Fidelma & Tony's Big Adventure

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

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...