Jos on the road

Gumda: Myths, Religion and Chickens

josdent — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 04:21:00 GMT

There was plenty to keep me amused in Gumda, despite the lack of electricity and English speakers. I taught in the school six days a week and usually did some unofficial lessons too. I spent a lot of time drinking tea and holding odd conversations in three languages (plus many hand gestures and a good deal of mime). I collected oral histories and generally investigated the different village customs. I read a bit, played cards and chess a bit, played cricket and volleyball with the kids (their favourite games), went for the occasional walk to nearby villages and mountains, and sang and danced on demand.

I think we've talked before about reading in/appropriate books while travelling. The book I took up to the village was The Bugatti Queen by Miranda Seymour, which is an interesting biography about Helle Nice. She was famous between the world wars, first as a starlet then as a racing driver, but died in obscurity. It actually made me consider a career as a racing driver, until I remembered that it isn't like that any more and F1 is incredibly dull. Still, seemed like a good ambition to harbour whilst in a place where there nearest road is two days walk away. Heh.

Teaching at the school, as previously discussed, was fairly straight forward once you overcame the translation problems but there were still cultural differences. Now, the tet book was written by the Nepalese government and had plenty of entertaining SPAG errors. It also amused me that we taught 'i is for ice cream' and 'j is for jam' but none of the children knew what ice cream or jam are. For educational purposes, we got a jar of jam from the shop to show the kids. This was even more amusing as even the shop lady didn't know what jam was or that she had it in stock until we pointed it out. It looked like it'd been sitting on the shelf for a while and it wouldn't surprise me if no one in the village has ever eaten it. How the hell it came to be in the shop I guess I'll never know.

I got into the habit of going to bed early as there was little to do once it got dark. Once I got into living on 'village time', I found I was wwaking up pretty early too and took to taking early morning walks to watch the sun rise from the top of the hill. With the lack of electricity, the stars would be really clear and bright when I got up (around 5am) and the greatest sources of light pollution were the moon adn my torch. It was great. The village is so surrounded by mountains that the sun appears to rise quite late. Still, even before it gets above the horizon, you can see shafts of light start to illuminate far away mountain tops. My favourite view was the one towards the Ganesh Mountains, so called because they're supposed to look like an elephant. I suppose they do, in the sense that elephants are big and grey, but beyond that there's not much of a resemblence. Still, they mountains are still a beautiful sight at any time of the day, but especially at dawn before the snow melts.

Gumda and the surrounding area are pretty interesting in terms of their beliefs. For a start, they believe in yeti who are five feet tall, have pointy heads and backwards feet. It is a predominately Buddhist area, but they have their own form of Buddhism. Not only do they celebrate festivals and perform rituals in a slightly different way, they also have their own Llama. They have a very strong belief in ancesteral spirits and offer them food every day to keep them happy. They also believe in witchcraft. When people or animals get sick, or children have bad dreams, or really anything goes wrong, the people consider that either the ancesteral spirits are unhappy or it is the work of a witch. Accusations of witchcraft should not be taken lightly. Witches - which are called 'boxie' - are still driven from villages and even killed form time to time.

The people who placate angery ancesteral spirits and fight against the evil powers of witchcraft are the jakari - the witch doctors. It is always a part time job as they only get paid in 'roxie', the local tipple made from fermented grain. Sometimes it is almost tasteless just with an aftertaste of brackish water, sometimes it tastes like rotting cereal. It depends on the batch. Still, it's a big favourite amongst locals who will always offer it to any guests who go to their house, and they'll always offer some to the spirits and a bottle or two to the jakari.

When the jakari are called to a house, they communicate with either the spirits of the family's ancesters or with the spirit of the 'victim', who will tell them what is going on. They go into a trance and, the people believe, can be considered as gods whilst in this state. Once they've diagnosed the problem, they can do the appropriate ritual to solve the problem. For my observances, this usually involved a lot of chanting, burning herbs and some kind of sacrifice, usually a chicken. At the beginning of the ritual, the chicken would be alive and well but waved around a lot. Water or rice would be tipped on it and, from time to time, it would be put firmly on it's back in a circle of rice and sacred symbols. It would usually stay on it's back, stunned, for a minute or two before it would start twitching... then make a sudden bid for freedom. I saw a number of birds leg it out of the house and have to be chased and re-caught so the ritual can continue. In the end, however, it was always beheaded as the spirits and the witches require blood to be appeased. They only needed to sacrifice the blood, though, and the rest of the chicken was always used to feed the family for the net few days. It it's really serious, sometimes a goat is sacrificed. If that failed, the family often turned to Christianity - there was a small church in the village whose congregation was made up of people who's relatives had been miraculously cured. However, should that also fail then the family might trek to the nearest town with a hospital, carrying the sick person in a large basket.

Gumda: Dances with Maoists

josdent — Thu, 3 Apr 2008 02:45:00 GMT

This is not going to be a history lesson. If you are interested in the political history of Nepal, you will know who the Maoists are and what they stand for. If you aren't, well, you aren't going to be terribly thrilled if I explain at length. Surffice to say they are a communist movement who have been waging a guerrilla war against the government for over a decade. During this struggle, both sides have been guilty of horrific human rights abuses but there is possibly an end in sight. There is an election coming up so everyone has (mostly) laid down their arms and gone on the campaign trail.

A fair bit of the (Western) literature I read on Nepal before arriving tends to paints the Maoists as popular, necessary agents of change. Violent, yes, but fighting for the people against the corruption inherent in the Nepalese system of government and monarchy. It's kind of hard to keep that in mind, though, when you are staying at an orphanage where a good proportion of the children are there because of the Maoists. Some parents got caught in the crossfire, some were suspected of being government spies, some were simply too poor to pay the 'voluntary donations' when the Maoists came to their village, so they were 'recruited' instead and never seen again. However, in Kathmandu they don't seem to have so much influence. There is plenty of graffiti and occasionally the odd busload of young men go past, shouting slogans and waving flags. On the other hand, it's hard for the army and those who rule the city to have much influence outside of Kathmandu. I was heading to Gorka, which is a Maoist stronghold...

On the first night of my journey, as I was eating dinner in the Arughat lodge, a group of men marched past carrying candles and shouting. I asked Peter what the slogans meant. Over the sound of the shouting I misheard him initially, I thought he said "Hail to our breadwinners!". Seemed quite a nice sentiment. But no, they were actually chanting "Hail to our brave martyrs" - anyone who dies is seen as a martyr who has given their life for the Cause. And death has been quite a central part of the lives of Maoists.

Gumda suffered during the long war. The Maoists set up a training camp above the village and the people had to provide food and any other necessary supplies. The Maoists also instigated their own rule of law and woe betide anyone who didn't fall in line. The army, knowing there were Maoists about but not knowing exactly who they were, sometimes just killed people indiscriminately. The villagers learned to just cooperate and agree with whoever was pointing the guns at the time. Purnee has some amusing anecdotes about those times.

So much for the background. Two weeks into my stay, the Maoists came to Gumda. After school one day, two women that no one recognised came to speak to all the teachers. They asked for ten minutes of our time to talk to us, but once we'd sat down they spent a good half an hour grilling everybody. Eventually they explained that they were here to organise a Maoist rally that would take place that weekend. They wanted to be sure that no one was spreading anti-Maoist sentiment, especially me. They had learned to be suspicious of foreigners, they said, and I shouldn't take it personally. They explained that what they wanted was for the teachers to help them spread their message and make sure everyone in the village 'knew how to vote' in the forth-coming elections. The Maoists had limited resources and teachers are well-respected members of any community, so they were the obvious choices to help out.

A day or two later, I finally got to meet my friend Suzanna's husband. He is away from home much of the time as he's a Maoist activist, but he was back for the rally in the village and had bought his Area Commander along with him. Picture the scene: I have just walked down from the Upper School after the day's IT lesson and pass Suzanna's house on the way home. She invites me in, as usual, but this time there are people who'd like to meet me. The Area Commander - who only goes by his nickname, which means Strong in Nepali - has been part of the movement since its beginnings, has been in many battles and has many stories to tell. He speaks no English but has Peter or Suzanna's husband to translate for him. Suzanna's husband - who's name I never learnt, so let's call him Mr Suzanna - was an English teacher for four years, then worked for a children's society helping children affected by the conflict. He only joined up a year or two ago and is keen to explain about how they will 'build a new Nepal'.

We sat outside the house as it was getting dark. We drank tea and ate popcorn, which is pretty much what I did on every social call I made. Mr Suzanna asked about my background and what I was doing in Gumda, and clearly had the same suspicions as the two women that had visited the school. These were soon dismissed, however, and he was curious about my travels and what I thought about Nepal. We soon got on to religion and politics, where I settled for broad, uncontroversial generalisations. Yes, I agreed that women in Nepal definitely needed more rights. Yes, the current government is indeed corrupt and probably the people will welcome a change. Definitely, they'll be glad to see the end of the violence. This conversation was peppered with polite questions from Strong. He wanted to know if we drank tea in England. Yes, I replied, we're rather famous for it. And did we also eat popcorn? Yes, I replied, but not so often. We regard it as a bit more of a treat, if we go out to see a film for example. This made him laugh. Clearly England was not so different. Next he wanted to know if there were many cars in my home village, whether there was a school and a hospital, how far we had to walk for firewood. He asked about my siblings and what my parents do for a living. He asked me to list the countries I'd travelled to, which, incidentally, is twenty-two across five continents at last count. Facebook says that this amounts to 7% of the world, which sounds like a challenge to me. It was rather an odd conversation, all in all.

Since the election was announced, the Maoists have stopped taking guns out with them. Both the campaign women and Mr Suzanna complained that it made their job a lot more difficult. It was much easier to get people to do what you want them to when you have a gun, believe it or not. Now they had to use their powers of persuasion, which is a lot more difficult. Personally, I thought that was a step in the right direction, but perhaps that's me just being a lefty liberal Westerner.

That Saturday - Saturday being the only day off in a week - we had planned to go on a bit of a hike up Darche Dara, a nearby mountain. However, we were given to understand that we should attend the rally. Everyone else in the village went by the mantra Don't Get On The Wrong Side Of The Maoists, and it seemed prudent that we did too. The rally was being held outside the school, and benches were taken out of the school for people to sit on. They didn't ask permission of course, as everything belongs to the Maoists as far as the Maoists are concerned. I noticed there was also now graffiti on the side of the village shop and on Class 2's classroom door. The shop I can kind of understand, but I think Class 2 are a little too young to vote and few enough of them can read Nepali anyway.

But yes, the rally. Peter and I were placed in 'seats of honour' at the front, which, entirely coincidentally, conveniently made it easy for them to keep an eye on us . We were behind the main table, sitting next to the people making the speeches. The rally lasted about five hours and all the speeches were in Nepali. I understood very little but got Peter to translate. They spoke about the importance of education, of women's rights, of stamping out corruption, and of the dangers of alcohol. They talked at length about how important it is that everyone votes in the election, about what a historic event it will be. Oh yes, and they mentioned that if they don't get voted in, they will take up arms again. They are so sure that the people are behind them, that the only way they could lose is by conspiracy and fraud. And that while they valued freedom of speech, they didn't take kindly to people using 'offensive' language about them. They sited a recent incident at a Democratic rally, where they had been forced to seriously beat a number of people for such offensives. So, I guess you're free to say whatever you like about your neighbour's haircut or your new chickens or the weather, just best not mention the Maoists unless you're a staunch supporter.

The rally was, by all accounts, a success. Most of the village turned up to, um, show their support. Everyone clapped and cheered in the right places, no one asked any questions but clearly agreed whole-heartedly with everything said. At the end, there was dancing and yes, I joined in. Well, I joined in for a minute and a half to the cheers of everyone. What is it about skanking that it fits to almost all music?

Afterwards, Peter and I also had to give a substantial 'donation', but we'd budgeted for that. Then, they gave me a certificate. It says, in Nepalese, that they're grateful for all my support over the years and how happy I must be now they're on the brink of power. But it's all thanks to me. Yes, indeed.

Gumda: Of Singing, Dancing and Teaching

josdent — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:44:00 GMT

The school was a modest building and only exists at all because of the kind donations of a French business. Sometimes the French people send them letters, which the teachers carefully file away because they're always written in French and no one can speak that language at all. Looking at the photos - which I'll put up in a few days, so you can look at them too - the apparent poverty is very striking. It didn't seem like that at the time. The children sit on wooden benches in small, drafty rooms and all face the black board. The building is made of mud and stone and was once painted white, but I don't think it's been redecorated in a while.

The exams were coming up in a few weeks so I had to teach from the English text books. Exams are very strange over here. They include questions that require you to remember the stories and questions from the text book rather than just that you can understand English. The problem was that everything in the text book is in English and I only speak English but the children speak no English at all. If I didn't have to follow the text book this wouldn't really be a problem, but as it was it made things a little odd. In the end, lessons became collaborative lesson between myself and either Peter or Ash. Ash, the English teacher, can't speak very much English and lacks a real understanding of grammer, but can understand written English and can translate into Gurung. Peter speaks English and Nepali very well, but not all the children understood Nepali so sometimes there'd be a whole chain of translating before everyone got the idea. I spent so much time speaking slowly and clearly that I ended up sounding like a Radio Four newsreader...

Much more fun than the regular school lessons were the unoffical lessons. Teaching people English words at the same time that I learnt Gurung words was the best, although I soon learnt that many of the villagers don't speak Nepali well. They taught me a number of words that I later found out were so strangely pronounced that most Nepali people won't recogise them. I also did lessons after school for the teachers, which were great fun. Now I'd expected to teach English, I hadn't expected to be teaching IT as well. About a twenty minute walk up a hill outside the village, there is a building that is supposed to be the villahe high school. Unfortunately, they don't have the teachers or the money to open it. However, it does have some solar panels and they have recently acquired a PC. So while the village doesn't have electricity, there was a need to learn some computer skills. It was very odd but enjoyable experience.

Music-making is an important part of village life. This mostly seems to consist of singing Nepali pop songs and clapping along, perhaps bullying someone into dancing. Want to be a rock star for a while? Bring a (acoustic) guitar to a village. Peter can play pretty well and could improvise an accompaniment if I gave him a tune, which led to some pretty interesting recitals. See, most of the music I listen to is rather to heavy to be appropriate (funny as that would be), which pretty much left those 80s rock classics. So yes, I have introduced Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi and Iron Maiden to a remote Nepalese village. They were utterly delighted. Oh yes, and traditional Nepalese dancing would not be out of place in any UK goth club, except the villagers actually had some sense of rhythm. All in all, it was a lot of fun. My only mistake was agreeing to teach everyone a simple english song. A lot of Nepali folk music is based on a simple, repeated tune and often improvised lyrics. For some reason this brough to mind She'll Be Coming Round The Mountains When She Comes, probably because I'd come round the mountains in the very recent past. It was a mistake because everyone loved it so much that we had to sing it for several hours each night. If She never Comes Round The Mountains every again, I'll be quite happy.

Gumda: Of Laundary, Forehead Rice and Mistaken Identity

josdent — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:45:00 GMT

The first full day in Gumda was a busy one and, after digging the toilet, our next task was to go to the school. We met the teachers - except the english teacher who was elsewhere - and the principle and they'd arranged a little welcome ceremony for us. First, they put a blob of red colour on my forehead, which is a traditional sign of welcome. Next, they put a blob of damp rice on my forehead, which they claim is also a traditional sign of welcome but I think is probably just to make guests look a little silly. It's hard to take anyone seriously when they have food stuck to the middle of their head. Then, another lovely peach scarf was hung round my neck, as were numerous garlands of flowers. Thus decorated, we walked between the two rows of clapping, waving children, and we waved and smiled like royalty. Many of them gave me rhododendrons, which are the national flower of Nepal and yet another traditional sign of welcome. Very hospitable lot, the Nepalese.

Suitably welcomed, we headed back to the house to get settled in. I feared my new rhododendrons would add the pile of wilting flowers I already had in my room. I needn't have worried. By happy accident, I left my flowers for a moment on the step outside the house, and small children came and ate them. I was unaware that they are considered edible here and also that they're sometimes used as medicine. Apparently munching on a flower can cure everything from stomach pains to having a fish bone stuck in your throat. Who'dve thunk.

In the afternoon, I decided to make a start on some laundry. Having spent three days getting here and having a limited number of clothes, there were already things to be washed. There are three places to do laundry: the communal tap round the corner, the water tank on the other side of the village, or the sacred pond. The communal tap constantly drips water but can't be persuaded to turn on any more, so it's not a good place for anything that needs much water. The water tank is perfect for laundry but is therefore always busy, especially in the afternoon. This left me and my dirty socks heading to the small pond under the trees, where the prayer ribbons are tied.

Thus positioned, I got on with the long and arduous task of washing things in cold, non-running water. Many people wandered past and greeted me with a friendly "Namaste!", to which I would reply and they would continue on their way. For the most part. One particular old woman found it necessary to Namaste a second time and, once I'd replied, to Namaste a third time. It was a bit of an odd situation. Every time I responded, she's say it again. In the end, I said "Namaste" in a final sort of tone and turned back my washing. She saluted the god in my once or twice more before heading on her way.

A little while later, a man came to talk to me. He was about Peter's height and build, with a similar hair cut, jeans and trainers. He was wearing a cap, sunglasses and a yellow scarf covering half his face. He addressed me in broken English. Now, I know full well that no one in the village can speak any English at all and can see that this man is clearly in disguise. I think I have mentioned, my translator Peter is an incorrigible joker and it was so obviously him. Why he'd decided to try and trick me into thinking he was a stranger I had no idea, but I wasn't going to fall for it. I laughed and told him I knew it was him, and he muttered something and left. A very odd exchange.

Back at the house, I was just hanging my clothes out on the line when Peter returned - with the man in the yellow scarf. In retrospect, the look on my face must have been incredibly amusing. The man was introduced as Ash Bahadur Gurung, the English teacher. He had not understood why I was laughing at him but he found the whole thing most amusing once it was explained to him. It had to be explained in Nepali though, as his English was not good. I wondered how he managed to teach a language he didn't understand, but I'd find that out later. Incidentally, the reason he walks around with the strange accessories is because he had an epileptic fit a few years ago and fell face first into the fire. Apparently the scarring is pretty bad and so he doesn't like to show his face any more. This wasn't a possibility I'd considered when I first met him and mistook his identity. Hey ho.

In the evening, Pernee returned from her shepherdessing duties. There are few people in the world that I'd describe as 'merry', but Pernee is one of them. She's one of the happiest, loveliest people I've ever met. She was always smiling, usually laughing and really looked after me. She was eternally patient as I tried to get my vocal chords around her crazy language and always asked me what the English word was. She'd struggle with English sounds just as much as I struggled with Gurung words, and then she'd laugh and forget almost immediately. We actually managed to communicate pretty well, with my increasing Gurung vocabulary and our mutual ability to understand each other's mimes. Mime is truely the friend of amateur linguists everywhere. Actually, my favourite times were when she, or anyone else, would make vague hand gestures to try and explain a word. When I looked puzzled, they'd simply repeat the word and I'd dutifully repeat it - then they'd ask what it was in English. Heh.

Gumda: A Introduction To Everyday Life In The Middle Of Nowhere

josdent — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 04:52:00 GMT

While I'm sure Gumda is not the middle of nowhere for the people who live there - in fact, I'm sure it's the centre of everywhere - anywhere that is two days walk from the nearest bus stop counts as fairly remote to me.

In my last entry, I started talking about understanding some things without being able to speak the language, and now I add one more to the list: comedy. Mispronouncing word so badly that you end up saying something completely different to the delight of the whole room, for example. This is very, very easy in Gurung dialect as it is tonal, nasal and seems to be entirely made up of just a few sounds. You don't really need to know what you actually said to understand why a roomful of people are laughing so hard that they're clutching their stomachs, you just know that it's funny. Actually, even if you get it right, chances are they'll laugh anyway. They seemed very amused that anyone would want to learn their language and laughing is generally a form of encouragement. But back to comedy. Old ladies waging eternal battles with chickens to try and stop them coming in the house is pretty funny. Chickens escaping from the rituals of which they are the focal point, but that's a story in itself so I'll come back to it. Tall people banging their head on the door frame.

Ah yes, tall people. I stand at a mighty 5"4 in my boots and, in Nepal, I count as very tall. I bang my head on door frames and occasionally ceilings, my feet hang off the end of the bed even when I lie diagonally. I tower over the local population. Add to this my mop of flaming blonde hair and you have yourself a walking, talking freak show. Ever wanted to feel like a film star without going to all the hassle of making a number of hit movies? Go to a remote Nepalese village. Even walking up to Gumda, everyone yelled 'namaste' (literally 'I salute the god in you', but is used to mean hello and goodbye) in greeting as we passed and every child stopped to stare until we were out of sight. Even after being in Gumda for a month, I still got a procession behind me whenever I left the house. On the one occasion I didn't tie back my hair, I almost caused a riot.

One Nepali word I learn early on is 'ramro', which means beautiful or good. The Gurung word for beautiful is 'joh' (not to be confused with the Gurung words for salt, eat or son which are almost exactly the same), which my new friends excitedly pointed out was the same as the first half syllable of my name. There is a good deal of racism in their perceptions of beauty, which made the "look, a foreigner!" phenomenon all the more pronounced. Nepal is a mix of many ethnic groups and tribes but the general rule remains: the paler your skin, the more beautiful you are. Bleached blonde hair is held up as exotic, the stuff of fantasy and natural blonde hair... wow. Words cannot express the excitement it caused.

When I arrived I was tired, dusty, sweaty and hadn't had a shower in three days. It is very difficult to take anyone seriously when they tell you that you are 'ramro', even when they go on about it at great length. My messy, desperately-in-need-of-a-wash hair is certainly not ramro, you are mistaken. No, my skin's not particularly ramro right now either. Nor is my nose or my ears or my hand. Er, but thanks anyway. This would be a little uncomfortable but not so bad if that was it, but the conversation always went, "Your hands are so beautiful and white. Mine are so ugly and dark. Look! Compare them!".

I hoped any misplaced auras of glamour could be dispelled, but I'm not sure I was totally successful. My baggy 'boy' clothes were entirely appropriate in terms of modesty - Nepali women only really show their lower arms and perhaps a bit of calf - but certainly not especially aesthetically pleasing. Oh and they hated my funky hat but I wore it a lot. It kept my ears warm as well as hiding my hair and making me look daft. When faced with long lists of beautiful body parts ("Your feet are so beautiful! Your neck is so beautiful! Your eyes are so beautiful! Look, yours are blue and mine are ugly and brown!), I settled for laughing a lot and telling them they had beautiful ankles, or nostrils, or whatever.

My first task on my first morning was the unglamourous one of making a toilet. While there are a few in the village, most people just used the jungle. On my first night, as the toilet had not been built, I was invited to use the barn. Clearly, as a Westerner, I was too delicate a creature to go to the woods and had not had time to attune my bladder to daily life in the village. The toilet we built consisted of a hole deep enough to contain a month's worth of waste, two planks with a gap between them (so you don't fall down the hole when using it) and some sticks to hold up the wicker walls. The construction was somewhat shorter than a Portaloo but with slightly more floorspace inside. Basic, yes, but build with my own fair hands and considerably better than the facilities at most rock festivals that I've been to.

This structure also doubled as the 'shower'. Showering in the village basically requires you to take a bucket of water, some soap and a towel and go for a walk to find a private spot. Such was the power of my magnetic personality (and exotic hair) that it was utterly impossible for me to find anywhere private, except the toilet. Even then, I had to be vigilant for the groups of small children who's curiosity often outweighed their fear.

Food was, well, also basic and daahl baat based. Lunch and dinner both consisted of white rice, some form of soup, spinach and smoked buffalo or occasionally chicken. Sometimes there was also egg. Breakfast was either noodles or a form of porridge. There was popcorn or soya beans to snack on. We drank tea or boiled water. That is literally the extent of my diet. I was very, very glad I found room in my backpack for that tin of drinking chocolate powder. Heh.

Arrival in Gumda

josdent — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:29:00 GMT

We made it to the outskirts of the village by late afternoon and stopped to rest on the terraces. Mountains - or indeed foothills - aren't naturally particularly useful for farming, so over the generations the people have turned whole mountainsides into innumerable steps, each providing a little strip of flat, plough-able land. While this simple idea maybe wonderful for local agriculture, it's a real pain for tired tourists walking up hills. I imagine building them wasn't a lot of fun either.

In some ways, the walk was a revision course in human anatomy: by the time we arrived, muscles ached that I'd entirely forgotten existed. My feet held up surprisingly well given that I was wearing only trainer-walking shoe hybrids that really aren't meant for such hardcore trekking. Still, Peter and Suzanna did the walk in trainers, Sungitta managed in flip flops and our drunk Jakari friend didn't bother with footwear at all, so I don't really have any room for complaint. When we arrived at Purnee's house we found that Purnee wasn't there. She was still up another mountain looking after sheep but would probably be back tomorrow. In the meantime, her mother-in-law was looking after the house and the children and would gladly welcome us in.

The houses are made of stones held together with mud, with slate and corregated metal roofs. There are no windows as such, certainly no glass. Instead, wood is carved into ornate patterns, with plenty of big holes to allow light and air into the upper two stories. The ground floor was all one main room, which had no windows at all. The walls and floor appeared to be made of the same cement-like mud that held the whole structure together, while woodern beams held up the wooden floor of the next level. The ceiling was fairly high but hung with useful things, so you had to stoop to avoid hitting your head anyway. There were shelves along one wall filled with plates and pans, and a bed in the corner. There were innumerable large clay pots and wicker baskets that - to the uneducated eye at least - could have come from any number of places and times throughout history. At the back of the room is the fire pit where all the cooking is done. This is also where we all gather round to eat or just to sit in the evenings. With no electricity and only a few precious gas lamps, this is the place to get light when the sun goes down. And heat. It's cold in them there mountains. Noticeably abscent is any form of chimney. Some of the smoke escapes upstairs, through the space above the ladder. Some escapes through the door, if we decide it's so smokey that we can brave the cold of an open door for a while.

It turns out that this is to be a house of three languages: English, Nepali and the local dialect of Gurung. No one person speaks more than two of these languages and some of us can only manage one. At no point in my stay did I find this a problem. Apart from myself and Peter, no one in the village spoke fluent English and only a handful of people spoke any English at all. There was a good number of people there would were unable to speak more than a few words of Nepali. But you can get a long way with smiling, pointing and, most importantly, trying.

That first night was filled with the kind of conversations that you don't need to speak the language to understand. For example, I was offered a cup of tea. Yes please, I smiled and nodded, but no milk powder or sugar. Peter translated. The mother-in-law (all the time I was there, she was only ever referred to by her title; presumably she had a name but I never found out what it was), who's Nepali was not good, was confused and looked to Suzanna for confirmation. No milk or sugar? Are you sure? Did I fully understand what they were offering? Was I familiar with the concept of 'tea'? Confirmations followed first in Nepali from a laughing Peter then in the local language from Suzanna. Mutterings followed in Gurung. You can't have a cup of tea without at least a little milk or sugar. These strange foreigners, they'd want it without hot water next! She whispered to Suzanna - unnecessarily since neither Peter nor I at that point understood any of the language at all - to put a spoonful of sugar in the kettle while we weren't looking. It was done, but not very subtley. Caught in the act, Suzanna blushed an apology and I laughed, and drank my too-sweet tea. A similar conversation arose when I asked that they didn't put the chilli powder in my chow mein, with similar results. Still, the obvious difficulty I had eating excessively spicy food produced some kind of remorse. This was the first and only time such food requests were ignored and I got non-sugary tea and not very spicy food for the rest of my stay. Mother-in-law simply moved on to putting excessive amounts of salt in everything cooking, unless carefully watched.

The Road (Or Lack Thereof) To Gumda

josdent — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:52:00 GMT

On occasion, I have been known to laugh in the face of danger, or at least snigger a bit in the face of reason. And so, food poisoning or no, I started out on the journey to Gumda early in the morning of February 12th. I had totally repacked my rucksack leaving behind all non-essential items and adding in the warm clothes I'd purchased from Jamel, plus a hardcore sleeping bag. I think it more or less weighed the same by the time I'd finished, to be honest. I am the only backpacker I know who doesn't get a 'Heavy: Bend Knees' tag added to their bag whenever they check it in at an airport. Still, on the flight over to Nepal it weighed in at 18kg, which is about one third of my current, non-food-poisoned body weight. While for the most part I would agree that it isn't particularly heavy, I also wouldn't advise anyone to walking up some steep mountains carrying a third of their body weight on their backs, especially when they aren't really feeling 100%. Don't let that stop you, though, if you fancy recreating my adventure in the comfort of your own country.

Actually, I guess it did contain a couple of items that weren't strictly speaking essential. My luxuries were these:

A third pair of trousers. Given the luck I've had with trousers on my travels thus far, this seemed entirely justifiable, although I didn't actually need them in the end. Perhaps this was Sod's Law proving powerful enough to balance out the wrath of the Trouser Gods. Perhaps I am only cursed by the Australian Trouser Gods, and am favoured by the Nepalese ones. Perhaps repeating Motorhead's Trouser Blessing (from the excellent Rock N Roll album) placated the Trouser Gods enough to leave me and my trousers alone. However, I like to think it was the human sacrifice that did it.
A couple of books, a pack of cards and a travel chess set. They don't weigh a great deal and I was going to have to amuse myself some of the time.
One tin of Cadbury's Drinking Chocolate Powder and a spoon to eat it with. It may be a cultural experience but I'm not going to last a month without chocolate.

But I digress. The first part of my adventure mostly involved sitting pretty still for about eleven hours. The bus goes from Kathmandu to Arughat, which is literally the end of the road. Rural Nepal doesn't have a great deal of infrastructure and the roads simply don't reach many parts of the country. The bus itself seemed sturdily built and was brightly decorated inside. There were garlands of garish (and presumably fake) flowers around the front windscreen and pictures of Hindu gods on the walls. The flowers at the front matched the colour scheme of the painted walls, in as far as anything matched anything else. There were rather too many colours to reasonably expect all of them to match each other. The seats were comfortably enough, if clearly designed for people even shorter than me. The stereo blasted out West Nepali folk songs and Bollywood classics as we crawled through the traffic-choked streets of Kathmandu and out onto the equally traffic-choked narrow, winding mountain roads. In theory, drivers keep to the left but mostly drivers use whichever side of the road seems like the best idea at the time. As a result, you get some pretty messed up traffic jams. Add to this the fact that the road is barely wide enough for one vehicle to drive along with all four wheels on solid ground, let alone for that vehicle to be simultaneously overtaken by a large truck and undertaken by a motorbike, and the situation becomes even more fun. There were regular stops for food and for the driver to try (and fail) to buy more fuel. After a few hours the semi-road became a definate non-road, but we continued to bounce along into the evening.

Don't think for a moment that I didn't enjoy the journey. I was feeling much better, the scenery was stunning and there was always something going on. We bought fruit and cake from sellers through the windows of the bus and got out to stretch our legs whenever the bus made an extended stop. When I say 'we', incidentally, I mean myself and my translator/guide Peter.

We reached Arughat after dark and set off to walk from the bus station to the town itself. The first thing you do is walk over a suspension bridge; it's all rather exciting. Once in town, we had to go to the police station to 'sign in', so that if we disappeared up in the mountains then - in theory - someone would notice. The police guy in charge seemed like a jolly fellow and joked (in Nepali) while taking down our details. Clearly there's not a great deal for police folk to do in Arughat, as a whole crowd of police men gathered to watch us filling in the forms. From there, we walked through the rest of the small town and out the other side to the lodge where we would stay the night. It was a clean, friendly place with a comfortable bed, although we were already far from such extravagances as actual toilets.

Bright and early the following morning, we set off on the eight-hour or so walk to Lapu Bessie, where we would be spending the next night. The path started off a reasonably gentle ascent and got steadily steeper as the day wore on. Towards the end of the walk we rounded a corner and almost walked into two girls from the village. Suzanna and Sungita are the neighbours of Purnee - my host-to-be - and had come to meet us as Purnee was unable to. They were so shy, though, they nearly ran off as soon as they saw us. Still, they recovered enough to tie a peach coloured scarf round my neck and give me a rhododendrom flower, both tradition signs of welcome. A little further along the road and we met another person from the village, who I assumed was either had mental problems or was drunk, but turned out to be one of the local 'Jakari', or witch doctors.

After a particularly guelling ascent, we finally reached Lapu Bessie and I gratefully dumped my rucksack (cursing extra trousers and books and chocolate). The lodge was, again, clean and friendly but somehow obviously out in the middle of nowhere. It made me feel somewhat like I was staying at Heidi's grandfather's house. The walk the following day was even harder than the first and I was pretty exhausted most of the time. Still, you can't help but gorp at the stunning scenery and the... Nepalishness of everything. At Papa's House #2 in Kathmandu, I had made some comment to Shova about the breathtaking mountains you could see from the roof. She'd laughed and said, "You can't see any mountains from here. Those are just foothills". Well, these were definately mountains; your brain gets confused between 'these are small' and 'these are far away'. I think my brain assumed it was a particularly well-painted scenic backdrop, at least to start with, because I just couldn't get my head around the scale of it all. There are many, many, (many) photos to come but I don't think they really do it justice. I come from a country where the highest peak (Scarfell Pike) stands a mere 978m in its socks, but Gumda sits on a foothill at a mighty 2000m. That's over twice as high as the highest point in England. No wonder my poor brain was having issues.

But yes, eventually we made it to Gumda. The walk was very hard but, I think, totally worth it. I had many, many exciting adventures in Gumda but you'll have to wait for the next exciting installment before I start regaling them...

A week in Kathmandu

josdent — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:11:00 GMT

I had one week in Kathmandu before heading out to Gumda. Life in Papa's House follows a daily routine that's easy enough to slip into or opt out of. I had three meals a day - almost always daahl baat and vegetables - with the everyone else living in the house. I'd been living on pasta and toast for a while before that, so rice was a nice change for the most part. It did get a tad repetitive, but it was being cooked for me so that pretty much evened things out. The bathrooms contain 'Western'-style toilets and showers, but no hot water. Still, the shower water was cold but bearably cold; think swimming in an english river or sea in late spring. It's not the kind of shower you enjoy, but you get used to the temperature and you get clean. We sat around drinking tea a lot. We walked down to the shop at the end of the road to stock up on essential supplies, like candles, toilet roll and food that isn't daahl baat. The walk takes you past a goat pen, which is next to a wooden platform where a man slaughters and sells said goats.

Shova, the language coach, gives the volunteers Nepali lessons and takes them out on sightseeing trips, so I got to do some exploring. We went to Jamal to buy some warm clothes for my trip into the mountains. It's a big area where the cheapest shops are concentrated. There's a few main throughfares but mostly it's all twisting back streets. We visited Durbar Square and saw a collection of interesting, old architecture. I bought a postcard and a funky hat; it was that sort of place. We also visited Pashupatinath, one of the most important Hindu temples in Nepal, although non-Hindu's can't get into the main temple. However, there is still plenty of interesting things to see. There's a lot of religious architecture - which you'll see once I get some photos uploaded - and lots of monkeys. Also, there are many cremations taking place by the banks of the holy river Bagmati. There's a lot going on. There's so much noise and colour and, well, smells to take in.

A lot of the volunteering is centered around teaching english but while I was around, there wasn't a great deal of teaching going on. There have been a number of teaching strikes recently, plus there was a celebration of the Goddess of Education. Personally I would have thought that you'd get some extra education rather than a day off, but apparently not. On the other hand, the weekend consists only of Saturday, Sunday being the first day of the week. I was rather hoping to spend a few days getting some teaching practice before heading out to Gumda but, due to several days of striking plus one day celebrating education, I only actually managed one day in a school.

The school in question was in the squatters camp near the airport. It is, to all intents and purposes, a slum. It's mostly filled with people who've fled the villages because of the violence, but haven't enough money to actually move to Kathmandu. They've set up temporary houses on some empty government land, although the government periodically knock everything down and they have to rebuild. There's no water supply except for the river, so they wash there as well as get water for cooking and drinking. There was a dead cow in the river. That, boys and girls, is one way to make a lot of people very, very sick. Cholera epidemics at the squatters camp happen at least annually, by all accounts. Once inside the 'camp', however, and it's actually okay. It's pretty clean and the houses are well constructed. There are shops, a health clinic and even the odd solar panel providing a little electricity. The school was a modest building, somewhat reminiscent of a stable. The classrooms are all in a row along one corridor, although the dividing walls are only about shoulder height. The nursery class is packed, while classes 1-4 vary wildly in ability and enthusiasm with no correlation to age. Only two of the oldest kids (class 5, so about ten or eleven years old) turn up so they don't even have a classroom, they're taught in the yard outside. Some of the kids are well-presented, clean and eager to learn. Others are dirty, noisy and naughty. Most of the teachers keep order by beating the kids with sticks. The volunteer I accompanied, Alexia, bribes the kids with Power Rangers stickers. Her lessons interested most of the kids and no stick beatings were required.

The next day was supposed to be my Getting Everything Ready day, as I was to leave for Gumda the day after that. Unfortunately I was struck down with a lovely bout of food poisoning and did nothing more than lie in bed and feel sorry for myself. Still, it's the first time I've been really sick since I've been travelling and I was recovered enough the following day to leave Kathmandu as planned. But that's another story...

First Day in Kathmandu

josdent — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:30:00 GMT

Apologies for the delay in adding this next installment but I've been rather too busy having adventures to get chance to write about them. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Outside the airport terminal it was clear and sunny with a cold, frosty edge to the air. Winter, at last! Well, sort of. It's the closest to winter I've been in a good long while - Australia having its seasons upside down - but also the closest to winter that I've got full stop. The weather has got steadily warmer. Hey ho.

Michael is a personable sort of chap and we chatted about travelling and volunteering as the taxi sped us through the streets. There are no shiny black cabs here, just small, white, student-y looking cars whose back seats are easily filled with a jos and a backpack. I spent most of the journey gorping out of the windows, trying to take everything in. Contrary to what you may have heard, Kathmandu is not a 'could be anywhere' city. It's polluted, sprawling, noisy and colourful in a way that I've not seen in Europe or Australia or most other places that I've been. Every building is different and appears to have been placed - and decorated - more or less at random. People brave the dust and the capricious behaviour of the traffic to sell vegetables at the side of the road. Children play with suspiciously Victorian-esque sticks and hoops. East may meet West here, but it's a pretty one-sided fight.

We arrived at Papa's House #2 where was to stay for the next seven days. It's the smaller and newer of the two orphanages that Michael runs. As soon as I got through the gate, I was greeted as the new big sister to the fourteen kids that call the place home. As well as the children, there were also four other volunteers staying at the House while working on various projects, plus a full-time 'Daddy' and 'Mama'. It's a big, clean, characterful building, if rather colder inside than out. The ground floor has the kitchen, school room and one of the children's bathrooms. The first floor has another bathroom and the children's dorm rooms. The second floor is for the volunteers, with a bathroom, kitchen and shared bedroom, while the third floor is basically just the roof and the office of Prakas, the coordinator.

I arrived just in time for tiffin. How terribly British of me; I shall be wearing a bright red coat and trying to re-build the Empire next. Tiffin consisted of noodles and a metal tumbler of tea. Take a moment to consider why a metal receptacle might not be very practical for holding hot liquids. Still, it was such a noisy, friendly meal that such practicalities weren't hugely important. I spent the afternoon chatting to various folk and generally settling in. I was also introduced to the idea of 'load shedding', which is basically daily power cuts organised by the government as there aren't enough resources to power the city constantly. For whatever reason, this seems to be generally scheduled to start around sunset and last for the next few hours. The price of candles is steadily rising due to rumours of the number of 'load shedding' hours increasing.

Dinner - and indeed, most meals thereafter - consisted of white rice (baat), lentil soup (daahl) and curried vegetables, all eaten with a tea spoon. The vegetables included dice-sized chunks of chilli but luckily that made them big enough to avoid, even by candle light. For those of you that I know will ask, we're talking a standard D6. Between lack of light and general jet lag, I went to bed soon after dinner that night. There are no mattresses here which makes the beds pretty hard. However, when you've spent the last seven months sleeping in hostels, a firm surface to sleep on seems almost a luxury. At least for the 30 seconds or so until you fall fast asleep.

Arrival in Nepal

josdent — Fri, 8 Feb 2008 04:00:00 GMT

The flight from Singapore to Kathmandu was pretty uneventful for the most part. I was given a sheaf of forms to fill in which kept me quiet for a while anyway. They actually make the immigration process sound rather scary. The back of the Arrival Card has a list of things to remember when in Nepal, including that no volunteer work can be done on a tourist visa. I wasn't entirely sure what to do about that so I just put 'volunteer' as my reason for visiting on my visa form, and figured they'd work it out. After all, lots of folk come to Nepal to volunteer so it's hardly unusual. Most interesting was the customs form, which stipulated you were only allowed to bring in the following:

Used binoculars, 1 piece
Used movie camera, video camera or steel camera, 1 piece
Used computer, 1 set
Used portable music system set and recorded or blank cassettes up to 10 pieces
Used personal clothes
Perambulator, 1 piece
Tricycle, 1 piece
Used fountain pen, 1. Ball pen or pencil, 1 set
Used watch, 1 piece
Used simple medical equipment, 1 set for doctor
1 set musical instrument for musician
1 set playing item for player
Fishing rod

Anything other than that lot and you're supposed to declare it at customs and pay extra duty. Also, prohibited items include 'cordless telephone more than 300 meters capacity', which I'd be more worried about if I thought I'd get any signal at all on my mobile anywhere in Nepal. Well, I could go on at length about the slightly daft list of allowable items but as it turned out no one cared at all that I had too many pens, or anything else not on the list.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The flight was uneventful until the pilot pointed out Everest could be seen out of one of the windows and there was a bit of a stampede. I suddenly realised that what I'd taken to be clouds were actually mountains. Oops. According to one of the guide books, the maxim of the pilots of Nepal is "We don't fly into clouds. In Nepal, the clouds have rocks in them". Heh.

And immigration: not scary. The terminal building feels more like a train station. There's a certain amount of queueing to get a visa, but they gave me a tourist visa anyway. Customs barely glanced at my rucksack. Outside the airport I met Michael, the guy from Volunteer Nepal, and off we set in a taxi through the streets of Kathmandu...