chickenpox, fevers, heart surgery...

Hello everyone,

How are you? Hope you are all fine and none of all of our bugs have found their way over to you! Little Manish had another week in hospital having oxygen and antibiotics after his first case of pneumonia (which we thought had been cured) degenerated into "serious" pneumonia. Krishna and Bishnu were back to sleeping in the hospital every night, while a stream of friends and relatives and I looked after everything at Shangri-La. Then at the end of the week as Manish was having his final check up scan they found a hole in his heart and a valve that wasn't pumping properly. A horrible shock for K & B who flew him down to a special children's and heart hosp in Kathmandu right away. Apparently it is a "weak heart" and he might be ok with medicines and possibly no surgery... Nothing we can do but wait and see what the medicine does it seems. Now they are all stuck in Kathmandu with strikes (on everything - shops, transport, schools etc) at least for the next couple of days.

Benjamin has had chickenpox for the last week at the envy of all the others - none of whom have caught it (yet). He has been incredibly brave about it and cheerfuly accepting everything coming his way - new "den" up on the first floor where he is being quarantined, leopard-spot cream for his scabs (which little mate Abishek comes to admire and laugh at from the doorway) endless games and treats of biscuits, fruit, yoghurt, juice to help the medicines go down. Just a few scabs left between him going to school now. Fingers crossed everyone else will be fine.

The first floor is fast becoming a hospital with Rupak up there as well being treated for fever... though looking much better already. Krishna says the hosps are busy with fever sufferers at the mo with the monsoon rains starting and muggy heat. Paradise for viruses.... I couldn't escape them either and was in bed for last 2 days. Fine now.

Sangita (K's niece) doing an amazing job, staying nights at Shangri-La and cooking all the meals. Children fantastic at helping out with everything. Still no housemother after usual one left suddenly saying her pay wasn't enough to get her son through college and 2 more came and went one day after another. It's not hard work compared with what many do and the pay isn't bad.... Hopefully we'll find someone soon.

Sangita, Dipa and I making dahl batt

Washing the little ones

Dipa, again, helping hang up all the bed sheets after washing them all. Dipa, you are amazing! In any spare time she looks after Krishna's daughter Manashee and even volunteered to say off school to help me and Sangita out until we knew what we were doing!

The kids were off school with the first strike here in a while yesterday (its all about the new constitution coming in 2 weeks) and will be off tomorrow too. Then its uncertain... They're lucky to have their new classroom kitted out in the extension where they like to spend most of their free time and Dipak comes along ever evening for some extra coaching... (see Benjamin poking his head out of his den?!)

Getting new books a couple of weeks ago for the start of the new school year. Feeling very smart with new uniforms, shoes and stationary too...

Preparing their first whole fish the other night, freshly caught from the lake

Constructing a frame in the veg garden for marrowsThis was massive queue waiting for hours for petrol after strikes stopped it coming for days

Easter celebrations:

Sunrise on Sarangot with Krishna early that morning. Little foggy but beautiful colours, views over the misty valleys and faint outlines of snowy peaks. Would have loved to have taken children but difficult getting everyone there for 4: 30am!

Choc hunt in the garden...

Attempting to make their first ever chocolate egg. It needed some drastic surgery after both halves got stuck in their dahl bowls but in the end resembled something of an egg and tasted good!

Japanese dinner one evening with Alexander (Dutch) who was staying with a host family beside Shangri-La for a few days, while teaching English. Rosanne, he studied at Utrecht until January - you don't recognize him do you??

Wedding extravaganzas in Lakeside...

Lovely Tibetan refugee lady selling jewelry at the roadside (she was making me a pair of earrings). She has lived in a camp in Pokhara for 30 years, has most of her family here but still not allowed citizenship and stuck with selling jewelry on the pavement from beads carried over the Himalayas from Tibet. Himalayan coral, fresh water pearls and turquoise, all exquisitely crafted and selling for a few pounds each.

Sooo refreshing

Last photo of today after collecting water with Manju and Bimala from Shangri-La - even though we have our own system they prefer spring water for drinking...!
All for now, sending you all lots of love,

Esther xxx

appreciate every drop

...of course when the water you wash with has taken 1 1/2 hours to collect you make sure you use as little as possible and appreciate every little bit. But when you find out that each of those drips is collected in a bowl the other side of the wall and fed to the buffalo, and what isn't drunk is taken to the fields for irrigation, it takes on a whole new meaning...

The local bus

Words and pictures can't convey the squashedness, heat, sick, smell, swaying and bumpiness of the local bus... but here we go



Waiting for the next one... perhaps 2 more hours until we manage to squeeze on...




And yet this all seems like luxury after a trip in the front of a lorry with 13 others on top of the furnace of an engine. A couple of people swung precariously out of the open gap where the door had been forced open and the vehicle sometimes failed to steer, start or stop, or went backwards instead of forwards.

Fortunately more sophisticated forms of transport available to Kathmandu.

Birthday Celebrations

Pass the bomb with a packet of crisps with neighbours...Spraying beer seems to be the custom

Followed by collecting a stack of hobnobs by mouth along with presentations of scarves and money from the baba's and mama's in pecking order of age

and even candels to blow out!

Climb up Sri Nagar and picnic with English speaking friends Tilak and Nur. Excited to find rhododendrons!

Funny Insect

A flower I spotted moving along the way... it actually had legs! Does anyone know what this is?

And more...

Nepal's Taj Mahal

Last weekend Basanta and I visited this "crumbling Baroque palace, slowly fading on the banks of the Khali Ghandaki...the equivalent of Nepal's Taj Mahal" or something along those lines in my guidebook. Perhaps not quite so stunning but definitely worth the 6 hour walk in blazing heat along winding dirt tracks through small villages and jungle. Lots of stops to cool off under waterfalls and at springs in the forest.

Fishing

5 star restaurant

While having a well earned beer in a similar cafe and chatting with the family who ran it, one of their boys offered to take us up to a cave on the hillside nearby...
Such a narrow entrance I didn't dare crawl in, but the boy squeezed though effortlessly (can you see him up at the top of the crack below?) while Basanta got his dhal batt stomach stuck for a few minutes which was quite amusing (for us) to watch, and ended up crawling on his stomach. Amazed to see the photos of stalactites and mites (above) when they finally reappeared.

Last 2 weeks in Palpa

Hi everyone,

It is hard to know how to say all that has happened in the last 2 weeks. It seems enough to fill a small lifetime. I have already finished in Palpa, and all that is left to do with CCODER is make the final trip to Kathmandu to tie up a few ends at the head office and hopefully also arrange the meeting with the UN.

I got back here to Pokhara yesterday, just in time to celebrate Easter with the children as I had hoped. I'm excited to (attempt) to make their first Easter egg and have a chocolate hunt, also hopefully climb the hill here to see the sun rise over the Himalayas.

Yesterday started with a surprise goodbye ceremony with neighbours, colleagues and friends, who turned up at sunrise with garlands and handfuls of flowers and red paint to make tikas, just like when I arrived a lifetime ago. Rupa Ama had even woven me a bag which she had filled with food. The goodbyes were horrible, but I have promised to return when I next visit to Nepal, whenever that will be.

It was unbelieveable how quickly it was possible to achieve everything planned over the last 2 weeks and even more...

Here we are with the govt agricultural office vets, visiting a cow farm in the hills

Milk collection centre

Demonstrating the grass cutting machine

Cow farm proposal for Khorbari just waiting for some extra specialist info and then will be submitted to govt offices for funding. Offices were keen to support it when spoke with them so looking hopeful...

The hill village was quite inspiring in all it was doing - here was a rain water collection system
Coffee bean production. These would be exported, even as far as Europe. They were also producing tomatoes, papaya, bananas and cannabis (although apparently not as a cash crop) as well as goats.

On old lady, somehow managing on her own

Back in Khorbari - it has come to the dry season and all personal water sources are drying up. The community tap has become the main social point where everyone takes it in turns to queue for over an hour...

Even Jiwana with her little sprite bottle

Another day was a scramble down steep hillside and rice terraces with some nimble village elders to visit two springs which they hoped to pump up to the village. They would supply all the households and be diverted at night for some much needed irrigation. Two springs happily gurgling away and vanishing down to the drying up river in the valley bottom. Handy electricity supply right beside them to be tapped into to power a pump.

Govt district offices keen to give funding for the plans and get an expert in. All is in the pipeline and excited to hear what happens.

Piglets! Sidetracked by the baby things when going over to Mun's to arrange for him to give training in pig and hen breeding.


Festival one night when everyone in the area got together to eat buffalo and dance.

3 day cultural show in Tansen with local and national singers and dancers

Tilak's friend who organised it in the middle

Mun training on pig and hen keeping

Community Representative Tara training on tomato production

Some of the participants, with varying degrees of interest...

Someone walked off yawning as I explained they could achieve 14 times larger agricultural incomes from the enterprises they were about to get training for, enough to increase overall household incomes by 4 times for the poorest and more than the total average sum for household foreign incomes - so an opportunity for men to return home.

Despite what we were offering being all they had said they wanted, it was a little disappointing to see some lack of enthusiasm to take on new initiatives, particularly amongst the poor. Those who were interested were mainly the most enterprising who already ran several businesses.

Financial records training turned out to be more of a success. CCODER keen to implement my household survey in all districts/villages where it operates, and since it had to rely on people's memories for their financial figures (not the most reliable, in fact could double when asked the next day) needed some initial training.

Last day in Khorbari - visiting all households in the area to identify new intakes for the community school.

All that is left to do is finish off a research and evaluation manual and some ideas for a national plan for micro enterprise in Nepal that CCODER was keen for me to produce and discuss with UN and national govt.... crazy but thought I would do what I can and see what happens. Will be interesting to discuss it at the national level if it gets that far.

More in a moment...

Lots of love xxx