We loved Sondha! This was our last stay in a village as the schools are now closed for the monsoon making the way difficult. Well, it was difficult enough as we had traverse the madi nadi river via two bamboo stalks - one trip and your in Pokhara in pieces! I have got quite adept at scrambling over rocks and muddy terrain as well as dodgy bridges but I still can't cope with dal baht in the morning.
Sondha school was washed away by the mighty madi nadi, so Pahar Trust built another one. Once again we found motivated students, lethargic teachers and a school with no resources at all. We pulled out all the stops to inject rockets of enthusiasm into the staff, harness the energy of the children and create materials out of thin air. However, I don't want to paint a bleak picture - yet again we found warmth, people who really looked after us and lots of good humour. One teacher showed us how he directed his enthusiasm when he took to the floor with some exhuberant dancing at the school's singing competition (what a show stopper, and I thought it was supposed to be about the children!).
Tony also engaged in some extra curricular activity, joining the boys who were preparing the rice fields for planting, up at 5am to catch some fish (twice) and swimming at every opportunity. He also joined in the chase to catch the poor cock which would end up in the pot as celebration of our visit and wanted to pluck it too, but our host thought that was taking village life too far. I also went native and tried milking a buffalo ('imagine it's like squeezing out a marigold glove,' said Tony - can't remember the last time I did that,), and I actually managed to do it - but the woman who was with me and the buffalo tired very quickly at my feeble squeezing and with one shove I was ousted out of position. It stank in there anyway.
Bahni and Bai (little sister and brother) - our hosts - were great. We didn't even have to eat dal baht in the morning which was a blessing. They grew all their own food including coffee and Raksi (the local brew) and so it would have been rude not to partake in a bit of Raksi and take a bottle home (watch out for the Nepali night at ours, folks). This family also looked after three girls who came from either very poor families of families with problems. Although Bahni and Bai had little money themselves they looked after the girls without getting any money. The generosity of the village community has really moved us - we'll be looking after all the no-hopers in Merritt Rd when we get back!
As to our living conditions, remember the tap shared by the villagers in Gumlek on the high street? Little did we know what luxury that was. This time we just had a stream running by our place where they did EVERYTHING (including the little boy we lived with poohing in the water just downstream of someone washing their teeth! We didn't drink the water from there but had to go down a treacherous rock face to collect drinking water from a fresh spring. Actually, though, we really enjoyed this aspect of village life and joined in the weekly bath in the big river - cue trying to wash in a raging river while keeping all your clothes on then drying them while wearing them before the afternoon monsoon. The toilet was much the same as Gumlek (couldn't shut the door, next to the buffalo barn etc), but the critters were more varied. Yes, we had big spiders but also huge cockroaches (in our 'room' - tin roof, no windows, mud walls) and snakes!
On our last day they had a big farewell programme (tikka, garlands), then our family decided to dress us us in traditional Gurung outfits. For me this consisted of a lots of skirts held up by a lot of material - very hot, but also very beautiful and Amma even lent me her wonderful necklace. Tony also looked the part - wearing a lunghi, topi and bhangra (see pic). We then danced the night away, while the teachers came and sang songs. We even sang The Fields of Athenry - went down like a lead balloon - I think they were expecting something more upbeat or the Celine Dion song from Titanic which strangely seems to be a big hit with teachers (?).
Our wonderful stay ended with a treacherous bus journey over barely constructed 'roads' at a knife's edge from huge drops in to the river. But the danger was assuaged by the chatter of the locals and the soothing tones of the Nepali singers coming through the airwaves from the bus radio. So we 'sat' back, held onto the rail with both hands to stop us hitting our heads on the seat in front and the music, the chattering and the bumps wash over us as we gazed our last on the majestic himalayas. FAB x
Thursday 17 June 2010
Tuesday 1 June 2010
Sunday 30 May 2010
Gumlek: "Dolma and Toe-kneeeee"
These were the affectionate names that our Amma (mother in Nepalese) called us in lieu of really understanding how to pronounce my name and enjoying saying Tony's. We have just returned from Gumlek - a remote village with a road that no-one seems to use - after a 2 week stint in their school. It was a bit of a rushed decision about where we would go, and on arrival a lack of clarity about where we would stay, but soon enough we were made comfortable on the covered balcony of the senior Amma's house. We covered the balustrade with a bit of muslin for our own limited privacy and tried not to look too hard at the open rafters above and the cobwebs and critters all around - thank god for the mosquito net. And also thanks to the Ghurkas for installing a water project in the village five years ago. This meant that we had a tap (the good news), the 'interesting' news was that it was one of 17 in the village and located on the main thoroughfare and so any ablutions were to be conducted in full view of the whole village (thank god for wet wipes). We noticed that people especially women took to laborious lengths to try and wash as discreetly as possible, but I wondered how the women in particular managed to wash their nether regions in full view of the bench opposite the tap - it looked complicated, embarrassing and only to be done at night (but then there was the mosquito problem). So I declined to wash at all and gave the bits a bit of a run through with a wet wipe (well, I thought you'd want details!). The other interesting aspect of our living arrangements was the position and aspect of the toilet. Yes, it was a squat toilet and you had to climb over a stile to get to it, past a cow barn and their excrement and the ingenious gas creating cow pooh machine (don't ask) to a rickety old toilet where the wooden door didn't shut and you didn't want to look too closely at anything. Not a place you would want to venture at night (cue bottle by the bedside). Oh and there was no electricity. They did have hydro power but due to the dry season the water was needed for the rice fields. It got dark at 7pm - so early nights for us (especially as we were woken up at 5am). The shop sold batteries and rice and sweets and there was no phone nor a signal.
I've got to say, this place was more of a challenge than Tangting and on our first Saturday, we had a bit of a wobble ('I've had enough, I want to go home - me too.'). People were friendly, but not as sociable as our other village, to be fair we couldn't communicate and I think we felt a bit lonely. The school was a challenge but there was a reticence at our presence and we were not sure if they wanted us there. And there was the lack of control over food - dal baht twice a day (8.30am, 7.30am), a banana at breakfast which was cooked by different women in the village and brought to our place. This kind of turned into a competition about who could cook the best dal baht in the village for the volunteers and to check we actually enjoyed it they hovered over us while we sat and ate. Only hunger and knowing there was no other means of obtaining food forced it down. And to be honest some were good and some were terrible. Anyway, we worked our way through our wobble and decided we would stick it out and then review our position. After that things improved.
We loved being in the village - its peace, its natural order governed by the environment and the need to feed their animals, tend the land and feed their families. The villagers lives as far as we could see contained not much more than this. Sometimes they went on a day trip to the city Damoli (5hours walk away - each way!), but mostly they got up at 4.30am, collected water (not everyone lived near a tap), went out to get leaves for the buffalo, goats that lived nearby, husked corn and the ground it by a hand mill, made thread by hand on a spindle from goat wool, went out shooting, tended the animals, had a chat, ate dinner, washed themselves and the children and that was it. Tony helped our 'Buwa' (father) to hoe a field ready for rice by hand with a antiquated hoe - it was hard to keep up with the old boy but he did it. He also wanted to go out shooting but they were having none of it! Life in the village was like watching life in a museum or an extract of National Geographic - agrarian life without a machine in sight. It was great to witness life which we would only now find reenacted in a museum.
One night we listened to a house tune on our shared IPod and cast our minds back to how much fun we have had dancing the night away with friends - but that hedonistic life was in a parallel universe to these people and it made us wonder at our own culture - we also said how much we could do with a night out and hope someone will be organising a good party over the summer! Saying that, on our last night the Amma group (an excellent co-operative of women in every village that operate a banking system and elicit regular payments from all the villagers and then determine how the money should be spent) had a dancing and singing party which consisted of them singing and taking it in turns to dance and them insisting that we danced all night! They loved Tony's Russian dancing interpretation of their moves (see pix). A great night!
The school work was hard, we worked well with some teachers to support them in their teaching and offer ideas for more practical approaches to their lessons, but some of the more strategic issues we were not able to tackle with the head as he seemed happy with the status quo. The language barrier was also a challenge and we wondered at our decision to do this work without a crash course in Nepali. At the end of the Wed of our second week, the school announced there was a local religious holiday the next day and maybe the day after. So no school. We decided to go with a teacher to another village and came upon the local priest who was taking offerings for the religious festival - the 'temple' was outside under the people tree (where all the villagers meet). As we were watching him. people came up with a goat and chickens to sacrifice. Oh dear - I'd never seen an animal killed not least for religious reasons. As we watched the priest doused the goat with water then got out a sharp sickle and slit its throat - yes, blood spurted out. It was gruesome but not cruel (he did have to saw the head off). It only happened once a year and then the family ate the goat. The teacher asked if we thought it was against animal rights and I said I didn't feel it was and that a chicken or cow pumped full of antibiotics in a box was worse. The chickens went the same way but flapped after the beheading!
On our last day we took a whole school picture and they gave us garlands and tikka and wished us well. We had decided to leave a day early due to the strike and our friendly teacher accompanied us on the 3-hour walk to a village where they assured us we could get a jeep to the city. We wanted to leave early that morning but communication and various other factors meant we didn't get away until 1pm so when we arrived at the village there was no signal to call a jeep and the jeeps had finished anyway. Options, stay there (it was horrible), walk three hours to the city (but the porters didn't want to carry our bags that far), walk 2 hours back with them to a local house in the jungle and try again the next day (but there may be a strike so no vehicles). At that point, we were tired and emotional and fed up. But as they say here ' something will happen' and it did. We got a jeep after a 3.5hr wait and took off in the night on the dangerous 'track' with one headlight, one chicken, a goat and a baby. We hit Damoli and got a mini bus taxi to Pokhara (where you had to hold on for dear life as the driver took the roads as if in the grand prix) and finally got to the hotel at 10.30pm knackered! Nine hours to get back. We needed to reflect on our volunteering and our experience there. But undeterred we are determined to go back - I think we are just settling into this village existence...
I've got to say, this place was more of a challenge than Tangting and on our first Saturday, we had a bit of a wobble ('I've had enough, I want to go home - me too.'). People were friendly, but not as sociable as our other village, to be fair we couldn't communicate and I think we felt a bit lonely. The school was a challenge but there was a reticence at our presence and we were not sure if they wanted us there. And there was the lack of control over food - dal baht twice a day (8.30am, 7.30am), a banana at breakfast which was cooked by different women in the village and brought to our place. This kind of turned into a competition about who could cook the best dal baht in the village for the volunteers and to check we actually enjoyed it they hovered over us while we sat and ate. Only hunger and knowing there was no other means of obtaining food forced it down. And to be honest some were good and some were terrible. Anyway, we worked our way through our wobble and decided we would stick it out and then review our position. After that things improved.
We loved being in the village - its peace, its natural order governed by the environment and the need to feed their animals, tend the land and feed their families. The villagers lives as far as we could see contained not much more than this. Sometimes they went on a day trip to the city Damoli (5hours walk away - each way!), but mostly they got up at 4.30am, collected water (not everyone lived near a tap), went out to get leaves for the buffalo, goats that lived nearby, husked corn and the ground it by a hand mill, made thread by hand on a spindle from goat wool, went out shooting, tended the animals, had a chat, ate dinner, washed themselves and the children and that was it. Tony helped our 'Buwa' (father) to hoe a field ready for rice by hand with a antiquated hoe - it was hard to keep up with the old boy but he did it. He also wanted to go out shooting but they were having none of it! Life in the village was like watching life in a museum or an extract of National Geographic - agrarian life without a machine in sight. It was great to witness life which we would only now find reenacted in a museum.
One night we listened to a house tune on our shared IPod and cast our minds back to how much fun we have had dancing the night away with friends - but that hedonistic life was in a parallel universe to these people and it made us wonder at our own culture - we also said how much we could do with a night out and hope someone will be organising a good party over the summer! Saying that, on our last night the Amma group (an excellent co-operative of women in every village that operate a banking system and elicit regular payments from all the villagers and then determine how the money should be spent) had a dancing and singing party which consisted of them singing and taking it in turns to dance and them insisting that we danced all night! They loved Tony's Russian dancing interpretation of their moves (see pix). A great night!
The school work was hard, we worked well with some teachers to support them in their teaching and offer ideas for more practical approaches to their lessons, but some of the more strategic issues we were not able to tackle with the head as he seemed happy with the status quo. The language barrier was also a challenge and we wondered at our decision to do this work without a crash course in Nepali. At the end of the Wed of our second week, the school announced there was a local religious holiday the next day and maybe the day after. So no school. We decided to go with a teacher to another village and came upon the local priest who was taking offerings for the religious festival - the 'temple' was outside under the people tree (where all the villagers meet). As we were watching him. people came up with a goat and chickens to sacrifice. Oh dear - I'd never seen an animal killed not least for religious reasons. As we watched the priest doused the goat with water then got out a sharp sickle and slit its throat - yes, blood spurted out. It was gruesome but not cruel (he did have to saw the head off). It only happened once a year and then the family ate the goat. The teacher asked if we thought it was against animal rights and I said I didn't feel it was and that a chicken or cow pumped full of antibiotics in a box was worse. The chickens went the same way but flapped after the beheading!
On our last day we took a whole school picture and they gave us garlands and tikka and wished us well. We had decided to leave a day early due to the strike and our friendly teacher accompanied us on the 3-hour walk to a village where they assured us we could get a jeep to the city. We wanted to leave early that morning but communication and various other factors meant we didn't get away until 1pm so when we arrived at the village there was no signal to call a jeep and the jeeps had finished anyway. Options, stay there (it was horrible), walk three hours to the city (but the porters didn't want to carry our bags that far), walk 2 hours back with them to a local house in the jungle and try again the next day (but there may be a strike so no vehicles). At that point, we were tired and emotional and fed up. But as they say here ' something will happen' and it did. We got a jeep after a 3.5hr wait and took off in the night on the dangerous 'track' with one headlight, one chicken, a goat and a baby. We hit Damoli and got a mini bus taxi to Pokhara (where you had to hold on for dear life as the driver took the roads as if in the grand prix) and finally got to the hotel at 10.30pm knackered! Nine hours to get back. We needed to reflect on our volunteering and our experience there. But undeterred we are determined to go back - I think we are just settling into this village existence...
Tuesday 18 May 2010
Monday 17 May 2010
ABC...as easy as 1, 2, 3...
and 4 and 5 and 600 and the rest of the bloody metres we had to walk up and down to reach Annapurna Base Camp! But it was amazing when we got there. More of that later. After a week of watching as the Maoists tightened their stranglehold on the people they allegedly said they were trying to help, witnessing threatening rallies, demonstrations through the streets with sticks on fire and stories of breaking windows, destroying vehicles and attacking journalists we decided to get the hell out of Pokhara.
This meant home or a trek so as we were in the mountains we decided on the latter. It did mean that we would have to walk two days to get to the start along the road but I saw that as a warm up. We hired a porter and guide. To be honest we didn't really need to guide as Tony even started telling him which was the best route, but we decided on reflection as well as helping him to avoid 16hrs a day working in a kettle factory in Malaysia, he also acted as marriage mediator. With the guide: 'OK let's go this way our guide knows best, or perhaps a different route, I like your alternative Tony, and no problem Tony if you want to skip ahead, my guide is with me to break my fall as I slip down a crevice between two rocky outcrops. Without guide: 'Are you sure this is the right route? But how do you know? I know you can read a map but you've never been in the Himalaya! I told you we should have got a guide! I can't believe you're making us walk this far! I thought you said it was only.... and so on you get the drift. But happy days we got the guide and he soon became known as my shadow, you won't see a pic of me without him unless he took it.
So as you can imagine to get to the bottom of one of the highest mountains in the world (Annapurna is over 8000metres) you have to do a lot of walking up. Iknew that!!!!!! But I just didn't appreciate HOW MUCH walking up I had to do. In fact we had to climb 3000 metres but in order to do that we had to walk up and down 6000 metres. Yes, just as you felt that you couldn't walk up another step (the trail consisted of a lot of steep steps) but you felt proud of yourself that you'd achieved the top of a steep climb and knocked off a few hundred metres, you hoped to look out over a flat bit only to find that the bloody path went downhill again - all those metres gained were to be lost. And if they were lost you knew that this meant that they had to be climbed again (see earlier about base camp being high up - 4144 metres to be exact). I had a meltdown on Day 2 - I felt I couldn't go another step and suggested to Tony he went on his own to Base Camp (not an option). So I gave myself a serious talking to (mainly consisting of: 'It will be such an achievement" 'Who cares?' 'I can do it - I trained for it' 'What a couple of days in Dulwich Park' 'I'll let myself down' 'Yeah right'. And so it was on Day 3 I got up knowing there was another huge ascent but determined to get through it. And I did by striding on ahead ALONE while Tony and guide lagged behind (on purpose) - my only way of doing it was to imagine I was really fast and had to stride ahead while they couldn't catch up. It worked and I was so happy I did a little performance of 'The Hills are Alive...' much to the bemused guide and porter.
After that it was hard but fine. Oh and the views were spectacular. We got up at 5.30am every day to look at the mountains and set off at 7am. We walked about 5 hours a day then settled down in our tea house to watch the inevitable rain, chat to other trekkers and eat dal baht and drink Coke. The final push was to Machhapuchhare base camp at 3700m - it was a steep climb of 1250m that day - a killer. Apparently you can get altitude sickness at 3500m so of course I thought I had it once we got to MBC - well, I had a headache. And it was FREEZING but Machhapuchhare (Fishtail) was also majestic, moving (not literally) and Mahoosive! Then we got stuck in a hailstorm - great big lumps of ice that could knock you out I kid you not. So once in the dinning (sic) room we huddled under blankets, drank black tea, learned about the tetris mountains and life for a 20 something in Newfoundland and went to bed at 8pm. Well we were getting up at 4am to make our final ascent to Annapurna Base Camp.
I had struggled to walk on these treacherous paths in full daylight, so i was not looking forward to starting off in the dark with just a headtorch but luckily I had my brilliant white raincoat on so that added extra light. And in no time at all the sun lit up behind the peaks and gave the sky a brilliant orange glow, against which an amphitheatre of mountains revealed themselves to us. And suddenly all the steps, the trips, the falls the bad dal baht didn't matter at all because at last we reached the reason we had started this trek to surrounded by these awesome (with a capital 'O') mountains. For Tony, it was something he had read about for so many years, he knew the names of every peak (which was more than the guide did) and it was a culmination for him of all those stories of intrepid mountaineers who had attempted and succeeded and failed to climb these seemingly impenetrable peaks. Then we had pancakes and tea for breakfast and walked back down.
Of course the walk back down was harder, because we didn't have a goal, well we did: to enjoy every moment but also to get back to a pizza and beer. So it took us 7.5 days which we thought was pretty good going. Some people were up there for ages taking their time and maybe if we had been on our own we would have stayed longer, but we were feeling that we needed a bit of space from our guide and also needed to feel warmth in our bones again.
Now we are back in Pokhara, I feel ecstatic that this is the biggest physical challenge I have done. Saying that, I won't be doing it again (I know my limits) but it has made me realise what I can make this 46year old body do if I put my mind into it. As for Tony, Everest Base Camp for him next.... he was like a little mountain goat bless him. Pictures to follow as always.
This meant home or a trek so as we were in the mountains we decided on the latter. It did mean that we would have to walk two days to get to the start along the road but I saw that as a warm up. We hired a porter and guide. To be honest we didn't really need to guide as Tony even started telling him which was the best route, but we decided on reflection as well as helping him to avoid 16hrs a day working in a kettle factory in Malaysia, he also acted as marriage mediator. With the guide: 'OK let's go this way our guide knows best, or perhaps a different route, I like your alternative Tony, and no problem Tony if you want to skip ahead, my guide is with me to break my fall as I slip down a crevice between two rocky outcrops. Without guide: 'Are you sure this is the right route? But how do you know? I know you can read a map but you've never been in the Himalaya! I told you we should have got a guide! I can't believe you're making us walk this far! I thought you said it was only.... and so on you get the drift. But happy days we got the guide and he soon became known as my shadow, you won't see a pic of me without him unless he took it.
So as you can imagine to get to the bottom of one of the highest mountains in the world (Annapurna is over 8000metres) you have to do a lot of walking up. Iknew that!!!!!! But I just didn't appreciate HOW MUCH walking up I had to do. In fact we had to climb 3000 metres but in order to do that we had to walk up and down 6000 metres. Yes, just as you felt that you couldn't walk up another step (the trail consisted of a lot of steep steps) but you felt proud of yourself that you'd achieved the top of a steep climb and knocked off a few hundred metres, you hoped to look out over a flat bit only to find that the bloody path went downhill again - all those metres gained were to be lost. And if they were lost you knew that this meant that they had to be climbed again (see earlier about base camp being high up - 4144 metres to be exact). I had a meltdown on Day 2 - I felt I couldn't go another step and suggested to Tony he went on his own to Base Camp (not an option). So I gave myself a serious talking to (mainly consisting of: 'It will be such an achievement" 'Who cares?' 'I can do it - I trained for it' 'What a couple of days in Dulwich Park' 'I'll let myself down' 'Yeah right'. And so it was on Day 3 I got up knowing there was another huge ascent but determined to get through it. And I did by striding on ahead ALONE while Tony and guide lagged behind (on purpose) - my only way of doing it was to imagine I was really fast and had to stride ahead while they couldn't catch up. It worked and I was so happy I did a little performance of 'The Hills are Alive...' much to the bemused guide and porter.
After that it was hard but fine. Oh and the views were spectacular. We got up at 5.30am every day to look at the mountains and set off at 7am. We walked about 5 hours a day then settled down in our tea house to watch the inevitable rain, chat to other trekkers and eat dal baht and drink Coke. The final push was to Machhapuchhare base camp at 3700m - it was a steep climb of 1250m that day - a killer. Apparently you can get altitude sickness at 3500m so of course I thought I had it once we got to MBC - well, I had a headache. And it was FREEZING but Machhapuchhare (Fishtail) was also majestic, moving (not literally) and Mahoosive! Then we got stuck in a hailstorm - great big lumps of ice that could knock you out I kid you not. So once in the dinning (sic) room we huddled under blankets, drank black tea, learned about the tetris mountains and life for a 20 something in Newfoundland and went to bed at 8pm. Well we were getting up at 4am to make our final ascent to Annapurna Base Camp.
I had struggled to walk on these treacherous paths in full daylight, so i was not looking forward to starting off in the dark with just a headtorch but luckily I had my brilliant white raincoat on so that added extra light. And in no time at all the sun lit up behind the peaks and gave the sky a brilliant orange glow, against which an amphitheatre of mountains revealed themselves to us. And suddenly all the steps, the trips, the falls the bad dal baht didn't matter at all because at last we reached the reason we had started this trek to surrounded by these awesome (with a capital 'O') mountains. For Tony, it was something he had read about for so many years, he knew the names of every peak (which was more than the guide did) and it was a culmination for him of all those stories of intrepid mountaineers who had attempted and succeeded and failed to climb these seemingly impenetrable peaks. Then we had pancakes and tea for breakfast and walked back down.
Of course the walk back down was harder, because we didn't have a goal, well we did: to enjoy every moment but also to get back to a pizza and beer. So it took us 7.5 days which we thought was pretty good going. Some people were up there for ages taking their time and maybe if we had been on our own we would have stayed longer, but we were feeling that we needed a bit of space from our guide and also needed to feel warmth in our bones again.
Now we are back in Pokhara, I feel ecstatic that this is the biggest physical challenge I have done. Saying that, I won't be doing it again (I know my limits) but it has made me realise what I can make this 46year old body do if I put my mind into it. As for Tony, Everest Base Camp for him next.... he was like a little mountain goat bless him. Pictures to follow as always.
Saturday 1 May 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)