the people and places your meet

clearly i have run out of inspiration for this uninspired blog, but here are some photos for those still playing at home. Photos are from 2 field trips i took recently to the Terai, Hills and Mountiain districts (1 of each) for conduct Focus Group discussions with community health volunteers about a particular program . It was hot, and humid, and sweaty, people generally avoid the terai in the monsoon. I now understand why.

 Female Community health volunteers in Dang. temp 30 degrees, humidity, probably 90%

 Old lady, 75 years old, widowed at 28, 4 kids, just got back from Muktinath a sort of hindu pilgramage site, she was pretty cool. 

 Moutnains in the Mist , Sindulpalchowk

the cutest thing to hit the terai since baby donkeys - a kids school carriage. unfortunately it seems as though nepali kids a trained not to smile

Terai sky after a storm, from a Sai Baba Ashram. True story.  

you've been in nepal too long

when your friends put into words something you have been thinking about for along time. my dear friend cocomo  put together this blog post about life and living in KTM/Nepal

http://peaceloveandnepal.blogspot.com/2011/06/you-know-in-nepal-when.html

you know you've been in nepal too long  when you stop paying attention to the political protests and rallies

x

sleep deprivation central

yes yes blog neglect, I would say its probably because everything seems very ordinary after 7 months\ and im lacking inspiration but really...i suspect its just severe sleep deprivation.

i have recently come to the conclusion that kathmandu, might be the noisiest place on the planet. this conclusion isnt based on rigorous analystical studies, well collected data and tested noise pollution and decibel levels, but more on the fact that I havent had a decents night sleep in 7 months and the fact that currently Im listening to

   a. dogs barking

     b consistent beeping and noise traffic

      c . the girls i share my office with sing along off tune to their ipods (separately)

      d. the office reception phone ringing

.      and e. office chitchat.

in descending order of annoyaing i would rate C as the worst and B as the easiest to block out

I recently went to sydney for a week or so, and despite the fact that i was sleeping in my parents kitchen on an inflatable mattress , it was about the best sleep ive had since moving to nepal (the other best sleeps would have been a. while trekking and b. a weekend in bangkok) my parents were amazed that I could sleep through their morning coffee and breakfast routine , the kookaburras and TV and awake at the leisurely hour of 10am,  I explained that  hearing a coffee machine in the morning is about the least offensive morning wake up call i have heard in the  past 7 months.

this morning I woke up from some pretty dead slumber to what sounded like a truck driving through my dreams, i thought maybe i had over slept, but no...it was 545 am. shortly thereafter the dogs started (the dogs who had only stopped at 12 midnight...and i only know this as thats when I gave in and put in some ear plugs) then the saag walla started his daily routine of shouting out if anyone was interested in buy his very good ssaag at 6am , followed by the rubbish guy followed by increasing traffic , followed by every other imaginable noise, dance music, the kid next door playing his bass, someone bouncing a basketball....you catch my sleep deprived gist ...and I don't just blame the nepalis for getting up and at 6am, i blame the builders for not building well insulated houses, and no double glazed windows, and the fact that i sleep above a corner where EVERY car that goes past beeps to let traffic coming the other way know they are coming through, (rather than slow down).

but its not just my bedroom, its the streets – riding and walking along the streets would be enough to give the feint hearted a headache... its the office which echoes like a canyon , or my colleagues who have nothing to do sit and gossip all day

KTM, i do like you, alot, but let a girl get some uninterrupted sleep every know any then

. 

Nepali Driving Offences

Every day I have the pleasure of riding my bike to and from work and often places in between. Somedays I get a clean easy run to work and can get there in under 20 minutes. other times I can get stuck traffic 9even on a bike) and sit stuck between motorbikes, tuktuk/micros, buses and a thousand and one suzuki maruti's and it takes me close to 40 minutes to get home. apart from breathing in the diesel and dust, it gives me an clear insight into some of the worlds worst driving (maybe second only after melbourne)


an abbreviated list

smaller offences
- not indicating when turning left, right, pulling over, or ever
- indicating left, to show that you are turning right
- indicating right to show you are turning left.
- indicating to indicate you are in fact staying on the same road.
- beeping
-beeping at people driving the opposite way as far as possible away from you in the oncoming lane.


Larger offences
- beeping to inform and  overtake someone on the outside, only to pull over  right in front of them, saving  approximately 2 seconds
- beeping to to inform and overtake, only to pass, slow down and then stop, eventually to be passed by the initial passee 100 m down the road.
- beeping to inform and overtake and then drive just slow enough infront to be annyoing
- cutting off on the outside, without beeping
-cutting off on the inside, usually as the person in front is turning a corner, without beeping


Largest offences
- throwing a U -turn, across 4-6 lanes of traffic, on one of the major arteries in the city, blocking up both directions, in a large white four wheel drive (this is usually reserved for govt officials and people who think they are important, but not INGO, NGO, Agency cars, embassy) - for those of you playing at home, this is equivalent of someone u turning across military rd/spit hill at peak hour. 3 times over
- sitting in a line of traffic on a 2 way, 2 lane street and deciding that they are too good to wait for the traffic, and trying to cut in ahead, thus blocking the otherwise free flowing on coming traffic, but failing to respond to the (warranted) beeps, and cause and even bigger jam.


the list goes on and on,


oh and for anyone reading...check out my friend J Dogs Mongol Rally blog somewhere over there on the right. Those boys are driving London to Mongolia in a suzuki maruti. or something similar ( and need your support)

 as seen at the central traffic police office HQ , where i got to spend a few hours last friday trying to retrieve my counterparts car in what had been a typical Nepal driving incident. She was hit by a guy in  4wd, and then proceeded to hit him as they tried to chase him down. they ended up paying for the fine, as the guy was a lawyer. apparently they don't have any hard an fast rules about who pays at car incidents. more like, to the better arguer goes the victory. but that incident is a whole nother story.

peace

x

too long betwen drinks/ a lesson on delivering health care in Nepal pt 1

I had intended to psot this all as one, but its long. I'm at work and procrastinating and havent yet had a chance to get my photos from my computer to my laptop to the interwebs. will post soon.

.....

walking through the Himalayas, or the foothills of the Himalayas gives you an appreciation of how easy life can be and an understanding of the difficulties of delivering health care in Nepal.

My parents had planned a trip to nepal that happened to conincide with the first round of the 2011 National vitamin A program. Which the Nepali organisation i work for is heavily involved in, I had planned to travel to the far east of nepal to observe the Female Community Health workers distribute vitamin A to children between 6 months and 59 months, (all in all more than 3 million children are dosed twice a year in an internationally lauded program that delivers vitamin supplements through community health staff). but things being as they are, and this being Nepal, my plans changed and I ended up incorporating the Vitamin A distribution into a 5 day trek, or a 5 day trek into the Vitamin A. Carrying along with my thermals, boots, sleeping bag and assorted technical gear, I had  a shoulder bag full of vitamin A, albendazole (the children are also given a dose of albendazole for deworming) communications materials and a few other bits and pieces. Stopping as my parents stopped for water and tea to ask the local female community health volunteers if they had enough supplies, and talking to mothers and young women about the supplementation, I am happy to be away form my desk, writing reports, and actually observing how it is possible to deliver health care to remote (and not so remote ) communities. the NVAP reaches something like 96% of Nepali children, which given the terrain of much of Nepal is quite an incredible success when you realise how far people have to go for health services. Asking one lady where she goes for health care if necessary, she names a village . How far is that? I ask. 2 days walk she responds.

Keeping in mind that I am on a heavily walked trekking route not to far from a main town , you can easily double or triple the days walk to  health facilities in the remote mid and far west regions (which i've talked about here) FCHVs are the frontline of medical care in nepal, 48000 women across nepal provide basic (and increasingly) technical medical and health care, these women give families, mothers and children essential supplies of ORS, iron supplements, zinc supplements, deworming tablets and vitamin a, pneumonia medications, and family planning advice in the remotest parts of nepal.

photo credit http://images.smh.com.au/2009/03/24/430738/Nepal-Ghandruk-420x0.jpg 

I arrived in the village of Ghandruk, (above)  after a ong (9hour) absolutely amazing. I asked along the way for the health post and the local mahila swayamsevika (pardon my nepali spelling) or FCHV/. Trying to explain that no I wasn't sick but had come to meet with the FCHV I was taken by a friendly mother of 5 who was suffering from a chest infection to the FCHVs house, marked by the same sign all across nepal.  I was greeted by a friendly middle aged Gururg woman who had been working for 22 years as a FCHV, and had 3 children of her own, one working in brisbane of all places. On top of her regular business as mother, wife, and guesthouse proprietor this woman spent 5-8 hours a week in her role as an FCV. Delivering community based health care in the form of iron pills for pregnant women, management of childhood illnesses, family planning and other assorted tasks. I asked if i could join her the next day as delivered some of the capsules that I carted through the mountains.

...part 2.....the distribution and photos to come..... 

a bigger picture?

After reading this aid/development blog  and this AYAD blog, I found myself sitting in a pretty lacklustre (we didn't even have a banner ) run of the mill data collection and field research methodology workshop (having just skills transferred /capacity some GPS knowledge) contemplating my job/current work/and chosen career (or my current career, maybe another 12 months of this and i'll be ready to pack it in and go back and use that law degree i did).


one blog piece is about motivation to work in humanitarian aid/development and the other is a personal experience of getting down and dirty with some locals (sorry to both authors for a crude overview of 2 very good posts). so i was contemplating and sort of falling asleep, and wondering whether what I have been doing here in Nepal is really for the good of anyone (mankind, children, women, Nepal etc etc). deep questions for a thursday afternoon I know. and also contemplating why I decided to do what I do (which is an ongoing pastime)


regardless of motivation, and my boring inner dialogue, its certainly hard at times to see how a desk job running, writing, reviwing, and developing  training workshops, is contributing to Nepal's development, and it certainly feels very distant.


its pretty easy to see the disconnect between

and this

But if that means that health workers know how to encourage

(young women)

to take iron tablets and avoid birth complications and Skinny children like these dudes

then i guess thats a good thing, right?

 peace out

x

a blog4NZ

this blog post- is part of the blog 4 NZ,  which is reminding people that theres way more to NZ at the moment to the earthquake, and well performing rugby teams. if you've got a blog do it. if you dont. read about it.

sorry in advance for the cheese - peace out to my kiwi peeps.

NZ is a place close to my heart and home to half of my extended family. i',m lucky enough to have been mroe times than i can count and even lukier to have a holiday house there near queenstown. i love NZ. i love the people. i love the countryside and the mountains ,rivers, beaches, towns, roads, tramps, sun, clouds, rain that make it such an amazing place to visit.

I dont get homesick in generall, but when I yearn for home and the familiar its not usually for sydney, or australia i get wamr fuzzy memories for NZ. for the countryside where i spent childhood holidays, eating tip top hokey pokey icecream, annoying my older cousins, bullying my younger brother, fishing, walking, swimming, performing ad hoc plays. for my late grandparents, family road trips, the road between christchurch and queenstown, the green, the snow, lake wakatipu, the view of mt cook at lake tekapo.  

x

nel mezzo

getting on, getting old, or something like that. I had major issues with turning 25, i thought i needed a real job, a real life and needed to stop being quite so, well, under 25. then i turned 25 and i got over it, and suddenly what felt like being really old, didnt really feel that old. something to do with moving to Nepal, doing (at least a little bit) what I've wanted to do for a long time, and hanging out with people anywhere from 7 years younger to 10 -15 years older than me, really made 25 seem quite young. and now 26 looms and i'm not fussed. im not really any older or wiser, though maybe one small step closer to a real job.

but these are some things I know

1. buy the ticket, take the ride
2. listening the the Clash 'should I stay or should I go" should aid all life decision making
3. a didi is a gamechanger
4. doing nothing at work in Nepal is infinitely better than doing nothing at work in Australia
5. when riding in kathmandu traffic. dont stop concentrating. ever. or you will ride into the back of a bus.

international wo(men's) day...

after a day off work for IWD and brunch with some pretty inspiring chicks working here in Nepal ,  a discussion on the status of women in nepal, and some research into the amazing work the Female community health workers here in nepal carry, here's out something for thought on international women’s day

tilsari (23) has given birth to three babies at home, without medical help, and all three died soon after the birth. this year she again became pregnant, and once again went itot labour at home. her husband and family again refused to arrange for her to go to hospital desipite the fact that ther labour was prolonged and she was weak. they said it would be cheaper for him to marry again if she died, rather than paying the costs for her to go to hospital....

I met this young lady on my field trip to the mid west. 21 , 3 babies, the oldest 5, the youngest 2 weeks old. she gave birth alone on her mud brick floor while her mother in law and husband were out in the field, and hadn't been for any ante natal checks while pregnant with any of the children

she was lucky. as it turns out tilsari above was also,  members of the commiunity heard of her situation and used emergency funds to get her to a hospital, where she was given an emergency C section and medicines for free. 

Fun ‘only in nepal’ stories from the day: one friend who is currently out of the valley found that due to the surprise public holiday on sunday due to the death of Nepals first PM, that the women he was working with were not in fact entitled to the Womens day holiday , while the nepali government decided that women shouldn’t get all the fun and declared it a public holiday for all. not just the women. 

Happy IWD yo

xx

friday songs

lacking in inspiration for blog posts after a busy/uneventful week, and a ridiculous weekend in dubai. new Radiohead is in my opinion totally awesome. and Led Zeppelin tangerine is a song that is

 a. continually in my head

b. continually on my ipod and

c. inspiring me to pick up a guitar again.

stay tuned and happy friday kids

xx

a brief absence

Dear small blog observing audience,


sorry, I've been meaning to write, but just haven't got around to it. its not you, its me. i haven't really been all that busy, i spent half an hour at work the other day trying to get my curly lions mane aka as my hair into a french style hugh bun, which i found the instructions for online, while using stumbleupon.com.
so a. you can see i've had time on m hands, and
b. it failed miserably. apparently to achieve the very louche and casual french style top knot as seen here you have to have hair that resembles a french model. or indeed anyone who doesn't have hair that resembles this

anyway, i digress. days here in Nepal continue to range from the ridiculous, the amazing, the bizarre, the fun, and the flat out frustrating mostly during the course of a day, the roller coaster of daily emotions from 'why wont my colleague give me any information about this project proposal she wants me to write' to 'kathmandu i F**king love you, usually leads to a daily wrap up with housemates, friends and other volutneers/aidworkers filled with amusing/frustrating anecdotes about working in Nepal. and I imagine in all less developed countries (i think thats the term we are using now). yesterday's little tale of the day, if it were to be written into short story would be entitled 'the time i jumped out the bus window to get out because it was too crowded to go through the door'. or 'writing a budget for a 3 year project without a clue'.

so i'll leave you with this, Kathmandu, i do love you, you are great, fun, amazing, dirty, full of inredible humourous, smart people, with amazing mountains, rubbish, dogs and 1980s style aerobics classes. but you are a challenging beast. 

Off to Dubai for the weekend, for sun, warmth, pools, overpriced drinks, seafood and shopping, 

i'll see you when I get back

xoxo pussymandu

ps other amusing anecdotes involve elton john singalongs, 'you cook us dinner' parties and the night we overdosed on mo:mo's (note the appropriate aspiration)

dreamfoods

the argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges writes of a man who cant stop imagining blue tigers, a coin that cannot be forgotten, of small disks that drive a man mad in his short stories.

i can completely obsessed by food. i'm thinking about the meal i'm going to eat after the one i'm about to sit down to while i'm still full from the meal before.
In borges' short stories the man dreaming of tigers end up in a cell surrounded by drawings on the wall of the unforgettable tigers, within which are pictures of tigers, containing pictures of tigers, ad infinitum.
I wonder if i will wind up in a room surrounded by sketches of plates of food, within plates of food disguising other plates of food.

a chef i once knew complained of being completely obsessed by food , that he couldn't stop thinking about food and cooking, at the time i couldn't see the problem. now im not so sure. the worst part is i'm not even dreaming of delicious amazing foods of amazing flavour. sometimes its just white bread with cheese. couscous with some raisins and tumeric. momos. muesli. porridge. i'm trapped in a glass cage of desirable and not so desireable foods.

oh and if you haven't read borges. do. now. you will be satsified.

its almost hell  

Kathmandu is playing hard to get

And I like it,

seriously, these days KTM is like playing the whole 'treat 'em mean keep 'em keen' reallllly well. KTM if I didn't know you better I might dislike you more.

In the last week Kathmandu has been trying to mess with me in the following ways:

its gotten colder
(which means my office has gotten colder)
the sun has gone away
(which means it has gotten even colder and now i can't see the moutains)
it rained
(which means I saw rain for the 2nd time in 3 months)
the load shedding has gone up
(which means its now 12 hours a day no power, and the 12 hours a day when you want it - before and after work, and usually during )
our hot shower has stopped working
(which means i can either wash my lions mane in lukewarm water, or not bathe at all)

photocredit :http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/926610.stm
road side filth. KTM is not winning any cleanest city awards any time in the next decade.

try as you might KTM , I have faith,  but don't pull this cold s*** on me too much longer, in dont know how much longer i can work with number fingers.

xL

establishing field cred

according to this pretty hilarious blog establishing field cred is a must for the aspiring or already aspired development/aid worker. while i wouldn't classify myself as an aid worker - writing reports and running surveys is hardly saving lives/children/the world , I finally made it on a field trip last week. and i think i got the ball rolling with the field cred. while I didn't manage to get any photos of myself, DSLR in one hand, cup of chiyya in the other, wearing a Kurta, boots, jacket and shawl speaking terrible nepali to female community health volunteers, I can tell you that thats pretty much how it looked.

View of the himalayas (obviously) from the road

I didn't go on the trip with my organisation, but another Nutrition NGO where my colleagues sister works, and they invited me slash i invited myself along on their field trip tip to Jiri, Dolakha district, east of KTM towards the Everest Region. Jiri used to be one of the main trail heads for Everest Base camp, but the road goes further into the mountains now, so there are fewer tourists passing through .

the field trip was: white 4WDs on windy nepali roads. dahl bhat chiyya dahl bhat chiyya. coconut crunch biscuits, LBM, going to bed at 9pm, listening to nepali 24/7, indian pop music, cold, clean, clear, refreshing, a season of how i met your mother, a paul auster book, 2 sets of clothes, no shower, chiyya, dahl bhat, meetings, community participation, health worker training, chiyya.

 Jiri is home to an ethnic group called the Jirel, tibeto-buddhist's. this was the quite attractive stupa and only main sight in Jiri. According to one of the people on the trip inside they keep guns and weapons, should there be a fight.....i wasn't convinced. but who knows...

Female community health workers have been integral to Nepal's progress and success and health gains over the past 20 years. initially trained to distribute Vitamin A capsules, they now distribute ante natal advice, immunisations, important health care messages, nutritional training and advice, sexual health education and basically any other community based aspect of health care operating in Nepal. Part of the trip was training a group of FCHVs from around Jiri on nutrition and eating habits, what foods to eat, what to avoid and what is nutritious. The education package is simple straightforward and effective. The women may not know what micronutrients are at the beginning of the day but by day 2 they can competently advise mothers what they should and shouldn't be feeding newborn children and themselves.
I have mentioned Nepal's staggering problem with undernutrition - FCHV training forms an integral part of trying to eradicate hunger in nepal....

Female community health workers at the community nutrition training, lady no. 2 from the left had a striking resemblance to Patsy from ab fab. i swear.

another list

my three favourite possessions in Nepal. its not very buddhist, but its not like i'm the dalai lama or anything

1. the coffee pot i bought from aus
2. my bike
3. my new puffy vest.

call me a consumer but i'm a girl who likes her stuff.

and three things i don't like
1. handwashing
2. handwashing my sheets
3. handwashing my sheets in cold water.

and now a photo for thought.

lessons learnt

 three things i learnt this week:

1. if you give a nepali bus driver the finger he WILL stop beeping at you
2. ask and ye shall receive ( a field trip)
3. sitting in a 5 day workshop conducted in nepali does not mean you will be able to speak nepali at the end of the week.

and one more

some things - never change. the tibetan refugee camp or settlement hadn't changed the roof that we painted 10 years ago, was still there and almost blue .

messing about in boats

I started 2010 with a terrible hangover on a boat on sydney harbour, under the sun, baking in the heat surrounded by old friends and dance music.

I ended it being rowed across Lake Phewa in Nepal, by a little old lady and her canoe with 4 new friends and 4 bikes.

Paulie Pecs having a paddle on thew way back across the lake

 the little lady and the 4 bikes

me and push bike benny bike riding into Pokhara under the himalayan sun

i wouldn't change a thing about 2010. you were amazing. 

xxL