My Last Resort

I told you about the bandas the other weekend. I didn't get the chance to tell you about our fantastic weekend. Rather than just sit listening to music, this time our visit to The Last Resort took in Canyoning and a High Ropes course I have wanted to try for months.

I remember reading about Canyoning in the Lonely Planet this time last year. When I was on a plane back to Australia from Italy. I was so excited. Waterfalls, abseiling, rock climbing, hidden areas you couldn't access any other way. I'm glad I did it, but I have to be honest, the experience itself was a little underwhelming. Kind of just like abseiling, but your shoes get wet.

[Rosie's already gone! AAAAAAHHHHHHH!]

Not like the ropes course. This was an amazing activity. This was one of the last weekends that I was going to have a chance to spend with a group of my friends together. Over the past and coming weeks, people have started to disappear. They are going home. Somehow I managed to land myself in a crowd that are all leaving within a month of each other.

I was paired with Sanjana, a great experience as we have never really had much one on one time. She was so nervous at the beginning. "No Rob. I can't do it, go without me!". At that point we were about 1 metre from the ground. As we approached the end she jumped onto the last platform and gave me a low (she's short) five. She made it through 7 stations, including one where I pretty much dropped her. Luckily we're still friends...




We were all so proud she made it. On the way back to Kathmandu in the bus, you should have heard her chattering away to her mother, telling her all about wht she had just accomplished.

[Flo and Ulli, the intrepid Austrian adventurers]

The bus ride back (after the banda business) provided one of the greatest feelings and views I have had here. As the sun set in the west, we could see 2 mountains ranges distinctly to the north and north-west. The sun had set over the rest of Nepal, but it was still dancing over the tops of the mountains to the north. Gradually, the north-western mountains became cast in shadow. For about 45 minutes, as our bus twisted left and right, climbing the hills to get back to Kathmandu, I craned my neck this way and that. Resting against the window when they were on my side, straining in my seat, and shifting the eggplants nestled between my legs (remember we took a bus that was free as a result of the banda, turns out it was delivering supplies to the Last Resort) so I could get a view when they were on the other side.

I briefly contemplated getting out my camera and making a feeble attempt to get a photo. They were too far away, and nothing, no photo or description could do the scene justice. Immediately words came into my hed to describe it, and the feeling I had just then. But even as they came to me I could feel them slipping away as I got closer to those Himals even as they got further away.

The time I saw the sun set below the clouds in Perth and rise again below them only to set over the ocean again wasn't as good as this. That time we were 4x4'ing in Moab, and above the desert of Utah you could see the snow covering the mountains. It was cool. But it wasn't this. That time we spent Australia Day of 2000 on top of Switzerland throwing snowballs at each other. That wasn't this either. Not even floating down the Seine on a houseboat, staring at the sky from the top of our boat.

You have probably heard me go on many times about what these mountains are like. But there really is nothing like them. Nothing in Australia, anyway. You have no idea how frustrating it is to know that if there was no pollution or dust in Kathmandu, that you could see these every day. That you could almost throw a rock at them. As it is, we may as well be living in the Sahara for the amount of times I have seen the mountains from my house.

I have lived here for a year, and although it's not my country, I still feel the pride that Sanjana does when she stares out at those beautiful mountains. I am going to miss you Nepal.

[not mine, stole this from here and it simply doesnt do it justice]

I'm Not Lost

So many people seem to think that I am here to "find myself". I don't know why. It seems that a lot of people say that maybe because they're not interested in leaving their homes or jobs or families or friendships for a year. They don't understand why someone would be interested in that.

But I'm not lost. I'm not looking for myself and I don't need to find the inner me. I've never really had a problem with knowing who I was or what I wanted in life. Sure there have been time when I haven't known what I was going to do next. I think that's kind of normal. But when I do know what I want I have never really had a problem is making myself go after it.

I don't think that I have left family, relationships, friends, a career or a home behind. My time here has allowed me to grow closer to some friends, learn more about other ones and learn more about myself. Just because I'm not lost doesn't mean that I can't grow and learn and change who I am.

At the moment this place is my home. My flat here doesn't smell like someone else's house that I'm living in, but mine. I know the back streets between here and work better than I did in Ballarat. Its normal to see live chickens and pig carcasses riding on the back of a motorbike. To see goats waiting to be slaughtered at the butcher on the way to work and not see them on the way home. Smiling protesters lighting fire to tyres is just another occurrence to me now.

I've learnt about communication. Not so much how to do it with people with different backgrounds, education and language to myself, but about how I communicate, and the faults in my methods of communication. That's not just at work, but in my personal life as well. In my year long-long distance relationship. With my close friends and my family.

I have been coerced into reading books that I wouldn't have previously looked at twice in a bookshop. They have taught me about Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, development, foreign aid, and what makes for some really horrible writing. I have had the time to do many of the things that I would love to do at home but never get around to because of work and life. I have been learning a new language that 2 years ago I didn't even know I wanted to learn and two years from now may only have uses as an ice breaker in a dinner conversation or as a tourist back here.

By living here I have learnt about Hinduism and Nepali culture, about India, about Tibet. I have made new friends, some that I normally would not have made the time to get to know. Immediately here, you have something in common with another ex-pat. I found about the gloriousness of Hashing. I have become a more interesting and interested person.

Nope, I'm not lost.

Rain on my Parade

It was so hot.  It was totally impossible to concentrate. Our new building isn't finished, but we have still moved into it.  We don't have curtains, the guys in my office have some moral objection to opening windows, there's no fan and guys come in an out plugging and unplugging wires into and out of the walls causing my PC to switch itself on and off at regular intervals.  With the temperature hovering somewhere around 30 and humidity starting to go through the roof I was losing my mind and was just hoping against hope that it would rain!

In a flash of anger, my mind turned to the Red Dingo Australian restaurant in Patan that serves the most amazing thickshakes you will ever eat in your life.  There's nothing like making yourself fat to deal with emotional problems.  Following that I stopped in at Puri Sabji place.  So I followed up my thickshake that is so disgustingly unhealthy for you that you need a spoon to eat it by chewing on oily bread, fried potatoes and what is mostly oil.

I thought it wouldn't hurt to stop by Rosy's to see if I could get my stereo back for the barbeque we had planned the following day.  Bad decision.  Rosy was not home.  In the time it took to eat my two meals, and stop at Rosy's the weather had turning into something from a movie like the Perfect Storm.  At one point I rode through a mini willy-willy without realising it.  There was so much dust and wind I had to just shut my eytes and hope that I came out of it the other side.  It was so rough on the inside of that thing that I'm surprised I even stayed upright.

That's when the delude began. The rain was so heavy that I started thinking back to that Myth Busters episode where they tried to work out whether you get more wet by sprinting through the rain or by walking.  Conclusion?  I was out there way too long for it to make a difference.  As I pondered whether the water slowly seeping into my mouth was rainwater or gutterwater I realised that it probably didn't really make much of a difference.  The streets cleared and many people were caught out by the mini-cyclone that seemed to have gripped Kathmandu with only about one in every 100 people carrying an umbrella.  Everyone and everything was out to get me.  I even started to wonder if the world was doing it on purpose.

Of course, I made it home safely and realised that I owe myself a lot of money.  You see due to me negativity of late, I have instigated a system that Nunny referred to as my "Karmic rupe system" where I owe myself 100 rupees for each negative thought.  I think I better even out.

I had the most gorgeous chocloate thickshake at the Red Dingo.  O.....M.....G!

Following that, remember Puri Sabji?  The food so good that it prompted Brendan and Mike to develop a new system of currency?  Where every single item one buys can be broken down into PSU's.  Puri Sabji Units.  "Are you sure that you want to buy those brand spanking new awesome and gorgeously attractive spectacles?  You know, they're worth 100 PSU's.  You could feed a family Rob, do you want that on your conscience?"  Puri Sabji is also good for other reasons.  It takes them no time to prepare and it leaves you completely satisfied!  How could one not be satisfied?  Its oily bread, potato, oily soya beans all wrapped up in a nice little spicy oil sauce.  Pretty much, its like being in heaven.  And did I mention?  Puri Sabji has created its own currency!!!!

Unfortunately I missed Rosy, but as I struggled through the wind and dust to find my way out from her house I provided endless entertainment for the kids and dogs all well sheltered inside the shops from the storm.  Dustkciked up by the insane wind licked at my heels as I desperately tried to get home before the rain began.  I was too late, but the pleasing cool - that always comes with rain that was building all day - was such a relief.  The roads became mine as cars, tuk tuks and motorbikes disappeared in an instant.  I finally got the rain that I have been waiting for for weeks.  It has been so hot and dusty it was such a relief to get a drop of rain.  It brought back some memories of monsoon when I first arrived and was such a novice around here.

I made it home drenched, but full, content and could hear the pitter patter of rain on my roof.  ahhhhhh

Someone pedantic, work out how much I owe myself will you?

Ta.

Laziness, Gastro and a sole Christmas

When one gets sick, one tends to get lazy.  Simply leaving the house poses a challenge too uninviting to bother contemplating.  Our first Christmas gathering - yes, the fateful night that involved Swifty's recent troubles - left me recarving the line in the carpet from my bedroom to the bathroom.  At a pinch, the ground can be covered in less that 5 seconds, but various household furniture and / or items will be left rolling in my wake.

Yes, I missed a day of work to sickness, it would have been more, but conveniently, I already had the time off for Christmas.  Unfortunately for me, it meant that I missed my friend's Christmas party.  Something I had been looking forward to for about 2 months.  There was a great deal of hype about this party, with Jess even promising to bring back a leg of ham from Australia for the occaision.  At one time there was a rival Christmas party which left her thinking no one was going to show.  As a result she invited the crew from her work.  The other party fell through making Jess the star attraction with a party of more than 40 people.  I sadly spent most of Christmas day in bed feeling sorry for myself or sleeping, in-between attempts to watch some Jackie Chan movie.

That was two days ago however and yesterday I felt up to attempting solid food.  Lacking the strength to bother cooking for myself, I headed out to a trustworthy cafe nearby and picked up the Friday weekly paper - the Nepali Times,  I have never read it before, but it was recommended to me.  

Just a short aside:  I read something the other day that suggested there are two types of bloggers.  Reporters and Examiners.  Obviously, one reports on events, what I did / ate / defaecated etc.  The other actually discusses things, talking about their reactions to certain situations, they report, but they also analyse.  I am starting to get the feeling that I am only really reporting on this blog, which makes me a little sad, because I have more to offer than that.  I guess I have been a little careful, as I don't want to insult or defame the programme I am on, or the people of Nepal.  But sometimes you can be too careful, and I don't want to do that at the sacrifice of sharing my opinion and experiences.  OK, thanks for bearing with me on that, end aside..

Getting to the end of an article in Nepali paper tends to give me mixed emotions.  Usually shock.  You see, although they publish it in English as well as Devanagari, most of the dailies are so poorly translated (or perhaps written in the first place) that it can be a shock to even get to the end without having given up.  When you do make it to the end, you often have to go back and read it all again because it either contradicted itself or made no sense in the first place.

Imagine my surprise when I found myself reading the Nepali Times cover to cover.  The latest in the schoolyard of political turmoil that is Nepal has developed over the last week.  Last Friday, the Nepali Times apparently reported rather negatively on the trade unions antics, or its associations with the Maoist party (effectively those in power - although its supposedly a coalition government).   Seeing this as a slight on their party (which in all seriousness it probably was), certain members took it upon themselves to storm Himalmedia's office, physically "intimidate" the journalists there, and light fire to certain parts of their equipment and/or office - sorry, I'm a little confused about the actual details.  Their office in one district is actually still under siege, and they haven't been able to print any of their dailies all week.

This week's edition was reporting on the obvious attack this is on the free press - well-perceived as a truly democratic thing.  It also highlighted the disunity that exists amongst the Maoist party - with the leadership agreeing on the poor nature of the attacks, but not really promising to put a stop to them.  We are seeing a split developing amongst the party that is supposedly trying to unify Nepal.

This is where the examination comes in.  Although I actually enjoyed reading the Nepali Times, it was hard not to see it as just the "Opinion" section of any paper.  I have not read it each week certainly, so this could be an exception, but as far as newspapers go it appeared at no point to be objective and report the facts.  The Maoists/trade union seem to be claiming that they were actually reacting to physical abuse from Himalmedia's managers on several staff they had let go, but as they have only really reported one side of the story I am left a little confused.

Its all well and good to promote a free press, as it is to villify these attacks.  However that free press must also report both sides of the news.  I fear in this case, the journalists are too close and personally involved in the attacks that it is difficult for them to report objectively, further alienating the Maoists who want their side of it reported too.  

Coming from a country with relatively no violent political action I really hate to see people that think violence is the only way of expressing their political opinon.  I find it worse that they can get away with it because the police don't have the sophistication (or perhaps the fortitude) to do anything but stand on the corner holding a stick or occaisionally walk down the street with an assault rifle or shotgun.  At any rate, the developments following these incidents and the future of this more violent arm of the Maoist party will definitely impact on the future political landscape of the country.  I watch in avid fascination.

Screening

The second thing that I needed to talk about was the field trip I went on Saturday.  As it goes with these things, I was invited late on Thursday afternoon.  So, cancelling all my very important engagements, including a relay marathon run, a nice lunch with a colleague and yet another Hash I committed myself immediately.

Travelling to the small village of Sankhu, 45 minutes north of "the Du" in 2 taxis filled with equipment, two drivers and 8 people was a hair raising experience.  Remind me to post a photo of a taxi. At one stage I was rather concerned that we weren't going to make it up a particular hill, a concern made all the more worse by the taxi driver checking 3 or 4 times that the handbrake was not actually on.

As no one on this trip really knew who I was or what I was there for, I was treated with a kind sort of mild neglect.  In fact my purpose was to simply observe and understand the process of an eye screening camp with a view to reviewing their data collection processes at some stage in the future.

On our arrival, everyone split up and started setting up with equipment in various inexplicable places around the school we were based at.  Not entirely sure what to do with myself I watched on as all this was happening, pretending to busy myself by looking at a pretty run-of-the-mill piece of paper with nothing written on it.  There was a tap on my shoulder and a suggestion to "please come".  Thoroughly uncomfortable, I managed to ask (in Nepali) where it was were were going.  This small effort seemed to be enough to prove to the crew that I was an alright sort of chap, and not there to spy on them, for this broke the ice for the rest of the day.  If fact, that singular moment was more of an opening for hand-holding, belly-rubbing, and other inappropriate man touching than ever there was - at least in my experience. 

We were in fact off to "breakfast" (by which I mean morning tea) usually taken by the staff at Tilganga anywhere between 9 & 10 - with lunch to follow closely at 12).  I do love the breakfasts I get when I am with Nepali's.  For some reason the management at restaurants open in the mornings speak little English and are generally unhelpful when it comes to pointing at an item and the vain hope that you might get to eat it.  Some weird fried beans, a spicy kind of soup and some oil with a touch of flour and water dropped in it and we were back at the school.  

Before we even arrived in the gate, my colleagues had disappeared to their various stations and had started seeing patients that had been registered and were waiting for us to return from breakfast.  Before I had my wits about me, 5 people had already had their visual acuity measured and they were knocking them off at a rate of about 2 per minute.  There seemed to be a lot of shouting and a lot of confusion and a general excitment in the air.  

From the Visual Acuity station they were sent accross a field into the Exam room, where all the lights were off and there was no shouting or excitement but plenty of confusion.  In fact, it was eerily quiet.  Eventually the patients managed to work out (probably through some kind of devining method) that they were meant to walk to the other end of the room and sit down.  There a silent man shone a light in their eyes (to check for disease) and either gave them some cream and packed them off to the Refraction station or gave them some drops and told them to sit on the bench.  For those patiently waiting on the bench, perhaps 10 minutes later, the strange silent mnan would walk up, shine a light in their eyes and direct them to Counselling.  [I should point out here that 'strange silent man' is a very nice bloke who has been very friendly to me all week, and even called me over to see a cataract close up, it was really cool].

At Counselling, by torch light, a young ophthalmic assistant would schedule the patient a pre-op and operation date (within the next week), take their medical record off them, give them a referral slip and briefly (and I mean in 30-40 seconds) explain what happens during a cataract surgery).  

From there, they would go to refraction, and have their refraction measured.  I'm not entirely sure of the point of this, as usually a cataract makes you partially or totally blind in that eye, so having measurements taken for glasses seems a litte redundant.

Expecting to see 200-250 patients, and only getting to 115, we promptly packed up, hired a local bus and made the return trip inside 20 minutes.  We didn't have the hill that almost killed the taxi to thank for this but the insane lunatic maniac bus driver whose muscles were so massive the seams on his singlet were busted.  He drove that bus like we were in a 4x4 race to get onto Noah's Ark with the flood waters lapping at our ankles.  I believe he is probably part of the facebook group "if you can drive through it, do it".

My role, ultimately in all of this is to determine (through data collection and medical records) why some people don't show up at hospital following these screening camps.  And from my minute observations and highly accurate interpretation of the Nepali language, here is my assessment:

- cataract patients tend to be older than 65

- the regions we are visiting often have people living in them with no education

- the whole problem is that no body has any money (our taxi cost 550R), not exactly monopoly money to some people

- many people have been living with blindness for many years

How on earth are you going to handle someone telling them to show up at hospital tomorrow for some other stranger to stick lights, fluids and fingers into your eyes?  Why would I go all that way to have someone cut into my eye with a scalpel, in a procedure I don't understand.  "I was blind yesterday and got through the day, maybe I'll chance tomorrow too".  With all that yelling and confusion, I'm surprised some people knew which way to go to get home.

I'm not saying that the screening camp was not an amazing thing.  It truly was.  I understand that they need to be quick to get through 250 patients with only 7 staff and a few hours.  But I think just a little empathy, a little consideration could go a long way into making sure patients come along when you are telling them they have a disease that is easily curable, provided you allow hem to CUT A HOLE IN THEIR EYE!  

Sunday is Load Sharing Night

Sunday night is load sharing night. It's fantastic. Its like forced quiet time. Something I might enforce on myself when I return home.

Sunday afternoon/evenings, when I come home, I often forget. Usually though, Jingo (my name for the little puppy that lives next door) is there to meet me. He is usually tied up outside the neighbour's door in the late afternoon. He gets so excited when I come around the corner that sometimes he wets himself. But he is the most beautiful little puppy. I must get a photo (mental note: put that on the to do list to get done at some point in the time before he's no longer a puppy).

Moments after I arrive inside, at say 5pm, and switch on the lights, they go out. "Ahhh that's right, it's load sharing night!" It's quiet. There's no music, no blaring dodgy 40 rupee DVD's playing in the distance and only the occaisional dog barking. No one appears to be out washing clothes, dishes or yelling at the top of their lungs at one another. The creaky old water well is silent. Brodij's wife is comparing weeds in the back garden and there is a general state of calmness about my whole environment.

I light up a candle and open up my journal. Its time to do some writing! It's a fantastic time to reflect and force myself to forget everything else out there for a little while. A time to slow down from the weekend's events and get back into work mode. To get an early night's sleep and prepare for the week ahead.

I think I will instigate load-sharing night when I get home, even if it is only so I can have a cold shower by candlelight.