The Nepalese Curry Project

We have been in the village more than a week now. We are enjoying the Nepalese food, but having curry for breakfast lunch and dinner is becoming a bit much. One of the team got some special treatment and has chips and omelettes for every meal, which she drowns in salt. Each to his own. I spoke too soon. Tonight we had the blandest meal ever - boiled vegetables and fried chicken and chips. Bring back the curries!

The donut guy from the tea shop up the road came to make us fresh donuts for breakfast, nothing like starting the day with a sugar fix. (I had to have two). I would kill for some fruit and yoghurt, and some chocolate and champagne. Fantastic sunsets but without the obligatory accompaniments it's just not the same.

We have been extremely busy the last few days. Somehow Ray and I have been lumbered with the job that takes all day from 9am to 8pm, with meal breaks. We have to rearrange the dining hall into a teaching space for 16 laptops and a projector. As half of them have crap batteries, we have to make sure all of them are charged after the classes, which takes lots of time, as there are only 6 power points. And then we have to arrange them the next morning with the worst ones nearest to the power. It doesn't help when the power goes down, which you can rely on at least twice per day.

We have managed to survive the 51 students who attended our program sessions. They were all lovely kids, and after walking through the village this evening, we had to drink lots of ginger tea, as they invited us into their houses to meet their families. They live very tough lives here. I will save that story for another time.

Apparently they are building some sort of waste center on this site. Beyond those piers is a very steep drop which leads down to what appears to be three large rooms with a wall height of about 1 metre.

I am not sure how they are going to get the waste down there, as the road, if one could call it that, is not suitable for vehicles of any kind.

A typical truck which does the China to Kathmandu run along this road. We discovered the next day that this particular truck was going nowhere as the sump had been taken off along with other unknown parts.

You may be able to see the sun just peeking through the pine trees. This is taken from the road about the houses where we were staying.

We are staying in this building which has four rooms on the lower level. Our room is the one on the right where the door does not open  without it seriously scraping on the floor.

This building is the kitchen block which is the first building you encounter when arriving on the right

Walking down the path with the kitchen on the right as you enter the project compound, you can see the resource room on the right with the dining room/classroom straight ahead. In the background you can see the top section of the bedroom building. Many unfinished buidlings have reo sticking up out of the slab or out of unfinished piers like demented flower arrangements.

Here a couople of the lads who attended the sessions (there were about 50 boys and girls in total) Brenda and I did the internet and computer introduction session. Others were team building and engineering and environment. The  boy on the right, Ram has a dream of becoming a computer programmer even though at the moment he doesn't own or have access to a computer apart from his phone. He visited me for the final two nights of our stay so that I could explain how it all worked. His father was killed in the earthquake, but his mother is trying to provide the best future for him that she can. A very touching story.

This is Atit who has a dream of becoming a hotel manager. His father worked in hotels in Dubai for a number of years as a cleaner, getting paid what we would consider a pittance although it was quite good compared to Napali standards. He was another one very upset when we had to go. He wrote a very touching letter to me and the rest of the crew when they finished up.

In the foreground is Angel, one of Ratnas neices that he sponsors at a school in Kathmandu. I think I have mentioned her before but she is a very good dancer. here she was demonstrating her skills at a open fire on the night we finished. Ram, the boy I mentioned above is just visible to the left of the fire, playing guitar.It was a big night with a lot of singing and dancing.