Week one
on Sarah G in Cambodia (Cambodia), 31/Jan/2011 04:01, 34 days ago
So, 1 week. Kathmandu. The low-tech airport must be one of the smallest of any capital. Greeted with the bustle of a developing country; taxi drivers with tiny vehicles that had seen way better days and questions about“where you stay miss?”. Police, using brooms, literally swept the touts away from the handful of foreigners on my plane.Claire and AmmaAt‘home’ I was warmly welcome by Amma, my Nepali mum. We communicate well given we share no common words; she’s more confident than me than I will pick up some Nepali soon! She usually wears a smile and constantly does that funny head waggle, which generally denotes agreement on most of the Indian subcontinent, unless I try to do something for myself. It feels wrong to leave my dinner plate where it is for her to clear and to be brought coffee on a tray, but that the way it works here it is an insult to her hospitality to try to help. Maybe in time she’ll let us get involved. I did feelI was becoming a real part of the family when a couple of days in she offered to help me die my hair black! I don’t think I fit in too well as the only blond of her large household!Jiban our manager and his wife Locari doing the washingAt the back Lojee, the oldest daughter of our manager Jiban and two of the girls that live downstairsFor the first few days, I wondered through the Kathmandu smog in a dream like state...is this Cambodia? No....it’s really cold. Broken pavements, crazy traffic, little shops selling everything random, there was just so much familiar from my former home, I found it strange and almost unsettling but soon stopped noticing similarities and looked at what was different...I’ve not seen too much of the city yet, mainly just the inside of my office so I need to steal Claires words here but it's a view I am starting to share, Kathmandu has 'resilience, grimy, chaotic dignity as well as sutble but piercing dignity'. We get the bus to work, they pull up a guy yells something inaudible which luckily Claire recognises as where we need to go, hand over 10p fare and we’re off. Lunch time on the second day, out on the balcony of our sixth floor office, a treat - the cloud curtains had drawn back to reveal the snow capped peaks of some very big mountains. They haven’t returned since.Our office is on the the top two floors:There are a lot of types of shoes here. Outdoor shoes. Shoes to worn in kitchens and inbetween rooms of the house. Socks to be worn in rooms with carpet. And bathroom shoes, to be worn in (you got it) in bathrooms. I haven’t quite got the hang of the all the changes yet.Power in Kathmandu is hydro and although you think they would have quite a lot of water running off those big hills it seem not as there are constant power cuts. The difference electricity makes to life is huge– no lights after 6pm and no computer when the battery dies is difficult. It does feel a bit like constantly camping, it is as cold inside as outside (in the daytime, colder inside) we sit in the office huddled in outdoor coats on till about 10am. My hair hasn't seen too much water since we’ve been here, as sticking my head under the icy cold water (and not overly clean) trickle that come out of the shower seem too painful, but we are awaiting our own gas stove.I am really excited about the opportunities there are with PHASE to develop their education work, I am going to field on Tuesday, for up to 9 days, that feels like a fair while but I am sure it will be a great experience and I am looking forward to seeing our project villages and getting into schools.Like this? Then like PHASE -http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Phase-Worldwide-Practical-Help-Achieving-Self-Empowerment/162142530485417The view from the top of my house at sunset: