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We’re back, meaning back in Kathmandu. Back in the noise, crowds, filth, intensity. But ah, the hot shower, good food, phone and Internet; the little luxuries are so enjoyable after weeks without. That’s part of our experience as westerners, as visitors.
For the Nepalis, Kathmandu is family, jobs, connections at festival time. It’s Tihar time now – the Nepali version of the holiday known as ‘Diwali’ in India – the festival of lights, with candles, fireworks, dancing, and beautiful artwork on the ground before doorways. It’s a time for families to get together and mark each other’s foreheads with red ‘tika’ blessings. Tomorrow the busses will be full again, as a whole country heads back to work.
 Dossai time means full busses. Our two weeks in Helambu benefited from the relaxed holiday atmosphere – many people having time to share with us, and many English-speaking kids visiting their grandparents’ village homes. This, of course, meant enthusiastic translators helping us out.
Our ‘trek’ was a bit more like a slow migration through several towns. A half day jeep ride up a bumpy dirt road brought us to the start in Timbu, a tiny settlement along the Melamchi Khola in central Helambu. From here it was up, up, up with our two horses (Tashi and Lomsang), a horse driver named Karsen Lama, our own kids, Tim and Lia, another boy, Sonam, on his way to the school, two of the NGO’s staff (Gyamdzo and Tashi), two apprentices learning the ways with horses (and helping with our packs – Ram Prashad and Dawa), and our guide/translator, Ranu. What a group!
 Rain in Bangdang Sweaty and hot on the second day, we reached Tarkegyang, a picturesque settlement nigh up on a hillside. Here the work began, getting to know key contacts for the video documentary work that comes later in the winter. The kids enjoyed a chance to bang on some huge drums in the town’s monestary, and the next day sit in on a special celebration there (a ‘puja’), with all its loud clanging, banging, chanting, and incense. One evening was spent hearing of the founding myth stories for the village: Mountaintop monasteries struck by seven bolts of lightning; a king’s wife cured of illness; a hundred horses given as a gift and exchanged for never-ending ownership of a rich valley of rice, and a copper tablet describing it all!
 Langtang and Panch Pokhari from Baruwa The weather turned rainy as we huffed and puffed our way up over the ridge at Yangi Peak through the Langhang Monestary, and down to the new boarding school and village at Gangkharka. Over the next two days, we got to know this town and its history, prepared our work in the school (a clinic and video project) and organized housing and logistics for our next time here. We stayed in the home of Dorjee’s (VEC Director’s) parents, a sweet older couple living the traditional ‘picturebook’ Sherpa lifestyle.
 Shelling beans in Gangkharka Sadly, about 5 years ago, during the Maoist uprising, most residents took their families and left for Kathmandu, or India, or further abroad. The handful who remained are now re-building, setting up village governance structures, and preparing for a period of growth, now that the school is in place. No bombs or even bullets have fallen here, but the wounds of war are obvious.
 Lia learns washing from Ranu More rain and lots of leeches helped us down the trail to Bangdang, another nearly empty Sherpa village overlooking the steep wooded mountains. Here we lunched in the home of a retired Gurka army officer, with a beautifully tidy kitchen, a common pleasure of many Sherpa homes. Here another ‘retired’ man struggled behind a team of cows plowing in the potato field in preparation for a winter planting of wheat or barley.
On down the hill, we entered the ‘stairstep’ Tamang village of Dalegaon, where we watched people of all ages weaving ‘dokos’, large baskets used like backpacks, and sold in the market towns further down the hill.
 Making dokus in Dalegaon A few thousand more steps down, and we were in steamy hot Yangri, a compact, busy little Tamang village directly on the Indrawadi Khola, with breathtakingly beautiful traditional houses and at the confluence of two rivers. Here we discussed establishing another health post, and here Ina got the chance to give some medical treatments – a boy with a bad fever, a dog bitten by another dog, one of our staff bitten by our horse, and an infected foot (mine) from a leech bite.
 Aren't leeches fun? written October 17, 2009. Posted a few days later.
 Boarding the plane in Delhi, heading to nepal It’s been two weeks since our arrival in Kathmandu. Our lives back in Germany are beginning to fade into ever-less-frequent memories, as Nepalese life becomes our everyday experience. The many cultural details are as we remembered from previous times here: the familiar speech and facial mannerisms, the lively festival music, colorful dress, smell and sounds. But the intensity and size of the city are beyond what we imagined. Kathmandu has grown into a metropolis of millions, sprawling over a huge area, with traffic jams and seas of people to rival other world cities. The roads are amazing and terrifying at the same time; twice the traffic, half the space, making pedestrian movement like a crazy video arcade game. 15 years ago, on my first trip here, it was a quarter or even a 10th the size – a busy, but manageable little city. No more. While it’s been interesting here, we can’t wait to get out into Helambu, where our ‘real’ work awaits us. We’re mostly done with the logistics, bureaucratic preparations, and other details we needed to arrange. We’ve stood in lines in offices to activate our mobile phones, pushed through crowded ’supermarkets’ to buy our trekking supplies, navigated the busy streets ofThamel, the city’s trekker’s shpping district, buying jackets and sleeping pads.
 Navigating the crowds in Patan's Durbar Square  Where is Nepal? We moved into a cute little guest house, the ‘Red Panda’, which we’ll call ‘home’ each time we return to Kathmandu. From the roof here, we learned to fly the local paper kites, watching groups of children on neighboring roofs competing with each other, chasing one another’s kites through the sky. Evenings have seen slide shows about the natural and cultural beauty of the countryside, cartoon movies about Hindu deities for the kids, and lots of talk with residents and other visitors.
 The big stupa at Baudinath is always breath-taking  Kids love photo shoots! This week we visited a children’s home just out of the city, part of the projects run by Prisoners Assistance Nepal and Indira Ramanager, a dynamic Nepali social entrepreneur with whom we’ve had contact over the years. Then came the usual tourist destinations — Pashaputinath (the riverside funeral pyres), Swayumbunath (the ‘Monkey Temple’), and fun wanderings through local neighborhoods, and a chance for our kids to learn a little cricket from the local boys and girls. And then there was the expected visits to the medical clinic to get medicines against the usual digestive upsets that every new arrival faces.
The Dossai festival is happening now; families get together and exchange gifts, goats are sacrificed, bells and music are heard around the city where special festival altars are set up. Most shops are closed, as half the city’s residents head out to visit relatives in their family villages. It’s a nice time, with lots of smiles.
 A 'baba' at Swayambunath teaches Lia some signs This week we’ve met a few times with the staff and volunteers with whom we’ll be working up in Helambu: Dorjee, Yangchin, Djamdyo, Ola and Danny. Besides the medical camps and health worker training we expected to do, it looks like we’ll be participating in some oral history documentary projects, as well. We’ve even got an American film crew coming up in January to help. Lots to prepare for.
We head out to Helambu on Thursday. If all goes well, we’ll meet our horses that day and begin our introductory trek through our project villages.
Now it’s time to pack.
Setting up stuff I didn’t have time to do back in Germany is, ahh, a ‘pain’. Now I’m trying to get the post-by-email plugin working on my blog. This is test.
A very nice welcome after a tiring journay. A welcome rest in the hotel garden under a grapefruit tree, A cup of chi and all the wonderful smells of Kathmandu. Already met to make rough plans for the work ahead. It’s so nice to be here.
About 40 km north-east of Kathmandu, the Indrawadi Khola is a river valley in eastern Helambu. VEC’s projects, focus on villages in the upper reaches of the valley, with an aim toward promoting cultural preservation in the Helambu Sherpa communities. The red markers show locations of two clinics (one being built) supported by VEC. The ’school’ marker marks Gangkharka, home of the new Pasang Sherpa Memorial Boarding School. The yellow markers show the overnight stops of a trek I made through the area in 2005. Somewhere on this map will be our home for the next year!
Go here: http://tinyurl.com/lokmy3 and explore the valley yourself.
We worry about how many Legos we can bring in the children’s baggage,
while millions of Nepalis are worrying about whether their children
will survive this year’s hungry season. How can anyone come to terms
with this?
The details have come together; from logistics to broader goals, we’re getting close to readiness for departure. We now have a host NGO (Village Environment Community – Gangkharka), www.vec.org.np. They’re a wonderful group of people, with commitment to their work and enthusiasm in their engagement with us. We’ll be working with them, for at least a year with their projects benefiting children in remote mountain communities of Helambu’s eastern valleys. We’ll run a series of mobile health clinics, help build a new village health post, and make a documentary film about VEC’s work, the region, its cultures, and its development. We may also work some with the new boarding school set up for children who have lost parents or were left behind as their parents seek employment overseas. See http://www.gonewandering.net/?page_id=80 for more.
In helping us prepare, VEC has gone so far as to organize a couple horses for us. I think we’ll probably be the first tourist family to do horse trekking in eastern Helambu. After two weeks in Kathmandu (the capitol), we’ll head out to Melamchi Bazaar (about 5 hours northeast of Kathmandu by road), from where we’ll begin 10 to 20 days of trekking up the Indrawadi khola river valley, visiting the villages served by VEC’s projects. Through these initial visits (accomapanied by a VEC staff guide), our roles should get more clear, and we’ll rent a place to live in one of the project vilages.
If the horses work out well, we may help VEC’s trekking arm, Charity Treks, to set up for offering family horse treks as a unique offering ammongst Nepal’s many trekking agencies. We’ll see.
It’s all pretty exciting at this point. We’ve already been raising funds for the medical camps – 500 Euros and a few boxes of donated supplies so far – and we’re beginning to pack up our own household for storage. Immunizations, visas, flights, hotels…it’s all coming together. Only three weeks to go now! Already the first friends have said their final ‘farewells’.
Keep in touch! If you want to keep track of our whereabouts and see photos of our experiences, be sure to check back here regularly, or use a feed reader to subscribe to these posts (if your’e technically inclined), or just send us your email address and we’ll add you to our mailing list.
Time races forward, and our start in Nepal stares us directly in the face. A number of people have asked to join us, and three NGOs have expressed a clear interest in hosting our work. The common thread is documentary video — two think they’d like us to develop video footage to promote their work and help with fund-raising. One is ETC, which is now working in Dolakha district. The second is VEC-Gangkharka, in some remote valleys of Helambu. Are we ready to take on the challenge? Both situations will mean communication challenges, as English is virtually un-spoken in both regions, once away from the main trekking routes. We’ll be hiring an interpreter, if we can find one. Our Nepali is coming along — we study every day. But it’s not up to the task, yet. And we’ll have to wait until we’re there to begin picking up phrases in the local dialects, which are related to Tibetan languages. Our big goal is to keep this fun and light. There will be set-backs and difficulties, for sure.
We’re also working on the Kathmandu end of things. One apartment possibility has come up, which makes us look more closely at the time we’ll be spending in town, re-charging our ‘batteries’ from the months in the field, and taking care of logistics and legalities. Kathmandu is a great city, and we’re looking forward to getting to know it better.
After a few weeks of discussion, I think we’ve finally settled on a good, if unusual, approach to our move. The ‘vision’ of the One Village Project is now ready, and posted on our site. It feels good to reach out to involve a network of friends and colleagues, to build on connections and the privileges we take for granted.
We have modest goals: Starting in September, we’ll stay in one village for a year or two. We’ll try to help, using the skills and resources we have, with whichever projects or developments the residents most ask for help. Maybe it means building a trekking lodge, or organizing visiting doctors for an annual health clinic, or teaching English, making documentary videos, or something else more traditionally part of ‘rural development’ programs, such as women’s micro-lending or agricultural projects.
It will start with a trek to visit promising places and projects, to see which would really benefit from us being there. Now it’s off to the scrap-paper again to sketch out the questions we need to answer to identify likely local NGOs and appropriate towns, not to mention the pile of logistics that needs preparing. And then it’s the contacts lists and memberships on appropriate discussion boards, and scouring the related news articles and NGO reports and Twitter discussions, and….
Time to get started!
This weekend, I paused in the stairway to chat with our 88-year old neighbor. She expressed interest in seeing our kids during the week. When I asked when, the reply was, “Oh, dear, I simply don’t have time. I don’t even have the time to read the newspaper. Life is so very busy, I don’t ever have the time I need to sit long enough to even read the newspaper.” And this from someone who is relatively immobile, and has cleaning and shopping taken care of for her by helpers, and seems to have no ongoing ‘projects’. Now, if SHE can’t eek out the time for reading the newspaper, then what hope have I? Will I, too, be looking forward to retirement, even as my days of retirement draw to a close? That was a wake-up call, very loud and very clear.
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