Nepal Fini ... For Now

On the fourth day in Kathmandu, Cait and I decided we needed to get serious about shopping. After a few days of travelling through Thamel and looking here and there, we thought we would go with lists ... HAH! Impulse buying reigned supreme, and we had a good time! Part of our difficulty is in knowing that we should be bartering but we are very bad at it. But if we asked for best price, people usually dropped their price a bit, especially if we bought more than one thing. At least we were going through the motions. Lalit was often good at getting us a 20% discount ... but Thaman is as bad as we are!

What surprised me was that there were tons of stores and most of them had factories on the floor above ... sewing bags, T-shirts, fake North Face goods, or making jewelry. And yet a lot of goods are brought in from the countryside as well. It was so difficult to separate our needs and our desire not to buy things for the sake of consumption with the sense of how hard life is for everyone in Kathmandu (and wanting to help them in whatever way we could). For one thing, power shedding is a terrible difficulty and there is no power for 12 hours a day (and this will go up to 16 hours a day next month). So you see people carrying portable generators from store to store when a customer walks in, so people can see what wares there are. And then you feel guilty walking away empty-handed. On Thaman's advice, we didn't buy too much from street vendors, which was difficult because they can be so persistent. In the end, I think we did our part for the economy:-)

Another striking feature of the difficulties of living in Kathmandu is the constant near-gridlock as far as traffic is concerned. Of course, people drive on the left, so that already seems a bit confusing, but there are cars, bikes, motorcycles, scooters, buses, and vans all jumbled in the road along with thousands of pedestrians everywhere you look. And everyone seems inclined to honk to indicate his or her presence ... I honk therefore I am. Usually it was fine and was so different from what we had ever seen. Errol even remarked on how magical and vibrant it seemed and it did seem divinely choreographed to some extent, but other times it was just plain exhausting. And exhaust-ing.

The hardest part for us were the beggars, especially the children. We were constantly assailed by street kids asking for money. Thaman and Lalit really advised against giving them money as they were often organized (and in fact a little ringleader with a fistful of rupees swore at Thaman and gave him the finger when we didn't give one pitiful boy money). The area near Thamel was frequented by a lot of kids hooked on sniffing glue or solvents. These poor souls slept on filthy blankets on the street and just all sniffed glue in plain sight of everyone. Thaman says they won't stay in homes or go to schools. I didn't see many girls on the street and I really wondered about that. Human trafficking is such a common occurrence in the world ... we have no idea in our comfortable existence of the horrors that are experienced by so many children in this world. I read an article about some girls, kamlaris, in Nepal who are seeking redress, and wonder about all those who have not been heard from.So we were all very glad to visit Sonrisa, the orphanage that Thaman and Bishnu Rai started about two years ago. Thaman goes there every day after work, when he doesn't have a flute lesson. They have a rented house and three employees who live at the house and look after 15 children from age 3-11. The children, most of whom come from remote parts of the country, are often behind in their schooling and Thaman and Bishnu are very strict about their studies, so they have a tutor to help them catch up. The kids all go to school (which is not free) and wear uniforms (another expense) and they are so keen! We took some books, because I had read on the website that they want to build up a reference library and the kids were over the moon. "Sister, sister read for me!" Three-year-old Kriti, the one in the picture above with the books on her head took my finger and pointed out all the A,B,C's in the book she was looking at. Little Srijana, who is in Grade 4, was so delighted to have a child's encyclopedia of natural history. The children call Thaman and Bishnu "Uncle" but their guests "Sister" and "Brother", so it was pretty funny ... Errol and I were "Sister" and "Brother" while Thaman is "Uncle"! They are trying to do so many good things for the kids ... they have a little garden; they sing and dance; they make momos and celebrate birthdays; they take the children on field trips, to the dentist, and even rock-climbing! Finding an affordable physician has been a problem and their little WonChu, who is a little cutie, has had some health problems. he's the character who is wearing my reading glasses - with his sister Lakhpa. If you want to see all the pics at Sonrisa, click here.

I give these two bachelors a lot of credit for what they are doing. The children come from varied backgrounds and some are natural siblings who have experienced family violence or have been abandoned or have ill parents who cannot look after them for a while. Thaman says they are trying to find the ideal balance of love and discipline and would like to have volunteers with some psychological training, because there are some wounded kids there ... we weren't there long enough to notice that; they were really shy, and sweet, and adorable.They often have volunteers, like Donna, who is in the picture with Dinesh, and visitors. Bishnu, above, who is a trekking guide, meets lots of Americans, Australians, Japanese, and European tourists as part of his business and some of them have started to support the orphanage. However, they need a lot more assistance. Because of the power-shedding, there is no electricity for the children to read or do their homework and so they are looking at a backup electrical system and I am committed to helping them with this effort. If you would like to contribute, you can contact the orphanage directly or Cait can get money to me to take. When I return in February!

Yes, February! I put in a proposal to do a session for the NELTA conference during our reading week and was accepted, so I will be going back to Nepal on February 20, attend the conference, do a session on teaching portfolios, and I will take 3 holiday days and hopefully see Thaman, the children, Buddhanilkantha, Lalitpur, and Pokhara. Thanks to the University of Calgary, I have a $1500 yearly PD account, so that will cover my flight, hotel for the conference, and basic costs for 3 days. Alhamdulillah!