Festival time in the village

Ray spent the night trying to fix a problem with his server. I spent it sleeping and got up for a guided walk through the forest that adjoins our establishment. Ray joined us as the power went down, hence no internet. We walked along a ridge, looking across to the next village with terraced rice fields. It was a steep climb on the return. Our guide Suaresh, is Ratna's number 5 brother (there are six in the family) who works taking trekkers up to base camp. He is a mountain goat in human form. He is also the best dancer in the village. Did I mention dancing?

It's festival time in Nepal, the schools and businesses close for three days and people visit houses with dancing and singing, seeking money for a prosperous year. There are four young girls here where we are staying and they have entertained us every evening with their traditional dances. We have also been visited by the village school group, who presented their traditional dancing, and last night we had a mother's group present, after the young girls had entertained us. Suaresh joined in with the girls, to provide a highlight for us. Later he did some kangaroo dancing as a special treat. We are all danced out.

We visited Ratna's father's house in the village yesterday morning and another family's house in the afternoon, just to see how the other half lives. They both have cows and buffalo tied up next to the house. These animals live most of their lives tied up in a very small space. There are no wide open spaces to let the animals roam. One house had four generations living there. There is no running water, unless you count the one tap in the courtyard where they wash everything. The houses are made traditionally of mud and rock, but after the earthquake, cement is the building material of choice. Paint can be made of interesting components, such as battery acid and kerosene.

They seem to lack any skilled tradesmen, which isn't surprising, as there is no trade training facility in the country. Consequently, building is pretty rough and ready. For instance, the drain in our bathroom lacks a trap, so it has quite a distinct perfume. The door to our room cannot open properly for lack of a bit of planing. The dining room has gaps in the walls. But the curtains are exceptionally elaborate.
 
Three men came to the village yesterday, to make 5 mattresses for the softies here who required extra padding as the beds were too hard. It was done by hand and by the end of the day those mattresses were completed. An amazing feat, as they started by beating the kapok with a stick, then fluffing it with a special violin (well it kinda looked like one) and then sewing it by hand into the chosen cotton material, beating that with a stick to even out the filling and then quilting the final product. I hope those requiring the extra mattresses slept well last night. I'm sure those three men did!

We are off to the national park tomorrow and to dress up in national dress for a festival celebration. Should be fun!

Nepal is a very poor country and people generally live with a number of animals in and around the house. Whilst they are taken good care of, their living conditions are not so great, being tethered in the same sport for weeks, somtimes months, on end

Here is Ratna, the project leader with his father and auntie/step mother. Yes his father is married to two sisters, although the first wife and older sister booted them out of the house not long after he took up with the younger sister. They all seem to get along ok now, especially since the first wife built a nice new house, then got the husband to pay for some of it..

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The hills near our village of Kalikasthan in the foreground and in the background through the dust are the mountains. We are up at around 1450mts.

These women were performing some dances one one of the nights of the festival that was taking place while we were here. Because there are so many ethnic groups in Nepal, there are a large number of festivals scattered throughout the year. I am not sure if it is true or not, but we are told that Nepal has the highest number of public holidays of any country in the world.

Some members of our troupe taking in the vibes of the 100+ year old "god" tree, on one of our morning walks. Led by Suresh, who is a trekking guide, (obscured on the right) we take an hour long walk each morning on various tracks around the village. As you can imagine, there is a lot of up and down on goat tracks.

Traditional Nepali housing made of stones and mud, usually with a mud floor. Usually, the whole family sleep in the one room.

This is the home of one of Ratna's extended family, in this case his half brother and various children, nieces. Not sure of his name, but he was tavelling in a bus to do some maintenance on his chicken farm when the bus was hit by a landslide and the bus was thrown off the road. A person died in the incident and others are still in hospital three months later. He escaped with a seriously broken leg and some other injuries which kept him in hostpital for a month. You will notice the drying corn cobs, which are later turned into flour by using a device a little like a small see-saw which pulverises the corn pellets.

Brenda could not get enough  of this buffalo with the dental work. This one was holed up at Nabaraj's family house(see below) along with a few other female buffalos and goats. Ther also grew other vegetables and rice and millet which are staples of the district.

Here is Nabaraj (top right) and four generations of his family. He was part of our support team in the first week of our stay. Some of the volunteers stayed in his house in Kathmandu where he lives (at the end of a very very rough road). Even though the family are relatively affluent by Nepali standards, they still live in traditional style houses. The family were exceptionally welcoming and gave us, along with other Nepalese fare, some sel roti which is like a large thin doghnut made out of rice flour. Delicious.

A couple of hours previously this was just a pile of kapok and fabric. After beating the crap out of it with a bamboo stick seen bottom left, they continue to manipulate with the stick before flicking it with the bow of a device that looks a little like a ancient musical instrument which further separates it, until you end up with a pile of cotton about 10 times its original size. After filling up the fabric bag which was sewn by another worker at the same time, that the beating was going on, it is the filled bag's turn to get beaten by the stick, before the quilter gets to work.

How many layers of mountains do you want?

The delightful young Angel who is Ratna's niece. She is sponsored by Rotary and goes to a school in Kathmandu. A very bright girl whise english is very good.