Life continues in down town Basandara

It amazes me how everyone accepts that there is never any power.  It seems that the Government sends out a timetable but it never lives up to it.  

The first night I was in my room reading and the lights go out so I go into the kitchen where there is a solar light and wander off to bed a bit later and go use my torch to get ready for bed and about 0200 the whole room is ablaze as the power has come on and every light in the room is on.  

I have now learnt to make sure the lights are off before I go to sleep.

There is a TV in the main bedroom and it is never turned off, so another indicator that the power is on is the TV blaring out at 100 decibels.

I have one power point in the room so I have my mobile, kindle or computer permanently plugged in so that I never miss the power coming on.

My Host family is made up of the wife Gyanu and she is about 25 and very interesting, she has a great command of English and we spend a lot of time together and more than often it is lying on my bed with her daughter there as well.  Gyanu on the phone looking as Facebook and Adshmina reading my Kindle and I am just lying there trying to reading as well. 

Gyanu's husband is away working in Dubai as a chef and has been away for over a year but is coming home on holiday soon.  They speak at least once a day.

The daughter is 7 and spends most of her time moving between floors spending time with the various members of the family.  It is lovely that the Grandmother comes down every evening to say goodnight to her grand daughter.

Gyanu’s husband is the third and youngest brother.

We had a holiday yesterday (Sunday) it was for New Year but I am not sure whose.

I caught a taxi into Thamil Sunday mainly to pick up my jacket I had ordered, I was staying the night and planned to wear the jacket out to dinner but unfortunately the jacket wasn’t finished and I had nothing to wear.  

The lovely shop keeper lent me a jacket for the night and I dropped it off to him this morning on the way back home.  How many shopkeepers would do that in Australia?

Dinner that evening was to welcome 2 new volunteers, one from NZ who is going to work in the orphanage for 3 months and a lass from Spain who will be working with Sue and myself on the Women’s Empowerment program.

Sue and I had planned only to go to Basundhara only and spend the afternoon doing some planning but halfway through the lesson, one of the ladies came into the classroom in her red sari followed by 3 others and said that we were all to go to her house for dancing as her sister-in-law was being married, so the whole class got up and we all walked up the street to spend the next 3 hours dancing, eating together.  

Sue and I have been invited to the second day of the wedding which is a big party tomorrow night in a fancy party house.  I have nothing to wear, the ladies all dress up in sari and heaps of jewellery.  I don’t even have a dress.

I met Sue outside of the reception room and we were made very welcome by all present and they didn’t seem to notice that I was still dressed in the clothes I wore to work.

The Bride and Groom were both from Australia and they had met there and come back here to get married, they return in 3 weeks.

We went into the reception room to meet the newly married couple and then went on the end of the line to try the food.  

It was a buffet and the last two dishes were mutton stew and chicken wings.  I thought I had gone to heaven but on trying to chew the fatty, gristly mutton I decided the poor old thing must have walked from India.

People were constantly coming into the room and it is not uncommon for over 600 guests to be invited to a wedding.  

I can understand how a wedding could put the bride’s family into debt for many years to come.  The music and dancing started about 1900 but I only stayed till about 1930 as I was not sure how I would go climbing those bl…dy stairs in the dark.  It turned out that it wasn’t as bad as I though it was going to be.

Life continued as normal for the rest of the week, we have come to an understanding about the food.  I cook myself an omelette with toast in the mornings and sometimes eat vegetables must most times I make some soup or have a large lunch and eat fruit at night.

Saturday the 8^th was International Women’s day and Mayte and I joined the ladies for a rally and a walk around the district.  

It was interesting as it was supposed to start at 0730 and I think I was the only one there on time, the others came later after they had done the washing and cooked Dhal Baart for the family. 

I noticed that a couple of the ladies were wearing the same sari and on asking I found out that it was a uniform and it looked really great.

The organisers eventually arrived about 0800 and then we had to have pictures taken and then organised into two rows and the megaphone had to be checked and a speaker found and then off we went, it was great fun.  

The younger women were really serious and shouting and waving their arms around.

I knew a lot of the women as there were in both my classes and they kept Matye and myself company as we walk through the streets, up steep hills and down even steeper slopes.  We walked for about an hour chanting and disrupting the traffic.  I asked if it was legal to have the rally and they said that 5 years ago it would not have been but now it was OK.

After the walk we went into the Community Hall for tea and food which was a great idea and we each introduced ourselves and they were thrilled that both Mayte and myself did it in Nepalese.

At 1130 the Minister for Education arrived to open the Learning Centre which is where I teach.  It is a shame really but because I was white, I was taken into the room and made to sit next to the Minister.  

I did none of the work to get things organised but was made a special guest and always seem to be put in front of everyone.

We were then to be taken back to the community centre for more tea and foods but by this time it was after 1200 and Mayte and I made our excuses that we were meeting friends in Thamal and left.

I picked up my long awaited jacket which of course now I don’t need it as the weather has turned warmer and I am now wearing short sleeved shirts with a singlet underneath.

Back to work on Sunday, it is quite hard working 6 days a week, you really never get a chance to do nothing.

There is another holiday this Sunday but will tell you more about that later.

Although it is difficult to fill in the 2 hours each day with both classes especially as some of the ladies have a good grasp of the English language while some of the them are learning their own language as well. 

On Thursday I went to yet another school which was further away again and can take as long as 45 minutes in a bus.  

This school is run by a very strong Napalese women and the ladies attend for 5 hours a day and they work towards exams and certificates.  Very different but also great fun, we have introduced training aids and I even took them outside of the classroom to find partners in an alphabet game.

I am going to stay at the Brighter Futures home which is an orphanage run by VSN and we will go today Saturday so that we don’t travel on Sunday which is a holy day and it seems the idea is to get drunk and throw paint at everyone, so you don’t travel on that day.

It is a shame as we were going into the city but so many people advised us not too because the target western women and evidently it isn’t fun.

We will stay there Sunday night as well and then we come home to teach then back into the city to stay the night as we have a meeting in town and the busses stop running before I can come home.

The weather is beautiful.  The sun burns off the mist and pollution by about 9 and them it is superb until about 1800 when the temperature drop but not by that much.