Lumbini

I’ve enjoyed a few visits to Lumbini, Buddha’s birthplace, and also stayed overnight at the Korean Monastery. This week was a very big celebration for Buddha’s birthday with huge crowds. I missed the political leaders and the speeches only seeing the helicopter overhead.

Lumbini is a world heritage site and Buddhist communities around the world have built monasteries in the compound. All are interesting and the Korean one welcomes large numbers of guests from anywhere. It seems that others only take guests from their home nation. Lumbini is the only tourist spot around here, an hour on the bus for the 22 km. So peaceful inside the park and a great contrast to here in Bhairawa – there’s no doubt I’ll continue to visit.

At the Korean monastery you stay in a dormitory (single rooms are sometimes available), meet lots of international backpackers, as well as busloads of Buddhist visitors from nearby countries, enjoy delicious Korean food 3 times a day and are able to join the worship at 6.30pm (I‘ve been a few times) and 5 am (just once at that time).

One of our focus schools is in Lumbini which makes my visits to the Korean Monastery even more certain!

A few snaps around town

......... to try to show a little of Bhairawa.

My corner shop - open early, open late, and supplies just about everything.

At the Buddha Chowk roundabout. Straight ahead to Lumbini (Buddha’s birthplace), the arch in the background has been taking shape since I arrived.

Sandy showed me a community forest not far away. That’s her new alphabet poster rolled up on the ground, she didn’t want to risk it being nicked from her bike basket as we wandered off into the forest.

VSO’s office at the District Education Office.

School visits

VSO’s program has 12 focus schools that we work with through with the District Education Office here in Bhairawa. Most of them are 30 to 50 minutes cycling distance from home, with the furthest being an hour on the bus followed by 30 minutes cycling. (My bike needed the mechanic after its first ride on top of the bus!) A few are along busy roads but the ones along the quieter roads make a great start to the day when I’m out and about getting to know the teachers and students rather than sitting in the office. School enrolment size varies from about 190 to 610 students, (kindergarten to year 8) and staff numbers from 4 to 15. During the last couple of weeks our schools have been working on drama performances about child rights, discrimination and disabilities – some of the photos are taken at these performances. Now it’s exam time as the school year finishes, and around mid April the new year begins.

Reading

Numbers and letters are important, and there are some challenges for me in sorting those out here. So far it’s only a plan to be able to read words in Devanagari script but I can read numbers, a handy start. Recently, that’s been helpful to decipher telephone numbers on shop fronts when I’m trying to find a particular shop that I have been given a business card for in script that I cannot read. It would be useful to be able to read place names or bus destinations at the very least, and I’ll report in some time about how that’s going once I begin to make some progress. In Kathmandu it was no problem to only read and speak English, here in Bhairawa, English speakers are far fewer. Practising the Nepali I know however is always greeted so positively, everyone is really happy to work with me to have a conversation.

The Nepali text, dictionary and my exercise book were definitely the number 1 reading choice before Bhairawa and now it’s various work related things. Lonely Planet Nepal has had a good share of reading time and then there’s the time I’ve found to read novels. I have managed to read Stephen Fry’s ‘Moab is My Washpot’ a Kerry Greenwood novel (thanks team who provided the voucher for my kindle) a Jodi Picoult, and Carole Wilkinson’s ‘Sugar, Sugar’ (thanks Carole, really enjoyed it). A couple of random novels picked up along the way too, a pity the copy of ‘time traveller’s wife’ was not actually a complete copy when I chose it from the guest house shelf! Thanks to MaryAnne I’ve now got her selection of holiday reading, and to Jenny who included Clean Cut by Lynda La Plante in her mail to me which I’m racing through. I’m feeling well looked after.

In Bhairawa - my new hometown

I’m living in a great apartment about fifteen minutes walk from my office. On my first day I was shown three places, agreed this was the one and a week later moved in. Windows had to be fitted and a few other details like screen doors but once it had been agreed, the place was finished. So I’m in a newly painted, pink outside and pink inside, two bedroom place, with a lovely landlord and family downstairs. The five other VSO volunteers in town gave me a wonderful introduction to Bhairawa, showing me around, recommending particular places for this and that, helping me buy things for the house and filling me in on what’s been happening since the first members of the group arrived last June. I’ve had a great welcome too from the education office and people in schools. So far I’ve not managed many school visits, but that will happen before too long and meanwhile some teachers and school leaders have been at meetings where I have had a chance to introduce myself.

My belongings heading off from Sandy's.

Not only all that, but I’ve already had a visitor from home: Mary-Anne stayed two weekends in a row, with Chitwan National Park in between. That was great! We spent a day at Lumbini, Buddha’s birthplace (a topic for another blog entry) and time making home improvement purchases for me. When Mary-Anne was with me the things I bought were fine to carry but since then I’ve brought home a couple of things by rickshaw – a cane cupboard/shelves and a refrigerator. When I first saw some of the loads being cycled around they were definitely something that I was amazed about, and I’m not used to it yet – I was doubtful that both me and the cane shelves could fit into the rickshaw, but yes, easily done. Same for my bicycle the day I decided not to cycle home along a busy road!

For those following my progress, yes, the power supply and internet have been a challenge to me here but hopefully I’m getting sorted now. Bhairawa has 12 hours a day without electricity, two blocks of six each day, with a different schedule each day. That has all taken time to adjust to, but I’m in the swing of it now and have also managed to organise a dialup internet connection, so all’s looking good.

Ending the year

At least the one I know ..... If you read the banner you’ll see that I’ve leapt a few years forward local time, that’s Gladys and Nilusha with me, not far from where we stayed in Kathmandu. Actually, the year here is 2067. The year’s divided into 12 months, but not coinciding with the calendar I’m familiar with. Pus goes to mid January in my diary, the 1^st day of each Nepali month is somewhere midmonth. Both versions are printed on the calendars for sale though so it’s no problem, and it seems that holidays of both calendars are observed.

Nepalgunj was a great introduction to the Terai region for me and gave me a sense of how life may be for a volunteer there. Loula’s hulahooping skills are getting known and our landlady really enjoyed her lessons. We made it to Bardia National Park (about 2.5 hours bus ride away) for the Christmas weekend and had a memorable 25th December on a guided walk in the park followed by an elephant ride. No big animals (tiger, rhino, elephant) walked our way during the day but we had a great time; plenty of birds, deer, monkeys, one python, different landscapes, and peaceful.

The year that’s ending has certainly been full of new experiences for me: retirement, acceptance by AVI to head to ?, motorbike learner’s permit, jumping in the deep end, swimming lessons, Nepali language and arriving in Bhairawa. I’ve had a great year! .... and in 2011? More adventures for sure.

Plastic and Pollution

Plastic bags are absolutely both useful and a problem. Managing plastic and rubbish generally is a challenge. The first time we took our rubbish downstairs here in Nepalgunj and asked where to put it we were confused, then aghast and then got on with it, after being told to fling it into the empty field opposite the house. The same field that we’ve seen animals foraging in, being used as a toilet, and is a path to town. My own rubbish disposal is definitely something to work on as I settle into life here. VSO has banned plastic bags at the office and another effort at community education about plastic waste is the display I saw in Patan Durbar Square.

On arrival, the traffic in Kathmandu seems crazy and the pollution something to remark on – masks are worn often enough to be quite usual though not at all by all. There are masks for sale here in Nepalgunj too, but not that many people wearing them and here it’s dust that is the issue. Fine, get in everywhere, dust. Every morning the air is hazy, dust, smoke, and the hills to the north are not always in view. Traffic is definitely less polluting, but the air is still clogged around the town.