Tutti Frutti

Namaste! Oh gosh, so many things have happened since I last wrote. I appologize it has been this long but it was impossible for me to get access to the Internet. I have "survived" four strikes within one week! The daily life of the people here is being greatly disruppted by all these stupid, nonsensical demonstrations. Of course, people should voice their opinions, but shutting the whole country down for day after day, is not the right solution. Why? because it hurts the small people the most, those who live off every Rupee they can make each day. Losing a whole day's income? A devastating blow...  I can only shake my head in disbelief how incapable the current government is. I do not think that the new constitution will be ready on May 28th as previously promised...

Against this backdrop, I must say that I have managed to get around safely to all the places I wanted last week. Of course it was painful to rearrange the schedule about twenty times (because strikes can be announced just  few hours before they are happening and then the roads are suddenly closed)... but I made it. And here is what I was able to see and learn:

TRAVEL TO NEPALGUNJ:
my travel was just fine, it took "only" 12 hours and I had a somewhat decent seat. They showed Indian Cinderella or somthing like that (It had no subtitles). We stopped often for the men to go pee, and once so that everyone could have dinner...

VISIT TO KAMALARI:
I managed to get the Plan vehicle for Saturday and it drove me to Dang District. We met with Reena, a young, talented Plan social worker, and she helped me organize my stay. I spend almost two days at the Kamalari Hostel in Narit, and I also spend one night there. I was able to see how the girls are living and I participated in their daily life! Although I do not speak much Nepali, and definitely no Tharu, we were able to communicate. The girls welcomed me so warmly and heartily that I felt accepted from the very first moment.

We did a small drawing competition. The girls should draw their experience as a Kamalari. It was touching to see and listen to all the different stories. SOme girls have been away for over 10 years, some of them "just" one year but they had to leave when they were 5 years old!!!

As prices, I brought three games for all the girls in the Hostel. My mom gave me the games to give them away as gifts and I think it was a good idea to bring them. The girls play a lot but usually outside, things like running and jumping and catching. With the puzzle, memory, and Ludo game they are now able to play even when it is really hot outside or it is raining.

We had to wash ourselves, brush our teeth, do our laundry, clean our dishes, etc. at the near-by water pump. The water pump is a great relief for the girls because they previously did all this in the river (which looks very brownish). However the pump is still about 50 meters away and I think running water in the hostel would be such a great improvement...

 Most girls have beds, however there are so many girls (over 100) that some of them have to sleep in a rented apartment in the nearby village, and some have to sleep in classrooms in the nearby school! I also slept in one of the classrooms on the floor under a mosquito net.

There are two very nice caretakers. The girls call them "Mommy". They cook twice a day: Dal Bhat, and the girls love to eat it. There are no chairs or desks or table so they eat on the floor. I liked the food although Tharu cook very spicy. Once done we washed our dishes at the water pump. I cleaned my plate with water and all the girls laughed at me. They use mud, to make the plate clean?!?!

School starts at 6 o'clock in the morning and goes till 11. It is so early because the temperature rises to over 40 degrees around noon. Most girls therefore take a nap after school to defy the heat.

In the evening hours they have a lot of chores to do however: they help cooking, buy the rice, carry the vegetables, milk the cows, do the laundry, clean the rooms, dust the bikes, do their homework, feed the animals, collect the fodder, etc...
Everyone is helping and it was nice to see that!

I have so many more things to tell and say about the Kamalari, but this shall be it for today. I am sure I will be saying a lot more about them when at home again. To me the Kamalari are a symbol, a sign for the terrible things that people do to children, but also a symbol for how resilient children and especially girls can be, how they keep on fighting and living their lives!

I was only able to spend one night in Dang because of predicted Bandhas... Those strikes are so annyoing... So I had to take a scary night bus back to Banke and then to Bardia. I wanted to visit the national park in Bardia. When I finally got to my exit station, it was 00:30 and I was so tired and exhausted! A man from the National Park Hotel picked me up on his motorbike and it felt kind of weird getting on the backseat of a stranger's motorbike in the middle of the night! But the ride was amazing. The area there is so beautiful and without any light polution the stars were amazing!

I spend three days in the National Park Resort and it was very refreshing. So quiet, nice, peaceful, different from kathmandu. The only shortfall: the people there were heavy weedheads :) They smoked and smoked and mixed in one joint after the other. They were nice people but I hate the smell and the talk...

Nevertheless, On tuesday, we had the best jungle walk of this season! I am not kidding. We started early and walked to a spot close by a river. It was a very hot day and so the guides were expecting all the animals to come to the water. And they did :)

We saw wild tigers, rhinoes, and elephants! It was gigantic. And the best thing: the tiger was facing the baby rhino, and then the mother rhino came and scared one of the tigers away :) The guides said it was the first time they had ever seen such a thing!

This is Jack pointing out some locations to me. He is the "famous" Jungle guide of Barida. Down at the bottom, his very weird, and bitchy (there are some good stories) French wife and one of the French tourists.

This was tiger number one of the day. We saw four different ones, among them two younger ones.

And then here came the baby rhino! The tiger swam towards it but it did not attack because tigers like to attack from the back.

But fortunately the rhino mother came down and saved the little rhino baby. They swam for a while in the river and then took off.

And then came the first elephant. We saw two, one of them was the oldest inhabitant of the park.

And then we also saw a Pyton in its burrow. It was at least 5 meters long and its body was massive! We saw so many other animals, monkeys, birds, peacocks, dear, etc... and of course the flora was awesome!

COOKING LESSONS FROM A NEPALESE: 

The French tourists, with whom I had been in the Park, had been living in Bardia for over a month now and they had met a very nice local woman who was a great cook. So one day they asked her to teach them some stuff.
And I went with them because the appointment was Wednesday morning and I had time.

First we made some kind of vegetable fries with cabbage, spinach, onions, and peppers. They tasted great! Hoepfully I can repeat them at home.

We also made Samosa: dough pyramids filled with mashed spicy potatoes. The shaping of the dough was pretty difficult.

The final result was this: they are also fried in oil and they taste great too! It was a fun morning, alsthough the Frenchies were kind of weird :D

My ride back to Kathmandu was not as great. It was over 40 degrees hot and the bus had no air conditioning. It was cramped full with tons of people and sacks of rice. It was a rough ride and it took over 19 hours!!!

Oh well, but I guess I did make it back, safe and in time to renew my Visa, so I should not be complaining. I have so many more pictures and things to tell but I guess this is enough for now! I appologize for these long blogs, I wish I could do it more frequently but shorter...

Have a great day for now!

Annika