just about what Im spending weekely anyway. Plus due to the fuck-ups happening all around the orphanage from finicial to managorial descrepincies, I feel I will be more needed there in one month that now, when things that are just thoughts at present begin to be written in stone. I may be even meeting Connor after trekking in Pokhera to scout for a new home outside the city for the remaining children not taken by Parkesh and adopted by another potential orphanage. You see on the board of comitee there are 7 people, 2 people don't even know they are on the board of comitee so technically its 5 people. Now 3 of those have pulled out, these men are businessmen. They own a tea shop in Thamel and a percentage of their proceeds are donated to the orphanage and this charitable donation is well advertised in the shop. However it is not so simple, this is not a charitable donation as it increases the revenue of the shop, it is purely a business strategy to windle more tourists out of more money. Because of this those three men are pulling out so they can invest in an institution closer to the shop so they can show customers where this money is going. Fucking business, its terrible. This is resulting in a few things;
1. The children who have parents in the city have to go back, to no education and no hope.
2. The children who have been found by the three business men are going to the orphanage in the city.
3. The rest's future is more undecided. Either a new board of comitee is found and they can stay where they are, or in a better situation (as a new board of comitee will just procrastinate the whole situation just as re-animating a corpse, after a brief period of life it can only go wrong.) Connor will go ahead with his plan to open up his own and have it partnered with a potential NGO in Pokhera, where there is little polution, it is cheaper, and the kids who are all more or less children of farmers will actually possess land to learn this vital skill, something which they don't have. Again we shall see....
I apologize for the frankness and shere depressing values of this post, it's just what's going down and I'm not one for censorship. Mum if your reading this before I call, I will call you between 11am-1pm your time to explain this all over the phone so sorry if you found out this way. I will fill everyone else in when I know if India is the only option. Love xxx
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Brunch in Boudhanilkantha
Hello People!
Tapalai Casto Chha?
So, a mixed bag of stories, parties and other eventfulness... lets start from the top.
Pascal left yesterday morning and of course he couldn't finally depart without a final farewell from all his Kathamandu Kronies, old and new. I checked in at a small guesthouse next to the Snowman cafe on Freak street (perfectly situated for a day-after-drinking apple pie and coffee) and met him and a few others in a local mo:mo shack nearby, ordered some tea and after a long long long wait, we drank it... Pascal commented that they must have been inventing it before they could make it :)
The next stop was a lovely Nepali restaurant underneath an Israeli Vegetarian restaurant, where the atmosphere was smokey and asian with posters saying 'Aum sweet Aum' - lol, and dal baat for 100rps - I, however, opted for the buff chilly - with major recurring consequences... My first sick day was yesterday! That buff did not sit well with me, so from now on 1 rule - in a cheap restaurant, stay veggie or deep fried - end of. After an incredibly diverse conversation ranging from hepatitis B to stone henge to necromancy we headed to the shisha bar to catch the weekly live band, and true enough we entered to Billie Jean - it felt good, we felt special! The night was great, with such good people and tasty tasty watermelon shisha and red bull/vodkas. We, again, were kicked out because it was too late (midnight) and made the progressively familiar dusty walk to freak street for a midnight hash spliff to allow the conversation to become retardly funny - who knew you could talk about Spy Kids for half and hour! Needless to say, the morning apple pie was sensational... I am staying there tonight... its saturday and Jazz is calling so me and Yasmin, this lovely chick from the New Jersey are meeting for the Saturday night live jam - it feels like Greek Street up in here, almost home!
Getting back to the title, it is Saturday so the kids have their holiday... I was planning on making a campfire but left it too late to go into the wilderness to cut wood. So as plan B i rocked it over to the only supermarket (in my knowledge) to by the following; bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes, baked beans and real ketchup - a full english breakfast for everyone! And their first one at that! :) Of course they all eat with their hands so the baked beans were unsurprisingly comical - its definitely not finger food. But the poor dears have never had an egg cooked in the way we do (not that I eat them) so it took a lot of convincing to get them to trust me that just because the yolk was visible did not mean it was raw! But Anglos - thank what ever lord you have that we have kitchens to cook our high-fat breakfasts in, A full english with one gas hob was possibly the most incredible kitchen experiment since Mohinda Gandhi decided that rice and grain was callous to one's spirituality. I left the children with mutual smiles and shouts of 'Meetochha' (delicious).
I am leaving for my house-father's village, dolhaka, in a week or so. It will be nice to get out of the city and 1 or 2 ks higher into the clouds... I just hope my jacket has been dry cleaned by then - it is taking FOREVER! OOOh speaking of, the dry cleaners is in this real plush hotel near where Im staying ($60/night) and i have allowed myself to be conceived as a guest over the last few days by making appearances to those who matter, receptionists, security guards etc... now i have access to free english newspapers, western toilets, piping hot showers and maybe, just maybe (its in the pipeline) a gym! I don't even use the gym but the idea of a stolen work-out is too lush to pass down!
Ok, better fly, i have to check into the Yellow house ASAP, one big shout of to Gussy - G Hustling - Cross, Such sad news of Rocket, he was a lovely lovely dog and is barking his heart out and chasing all the rabbits of eternity in that big park in the sky, he will be sorely missed. RIP.
X
Tapalai Casto Chha?
So, a mixed bag of stories, parties and other eventfulness... lets start from the top.
Pascal left yesterday morning and of course he couldn't finally depart without a final farewell from all his Kathamandu Kronies, old and new. I checked in at a small guesthouse next to the Snowman cafe on Freak street (perfectly situated for a day-after-drinking apple pie and coffee) and met him and a few others in a local mo:mo shack nearby, ordered some tea and after a long long long wait, we drank it... Pascal commented that they must have been inventing it before they could make it :)
The next stop was a lovely Nepali restaurant underneath an Israeli Vegetarian restaurant, where the atmosphere was smokey and asian with posters saying 'Aum sweet Aum' - lol, and dal baat for 100rps - I, however, opted for the buff chilly - with major recurring consequences... My first sick day was yesterday! That buff did not sit well with me, so from now on 1 rule - in a cheap restaurant, stay veggie or deep fried - end of. After an incredibly diverse conversation ranging from hepatitis B to stone henge to necromancy we headed to the shisha bar to catch the weekly live band, and true enough we entered to Billie Jean - it felt good, we felt special! The night was great, with such good people and tasty tasty watermelon shisha and red bull/vodkas. We, again, were kicked out because it was too late (midnight) and made the progressively familiar dusty walk to freak street for a midnight hash spliff to allow the conversation to become retardly funny - who knew you could talk about Spy Kids for half and hour! Needless to say, the morning apple pie was sensational... I am staying there tonight... its saturday and Jazz is calling so me and Yasmin, this lovely chick from the New Jersey are meeting for the Saturday night live jam - it feels like Greek Street up in here, almost home!
Getting back to the title, it is Saturday so the kids have their holiday... I was planning on making a campfire but left it too late to go into the wilderness to cut wood. So as plan B i rocked it over to the only supermarket (in my knowledge) to by the following; bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes, baked beans and real ketchup - a full english breakfast for everyone! And their first one at that! :) Of course they all eat with their hands so the baked beans were unsurprisingly comical - its definitely not finger food. But the poor dears have never had an egg cooked in the way we do (not that I eat them) so it took a lot of convincing to get them to trust me that just because the yolk was visible did not mean it was raw! But Anglos - thank what ever lord you have that we have kitchens to cook our high-fat breakfasts in, A full english with one gas hob was possibly the most incredible kitchen experiment since Mohinda Gandhi decided that rice and grain was callous to one's spirituality. I left the children with mutual smiles and shouts of 'Meetochha' (delicious).
I am leaving for my house-father's village, dolhaka, in a week or so. It will be nice to get out of the city and 1 or 2 ks higher into the clouds... I just hope my jacket has been dry cleaned by then - it is taking FOREVER! OOOh speaking of, the dry cleaners is in this real plush hotel near where Im staying ($60/night) and i have allowed myself to be conceived as a guest over the last few days by making appearances to those who matter, receptionists, security guards etc... now i have access to free english newspapers, western toilets, piping hot showers and maybe, just maybe (its in the pipeline) a gym! I don't even use the gym but the idea of a stolen work-out is too lush to pass down!
Ok, better fly, i have to check into the Yellow house ASAP, one big shout of to Gussy - G Hustling - Cross, Such sad news of Rocket, he was a lovely lovely dog and is barking his heart out and chasing all the rabbits of eternity in that big park in the sky, he will be sorely missed. RIP.
X
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Just a quickie... i promise :)
Just a super-chilled-ass day in Boudhanilkantha, no town, no nothing, no problem. Pascal left this morning but not before he showed me on the map where I can get some really good and utterly needed cheese in town. He invited me to his leaving dinner and drinks do on Thursday downtown in a late night jazz bar after eating some of the best dal baat in the city (apparently!) I wasn't due to go out till Saturday budget and all, but i will make an accept ion - he was a very nice guy and the friends of his that iv met i liked a lot also.
So after reading for a bit in the morning I decided that a film would be a perfect treat and bought the History Boys for 25rps. Wow, i had forgotten what a great movie it is - a British Dead Poets Society switching suicide with homosexuality :) What else to say....... Ummm iv been eating a hell of a lot of vegetable somosas recently in the neighbourhood, my god are they delicious - they just drop them into a stinkingly large vat of bubbling oil to warm them up and hand them to you in a newspaper and being English i know that the best food comes in newspapers. Crap having spoken about them I will have to go get some more after this, and at 5rps a piece there is no sense in self-restraint!
I got my bike back, awesome. I have grown really tired of the minibuses the last couple of days. In the morning they are fine as i get on at the start of the line, but by the afternoon (or even worse the evening) it is like being in a spicy sardines tin. If anyone has seen the videos of the Tokyo rail guards cramming people onto the subway then you can understand the gist of the buses here! Soooo, Austin (my american friend) has i think left his orphanage. I had a beer and some Thukpa (noodle soup - mitochha!) whith him last night and he has really understandable reasons for leaving. The kids are not as nice as our ones and the conditions they are housed in are crap. The real nail on the head was the Orphanage nanny moving some kids into Austin's room, which as he lives in the Orphanage (which i, thankfully, do not) has entirely robbed him of his personal space... poor dude. Because he felt so bad for leaving but all that he was doing was being constantly asked for money by the kids and the owners - I am very aware how lucky I am that nothing terrible has happened to me like this, Iv heard some really horror stories about RCDP (the NPO i organised this with) and would not recommend them in the slightest. Luckily I don't mind but there has been no communication with me.
But better dash, school's nearly out and i said id take some pictures with the kids to put on their bloodtype cards (a science experiment in school) Toodoolooo X
So after reading for a bit in the morning I decided that a film would be a perfect treat and bought the History Boys for 25rps. Wow, i had forgotten what a great movie it is - a British Dead Poets Society switching suicide with homosexuality :) What else to say....... Ummm iv been eating a hell of a lot of vegetable somosas recently in the neighbourhood, my god are they delicious - they just drop them into a stinkingly large vat of bubbling oil to warm them up and hand them to you in a newspaper and being English i know that the best food comes in newspapers. Crap having spoken about them I will have to go get some more after this, and at 5rps a piece there is no sense in self-restraint!
I got my bike back, awesome. I have grown really tired of the minibuses the last couple of days. In the morning they are fine as i get on at the start of the line, but by the afternoon (or even worse the evening) it is like being in a spicy sardines tin. If anyone has seen the videos of the Tokyo rail guards cramming people onto the subway then you can understand the gist of the buses here! Soooo, Austin (my american friend) has i think left his orphanage. I had a beer and some Thukpa (noodle soup - mitochha!) whith him last night and he has really understandable reasons for leaving. The kids are not as nice as our ones and the conditions they are housed in are crap. The real nail on the head was the Orphanage nanny moving some kids into Austin's room, which as he lives in the Orphanage (which i, thankfully, do not) has entirely robbed him of his personal space... poor dude. Because he felt so bad for leaving but all that he was doing was being constantly asked for money by the kids and the owners - I am very aware how lucky I am that nothing terrible has happened to me like this, Iv heard some really horror stories about RCDP (the NPO i organised this with) and would not recommend them in the slightest. Luckily I don't mind but there has been no communication with me.
But better dash, school's nearly out and i said id take some pictures with the kids to put on their bloodtype cards (a science experiment in school) Toodoolooo X
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Rooftop Cafes with wifi - is there a heaven? Surely.
Why hello!
There comes a time in every journal/diary and now blog where I apologize for the lack of attention, but please hear my plee - it has not skipped my mind for one iota, I have merely been battling with the electricity. At the moment it has been coming on almost exclusively when I have been working and not in my free hours, however even the dullest can work out that today this is not the case.
The last few days have been, not in the least, uneventful. On thursday last I was quietly enjoying some Momo's when two girls I met in the first couple of days waltzed in serendipitously and told me that they had been placed in an orphanage just down the road (wowza!) So, yeh, people! They were with their friend, a lovely bloke from Mississippi and the last few days have been surprisingly and enjoyably sociable. We went into town for some chocolate cake the other day and organised an duo-orphanage-merge for the kids day off on Saturday.
We decided that due to us being in Nepal it was silly that we haven't gone for a little trek yet so Saturday was spent in the National park above Kathmandu with our walking boots on and picnic bags in our hands. We took a three hour, there and back trip, to the park's Buddhist monastery with just under 40 kids leading the way. What a lovely day we had, the views from the top (around 8,000 ft or for those Europeans 2.5km up) were obscenely beautiful and thanks to the week's earlier down pour, wonderfully clear. I have pictures and videos that i am trying to upload to today but so far with little success. Needless to say it was incredibly stressful, the kids wanted to go off and pick the rhododendron flowers presently blooming and due to the fact that it is a National park ( a big no no!) we spent a lot of the day chasing children through the overgrowth! After we came back down, we all decided (the chaperones) that a beer or two, or maybe four was in order and being a Saturday, there was nothing stopping us going into town to party Kathmandu style for the night.
We hit a shisha bar in town with the motive of just staying there for some dinner and then finding a dancey place, however this was not what fate had in store for us! In the bar I glimpsed at this girl who after 5 minutes of looking confusingly each other, we realised that we had met before. Maria from Mexico and her cousin Santiago then invited us over to them and the influx of people we had and hadn't already met was amazing. It ended up being an incredibly fun and alcohol filled night, my first one of its kind since landing so funnily 3 beers and a cocktail was enough to get me to my usual 6 beer and 2 cocktail standard ;) hey maybe its the altitude! One other that i met at the bar was the almost legendary Pascal, Pascal volunteered with the kids a few months prior to my arrival and also staying with Rustam and co. like me presently... All i have heard from the kids since arriving is 'when is Pascal coming back' and now i had an answer, the next day. So the last couple of nights I have had a good friend in my room and have been sharing the work with him, much to the kids endless satisfaction. He's very good with them and its a shame he's jetting back to Switzerland on Friday. So yeh, a great few days and I hope I've filled in the blanks somewhat.
Today after dropping the kids off at school I headed back to the house to encounter some rather inconvenient news my next door neighbour whom i have become quite friendly with asked to borrow my bike for a few hours yesterday, yes of course i said. Last night, no bike. This morning, no bike. I began to fear the worst. Fortunately nothing has happened to him, or the bike, well nothing major. He got pulled over by the police and they asked him for his license... no license! So the bike has been impounded and due to this being his second similar offense in a fortnight he has a hefty fine and a court appearance to make. I have been assured however that the bike will be back with me tomorrow, with no personal cost (and a full tank of petrol) Que Sera Sera, or as the Nepalis say.... something I can't at this moment remember... I will get back to you on that one! !! !! :)
My nepali is improving though and now I don't get hassled by shoe shiners/ hash dealers and trekking touts in Thamel, because I can say that I don't want anything and I live here. Its the script thats the bitch but after my first day of tackling it yesterday I can read the devangari vowels, only, but its a working progress. And i love the idea that if I master it I will be able to read Sanskrit and Hindi also. I will keep you all updated as best as I can!
Ok guys, nice chatting with you, the photos are up but not the videos... so check out facebook.
A big shout out to Max Carpanini or Ninibear, well done for getting into Chelsea for your BA (without an interview!) :) :) For the one who next see him, give him a huge fabbri hug :)
X
There comes a time in every journal/diary and now blog where I apologize for the lack of attention, but please hear my plee - it has not skipped my mind for one iota, I have merely been battling with the electricity. At the moment it has been coming on almost exclusively when I have been working and not in my free hours, however even the dullest can work out that today this is not the case.
The last few days have been, not in the least, uneventful. On thursday last I was quietly enjoying some Momo's when two girls I met in the first couple of days waltzed in serendipitously and told me that they had been placed in an orphanage just down the road (wowza!) So, yeh, people! They were with their friend, a lovely bloke from Mississippi and the last few days have been surprisingly and enjoyably sociable. We went into town for some chocolate cake the other day and organised an duo-orphanage-merge for the kids day off on Saturday.
We decided that due to us being in Nepal it was silly that we haven't gone for a little trek yet so Saturday was spent in the National park above Kathmandu with our walking boots on and picnic bags in our hands. We took a three hour, there and back trip, to the park's Buddhist monastery with just under 40 kids leading the way. What a lovely day we had, the views from the top (around 8,000 ft or for those Europeans 2.5km up) were obscenely beautiful and thanks to the week's earlier down pour, wonderfully clear. I have pictures and videos that i am trying to upload to today but so far with little success. Needless to say it was incredibly stressful, the kids wanted to go off and pick the rhododendron flowers presently blooming and due to the fact that it is a National park ( a big no no!) we spent a lot of the day chasing children through the overgrowth! After we came back down, we all decided (the chaperones) that a beer or two, or maybe four was in order and being a Saturday, there was nothing stopping us going into town to party Kathmandu style for the night.
We hit a shisha bar in town with the motive of just staying there for some dinner and then finding a dancey place, however this was not what fate had in store for us! In the bar I glimpsed at this girl who after 5 minutes of looking confusingly each other, we realised that we had met before. Maria from Mexico and her cousin Santiago then invited us over to them and the influx of people we had and hadn't already met was amazing. It ended up being an incredibly fun and alcohol filled night, my first one of its kind since landing so funnily 3 beers and a cocktail was enough to get me to my usual 6 beer and 2 cocktail standard ;) hey maybe its the altitude! One other that i met at the bar was the almost legendary Pascal, Pascal volunteered with the kids a few months prior to my arrival and also staying with Rustam and co. like me presently... All i have heard from the kids since arriving is 'when is Pascal coming back' and now i had an answer, the next day. So the last couple of nights I have had a good friend in my room and have been sharing the work with him, much to the kids endless satisfaction. He's very good with them and its a shame he's jetting back to Switzerland on Friday. So yeh, a great few days and I hope I've filled in the blanks somewhat.
Today after dropping the kids off at school I headed back to the house to encounter some rather inconvenient news my next door neighbour whom i have become quite friendly with asked to borrow my bike for a few hours yesterday, yes of course i said. Last night, no bike. This morning, no bike. I began to fear the worst. Fortunately nothing has happened to him, or the bike, well nothing major. He got pulled over by the police and they asked him for his license... no license! So the bike has been impounded and due to this being his second similar offense in a fortnight he has a hefty fine and a court appearance to make. I have been assured however that the bike will be back with me tomorrow, with no personal cost (and a full tank of petrol) Que Sera Sera, or as the Nepalis say.... something I can't at this moment remember... I will get back to you on that one! !! !! :)
My nepali is improving though and now I don't get hassled by shoe shiners/ hash dealers and trekking touts in Thamel, because I can say that I don't want anything and I live here. Its the script thats the bitch but after my first day of tackling it yesterday I can read the devangari vowels, only, but its a working progress. And i love the idea that if I master it I will be able to read Sanskrit and Hindi also. I will keep you all updated as best as I can!
Ok guys, nice chatting with you, the photos are up but not the videos... so check out facebook.
A big shout out to Max Carpanini or Ninibear, well done for getting into Chelsea for your BA (without an interview!) :) :) For the one who next see him, give him a huge fabbri hug :)
X
Thursday, February 17, 2011
And then the sun came out :)
Once more the tongue of fortune licks my sack of life: No Rain! It was an actual amazing sight that greeted me this morning when i levied my rested head off my yak wool pillow, the rain had gone, well at least there was no sound of it, but yet it still looked miserable outside. I felt cold and all I could see out the window was grey... wait, all I could see was grey - I couldn't even make out the walls of the front porch - there was no rain because the clouds had come down to apologize for the previous 3 day discrepancies in loveliness. I know to most the idea of 'fog' isn't exactly exciting, but I can assure you - this was fog like none other, you could barely make out your hand in front of your face, needless to say I thought it would be fun to slowly drive my moped around the country roads for a bit, it was very fun :)The clouds of course brought down frightful cold - beri jaroo as they say here and the kids were dressed accordingly. I swear there is something endearingly comical about little children dressed for the cold, almost as wide as they are tall, still no sense of design so scarfs shoved right down their jumpers and of course, the inability to balance due to their new-found weight! I got in early today, so we went to school early and they showed me around the place - I will never get tired of their friend's inquisitive expressions yet with the utmost politeness, its has aways been amusing to me to turn around and fix my gaze in another direction to which anyone in that line of view also changes the gaze, subtle - yes for one alone, but for 200 kids? No! I dropped off the children and walked back over to pick up my bike and head home for some needed Dal Baat. By this time the cloud had ascended (by the look of it to tarnish the smoggy city south, not that it needs any less visibility!) and the sun, my old friend, smiled down on the valley... I believe that one truly forgets the feel of the UV rays on the back of the neck given 2 days of heavy rain, at least i do, and it was a welcoming remembrance!
So the day has been lazy, with no Thamel meetings or motorbikings, but these days are always the finest. I am planning, once finished blabbering, to visit my neighbourhood temples on the hills. There is the famous 'lying Vishnu' temple very near here, and after that its a short hope to visit the local Buddhist Monestry which is a beautiful sight on the hill side horizon and I am glad I am finally going!
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank those reading - i didn't think i would receive this many views and it is a pleasure to talk to all of you :)
So the day has been lazy, with no Thamel meetings or motorbikings, but these days are always the finest. I am planning, once finished blabbering, to visit my neighbourhood temples on the hills. There is the famous 'lying Vishnu' temple very near here, and after that its a short hope to visit the local Buddhist Monestry which is a beautiful sight on the hill side horizon and I am glad I am finally going!
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank those reading - i didn't think i would receive this many views and it is a pleasure to talk to all of you :)
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