Rooftop yoga and fake pap

5 September - 18 September

Nepal is a mini India.  In culture, as well as in look and feel, Kathmandu could easily be mistaken for a city in India’s northern centre, and Pokhara as one of its hill stations.  They are so similar in fact that, almost disappointingly, one can arrive in these cities and understand the local set-up, rules, customs, tricks of the touts, scams of the tuk tuk drivers, so much so that it almost becomes boring to travel there (not quite though, I'm not complaining, although it does seem that I am complaining).

So my highlight of my trip to Nepal undoubtedly was my volunteering experience in a rural village in the centre of Nepal. 

The village was so remote that Google maps was unable to find it.  People in Kathmandu had never heard about it, and even some people in Gorkha, the closest main city to the village, had no idea where it was.

This made it perfect, as in Nepal it is only when one veers (heavily) off the tourist course, can one experience Nepali culture and customs, and the life and daily routines of its inhabitants.  Free from the all too familiar sights of everything 'Nepali' having been muddied by western influence and misshapen to bend towards tourists' needs, and by consequence altered only to extract as many rupees as possible from each foreigner.

Preaching aside, in true style for this part of the world, even getting to the village was an adventure in itself.  A bus from Kathmandu to the main city of Gorkha was the easy part.  After, I needed to take a local bus to a village called Kuwapanidara.  It was here when things started to get interesting.

As Google was no help, and the directions I had received from my volunteer host only said, “Get the bus to stop at Kuwapanidara”, I constantly had to lean over the lady sitting on the same seat as me, holding her cardboard box with a rooster inside, to speak over the 5 or 6 bags of seeds (well I think that is what was inside them) that had been piled up on the corridor floor, and the sounds of the day-old chicks in a box at the back of the bus, to check with the conductor on the bus how close I was to my destination.

Small delay, and chance to stretch our legs,
while the bulldozer cleared a recent landslide

After 3 hours of windy, bumpy dirt roads (and a small delay while a construction vehicle cleared the road from a recent landslide – no biggy), the bus stopped as much as one could describe “in the middle of nowhere” as possible.

The clearly-marked bus stop for

Kuwapanidhara

There was no sign, no indication that I had reached a village (some houses?  Shops? I dunno, a big bell?).  But, as the conductor motioned to me that this was my destination, I got off.  There were however two people sitting on the embankment across the road, who stood up as I got off.  Although I did not know them, they knew who I was – seemingly because they could safely assume the only white guy jumping off this bus with a backpack had to be the new, green volunteer - and welcomed me to Kuwapanidhara.

I learned that I however was not quite at my destination, and was encouraged to hydrate myself from the local stream, as I was told we had a short walk up to the house.  20 minutes walking up a steep hill later, I reached my new home for the next two weeks, quite exhausted from the combination of a long day's travel and bonus little climb.  It took me a few days to work out the bearings of the place, but basically my village was called Potiswara, but as no bus comes there, so I was dropped at Kuwapanidhara. 

On arrival, I met a Danish volunteer who had arrived – also from Kathmandu – but from a completely different direction.  He had received directions from a different person and had an even more eventful journey than me, catching the last few hours from another town to Potiswara in the back of an overpacked workers lorry.  And at over 6ft, his knees had the bumps and scratches to prove how cramped and squished against the side of the lorry he was.

Fully orientated, I quickly fell into a solid routine – or as much of one as one could hope to by village life standards.  Life is busy, and people work hard, but somehow there is always enough time to relax and explore.

Days began with sunrise on top of the roof of the local school.  Most mornings, I am quite proud to say, I woke up and got to the roof of the school, about a minute’s walk from our house, and greeted the day with some yoga (or at least my version of it - really just an old man trying to avoid more aches and pains), exercise and meditation. 

Sunrise from the local school roof,
Potiswara

Me and the sun both stretching out, getting
ready for a new day

Breakfast was made by the mother of the house (who, with the father, woke up way earlier than me, and had already done about an hours work or tasks before I ventured out at what I thought was a very respectful time), and served around 8am.  Cooked on a little wood fire, in a shack, one would not expect much, but thanks to local knowledge and food picked directly from the ground, we ate well.  Breakfast though is always very small, and almost a snack.

Some of the finest food came out of this kitchen

Breakfast is simple and small in the villages,
generally some roti and lemongrass

Sometimes we got millet pancakes -
don't judge a book by its cover -
it was good
(see what I did there)

But this was by far our favourite
#popcornbrekkiesisathing

Work started about 9, or 10, depending on when our host came to pick us up (sometimes even 11 or 12).  Though, when work started, we worked.  There was land to clear and flatten to make a fireplace and build a new house for volunteers, and seedlings to transplant into bigger beds.  We had plant beds to form, ground to clear for trees, and holes to dig (also for trees), as well as some other tasks here and there.

Clearing land for...

This!!!

Transplanting mustard leaves from their nursery
to the big, wide world 

Me and my volunteer friend, with our host,
making beds for coriander and radish,
Potiswara, Nepal 

Clearing the mountainside for tree.
I know - who would give this muppet sharp tools - I know

Lunch was at 12 and this is a big meal, and the locals’ biggest meal of the day.  Traditionally, Nepali people have a tea and a snack at breakfast, and massive lunch, another tea later in the day, and a very large, late dinner.  After our small breakfast and a few hours of manual labour, we also ate heartily.

Dhiro - fake pap
Not too far away - though needs waay
more saus

Meals meant a big helping of either rice or dhiro (ground up corn, very similar to pap, but with millet added to give it a brown texture) and a mixture of local veggies.  They would include meat (chicken, or goat or buffalo) in their meals and the Danish volunteers’, but not in my vegetarian version.  I did not mind one bit though (and sometimes my friend wished he said he was vegetarian too), as nothing of the animal is wasted, and therefore all fair game when coming to what to cook.

When life gives you lemons,
(i.e. a leopard - YES, a frikking leopard!! - attacks your goat),
well you make... lemonade

Lemonade :)
Freshly cut and cooked goat.
A delicacy, yes - but was quite happy to have the non-vegeterian
volunteer have all the honour on this one

The rest of the day was ours to relax, nap, sometimes shower or wash clothes, or explore the surrounding villages.  We had arrived well into monsoon season, so it rained a lot, but drinking water come down the hill via a series of pipe connections, the politics of which were quite complicated and by the time I had left, I had still not fully understood.  So there was water, generally once or twice a day, but at indeterminable times.  When it did arrive, we refilled our water bottles, and the water containers for the house, which is used for cooking and drinking.  If this coincided with break time, and we weren’t lazy (village life has a very laize faire attitude towards washing) a shower or clothes wash was undertaken.

We had a short afternoon session, from 4pm-6pm and then the rest of the evening was chill time.  Either preparing for dinner, or relaxing.  Sometimes partaking in some local, homemade roxy (spirit distilled from millet).  With not much else to do in the village after dinner, we mostly had early nights, which enabled the early mornings. 

The whole team preparing thentuk (noodle soup).
My favourite...nom nom

Happy birthday to me
Celebrating 32 with some local brew

Though whenever we went to sleep, the parents of the house, always still could be heard doing some work for an hour or two more – either grinding seeds or spices on the grindstone or harvesting corn from the cobs – that they use for drying and making our favourite popcorn breakfasts.  It was incredible being able to experience life so foreign from my own, and how hard daily life can be.  It was also worth remembering that Nepal had been through a devastating earthquake just 5 years previously, where many people died, whole villages were wiped out by avalanches or landslides, and houses were destroyed.

Our hosts’ house had been destroyed and they had built the one we were living in themselves.  Many people had lost houses and were rebuilding, or had already rebuilt.  Luckily, it seemed that there was not any loss of life here.  Despite all this, and the daily struggles of eeking out a living, people seemed so happy.  So content.  We were welcomed with such love and openness it was hard to comprehend.  People who have so little materially, share so liberally.  Those who appear so old and frail, work so hard, and are far stronger, determined, and have stronger constitutions than two comfortable westerners 30-40 years their junior.  They taught us so much, even though they couldn’t speak a word of English.

It was these experiences that profoundly alter your outlook on the world and its inhabitants, on your own environment and views – easy conclusions to reach while watching the sun set over the school roof in the middle of Nepal.

Whatever we could do, the locals did better

Just another day on the grind
(ok that's the last one)