Pokhara has a huge variety of things to be doing, trekking, kayaking, sightseeing and shopping.... but not many easy ways to exercise unless you want to swallow a lot of dirty lake water... so hearing my complaints that i was getting fat - one of the boys, Kamal, invited me to go jogging with him in the mornings. I was expecting a light bit of running but he toured me half way around the town and really made me sweat - he even tried to get me to do pull ups on the bars at the park - there i drew the line.
Unfortunately after a few cold mornings of this i caught a cold - which gave me a good excuse to catch my extra hour of sleep :D

Instead i've been teaching the girls badminton, it seemed unfair that only the boys were any good,, and then the boys teaching me to play table tennis - as they have no net they have to use bricks and the rules are a bit sketchy... but in anycase it keeps us amused and takes their minds off the dreaded exams that are going on currently.






For the last few weeks an ex-volunteer, Rita, has been in town. The greek village she lives in had raised some money for the children so we wined and dined in style with a picnic in the park and pizza in the dark :D















She was also around for the festival of holi where everybody goes around covering each other in color for good wishes and luck in the future. Being European bee-lines were made towards us and at one stage we even had a group of about 20 children chasing us down the road... i just made it to safety behind the gates of the childrens home but i'm afraid Rita was lost to the swarms.. until she led them in to get me!





As a leaving present Rita gave the children several boxes of beads, we spent one afternoon making jewelery before Uncle band it for the exam period. But the children keep making them in secret so it seems every morning i am given a new bracelet or necklace to wear - one of the little boys, Geevan, made me 4 strings of beads and it was very tricky trying to persuade him that i didn't need ALL of them!

Thank you Rita and see you in the summer hoepfully! :D





As i've been in Nepal for almost 3 months now, the ladies of Himalayan Encounters (where i live) decided i needed to 'go native' and took me kurtha shopping. We spent hours wandering in and out of material shops until Gomaya didi and i both found material we liked, then we took it off to the tailors and i picked up the final products a day later.
I wore mine to the picnic with the children and i dont think they believed it was me, they younger children called me a 'heroine' from a film and told me only to wear my kurtha for special occasions so that i didnt spoil it!



Last weekend i decided to go for an explore to Bandipur, there i visited another set of HE staff and extended my Nepali family even more. It was lovely to get out of the city for a couple of days and fill my lungs with fresh countryside air.



I climbed up to the viewpoint and sat lording over the village until the sun was hidden behind hills, then had to rush down before all the daylight disappeared so i wasn't stuck on the hill all night... the next morning i made my way down to the nearby caves (nearby being and hours walk away). I was expecting a 10 minute look around in one cave but on arrival a guide informed me that it was too dangerous to go in alone,, and he was right! There seemed to be hundreds of caves with odd tunnels and holes in the wall interlinking them all, one cave from floor to roof is 70m high! There were also odd formations of rock, stalegmites and stalegtites so my guide pointed out an Elephants ear, special seeds that make up a traditional nepali necklace, a niche in the wall where a priest sat for a month praying and my favourite - a ghosts mouth.



From the caves i made my way down to another village where i grabbed some lunch and caught my breath before jumping on a local bus back to Pokhara. Everyone warmly welcomed me back and wanted to hear all my stories of Bandipur, heaping cups of tea on me and hugging me like they hadn't seen me in years - it really felt like i was returning home to family... i know when i leave i'm really going to miss the guys here.

Speaking of which - i must get back for breakfast so until next time!

xx

Well,, this last month has been pretty busy both at the Childrens Home and in my own time...

I went with the kids on their big school picnic they have once a year,, to a nearby a monastery on the outskirts of Pokhara. Katerina came too, as her last day with the kids. There we helped prepare the food, sang songs as part of the entertainment and went with all the children to visit the monastery.










Then off with 7 other volunteers for a few days of trekking. The views were amazing, weather beatiful... although we did have half an hour of wet walking on our second day - but it meant we saw the mountains a whole lot clearer :D
As if 4 days of walking wasn't enough, the boys and i decided to climb up to the peace pogoda the day after we got back!











Once back with the kids, i accompanied them to dance class - they all get pretty sweaty i tell you! I amused the younger ones with making glasses out of pipe cleaners, and colouring in pictures. Then the older ones with games of ping pong and badminton,, i've even had one of the boys asking him to teach me what little yoga i know!







As well as working with the children at the home, i'm also helping a little boy down the road with his ABC and 123. Half his body was paralysed and now he's learning how to use it again, also i think he may be autistic so finds normal school very hard. I visit him every few days, and both him and his sister are always very pleased to see me.



Last week i went paragliding!!! The clouds behaved nicely and allowed a good sight of the mountains and the sun felt lovely against the cold air so high up,, i saw the whole of pokhara stretching out into the haze and uncountable rolls and hills in all directions.. my pilot was a french guy and sang to me as we swooped and soared away... Why was i born a human being?
I'd do it every day if i could but it's very expensive, so i'll have to save that as a hobby for when i become rich and famous.
Unfortunately i've no pictures as i just wanted to enjoy the experiance instead of snapping away - but i think a friend of mine got a couple so maybe you can see in a few more weeks.

We also had Shivaratri last week where everyone celebrates by heating up sugarcane on a big fire and then banging it against the floor to pop it open. I bought i kids some so that afternoon we all got very sticky,, then in the evening we went to join in with the big fire down the road where there was singing, drumming and dancing too.







The day before yesterday i got back from Chitwan, there with 3 other volunteers i went canoeing, riding elephants (saw a rhino :)), visitng cultural museums, taking part in stick dances and bird watching,, all in the space of two days. I used the 5 hour bus ride home for sleeping!











Well typing all this up has been almost as exhausting as doing it all again... so i'm gonna call it a day.

Puchi vetum la - See you later/ Until we meet again

Life in Pokhara has now settled into a routine, i wake at 6.30 every morn to hurridly slurp down a cup of tea and then off to the home by 7.30 to help peel potatoes or chop cabbages for the morning dhal bhat.
Usually i get a couple of the kids wanting to help and i have to watch out that the younger ones dont cut themselves.

Theres always last minute homework or desperate revision to be done so i'm pulled in all directions, with the girls all needing their lovely long hair to be plaited too.
The kids then all squish into the dining room and gobble down their morning dhal bhat usually getting most of it on the floor,, which i then have to sweep up later.

By this stage we're usually late with only 15 minutes to get changed, brush teeth and rush to school. The children all look tremendously smart in their uniform and take great pride in looking good. After singing the national anthem we trundle onto school in a line (youngest to oldest) with me practically dragging the two youngest ones to hurry us along.





During the day i was helping a girl in class 10 with some English and Maths revision as shes having her SlC exams now. Shes been very worried, as in Nepal if you don't pass all your exams you don't get to move up the year and if she doesn't pass she can't go to college.
I also helped with sorting rice, cleaning round the house and playing with the cute little puppies of their dog - Joni.

.. However i came here to work with kids not to cook and clean,, so with Auntie we decided i should have the rest of the morning off and then after picking the children from school, stay later into the evening.





There was also another volunteer - Katerina, at the childrens home when i arrived. We became fast friends and spend lots of our spare time together, drinking lots of tea and making friends with a local band... but shes now decided its time to move on so the next couple of days are her last here :(

Once the kids are safely home and changed into more comfortable attire, they all get some tea and fruit or biscuits before being sentenced to the study room for homework time.
Here i get questions left, right and centre usually with a little one on my lap as i read them a story. They have lots of English story books but not very good English so i usually have to translate the story into Nepalese for them - thank goodness theres no language barrier here!





The kids here get a lot of random holidays as the government every now and then decide to have a 'bunda' so on one of these days Katerina and i took the kids to the park. The boys all disappeared off to play football and so with the girls we played stuck in the mud, grandmothers footsteps, duck duck goose and many more. I'd bought them all some juice and biscuits which made a nice break from all the running around.



This is Katerinas and my favorite tea place (they do very yummy tibetian bread) with Clare, another volunteer who came recently but is working in another placement.
...

Well my cameras just died which means i can't get any more photos off it.. but ones of the school picnic we went to yesterday and my first ever football match (this afternoon - yeay!) to come.



.. Ibi .. you'll be glad to know the weird sandwiches are still going on... I've discovered marmite and chocolate ice cream :D

Ramro din gurnuse - Have a nice day!

Righto, hallo all!

These photos are off my first two weeks in Nepal (and all back to front), not any of kids yet but uploading those soon.

The first week here i stayed with Clare and Purdeep, old friends of dads. Their two kids, Siddy and Kanchy were off for the xmas hols so it fell down to me (and their grandma Pat) to entertain them. The four of us explored Patan durbar square and Thamel and i came up with crazy ideas for play games. First we played dressing up games - becoming pirates for the evening and kidnapping various household members to walk the plank on our makeshift ship. Then we decided to build a huge den, using hundreds of kikoys and poles and sofas, it was so big that i could actaully stand up inside it!
On my last day with them we decided to construct a dragon :) Using cardboard boxes for the body and eggcup holders for spikes, we taped, glued and newspapered ourselves into a happy oblivion for the afternoon.
I had a great time with the kids and Clare + Deep were very hospitable but then it was time for me to start the real roaming.

I met up with Himalayan encounters and they handed me an itinery so packed that i felt tired just reading it. That week i spent wandering round all of Kathmandus big tourist spots, temples, stopas, cremeation grounds.. and ice cream parlours. A small stint out of Kathmandu and into the countryside for a couple of nights, delicious suntalas which we picked off trees and hot fresh milk at 6 in the morning. We did a tiny 2 hour trek to a temple... where i played (and won!) a game of table tennis with some local teens, and enjoyed a bowl of fresh yoghurt in Baktapur,, then the following day - made it to the Trisuli centre just in time to help the 'Trisuli youth friday litter clean up' - great. All the gang at Trisuli and hostfamilies/staff along the way were very welcoming and astonished at my Nepali, i had fun surprising everyone with my language skills. But finally at the end of a chaotic week we finally made it to Pokhara where i got to meet the staff i'd be living with for the next 3 months.

It was great to be assigned a room - which was mine alone - to contain all my mess and somewhere i could settle into. Now, two and a half weeks down the line i feel like this is home. I've got my close family - Bj, Raj and Chakra dhai as well as a few extended family,, i've explored the area quite a bit - gone kayaking and been on Nepalese radio,, and am thoroughly enjoying my daily allowance of two meals of dhal bhat a day :D

More stories on the kids to come within the next week.

Namaste!