Christmas in Kathmandu

I have to admit that I was a bit concerned about Christmas. I had an emotional week leading up to it and I’m entirely sure why. I tend to think it had something to do with the short days, lack of electricity and being virtually alone at Christmas. I was starting to feel a bit homesick. I went into Thamel, the touristy part of town on Christmas Eve and ended up partying until the wee hours of the morning with three very young girls (one Canadian and two Aussies) who are volunteering at an orphanage on the other side of town. We had a great time together and once they went home I continued on with some Nepali friends. I haven’t been drinking much of late and it somehow didn’t register I’m sorely out of practice. Fortunately a Nepali friend made sure I made it home safely sometime around 3:00 AM.

I spent Christmas day with Deborah at her place. We sat out on her terrace in beautiful sunshine, had a great lunch and drank a few glasses of wine. At about 4:00 we headed over to another friend of hers, and spent the remainder of the evening in the company of three other American women. They all had great stories and were in Nepal for various reasons. It is very hard to meet women here, as it would be improper for Nepali women to be out and about after dinner. I can’t tell you what a joy it was to spend Christmas in the company of these four Western women, talking about everything imaginable and just being girls. It was a fabulous day.

In visiting these two apartments, I came to the realisation that I am living in a dive. Deborah has a lovely apartment, similar to mine in size but much nicer. It is on the third storey of a building, has lots of sunshine and a beautiful terrace. She pays less rent than me. Heather pays the same as I do, but her apartment is fit for an ambassador. It’s absolutely stunning and also well situated. In addition, both of these apartments are located on a part of the power grid that isn’t affected by load sharing, likely because some government official lives in their neighbourhood. I can’t tell you how envious I am of them not so much for their fabulous places but for the fact that their power is always on. The only consolation is that they have both been here for several years, and lived in places like mine when they first got here too. I guess it takes awhile to get to know the ins and outs of a new city. It’s good to know that these great places do exist here, and when my commitment to this place ends in March I will try to find something better.

Tree at GATE

I brought in a few decorations and got some students to help me decorate a small cedar on campus. It was their first time and I offered no assistance whatsoever. It took them about 2 minutes. Here are the results.

Electricity

I think I am finally starting to understand the electricity issues here. Nepal has more water than every country on earth save one. All of that water is running fairly quickly out of the mountains so you would think that providing hydro electricity would be a no-brainer. I can only assume that money is the culprit for this not being the case.

We are now in the middle of the dry season and the water levels in the few dams are dropping rapidly. The government has just released a new load-shedding schedule a mere two weeks after the last increase. This one brings us to 63 hours per week up from 45 hours at the beginning of December. For six days of the week the power is off for 10 hours, typically six hours in the morning and four in the evening. One day a week is the luxury day when there is only one three-hour outage. I’m sure you can imagine the frustration of not only trying to fit a shower in around this but actually getting some work done. Never mind trying to catch your favourite TV show.

We were all ecstatic a couple of weeks ago when the Finance Minister announced that he had a solution to the problem and that load-shedding would be cut in half within two months. He is pretty much the only Member of Parliament here that anyone respects and he seems like a smart guy. He has a PhD in Rural Planning (or something similar) from an American university, and is known to keep his promises. People trust this guy so when he said he had a solution, everyone bought in.

When we passed the new dam and power plant in Beshisahar on the field trip, we assumed that this was part of the solution. I don’t understand much about the technical side of this, but it appeared that the new plant has a considerable output of electricity.

Unfortunately, the dream has turned to dust. Apparently the Finance Minister recently visited Doha, Qatar and toured their power-generating plants which are all fuelled by diesel. He came home all excited about this and announced to the country that a solution was well in hand. Then he sat down and did the math. It turns out that diesel costs somewhat more in Nepal than in Qatar (gee, do you think?) and to use it here would increase electricity costs by 400%. So now we’re back to square one and I imagine that the one MP who had any credibility at all has lost it. I’m actually looking forward to the monsoon when the dams will fill up again.

A couple of positive notes: 1) my electricity bill is well under $10 per month (and likely dropping) 2) the college has just put in a generator so I can at least get work done there.

On another note, the college has a small building that they have staged like a hotel. There is a lobby and front desk downstairs as well as a couple of “hotel rooms”. There is also a suite on the second story with a living room, two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom. There is balcony offering lovely views of the mountains when the air is clear. They use this building to train front-desk students as well as housekeeping students. They have offered the apartment to me free of charge. It is on the generator, so I would have power 24/7 (assuming they can find diesel to keep it running which is difficult at times). This is a good news, bad news situation. The good news is that I would have a gaggle of wanna-be maids coming in every day to clean my place for me. The bad news is that I would have a gaggle of wanna-be maids coming in every day to clean my place for me. I just don’t know if I could handle the lack of privacy. What if I want to lounge around in my pyjamas all day or what if the gods actually smile on me for once in this decade and send me an overnight guest? I just think that it would be difficult having the students know every detail of my private life, which they invariably would. I’ll have to give it some more thought.

Field Trip

Despite my best efforts to extract information about this trip from anyone I could find on campus, I left home knowing only that we would be visiting Chitwan and a beer factory and that we were staying in different places every night. I had no way of knowing what to pack or what to expect. Needless to say, this pretty much killed me. I’m really trying to be more flexible but I’m a planner at heart and I couldn’t get my head around this one. It was especially difficult because it was being organised by students who had never done anything like this before and I felt like I needed to be prepared for every contingency in case of mishaps. I did my best with my packing, choosing my day pack rather than my small carry-on wheeled luggage which was a bit bigger. I thought I had done pretty well, but most of the students showed up with bags smaller than my purse. I can still forget from time to time how spoiled we are in the west and how much stuff we have.

I started off the trip by getting up at 4:30 and showering by candlelight (not so romantic when you’re doing it alone and it’s about 5° C in the bathroom) so that I could get to the college by 6:00 AM, our scheduled departure time. I arrived a few minutes early and the campus was deserted. The security guard thought I was off my nut for expecting to find anyone there at that hour. Shortly after 6:00 I texted Khem to see if I got the instructions wrong, when finally the first student showed up. I should have realised we were dealing with Nepalese time, not Swiss time like in my parents’ house. I waited on the bus for the others to arrive and sometime around 7:15 we finally pulled out of the college. We had a few more students to pick up around the city and by the time we finally left Kathmandu it was after 8:00 and we had 45 people on a 27-seat bus. This was the first, but certainly not only time on the trip I was grateful to be a staff member: I actually got a seat and didn’t have to sit on another person, the floor or the roof as many of the students did.

A couple of hours out of Kathmandu we stopped for breakfast and I had my first of many Nepalese meals. Our drive to Chitwan took most of the day and it was really interesting to drive through the countryside, especially as it was wedding season. Unlike in Kathmandu, the guests all followed the bridal car in a bus rather than on foot, with the dowry packed on the roof Clampett-style. Fortunately there never seemed to be any livestock involved, but there were literally whole households up there. People were hanging out of the windows and doors of the bus yelling and waving in celebration. It was very cool.

At one point I was in a rather intense conversation with Khem so was facing inwards for about 5-10 minutes. When I turned to look out the window again, it was like we had left Nepal altogether. The most startling change was that the ground was pancake-flat. For a few miles we drove through a forest with tall trees and little undergrowth. In the middle of the dry season this felt very much like the national park around Brian’s place near Melbourne, Australia. We soon left the forest and were surrounded by fields of various crops. Not only was the terrain very un-Nepalese to me, but the whole ambiance seemed different. It was also much warmer there than in Kathmandu. It felt more like India than Nepal, and you all know how much I love India.

We arrived at the hotel mid-afternoon and both Khem and I were pleasantly surprised by the lovely grounds and clean rooms. We were brought back to reality when we realised that there were exactly eight rooms booked for us. Is anyone doing the math yet? Yes, that’s an average of 5.6 people per room, each of which had a single and double bed. Again, as a staff member I got my own single bed, but the students were sleeping in heaps on the beds. We had a great lunch at the hotel and then sat around looking at each other. Apparently there were no plans to actually do anything in Chitwan. Khem stepped in at this point and arranged for us to go to an elephant breeding camp nearby. This was followed by a visit to a riverside restaurant that offered fabulous views of the sunset however we arrived there about 20 minutes after the sun had slid below the horizon. We walked back to the hotel in the dark stopping to browse at the handful of souvenir shops along the way.

Back at the hotel we were treated to a cultural show by a local dance troupe. It was different than the other Nepalese dancing I’d seen and was actually a really good show. By the end of it we were all up dancing with them and the students really seemed to be enjoying themselves. This was followed by dinner and then the kids found a sound-system which they set up on the lawn for more dancing. They lit a bonfire and the party began. Meanwhile, back in the dining room, Khem, Jiten and I were finishing our dinners. Jiten is the chef and head cooking teacher at the college and looks far more like a short, round Mexican than he does a Nepali. He wanted to buy Khem and I a beer after dinner which we both declined due to the strict no-drinking policy we had implemented on the trip and also because neither of us really wanted one. But Jiten wasn’t going to be denied and went ahead with his order. Khem and I hid our glasses under the table in case any students came by and tried to rid ourselves of the illicit stuff as quickly as possible. We both had a good laugh the next morning when one of the students reminded Khem that he had to pay for his beer when checking out. So much for discretion.

I had a headache after dinner so went right to bed. Khem and Jiten joined the students for their bonfire party and finally shut things down at about 10:30. One of my roommates came home at about this time, but went to bed with the light on and the door open so the others could get it. (There’s no way to close the door without bolting it, so we had to leave it ajar.) After virtually no sleep, I finally got up at about 4:00 and turned off the light, only to have the other girls arrive home five minutes later and turn it back on. They were in and out of the bathroom doing their ablutions and then finally climbed into bed and turned the light off. I thought I might actually grab a bit of sleep, but they then started sending text messages, with every keystroke beeping from the next bed. I was a tad cranky the next day.

After breakfast we climbed back on the bus for an hour or so drive to the brewery that we were supposed to be touring. (A wedding is passing by my window as I’m typing this and the band is surprisingly good – I think they’re all playing the same song for once.) We arrived and found that the brewery was currently closed for a break due to lack of demand for their product. Khem, the silver-tongued devil that he is, managed to convince them to let us tour the facility anyway. We also toured the noodle factory and chocolate factory on the same premises. It was quite interesting but I’m glad that packaged noodles are not a staple of my diet as they are for many people around here. After watching the students poking the dough passing us by on conveyer belts, I had to wonder how many other dirty hands, stray dogs and other contaminants find their way into the factory and then into the average package of YY noodles. Ditto for the chocolate wafer cookies they were making. It didn’t exactly meet Western standards for hygiene. I was happy to see that broken bits of noodles were collected and sold to workers and local villagers in 20 kg bags at very cheap prices.

After spending about double the amount of time we needed to there (herding Nepalese college students is somewhat akin to herding cats) we climbed back on the bus and headed towards Beshisahar. It wasn’t until much later that evening that I realised this name was familiar to me because it was the trailhead for the first trek I did in Nepal in 2002. We drove all day and well into the evening to get there, stopping only for lunch in the city of Chitwan, a filthy, flat, industrial town that really belongs in India rather than Nepal. By the time we stopped that night we were back into the Nepal I love, in the foothills of the Himalayas. A few kilometres before Beshisahar we passed a brand new hydro plant that was officially opened that day. I remembered having seen them working on this dam when I passed by in 2002. (More about electricity in my next blog.)

Our hotel here wasn’t quite as nice as the one in Chitwan but I got my own room and I think all of the students got their own beds this time around. The hotel was run by one of our students’ brother which meant a lot to the kids who are all aspiring hoteliers. Santos, the student in question, snapped into shape from this point on and really impressed me with the way he managed the group. He had been less than impressive earlier in the day on the factory tour, so it was really great to see him pull up his socks without any prompting from college staff. We had a late dinner and then went right to bed.

We got up early the next morning and watched the sunrise from the roof of the hotel and then went down for breakfast. At this point I discovered that we were hiking up to a Gurung village called Ghalegaun in the mountains above Beshisahar. I had been told the night before that we would be driving up, but now I was facing a six-hour trek uphill. You all know how much I love trekking, but a little advanced warning would have gone a long way for this one. I did the trek in jeans and running shoes, as did many of the students, although some only had flip-flops. I reckon that trekking in jeans is just slightly more comfortable than trekking in chain mail. I chose, as I always do when trekking, to walk at the back of the pack. This allows me to go at my own pace and experience the space and freedom of being in the mountains. I also really hate the feeling of having someone walking on my heels. In this case I also thought it prudent that someone with a shred of common sense should bring up the rear and make sure that nobody got lost or left behind. Of course the students all thought I was dying and kept offering to carry my pack or otherwise help me up the mountain. They kept telling me how difficult it was for people such as me doing this kind of thing for the first time. It was all quite cute considering my considerable trekking experience and the fact that the majority of these kids had never been out of the Kathmandu valley. (It should be noted that at this point I was congratulating myself on my choice of daypack over wheeled luggage.)

We stopped for lunch half way up at a tiny restaurant in a lovely little village. They managed to accommodate all of us in shifts. When we finally arrived at Ghalegaun I was stopped at the ACAP office at the entry to the village. This was no surprise to me: the night before in Bessisahar I had seen a pamphlet indicating that Ghalegaun lay within the Annapurna Conservation Area and that all foreigners needed a permit. I’ve been through this many times before and I know the rules, so I had questioned Khem about it. He assured me that since I was a teacher on a Nepalese school trip I would be exempt from the permit. Of course when we encountered the ACAP warden, no such exemption was forthcoming. Worse, if you buy your permit inside the ACAP area, rather than in the city before you leave, the fee doubles. This meant I owed about $60 rather than $30. When we arrived at the ACAP office, we had just climbed a wickedly steep stretch of trail and I was dripping with sweat. Almost immediately, some clouds rolled in around and the temperature dropped markedly. I had to sit there becoming more and more hypothermic while Khem argued with the warden to no avail. They finally agreed to pick up the discussion in the morning – it wasn’t like we were going to sneak out of the village in the middle of the night and we had to walk past the ACAP office on the way out the next day.

We continued on and were greeted by the villagers a hundred metres or so up the path. The welcoming committee had malas for us (the Himalayan version of the Hawaiian lei, made with marigolds) as well as tikkas for our foreheads. The tikkas were a mixture of rice and curd (yogurt) that they sprinkled in our hair and plastered all over our foreheads. I’m keen to participate in most rituals and ceremonies, but I have to say that having food stuck on my face isn’t my favourite thing, and the smell of curd started to nauseate me very quickly. We then joined the rest of the students in a stone courtyard where we were served tea and a very rich, oily pastry. (The Nepalese use mustard oil for much of their cooking which is very heavy and cholesterol-laden. Their food tends to be very oily, which is hard for us Westerners to handle in large quantities. Eating only Nepalese fare over the four days of this trip was difficult for me, even thought it all tasted great. I actually lost a bit of weight in spite of the the grease, simply because I could only handle small quantities.)

There are no hotels or lodges in Ghalegaun so accommodation is provided through homestays. As everyone was assigned their home and left with their hostess, I was somewhat concerned that Khem and I were being billeted together. I was sure that everything would be above-board but I wondered what kind of message we were sending the students is this very modest country. We arrived at our home and it turned out that I had a fabulous little room above the woodshed with two single beds in it. The woman of the house initially assumed that we would share the room but Khem had her take him to a vacant room in the main house. (This conversation occurred in Nepalese so I didn’t know it had taken place until later that day. She brought it up again over dinner and it took considerable effort on Khem’s part to convince her that we wouldn’t be sleeping together. Apparently this was a first for her – no previous guests had managed to last the night in separate rooms.) I was able to take a moderately hot solar-heated shower in a stone hut and get into dry, warm clothes. I then went and found a stone bench in a quiet spot on the edge of town and did a short meditation. When darkness fell I joined Khem in the kitchen for dinner. (I should come clean and admit that I got lost finding my way back to the house at dusk. Some villagers found me and offered to help, but I didn’t know where I was going or the name of my hostess so it was a bit of a mess. Fortunately it all ended well but not without a bit of embarrassment on my part.)

The main house had two rooms. Khem was in one, so I didn’t see the inside of it. The other was a simple room, about 6’ X 10’ with a fire at one end and a bed at the other. The ceiling was about 5 feet high and blackened with soot so we had to stoop to move around. Khem and I sat on a woollen blanket on the floor and our hostess sat on a straw mat as she effortless prepared our dinner. She was able to swivel on her mat and reach every utensil, pot, spice and food item that she needed. She kept the fire burning at an even heat, chopped, poured, kneaded, stirred and served like a well-oiled machine. All the while she kept up a steady conversation with Khem and produced a beautiful meal. It was a joy to watch, although my knees were aching out of sympathy for her maintaining a squatting position for hours on end. She offered Khem and me some rakshi, the local homemade whisky of the Himalayas. It is made with whatever grain is grown at that particular altitude (in this case millet) and distilled in large clay pots on the fire. It is served in water tumblers and goes down much like paint thinner. Khem and I decided that nobody would know if we indulged in a drink in our snug little kitchen so we accepted. Three times. I had a pretty good glow going by the time we ate our meal.

After dinner we found our way through the labyrinthine pathways to the community centre where we were being treated to a cultural show. Once there we realised that we weren’t the only ones to be offered rakshi at dinner – the students were all pretty tipsy. In true Nepalese form the show started about an hour and a half late and had an endless gap in the middle. During the break Jitan and one of the students took over the show, dancing and frolicking on the stage. The audience ate it up. We eventually made it home under a stunning starlit sky and retired to our respective rooms. I bundled up in all my clothes and climbed into bed under the piles of blankets left in the room.

I woke early and looked out my window at the stunning mountain view taking shape in the dawn. I walked to the top of a nearby hill to watch the sunrise with a bunch of students. I could see the same mountains as I could on my sunrise hike with Judy a few weeks ago, but this time from the other side of the range. After breakfast we congregated again for our farewell ritual. I tried to dodge the tikka this time, but failed miserably and left the village with a meal’s worth of rice and curd hardening into a crust on my forehead. We stopped in at the ACAP office to revisit the issue of my permit but didn’t make much headway. The silver-tongued devil did all he could with Santos and his brother throwing in their support for good measure, all to no avail. They finally reached an agreement whereby I would buy my permit when I got back to Kathmandu in order to avoid the penalty. (The college ended up covering the cost.)

We left the village about one hour later than planned (surprise!) so were a bit worried about time. We descended at a fairly rapid rate considering the terrain and I was concerned for my knees. My worries were all for naught and we made really good time. About 2/3 of the way down the hill the path crossed the road and Khem wanted to hop on a passing jeep and catch a lift to town. I would have preferred to walk and extend my time in the mountains, but I agreed to jump in with him. It was quite possibly the roughest ride I’ve ever had and we both regretted the decision moments after it was made. We were in town by about 2:00 PM as were the majority of the students. Of course we needed another meal and we ate lunch shortly after 3:00. Unfortunately there were some stragglers who didn’t get down until after 4:00 so we didn’t get on the road until after 5:00. It was a long drive back to town (with one more stop for food) and I didn’t get home until just after midnight. I was very happy to climb into my bed.

First Week at Work

Well I survived week one at the college. I am spending about half my time on college work and half my time on GEN work. I expect that this will vary from week to week depending on demand. I spent some time this week re-writing the GEN website and will finish that up next week. I have also been going through the files that were left for me as well as the cabinets lining my office walls. I have the entire school library in my office, a collection of about 20 or 30 books and another 30 or so DVDs. I also have the stationary, office supplies and textbooks. Needless to say, I am totally reorganising everything so that it makes some kind of sense to me. I understand that I’m incredibly anal about these things, but even if I let my mind float free, I can’t imagine why anyone would put little piles of the same textbooks in four or five different cupboards. I now have a pretty good grasp of what’s there and what to do when people come looking for things.

I have been somewhat technically challenged this week. The power outages continue to vex me but so far I have made it to work every day showered and made up. My hair is a different story but I can live with that. My biggest challenge is finding things to do with my time at work on the days when we have extended outages during business hours. Most of my work is done on my computer and the internet, so I’m somewhat at a loss as to how to fill my time without them. I am trying to book meetings and other non-computer related activities during these times, but as a rookie, I don’t really have much established yet. On top of the power outages, I made a stupid computer error at home yesterday and have messed up my internet access. (For the technically inclined among you, I went into my router settings looking for a specific piece of information, but as soon as I opened the web page, everything reverted back to the manufacturer default. I don’t know what the correct settings are as the guy from the phone company came to set things up for me so I can't put it right.) Today is yet another stat holiday in Nepal (as is practically every other day) so I can’t get the phone guy to come back today. (And yes, this time I’ll record the settings somewhere so I’m prepared in case it happens again.) The good news is there is still an internet cafe on every corner so I can just run down the street to check my email.

My other big news is that I’m leaving tomorrow morning on a field trip with the college. Some of the students wanted to see Chitwan, a national park in the south of the country so they have arranged this trip. Deborah has bowed out but I’ll be going with Khem and perhaps one or two other teachers as “chaperones”. I use the term loosely because I’m not sure if I’ll actually have any responsibility on the trip other than I have to behave myself and maintain some level of respectability in front of the students. They are at the college level, but still are immature enough that I think they can’t totally be left to their own devices. Kkem and I have decided to pack lots of extra money as we don’t have 100% confidence in the student organisers. It’s costing each of us 3000 rupees (about $45 Cdn) which includes all meals, transportation, lodging and entrance fees for 3 nights and 4 days. Even by Nepalese standards, this is a very small amount of money and it’s scaring the crap out of us. We envision sleeping in gutters and eating one bowl of dahl a day. We figure we may have to bail and get a room at the local Hilton.

Nobody has been able to give me an itinerary so I really don’t know where we’re going or what we’re doing. The Chitwan National Park is famous for wildlife but I don’t think we’ll be going on safari or tiger hunting based on the timeframes. I do know we’re visiting a brewery along the way to see how beer is made. I’m guessing that they somehow had to incorporate the hospitality industry into the trip in order to legitimise it and this was the most appealing way. Other than that, the trip a mystery to me.

I’m expecting to be back on Tuesday and will be in touch then. Until then, I’ll be incommunicado. I’d love to tell you not to worry because I’m in totally competent and capable hands, but I’m not sure that’s the case :-). I’m sure, however, that I’ll return in one (potentially ragged) piece.

A few hours later....

I think my landlord, Kiran, is a little upset that my internet isn’t working. I let him use it from time to time and I’m sure it’s a big deal for him to be able to sit and play on it without having to watch the clock our count the rupees. (I have to admit that there have been times when I wish he was watching a clock as I have to stay up until he’s finished. It also means that I can’t get any work done and there have been times when he’s stayed in excess of 3 hours. Now that we hardly ever have power, I’m getting a little stingy with my computer time – I may have to shut him down from time to time.) Anyway, with me going away for a few days without my computer, I’m sure he was expecting to move in and live on the internet. When we couldn’t get the telecom guy to come today, he insisted on having a friend over who is computer literate and could surely help me out. I was leery, but didn’t know how to say no. And I also thought he may be legitimate and actually fix it for me.

Turns out that he was somewhat legitimate, but networking certainly isn’t his strong suit. I sat there looking over his shoulder as he seemingly randomly clicked all over the place. He did the same thing over and over and over again expecting a different result. It was very frustrating for me because I knew what the problem was and he was a) not acknowledging me at all and b) trying everything in the world except what needed to be done. As I watched him systematically go through every menu of every application I have, I became more and more concerned that I was going to have to rebuild from the ground up. There are about 20 horror stories I could tell, but I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that he had absolutely no idea how to fix the problem and wanted to save face by making it look like he knew what he was doing. I asked him very politely a couple of times to cease and desist but I finally had to physically grab the mouse out of his hand in order to make him stop. I’m sure I came off as rude but I was starting to panic that he was going to do some damage that I wouldn’t know how to reverse.

Anyway, I’m kind of relieved to know that my computer will be turned off and locked away during my absence. Hopefully I can get the internet sorted out with a phone call to the phone company when I’m back.

My Weekend

On Saturday morning I went to a Christmas bazaar on the grounds of the Hyatt Hotel. It was like other Christmas bazaars in many ways: Christmas carols playing through the loudspeakers, games for the kids and lots of wonderful arts and crafts to buy. It was unlike other Christmas bazaars in that it was held outside, I wore flip flops and there were Buddhist artefacts for sale. I came within inches of buying a beautifully carved rocking elephant but couldn’t really justify it at the moment, especially with no toddlers around to ride it. I did however pick up a few Christmas gifts for myself and got business cards for some artisans that I will definitely visit again.

In the afternoon I attended an awards ceremony with my boss. I think that they were hosted by the Nepal Tourism Board, but I can’t be sure. There were 15 people from various industries being honoured for their participation in building “the new Nepal”. Khem was the only one of the award recipients asked to give a speech and his words were the only ones spoken in English at the event. We arrived at the hall and took seats in the front row. We were joined by Bharat, Khem’s brother, as well as a couple of people from the college and a handful of students. Deborah was also with us, grumbling throughout. Saturdays are the only true weekend day here, and she considers them sacred. Having to be at a business-related function was a fate worse than death for her and she had tried valiantly but unsuccessfully to weasel out of it. When the event finally started a half hour later than planned, she was unexpectedly called up to the stage to sit with the rest of the VIPs on couches arranged in a straight line stretching from one side of the stage to the other. I almost split my gut laughing at her sitting up there rolling her eyes. As each award was announced, the recipient went up on stage to receive a kata (prayer scarf), marigold lei and a plaque, before sitting behind the couches on rows of cheap plastic chairs. All of the VIPs and award recipients wore these bright purple and orange bread plate-sized doilies pinned loosely to their jackets with safety pins. They sort of resembled the rosettes used at 4th of July celebrations, but were made of plastic and looked like they were assembled by pre-schoolers. Everyone wore them with honour as if they were the mayor’s chain of office or something. Several of the dignitaries made speeches and I found out after the fact that in true Nepali form they were all political in nature and had nothing to do with awards being presented. Throughout the event, kids were running up and down the aisles, people were talking (yelling) on their cell phones and there was general pandemonium in the hall. Even the VIPs sitting on the stage were answering phone calls throughout the ceremony and talking loud enough to disrupt the MC. On top of that, the college students sitting with me were being typical teenage boys. I’m not sure exactly what was going on but I think it may have been a fart game of some sort. Whatever it was, they were stifling laughter to the point of asphyxiation through much of the event. I haven’t had that much fun in ages – it was a total zoo.

After the ceremony Khem, Deborah, Suresh (from the college) and I went for a coffee. Deborah has decided that Khem needs a makeover, so after dinner we took him across the street to a new shopping mall and had him try on about 50 different outfits. We did convince him to pick up a couple of trendy things that change his image dramatically and drop about 20 years off his look. Nothing like adding “stylist” to my list of duties before I’ve even had my first day at work.

I’m happy to report that today, Sunday, was a little less eventful. I was wakened at 5:30 by the previously-mentioned, high-volume honks and squeaks of a wedding procession. 5:30!!!! Who gets married at 5:30 in the morning?!? I did get down to one of the shops that I discovered at the bazaar and ordered myself a winter jacket. It should be ready shortly before Christmas so I just have to hold out that long and then I’ll be warm. After having hired various tailors around town to make me clothes, I have decided that I really want to do some sewing for myself. I went looking for a sewing machine this afternoon and after much to-ing and fro-ing , finally found the back alley where sewing machines live in Kathmandu. There was tons of choice and dozens to choose from. The problem is that you have to buy the machine, then the table top that it sits on, and then the cast-iron legs, treadle, and wheel assembly. That’s right, they do not have any electric sewing machines here, which is probably just as well given that the power is off more than it is on. Given that I don’t have a car and I live several kilometres away from “sewing machine alley”, I’m not sure how I can get all this paraphernalia home with me. I’ll have to muse on this one for a while, and perhaps enlist the help of someone with a car and/or a decent grasp of the Nepali language.

So that was my weekend. I am having a quiet night in in anticipation of my first full day at work tomorrow. The power will be off tomorrow morning from 6-10 which means I can’t heat the water for a shower before work, unless I wake up at 5:00 which I’m hoping not to do. I’m going to try heating it tonight before bed and seeing if there’s any residual heat in the morning. If that doesn’t work, I guess it will be a sponge bath with water heated on the gas ring. Wish me luck.

Work

Nepal has worked its magic for me once again - I never cease to be amazed at how the universe looks after me here. I am starting a new job on Monday and am very excited about it. It has morphed a bit over the last week or so since it was first offered to me, but I think that we have finally settled on a shape and form that suits us all. I have no doubt that it will continue to evolve over time.

As you know, I have been helping out the students at a local college with their resumés. The college, Global Academy of Tourism and Hospitality Education (GATE), is affiliated with a college in Switzerland where Khem, the founder and CEO was educated. Khem and his brother Bharat also own another business, Global Education Network (GEN), which serves as a placement agency to find temporary work for Nepalis abroad. This is a fledgling company and to date they have placed workers in the US and several Middle Eastern countries. They are hoping to turn their attention to Canada, where there is a liberal attitude towards international internships and where foreigners are welcome. Khem lived in Montreal for three years and so is familiar with the life of an immigrant in Canada. Even though he is a well-educated and very polished man, he frequently runs into stumbling blocks in this business simply because he is Nepalese. In addition, he still has significant hoops to jump through in order to get visas to travel abroad, which limits how he can conduct his business. (Most Nepalis are not granted visas to Western countries as they are considered too much of a risk. My friend Bhola was denied a temporary working visa to Canada in spite of having Canadian sponsors and no end of Canadian character references. The problem was that he didn’t have enough money in a Nepalese bank account and the Canadian government didn’t believe that having a wife and three sons in Nepal was enough of an incentive for him to return home after his visit. Apparently they believe that money is more important to Nepalis than their family is.) Anyway, Khem and Bharat need a Westerner to run this business for them, and they offered the job to me. The fact that I’m Canadian is a bonus.

The work will involve everything from finding employers abroad, arranging the temporary work visas, and dealing with whatever government, legal and professional bodies might be involved in the process. As mentioned, I’ll be focussing on Canada for now but I’ll also be dealing with placements in the US, Dubai and Bahrain among others. Khem hasn’t previously placed any Nepalis in Canada so I’ll be learning the process pretty much from the ground up. They have offered to secure my Nepali work visa as an employee of GEN, and are footing the $2000 bill. Bharat is a lawyer and has started the ball rolling on that process. The job will also allow me to travel home from time to time on the company dime, and will also likely see me traveling elsewhere.

Given Khem’s background in the hospitality industry, we will likely be focussing on placements in that area. The Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) website has listed this industry as an area that is under-staffed and would welcome foreign workers. Obviously we will give priority to the students from GATE for their internships abroad, but we are open to providing services to any Nepalis looking to work outside the country. We are all dreaming big at the moment and envision this project growing to include workers from many different industries as well as students wanting to study abroad and business immigrants (who essentially buy their way into a country).

It will take some time for my visa to be ready, and in the meantime I will be doing my research into how the placement process will work. In addition, I am going to spend some time rewriting the GEN website, which has a great layout but not such great use of the English language. I expect that in the beginning, I’ll have time on my hands, which is where jobs number two and three come in. On Monday, I will be starting to work four days a week at GATE. My duties there essentially fall into two categories. The first is administrative. I’m sure they’re going to try to give it some fancy title to make me feel important, but the fact of the matter is that I’ll really be maintaining the student files and keeping stats on the school’s track record to be used for recruiting and finding placements. In addition, I’ll be sitting in on management meetings and keeping them all on track. It is my experience so far that the people running the college, Khem included, are wonderful visionaries but they couldn’t schedule a meeting if their lives depended on it. Given that I’m pretty much the complete opposite, I think we’ll complement each other nicely. I’ll set agendas for their meetings, take minutes and follow up on action items. Apparently these functions have been sorely lacking to date.

My other function at GATE will be something we’re tentatively titling “Education Resource Manager”. This involves a whole myriad of tasks, from helping the teachers with finding educational tools, to planning learning activities for the students such as movie nights and field trips. In addition, I’ll be doing some peripheral English language work with the students. I’ll be going through their work to isolate chronic problems and then designing seminars to work on these problems. I’ll also offer one-on-one sessions with the students to help them edit their written work and also work on conversation.

For the immediate future, I’ll be spending most of my time at the college, however I expect that over time my efforts will begin shifting more towards the placement business. As the business grows, I believe it will consume more and more of my time. It’s been difficult enough just figuring things out this far so I don’t want to get too caught up in trying to anticipate what’s coming down the road.

I’m incredibly excited about these opportunities, especially the one at GEN. This is the first time that I can remember ever being excited about work and looking at it as something other than a way to pay the bills. Even though I have no background in this kind of thing, I’m confident that I’ll do a great job. It’s all about process and details, which are my strengths. It also feels really worthwhile and I’m sure it will give me the sense of satisfaction that I’ve been looking for. Add in the opportunity to come home from time to time, and it all seems perfect.

Wedding Season

Last weekend marked the beginning of wedding season in Nepal. At first I thought that getting married in December here was kind of like being a June bride at home: desirable but not mandatory. I have since determined that it’s more like deer hunting season at home: it’s not impossible to do it at any other time but most people choose to follow the rules. I must have seen or heard about two dozen weddings over the weekend, although to be fair they can be heard from miles away. The wedding car is draped with so many garlands and flower sprays it’s a wonder the driver can see. The car follows a marching band through the streets, and is in turn followed by the family and friends of the happy couple on foot. The musicians are about as talented as pre-schoolers, but that doesn’t stop them from belting out their squeaks and honks with the enthusiasm of a New Orleans jazz band. The banquet halls on every street corner which have always sat empty during my visits are brimming with vibrant sari-clad women and groaning tables of food. It’s virtually impossible to navigate the streets at dinnertime, as the wedding parties create traffic jams all over the city. The good news is that the festivities typically wind down by about 8:00 so the nights are quiet. I’m not sure if this is going to continue at such a fever pitch throughout the month, but I’m anticipating that Christmas will be out-festivaled by weddings.