Damn My British Blood!

I blame the parents. Or more specifically, my Dad, with his red hair and fair skin ;-)

Everyone seems obsessed with my appearance. Each day, it's been a torrent of "Do you dye your hair?", "How do you make it that colour?", "Your eyes are blue" (yes, I know, funnily enough),"Do you wear contact lenses?", "You so tall", "Your skin is so white" (heard that one before), "What do you use to make it so white?" (that was a new one on me!).

I even went to the shop to see if I could get some fake tan to ward off the comments, but no. And guess what they have instead? Stuff to make your skin lighter! It's all fairness this and fairness that - so many products to make your skin lighter, which I definitely don't need!

I know everyone is actually just intrigued and it's not that they see it as wrong - I also get many "you berry beautiful" comments too. I'm just rubbish and feel self conscious about my appearance - like a big white giant.

Problems with my British blood don't stop there - while the people love my skin, so do the damn mossies! They have been 'kissing' me lots, as my Nepali Ama says. I'm trying to decide it's finally time just to embrace my difference and be confident - even if people do think I look like an (albeit attractive) alien!

Doin' It For The Kids

OK, so this week was my first week at school. It was supposed to be an organised, leisurely start to get me up to speed with what I'm meant to be doing.

However, in Nepal nothing seems to go to plan - in fact there is no plan! Instead of observing classes, I was quickly thrust into the spotlight - on Tuesday I was supposed to be observing a science lesson, but had to make up a story on the spot for the kids twice in a row...this was fine. But on Wednesday, I was thrown into the deep end with no guidance, warning or direction.

I walked into the classroom expecting to be observing - but no I was taking the class! Of course, I hadn't prepared anything, so I had to make it up as I went along. Since then I've been taking about four classes a day, with no guidance - so I've just been picking something random and trying to teach it as best as I can!

It's been pretty up and down - half way through Wednesday I just wanted to cry and run away and I missed everyone from home so much. The kids were so exciteable and noisy, and the classes are so huge (between 30 and 45 pupils each) that it was a bit overwhelming when I wasn't expecting to be teaching! But when I sat down and thought about it, I realised that the noise they make is often related to the fact that they are excited and many of them are really enthusiastic - it's often "miss miss, ask me miss" and shouting out the answer, wanting to write on the board. And when I say "no talking" or "be quiet", sometimes lots of them say "be quiet" - which makes more noise!

Thinking about it, I guess my lesson style is a bit different to what they often get. I did manage to observe one lesson, which was basically the teacher talking to the kids in quite bad English, and them looking bored and not knowing the answer when he asked them. I'm trying to encourage interaction, and this leads to more noise - and since I'm not at all experienced I guess I don't always get it right! I'm planning on some games over the next few weeks - so if anyone has any ideas let me know.

Overall, I'm feeling much more positive than I was earlier in the week - the kids are generally so interested, and some of them are so cute I just want to pick them up! They do so many little things that make me think it's not all bad. There are around 20-30 kids of all ages staying in the school's hostel at the moment, and at night I help them with their homework, read stories and talk to them in English - this is one of my favourite times of day. In one of the classes I took was a particularly cheeky boy called Amrit. On my first homework session he asked me to sit next to him and help him, and totally turned around - so hopefully I'm making a difference just by being there. Well, it's a start - and today I'm enjoying a well deserved few hours off!

The Year 2064 - New Beginnings

Never let it be said that Nepalis are behind the times - it's now the year 2064. We celebrated with a 'party', but it was a little different to my last New Year - though perhaps that's a good thing! Our volunteer group went to Rajesh's house and ate really nice food, drank whisky and were home by 10.30pm. Livin'it up in Kathmandu!

Sunday was my last volunteer class day, and on Monday the Founder of my school ('Dev'... though at first I thought he said Dave, which didn't sound very Nepali and confused me slightly) came to collect me. I said goodbye to my family, and my Ama (Mum) gave me a massive tika and the most gorgeous bunch of flowers. Everyone kept asking "when are you coming back, when are you coming back?" - it's funny how things develop so much in just a couple of weeks. Now I feel that when I go back they will welcome me with open arms, and that feels great! And I'll be able to eat some more of Ama's spicy potatoes yum...

So, off we drove to the school...we went through Bouda, the Buddhist area where my favourite Stupa is (where I am currently as there's no Internet in my village), through Jorpati, which is kind of suburban and really dirty and not that nice! A little while after that I could see the massive Gokarna forest in the background, and I got more excited.

I'm now living and working at the Manakamana English Boarding School, based in Gokarna Dakshin Dhoka, which means 'South Gate' - basically, at the south gate of the forest. The school has kids from nursery right up to Class Ten. There's also a secondary school in the nice bit of Jorpati, for Class 11 and 12 (nearer the mountains and away from the horrible bit I drove through!). The Principal of the school (a really jovial chap with the funniest chuckle) took me there early this morning, which was great. It's more picturesque there, with good views of the forest and mountains in the background. We also went to the Gokarna temple, which is very famous with heaps of statues of Shiva and Parvati.

So, as to the school...well, I have my own room, which is good - and it's really big! The bed is rock hard, but that's ok. There are lizards living with me (they make me jump when I see them and I'm not expecting it) and a dog that howls at night like a wolf (actually, maybe it is a wolf, eeek...). My room is quite high, with a street outside with some shops, including a chicken shop (and we're not talking about the frozen variety here). My room is positioned in the middle of the classrooms, so it's not at all private in the day. But at night I'm the only one in the whole building, which is kind of weird - but I quite like it (the security guard is downstairs, and don't worry Mum, my door is always locked!). The bathroom is a little walk away, and it smells...not nice. That's where I take my showers, and it's a major operation - though I'm getting used to the whole freezing cold water concept. Well, when I say used to, I mean I can tolerate it - and it feels so good afterwards.

So far, I've made some friends among the teachers, staff and kids. The kitchen staff are really sweet, but most don't speak English and there's not much space in my head for Nepali at the moment - but that doesn't seem to matter too much. The food is generally pretty good, with a few things other than rice, like samosas and weird pancakey things - woohoo! They are still trying to fatten me up like a pig at Christmas though, and it makes me feel bad that sometimes I have to be really firm to get the message across!

It's been a real roller coaster this week - I had some real lows when I just thought "What am I doing here, I must be insane" and wondered if I was doing the right thing, and some real highs when people seemed to appreciate me and be pleased I'm here. Yesterday, one of the kids gave me a red rose, and another spent hours drawing a picture for me. The kids are definately the best thing and the hardest thing about being here - more on that later...

Hiking the Hills

A couple of days ago we got a chance to get out of the classroom and
climb a mountain. We hiked from Kathmandu (1300 metres approx) to the
top of Nargajun, which is 2200 metres, or about 7000ft high. The walk
up was SO steep (glad I did some running in London, but it wasn't
enough!) but the view at the top was worth it. Still no Himal as it
was too hazy, but we could see 360 degrees round and there was a
Buddhist site at the top with singing etc, and so many prayer flags.
Peanut butter sarnies have never tasted so good!

On the walk down, we collected trash from the mountains. It's really
sad, here they just drop litter in all these really beautiful places.
Hopefully we made a little difference, but you really needed tons more
people to get the place cleaned up.

It was so great to be away from the city, and in the jungle - it's
quite tropical here, and everything was looking really green. We
walked through a few villages, and saw a flower farm - so pretty, and
so tranquil compared to the madness of the city.

Tonight we're celebrating Nepali New Year - it will turn to the year
2064! So that should be interesting. Then one final day of training
etc, and I'm off to my school on Monday...wish me luck!

My family...and Other Animals

Now I've been staying with them a while, things with my Nepali family
have improved a lot. There's been much more interaction with everyone
- even the younger
brother has started stringing the odd sentence together and playing cards
with us (though he still sometimes just grunts at us and plays
Christina Aguilera at full blast - teenagers never change!). The
Grandma has been to stay, and I've met one of the cousins, who is
fascinated with all my stuff and wants to play with my torch all the
time - the electricity goes out several times a day, and there have
been some big storms with the most lightening I've ever seen in my
life!

I've also had some good conversations with Jiran, the 'helper' boy.
He's only ten, but he doesn't go to school - he's the oldest of a big
family and works instead. He's so sweet - at first he was deadly
serious but since I've been (attempting!) to speak Nepali to him he's
opened up and smiles and laughs a lots more (possibly at me!).

I've really warmed to our Ama (Mum) as well. At first she was so
serious and frowny (I think probably concerned about how we were
liking it), but now we converse a bit more and she looks so happy when
we say how much we like being there, and we manage to bridge the gap
and have a bit of a laugh. It was strange at first, eating with your
hands, having people look at you when you're eating or whatever,
coming into your room and just sitting there when you want to get
changed, and looking at you and talking in a language you can't
understand - when you know they're talking about you! But it's been a
really good experience living there - I've enjoyed it lots.

Today we did our washing outside under the tap - it took ages and was
tiring! It makes you realise how lucky we are - some people here have
to walk miles and miles just to get to water at all. The family's dog
loves us, and wants to come with us when we go out - it is so sweet,
and there is the cuttest puppy living downstairs. They get so dirty in
the rain and dust, but still want to play with us all the time.

During the day, we've been heaps of other animals at the sites we've
visited, including the 'Monkey Temple', where they are cocky little
b*&@ards! I thought one was gonna jump on me and pull my hair. Others
were playing in the tika, getting covered in red powder. Kathmandu is
truly temple-tastic, and there are cows, dogs, monkeys and goats
everywhere! Some of the places are really beautiful - from the Monkey
Temple we got a cracking view right across the city. Awesome!

Hello Moto...

One of the biggest (no pun intended) differences between here and home is that people can be totally frank when you wouldn't expect them to be, and so vague when you want an answer!

 

As I've already said, people stare (yeah, yeah, I know, maybe it's justified in my case) at white people and seem to be fascinated by difference - I've had kids jump on me wanting to touch my arms and people asking if I dye my hair to make it lighter. They are also fascinated by fatness - I'm not kidding, if they see a fat person they have to comment, and literally cannot shut up about it! This is funny, because in my culture, you don't just say to someone "you are really fat" - or "moto", which is the Nepali word for it. In our group, we have someone who is let's say "larger than life", boisterous and enthusiastic - so a few comments have been cropping up!

 

On the other hand, while Nepalis are very straight talking about some things, other times it's virtuously impossible to get a satisfactory answer "well, it could be this...but actually I'll just talk about something totally different and hope you won't notice that I don't know the answer or don't want to say...". Sometimes this is fine, other times it is frustrating! But overall, the cultural differences make it interesting and a very positive experience.

Chocolate Love on Freak Street

After nearly a week of hard work, learning Nepali, having lectures and living with our host families, the girls and I got a day off on Saturday. In true girlie style, we headed off to town for some shopping and a chocolate fix. The others bought some clothes, bags etc, with me as 'The Navigator' (none of the others have a sense of direction between them ;-) ). We sampled the Everest beer and chilled out in the sunshine.

 

I then directed us to heaven. Well, almost - we decided to check out Freak Street, which is the old hippy hangout from the sixties. We went to the Snowman, which several people had told me about - and where you could reportedly get the best chocolate cake in the world. And seriously, after two weeks of rice and lentils (which, actually, I do like), it was awesome - totally swadillo (delicious). We were in girlie, hippy heaven listening to John Lennon and singing R.E.S.P.E.C.T, eating cake, drinking papaya juice and dancing. You can picture the scene - we were the crazy dancing white people in the corner, quite literally the 'Freaks' on the street. And in true Snowman tradition, we left our mark and wrote our names on the wall. Bliss - I'll definitely be going back for more chocolate cake. Some things never change!

A Learning Curve

The last few days have been fun - I'm now immersed in the training programme for volunteering, learning all about what not to wear, how to behave, the history and politics of Nepal and so on. The weather is gorgeous - not too hot, and I'm feeling massively better now I'm not in the thick of the city (it's SO polluted it's almost unreal).

For the first time in about eight years, I have homework - and lots of it too. This is actually great - I'm loving the language training, and I've been practicing Nepali with my host family. So far, I can say useful phrases such as "Is that a book, no it's a pen", "Pleased to meet you", "My mother's house is in England", "I like Indian food, it's spicy" and "I don't like coffee" (as useful phrase if you're me).

The biggest learning issues, however, are related to the cultural differences. There's such a big gap between here and home - and this is reinforced by staying with a local Nepali family. There are two of us volunteers sharing a room, and whereas the other two volunteers have a more modern home (with hot water, western toilets and even pizza!) I think we are having a more 'authentic' experience. The beds are really hard, the bathroom pongs and there are ants everywhere! But this is all cool.

The family members are the father (Kumar), mother (Pramila) and two grownup/teenage sons Yogesh and Rajesh. The father is quite bubbly but speaks little English and mainly watches TV downstairs, the mother doesn't speak much English and isn't motherly in the sense I'm used to (she doesn't express much affection) but I think she's warming to us - we've been helping her make roti, which has been quite amusing for all concerned....

I tried to say hi to Rajesh, the younger son - but he just grunted in typical teenage fashion (teenagers are perhaps the time across all continents)! Yogesh is really nice, but frequently looks at me as if I'm insane (yeah, yeah, I know some of you do too...) - such as when I ask if I can have two pieces of toast instead of four with two eggs (this is just for breakfast).

Honestly, they try to feed you so much here, and they eat so quickly - they literally hoover it down, even faster than any big guys I know! And they eat SO much rice - I really can't keep up with the carb consumption. Apparently, being fat is a sign of good health. But I don't need any help! At first it was really hard trying not to be rude (you shouldn't leave any food on your plate, so I was wedging it in, filling up my arms and legs with rice and dhaal) but now I think we've struck a balance. I'm remembering the whole 'right hand, left hand' rules, and managing not to make this 'Jutho' (ritually polluted). The onus is very much on me to make the experience, and try and bridge the communication gap. I'm already wondering when I will next be able to have a hot shower - and some chocolate - but I am enjoying the experience a lot - and hopefully it's good preparation for moving to the school.

Mero Nam Amrita Ho...

It's official - my name is no longer Amelia. At least not to Nepali people! I have now started the orientation section of the volunteer programme, which involved a complex naming ceremony, having tika on my head (the religious kind, not the curry sauce! It's a mixture of red powder, yoghurt, rice and abir, whatever that is) and worshipping the gods and goddesses of Nepal. And now, I, in fact, am a Goddess! I quite like that idea ;-)

Being not particularly religious, this was quite strange but not unpleasant. I have to remind myself to remember my new name, which is Amrita. It means Goddess Nectar - a name people familiar with me from student days or London might think it appropriate! I've been learning more about culture and customs in Nepal, dos and don'ts and getting to know the local lingo - not quite fluent yet, but I'm working on it. Tomorrow we're off to see some sites, and I have to talk about the nicknamed 'Monkey Temple' and Buddhist tradition.

I've moved to a host family for the next couple of weeks while I orientate - and it is quite a change for me. Stepping a little further outside my comfort zone - and plenty more to come I'm sure.

Oh my Goodness. I just read a note on Google that said Amrita means Goddess of Female Ejaculation (though maybe not in the Indian Subcontinent?!). Perhaps that's enough for today - this is public site after all...

Cloud or Mountain?

I love mountains, and seeing the Himalayas was once of my key reasons for coming to Nepal. So I thought I'd take the opportunity to visit Nargakot, a beautiful village up in the hills with spectacular vistas. You can watch the sunrise over the mountains - an amazing experience I think most people would agree.

 

So I'm sitting on the balcony of a nice hotel, in peaceful countryside with birds tweeting and staring out at the Himalayas. Sounds idyllic? Well, it would be great - if I could actually see the mountains that is. But all I can see is cloud, and more cloud - I'm forced to play the 'cloud or mountain' game. Gutted, absolutely gutted!

 

Still, the village was nice, although the taxi drive was a bit too much of an exciting experience - think overtaking on blind bends with 600ft drops and no barriers...

Country of Contrasts

From what I've seen so far, Nepal is amazingly diverse place.

 

A few days ago, we drove out to a remote village outside the Kathmandu Valley to go and visit a school set up by a local businessman, and take supplies. It was an awesome experience. We had to drive up roads so bumpy that I kept banging my head on the roof of the truck and had to lay down in the bottom of it (Nepali vehicles definitely aren't designed for tall people). We then carried badminton rackets etc up a narrow path to village, which was absolutely gorgeous - lush green pastures, traditional homes and great views across the countryside.

 

The kids were absolutely adorable, and performed a ceremony and presented us with garlands and freshly picked flowers. We walked around the village and drank tea in several houses, and the kids kept following us around and getting really excited at having their photo taken. It's amazing to see how these people live with such simplicity, and seem so happy and calm.

 

Central Kathmandu, on the other hand, is absolute mayhem. In the daytime, you can sometimes barely move for crazy cars and motorbikes belching out fumes, people selling their wares and locals doing their shopping. And the noise! My god they honk at everything! So much to see, but in my still Westernised state I had to duck out for a coke at strategic points to prevent my brain exploding...