The Garden of Dreams

On Saturday we visited the Garden of Dreams, which is an old formal garden that has been restored by an Austrian NGO and is now operated as a business. It is beautiful and quiet, with many places to find your own space. We explored it all, finding all the fountains and ponds, including one with fish in it, and Toby and Noa spent 20 minutes playing with the gravel in the path. I think we will go back there and next time I will bring a book.

After the garden we did another of our favourite things: we visited the European Bakery to buy fresh brown bread, dried lopsi fruit, cheese, and a chocolate eclair. I wanted to see how long it would take us to walk home so off we went: I had Toby in the backpack and Noa walked part of the way. It took us 45 minutes and wasn't too bad on a Saturday, when there is relatively little traffic- Saturday is the one full day off in the week.

This week is the build up to Dasen, the biggest family holiday of the year. We will have a party at work on Friday afternoon and then next week the office will be closed for 4 days. I'll tell you more later! Many of our staff will take 2 weeks of holiday around this time. At the end of the month is another festival called Tihar, which means 3 days holiday. In a way I'm dreading October because we have so much to do and not enough time to do it. We're going to make the most of it, though, hopefully with a short trek with my friend Mads next week.

OK, I should post this before the internet connection goes or the power is cut off!

Love
CTN

Buddha Air Frequent Flyer

Namaste from Kathmandu Domestic Airport, where I am waiting for Buddha Air flight 603 to Pokhara. This is my third trip to Pokhara in the almost 6 weeks since we arrived. Seriously, I have a Buddha Air frequent flyer card! When I collect enough points I can redeem them for a scenic mountain flight!

I can expect to spend 50% of my time 'in the field' i.e. out of the office in Kathmandu. I have been to Pokhara to attend the end of an 11 week basic training course we organised. Then last week we escorted a monitor from the European Commission, the funder of our project, to see some of the project activities. We started in Pokhara, drove and walked ot a village in the hills (photo above) to see a new community disability worker (CDW) at work, then drove south to the Terai.

Nepal is roughly divided into the so-called hilly region in the north and the flat Terai in the south. This topographical division influences everything: economy and prosperity of individuals, ethnicity and society, politics, even basic health services. In a nutshell: in th esouth are the fertile farmlands, roads and Indian border. Where there are roads it is cheaper to build other infrastructure and provide services. HI Nepal supports 5 rehabilitation centres, which offer prosthetic and orthotic workshops and physiotherapy, and they are all in the Terai belt. In order to reach people in the hills they operate mobile camps periodically, usually by flying to a nearby airport and then driving and walking to the site.

On our last day in the field we had to drive about 30 minutes to Bharatpur Airport for a 3:45 flight. About 4km from the airport we hit a traffic jam. Bishnu, our driver, quickly found out that it was due to a bandh or strike. This has become a common show of people power, especially in, but not limited to, the Terai. A group of people united in a common cause get attention and hopefully action from government by bringing transportation to a halt. Vehicle movement can be tied up for hours. We left Bishnu with the truck and hopped in a bicycle rickshaw that could navigate the jam and reached a bridge that was completely blocked except to foot traffic. There we discovered the reason for the bandh: a man had been beaten to death by police several months ago and evidently no one had yet been held accountable. Kathmandu Valley was also seriously affected the following day. In the end we made our flight and I arrived back in Kathmandu tired and more experienced.

So this is my third trip to Pokhara. This time I will officially close a 3 week course we have organised for experienced CDWs. They have learned about the approach of this project, which is still essentially community based rehabilitation but in a much more holistic way. It focuses on the person with a disability and his family and is strength based instead of problem oriented. This means that instead of going to see someone for the first time and asking what the problem is and looking for all of the weak areas, we ask what he can do, what he would like to be able to do and then set about giving him the tools and adapting his community so that he can do it. It is all about empowering the individual and family while also trying to affect social change in order to achieve full inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of community life.

Immediately following this course the technical team (me and 3 technical officers from HI in Kathmandu) will conduct a 1.5 day course for CDWs who will be taking on the role of technical advisors. They will support less experienced CDWs more frequently than we can based in the capitol.

While I am away enjoying 2 evenings to myself to wander the touristy but pleasant streets of Pokhara (and hopefully see some mountains if the clouds clear), Toby and Noa are home in Kathmandu. Dena, the didi, comes to stay and will bring her daughter and husband with her. It sounds like the kids don't miss me at all, which is great because then I can enjoy my time guilt free!!

Love
C T N

Jumlea in Kathmandu

Well, so much for my plans for a weekly blog update! I can offer 2 reasons for the delay: first, I just started receiving internet access at home and second, work has been absolutely full-on since we arrived. I won't go into a lot of detail about work at this point because I know most people are much more interested in how Toby and Noa are settling in!

It has been difficult for them. It has been 4 weeks now and I can just about leave a room for a minute without them crying. They in turn are just starting to explore outside of whatever room I am in, for a few minutes, coming back to check that I am where they left me. Or so it seems to me. Now and then I see Toby quietly turning the pages of a photo album Grandma gave them: all pictures of family. And they both like to hold my mobile phone to their ear and 'talk' to Grandpa.

I have tried to ease them into the new situation. I started work 3 days after we arrived and that was a Friday so then we had the weekend together. ANd they quickly came to rely on my friend, Karen, who came along as the second adult ont eh trip, as a playmate and caregiver. I had to go to Pokhara (30 minute flight away) for work the week after we arrived so all 4 of us went. (Karen left just last week. We put her in a taxi and stood waving and crying as she drove away.)

It was in Pokhara that we all experienced firsthand how much Nepali people love children. Toby and Noa made many friends near the guesthouse and even walked the children to school one morning. We couldn't walk 10m without having to stop and confirm that yes, they are jumlea (twins), chora, chori (son, daughter) and yes, son was born first. In Nepal it's not just the women who are interested; men are really fond of children too. We have a day guard and a night guard at home (part of a prevention policy; there isn't much for them to deal with, which is good because Pradeep might blow away in a strong wind and Man Bahadur wiles away the evenings playing his flute.) Both of them love to carry either twin around the garden and Noa has fallen asleep on Pradeep's shoulder.

When we returned from Pokhara our 'didi' (means big sister in Nepali) started work. The office had put her at ht etop of a list of candidates and I was more than satisfied with her experience and stated cooking skills (!) Her name is Dena and it didn't take long for Toby and Noa to smile at the sound of her voice in the mornings. She comes from Monday to Friday from 8:30 to 6:00 and then for a few hours on Sunday because as I told her, and she soon discovered for herself, it is impossible to take care of the kids and clean the house.

Part of the problem is the size of the house. I was expecting an apartment or a floor of a house. We have a whole house with a small garden. On the main floor are the kitchen, eating area, living room, bathroom and one bedroom. On the second floor are the master bedroom with bathroom, 2 more bedrooms, another bathroom and a large open area. The third floor has another bedroom and access to a huge rooftop patio. So folks, if you need a bed in Kathmandu, odds are that we have space!

On the bright side I walk to work in less than 10 minutes. And as we have discovered 2 weekends in a row, our location means that after a short micro (shared minivan) ride to the north and we can walk north or east through paddy fields and up hills through pine forests. Kathmandu has a major air pollution problem so it is refreshing to breather cleaner and fresher air.

Some say it is due to the pollution, but conjunctivitis is a common problem here and Toby struggled with it for 10 days, even with eyedrops. He seems to be back to his old self, though, enjoying walking again and excited about seeing new things. Both kids are so good about all the new things they are seeing and smelling and tasting and hearing. Toby likes the music. If we are in a micro and the radio is on he does his little back and forth bop and has added a raised hand for effect.

Rest assured that we are all OK. I could use a bit more sleep in order to be a more patient mother but it will come.

Love
Chris, Toby and Noa