Nepal - Pokhara

The story continues: there are now almost as many episodes as there are Bond movies... and, not to toot my own horn, but I'd say my ramblings are equally exciting.

But enough about double-oh-seven. How's Pokhara? I know that's the question on everybody's lips, but you need wait no longer; here's the answer: Pokhara's going great!

Okay, we've had our trip-ups and snags, but we're living with a really nice family in a spectacularly beautiful valley, and that's the most important stuff. The city itself is a funny kind of L-shape, since it squeezes into the space left by the "hills" around it. (and I say "hills" only to differentiate them from the truly awesome mountains that poke through the clouds on the clearest days - the Annapurnas). At the tip of the "L" is Fewa Lake, around which is the tourist district, aptly and simply named "Lakeside". Kel and I find ourselves there whenever we need a "Western comfort", like the internet or toilet paper. I'm there right now. The lake really is surprisingly clean and nice, with huge jungle-covered hills rising from its edges, and steps of bright green rice-fields near the water itself. We went para-gliding from the top of one of the bigger hills on Sunday, and we got a really great view of the town (that actually reminded me a lot of the Google Maps of the area). That was a good time, until my para-glider guy decided to do a neat little trick with me, where he spiralled at top speed toward the lake. I'm kind of impressed with myself for holding on to what was a stupidly dense pre-para-gliding breakfast.

The family we're living with has been kind and has done what they can to include us in the family. There are very old school gender roles here, and I've found the "head of the house", Ramesh, seems to do a lot more talking and wheeling-and-dealing, while Gita, his wife, gets very little credit for doing a huge amount of work around the house. The family is rather extended, and all considered (including me, Kelly and another volunteer, Hayley), there are 9 people living in the house. We eat dhal bhat (dhal and rice) for every meal without exception, although on festivals we'll also have pappadums, prawn crackers and "buff chilli" (buffalo meat fried with tomato and chilli), and sometimes Western-style hot chips. These special occasions occur about once a week; since we've arrived we've had the Cow Festival, the Father's Festival, the (3-day) Woman's Festival, and the Transport Festival (yes, the have a public holiday to celebrate transport!).

My hospital experience at Manipal has been okay, not great, not terrible. I've spent the last fortnight doing "Community Medicine", going around to various medical facilities in or near Pokhara. I've seen a facility for poor children to help prepare them behaviourally and medically for the step up to real school; a "district out-post" which seems like the Nepali equivalent of a rural medical practice; a number of homes in a small village; the Regional Tuberculosis centre (which didn't have masks for us to wear while they gave us a tour, so I was holding my breath most of the time… seriously, I looked like an idiot!); and most recently Green Pastures Hospital, which is a leprosy hospital run mostly by Europeans. This week I started doing paediatrics, but I got acute haemorrhagic conjunctivitis two days ago (which everyone in the country is getting right now), so I haven't gone in since then.

Kelly's volunteering has been simultaneously rewarding and frustrating. She's been looking after and teaching English to a bunch of frighteningly under-privileged street kids. The kids themselves are good kids, but they're dirty for a lack of clothes and knowledge about hygiene, and many are carrying significant psychological trauma related to the loss of loved ones or family violence. Some of them don't smile or talk much, and some hit out at others; a few have obvious physical scars. Despite their clear need, the orphanage they're living in "The Protection and Rehabilitation Centre for Street Children" was only started up a couple of months ago, and is managed less-than-optimally by a large group of "members" who have each contributed financially, and who all need to agree on something before any money is spent. As a result, you won't be surprised to hear that nothing ever seems to get done unless one of the volunteers or Ramesh just go out and pay for it themselves. As it is, the kids have no beds and sleep on the concrete floor, the roof leaks when it rains, the "classroom" has no tables or teaching aids, the yard consists of a parched area of dirt about 4-by-7m with a couple of old chickens pecking around in it, and the toilet door has broken off so that anyone who uses it is exposed to the yard and the road! To make matters worse, the volunteer organisation Kelly's working through (INFONepal) had been paying the rent until last week when a bizarre turn of events resulted in the head of the organisation washing his hands of the orphanage and refusing to donate any more money or provide any future volunteers. The biggest issue there is that the only love these kids get comes from the volunteers, and the only reason they don't run away to live on the street is because they get love at the orphanage…

The rain is coming less and less frequently, and the tourists are starting to arrive as the trekking season gets underway. We've been told that we ought to do our shopping now because the prices go up significantly over the next week or two!

I've come up with the top 10 creature comforts I miss the most, in order, and I'm surprised that they were all readily available in Thailand:

10: Fast internet (anything that can upload a 500kb picture in less than 5 minutes; it takes over 2 minutes just to load Gmail. I know: omfg roflmao!)
9: A consistent power supply
8: Cooper's ales (or at least any beer that's not Nepal Ice, Tuborg or Everest)
7: Beef (it's illegal to kill cows in Nepal, you get 7 years in the slammer, and buffalo just doesn't cut it as an alternative)
6: Espresso coffee (or any coffee that doesn't contain sugar and/or yak's milk)
5: Fixed prices (bartering gets old… fast)
4: Hot water (cold showers hurt, and I'm a shower princess)
3: Cold drinks (just like the showers, drinks seem to come only at or near ambient air temperature)
2: Western toilets (and toilet paper)
1: Spring mattresses and wonderful, soft, fluffy pillows (I'm tired of this torticollis)

Okay, I'm signing off. Did you hear that the Maoists quit the Government? Good move, dickheads. I don't think the November elections (here, not in Oz) are going to go ahead as planned, the Maoists will get slaughtered at the poles and they won't allow anything to give people the idea that they are unpopular, violent insurgents. Maybe if they didn't kill people who disagreed with them... As things stand, they're in the dangerous no-man's-land of being a bit violent but not entirely brutal, and they aren't stopping the press from slamming them daily. So they'll probably just kick up a big fuss near election time and stop the whole shebang in its tracks.