Doing It Tough In Nepal

Morning walks at 6.30 with our extraordinary guide Suresh, are quite magical in this part of the world. So many mountains and terraced valleys to wonder at. We walk goat tracks around the village and he has managed to take us to different forests and rice fields along the way.

We often pass workers loaded down with rice husks, so that they look like walking hay. Only their legs are visible. And of course, they are walking up hill on a tiny track. I saw one eighty year old woman walking up a hill with a large gas cylinder strapped to her back.  She probably wasn't eighty, but many of them look old beyond their years.

We pass houses that are really only huts. No running water, dirt floors and rusty iron roofs. They usually come attached with a lean-to for the goats and buffalo. The kitchen usually consists of a gas ring and a trestle. There is no bathroom. People are often brushing their teeth outside, as we walk past.  I would hate to be here in the summer, when temperatures can soar to 40, and the monsoon rains would be deafening.

Yesterday Ratna asked us to visit a boarding school during our walk. It was a holiday, so only the twelve or so boarders would be there. The conditions were deplorable, Dickensian. Rotary has been sponsoring four of the boarders, but are now going to send the kids to a proper school in Kathmandu. Apparently, the school was sold and the new owners have been siphoning off the funds to pay debts. Consequently, the kids' welfare has been neglected. I just feel sorry for those left behind.

Tomorrow we are walking to a school about two hours away. (It might be even three, now that I see who has volunteered to walk). Apparently there will be half an hour of challenging terrain, which probably means we have to scramble up a mountain on a non existent path. Should be fun, especially waiting for the heart attack opportunities to catch up.

Speaking of death, they carry their dead relatives on their backs, down to the river, about 600 meters below, to cremate them, so they have to carry the firewood as well.
Now that there are buses that travel that route, I hope I am not sitting next to a corpse on my next trip.

 

A Kalikasthan sunrise on one of our morning walks with Suresh.

A typical modern Nepalese house for the relatively well to do. The top floor usually only has the iron roof above with no ceiling. The quality of the finish is usually pretty rough and ready as they do not seem to possess or at least use things like levels or string lines or plumb bobs or straight edges, some of the basic tools for keeping buildings plumb, level and straight.

People in Nepal have made standing around an art form. They are either carrying ridiculous loads on their backs around goat tracks or just standing around at the side of the road waiting for something to happen

Here is a basket full of millet. It is ground down to make flour usually. It is usually the women who will harvest and carry a couple of these up the hills back to their houses for procssing usiing the modified see-saw

A typical scene around a traditional house of rocks and mud with mud floors. Nowdays they have all the mod cons like plastic water tanks as can be seen in the background.

Mother and child outside the old hut pictured above. When walking with Ratna, this women was keen to talk to him, asking if he could help her older daughter go to a good school. He gets  untold numbers of these requests now that he has made it in the west.

Cauliflower grow well here and it is reflected in the diet. There is plenty of curried cauliflower used in their staple meal, Dhal Bhat, although the curries are not hot like in India

Another women proeparing her small patch of land on he side of a hill. Nearly everyone must grow at least something to help them survive.