Good morning all, and welcome to news from week two in Nepal, spent trekking and celebrating Christmas with the children back at the home. Today I am writing from the comfort of the home’s “office”, a convenient little space under the stairs where a small table has been slotted in with enough space for my old laptop. The three-year-olds are peeping through the banisters, calling, “Miss, Miss! Hello!” and chattering away to me in Nepali which they still hope I will understand. Loud “toots” are coming from next door from the balloon hooters some of the children got in the pass-the-parcel last night and others are jumping round the door to show me the small toys and lollipops they got. The older children are studying away on the rooftop with the home’s teacher, Dipak. Krishna is busy with the toilet plasterers who have at last arrived after at least a week of promising to come “tomorrow” and the house mother, Sarita, is busy preparing the next dhal batt.
I hope you all had a really lovely Christmas, with lots of snow? I had to think of Christmas back in the UK several times to remind me that it was really Christmas, but really enjoyed our celebrations here as did all the children! To join in with all the British snow it kindly decided to rain heavily late on Christmas Eve which fell as snow higher up and cleared the skies so the next morning we woke up to incredible views of the white mountains.
Since the children’s socks were all dirty we asked them to give us their hats before going to bed. They had no idea what was going on and were a little annoyed to be parted from them. I awoke to the older girls getting up as usual and was excited to see their amazement at what had found its way into their hats! Coming through to the sitting room the older boys were just getting up with similar looks of bemusement and the little ones came through sleepily, each carrying their hat and holding it up to me to go through with them. Krishna told me how they had woken at five and had started going through their treasures “like rats”!
Having got back from trekking (which was incredible, I will tell you more later) on Christmas Eve, we spent the evening making paper chains with the children, and our secretary, Birut (a good friend of Krishna’s who lives just up the road and likes to drop in most evenings) bought lots of bright fairly lights. We decorated the tiny Christmas tree which the previous owners thoughtfully planted – perhaps one foot high – with as many lights and decorations as a usual tree! The children really enjoyed making paper decorations and by the end the whole thing was a huge blob of colour with no tree to be seen!
After the children had opened their hats we were joined by Birut, Dipak Sarita and her daughter and all took a couple of boats across the lake which is just ten minutes from the home. We had a huge feast of biscuits, chrisps and soft drinks – it was the first time many of them had eaten such things and certainly the first for straws!!
Christmas dinner was unfortunately less of a success but I have now learned not to make the children anything other than their beloved dhal batt! Having grown up with lots of salt and chillie in everything it seems that anything lacking these essential ingredients is tasteless and barely worth contemplating. I thought they might appreciate some meat so bought chicken and made a stew, pressure cooked with lots of ginger, vegetables and even masala and coriander in a thick gravy. I was excited to see what they thought of it but after dolling it out there was a long silence, no shouts of “micho” and the carrots and courgettes were held up and scrutinised before being put aside and the rice eaten cautiously with the chicken. Benjamin tried so hard to muster the courage to eat it all, sitting for an hour mincing it all together in his fingers and looking dolefully but in the end got a tummy ache from all the biscuits earlier and had to give up. By this time it was a little late for the camp fire and marsh mallows we had planned so we had this yesterday evening along with the pass-the-parcel.
Yesterday afternoon we went to the park and again had lots of fun on the climbing frame, with balloons, balls, skipping ropes and frisbee. We also tried out the slide for the first time – not the safest of constructions being extremely fast with no sides and required lots of catching as they shot off either side of flew off the bottom!
The children have a couple of weeks winter holiday so we will need to think of lots more things to keep them entertained now Christmas is over. It’s also great to have the housemother here and teacher in the mornings to help amuse the children while we get on with various other jobs. We hope to have the toilet block finished soon – the next thing will be to tile and paint it, and we also need to make some signposts for the home. The other main thing, which we are waiting to do at the end of the month, is to go through our financial accounts in more detail and calculate how well we are keeping to the budget. From a rough estimate it seems that we are keeping fairly well to the initial plan but inevitably various unexpected expenses have come up and we will need to work out how much further funding will be needed for this coming year. We have decided, for the moment, not to advertise our home in the local area to attract visitors and volunteers, as seeing how well the home currently works as a family, we want to keep its privacy as far as possible. Instead I will register the home in the UK which I hope will open us to further sources of funding from charities and trusts, and failing this we can resort to publicising ourselves here. Having said that we are keen to have a few longish-term volunteers through personal contacts in the UK who can be part of the family and contribute various skills so for those of you who are interested we would still love to have you!
Now to tell you about the trekking – certainly one of the most incredible weeks of my life, and something I couldn’t recommend more to anyone who loves the outdoors, beautiful scenery and cultural diversity. Words just can’t express the beauty and tranquility of the mountains; to listen and hear nothing but the occasional bird or gurgle of a river; the sunrises, the friendly smiles and hospitality of the people. Having left in a taxi to the nearest bus stop to the start of the trek last Friday evening, we found each bus was incredibly full with locals hanging off the sides and choking the roofs.
After about an hour of the regularly passing buses showing no sign of emptying we decided to get a taxi (Krishna would have been happy getting the bus but having had such an experience last time I was here I was happy to forgo this one!) passing through orange groves, along a river and up to a small village, where we started walking as the sun started going down. After an hour or two of steep climb through forest, it was still just light enough to see as we got into the first camp. We were welcomed into a homely room with a warm fire and our old host shuffled off to milk his buffalo, returning with steaming mugs of the incredibly creamy milk.
The next morning was an incredible sunrise over the mountains and mist-filled valleys, something we would see for the rest of the trek.
The next couple of days were particularly beautiful through forests and valleys and countless idyllic rural villages, with children playing marbles, helping their parents in the fields, gathering water, feeding animals and sorting maize, even some weaving with yak’s wool.
The next couple of days were harder as the trail got steeper, climbing up countless steps to eventually arrive at Poon Hill for sunrise. At something over 3,000m we had incredible panoramic views of various mountain ranges and into the Mustang Valley
Then down thousands of steps (apparently over 3,000 – I thought I did well to climb up and down my 4 flights of stairs in Oxford
The sun has at last come out and the air under the stairs is chilly enough to make my toes feel numb so up to the roof now to join the children having their lunch. I think more painting is in store for the afternoon…
Thanks again for reading,
lots of love,
Shangri-La Family
The next day the three little ones went to nursery school while the others went off to do their exams. Unfortunately they haven't been able to go every day as there has been so much government striking for various political reasons. It's heartbreaking seeing them returning home all forlorn after the excitement of getting ready to go to school like today but its lovely to have them around.
