The Tang of Langtang

Some of you thought that it would happen.  But it didn't.  And I wasn't.  Or I shan't.  Maybe I couldn't.  But I don't remember.  And who really cares anyway?

Yes, its almost been an epic month since I last posted.  I have done so much in that time that my head has been exploding with the bloggability of it all.  Let's start at the very beginning (I have it on Julie Andrews authority that its a very good place to start).  You all thought that my friends Lauren, Jojo, Naomi, Clint and I were zipping off to Everest Base Camp for a romp in the snow before falling back down the hill again.  You'd be absolutely correct.  That's exactly what we thought we were doing as well.  However Yeti Airlines, did not appear to think that it wasthe best plan in the world.  In fact, they were so concerned with the last group of Aussies that they sent there were such a bad omen that they didn't want to send any more and cancelled our flights to Lukla (the most horrifying and probably one of highest air strips in the world) not once but twice.

Catching on that it just wasn't going to happen and obtaining the services of a very bouncy and happy little Nepali guide called Kamal (who has a very interesting life story that I will share another day) we re-organised our trip and decided to head into the Langtang range to the north of Kathmandu instead.  

You see, although Everest is very famous, the whole top third of Nepal is Himalaya and there are plenty of other places to go wandering through hills if you really feel like it. Luckily Langtang is accessible by car (well, sort of, there were roads in the parts that hadn't been wiped out by landslides or floods) and is remarkably less touristed than its sister regions Everest and Annapurna.

Day 1, Jojo on a mission to prove to himself that he can do... ummmm stuff like climbing hills almost died as the pollution in Kathmandu had basically turned his lungs into tarpits.  Determined to carry his bag all the way, by lunch time Kamal had taken over and was carrying not only Joe's but his own bag as well.  As we sat down to our dinner the rain came in and apparently brought some snow with us as it peppered the mountains above us with a beautiful little jacket of white.

Day 2, we got to the actual village of Langtang that was settled by Tibetan immigrants more than 900 years ago if I have my stories straight (which I probably have not).  There were a great many children running about our ankles as we investigated the town all with horribly runny noses, dirty faces and wind-blown cheeks.  

Apparently there's an Australian bloke that lives there who runs down and back from inside a few hours where we started 2 days before simply to check his email.  

Day 3, from Langtang village we crawled up an epic altitude that almost killed Jojo and had Clint speechless on account of altitude sickness at about 3800m from sea level.  Kamal and I were going to climb to one of the nearby peaks when a freak snowstorm blew up from Langtang and made visibility impossible.  

After a lunch sitting in a freezing dining room with no wood heater to keep us warm we rushed back to Langtang for the relative warmth of our sleeping bags only to be woken in the middle of the night by terrifying winds blowing through the cracks in the wall.

The rest of the days blurred together as I started to forget what day of teh week it was and what the outside world was like.  It was beautiful to spend time walking from  one teahouse to the next with everything I needed strapped to my back and the beaitiful mountains and jungles we walked through to see. 

We came  back down from Langtang, much to Naomi and Clint's relief as they were both very poorly from climbing so quickly the day before.  The down didn't last long before we started back up towards the east on our way to the Gosaikunda Lakes, a group of beautiful high altitude Himalayan lakes.  Lauren always led the pack, charging ahead at times about 20 minutes in front of everyone else.  Apparently she got some training in scooting up Mt Buninyong with textbooks in a backpack cos she was afraid of letting everyone else down.  In all honesty she just put us to shame.

Death threats were murmured about Kamal as he pushed us to our limits "just 30 minutes more, it couldn't be more than that, I promise" but we always took them back when we reached our destinations.  The walking was incredibly hard, but the views were spectacular and I think many of us were pushed beyond what we though were our physical limitations.  To quote Jojo "Rob, I'm having the time of my life...I can't lift my arms above my shoulders, but I'm having the time of my life".

Passing the lakes on the coldest night yet we started to see a pattern in the weather.  We would get beautiful morning with sunshine fresh snow underfoot and time temperatures.  But come 1 o'clock the cloud would set in bringing snow, hail, rain and misery.  Our moods always plummetted in the afternoon.  At one point I think I was carrying around an extra kilo because of the snow that had accumulated on my pack.

We had two porters, a 19 year old called Subas and a 50 something called Krishna.  Both were absolute guns.  Carrying Lauren, Naomi and Clint's packs they were absolute machines.  Charging ahead of us in the mornings, and always having our rooms ready and waiting for us by the time we arrived of an evening.  Krishna was a very pleasant old man, but he really kept to himself.  Subas was the real entertainer "Subas?  Do you know where the toilet is?"

"OK Mr Rob Daai"

"Yeah, OK.  But do you know where the toilet is?"

"OK, OK, OK"

Climbing the Pass after the lakes was the hardest except possibly for coming down them afterward.  That's where Clint had an innovative idea.  At one point he said "Rob, hold this" and promptly gave me his stick, sat down on his raincoat and toboggoned down the hill.  The man is a genius.  He even caught up to Lauren who had made a massive head start on us.  She turned around at one point to see a large man coming down the mountain at her on his belly screaming like a yeti.  Not before he got this cracker of a video of Kamal coming down after him.

There are plenty of other notables, including the Almost But Not Quite Nearly Snow Leopard Sighting (which I swore was really a Yeti), everyone was sick on something except for me, however I made up for that by trying to knee cap myself on a rock whlie walking down a mountain side over what was probably mainly ice.  There was the epic Middle of the Night Toilet FAIL (its supposed to go in the hole dufus) among others.  But that's enough for now.  

Enjoy the photos, and wish jealously that you took up a 12 month volunteer assignment in Nepal.

[for those of you receiving this by email - don't be lazy, visit the blog and actually see the photos, they're wicked!]

OMG @ the OMEC

The first time I saw surgery I was almost physically ill. The skin peeled back, a chisel pulled out and some bone chipped away. I’ve seen videos of cataract and other eye surgeries being performed as part of my assignment that I would liken to a game of billiards. But in Banepa, a small trading town on the road to Tibet, in a makeshift operating theatre inside a school classroom, Dr Ruit made cataract surgery look like an art form – 67 times.

Last weekend, I departed at 7am Saturday morning for my very first surgical camp (Outreach Microsurgical Eye Camp). We didn't actually travel far for this one. At an OMEC there are a lot of activities, all of which I sort of helped out with, sort of interfered with, all the while trying to keep my jaw from dragging along the ground. I could go on for hours about all the different parts of it. Most of that I am going to save for an article I am writing for our magazine, but I'll give you the main ingredients:

Departure and unloading - leaving Tilganga at 7 sharp we travelled the relatively short distance (as far as OMECs go) to the town of Banepa (somewhere Mike and I passed through on our Tibetan adventure), we unloaded all the makings for an anaesthetic room and an operating theatre and ate breakfast...mmmmmmm curried soybeans and oily deep fried bread! Sorry, I accidentally deleted the photos!
Screening camp - much like the trip I have already written about, I travelled on with a few of the boys to Dolalghat,



a nice little getaway another 40-50km or so on from Banepa. Many Kathmandu families go here for picnics and the area is famous for its fresh water fish (yuck). Here we screened more than 300 patients, 22 of whom needed cataract surgery.


I was in the counselling room "explaining" about their surgery and what was going to happen. In all honesty, I was writing down their details, while Ripon's brother (with no training qualifications or understanding of what, in fact, a cataract is) told the patients that we would be taking them to Banepa to "clean" their eyes.

[one of my favourite photos]

Apparently, mentioning the word surgery causes a kind of mass exodus that doesn't look good on our statistics.

Or to our donors.

I took a photo of one lady before stupidly trying to show it to her. She politely pointed out that she was effectively blind, and couldn't see the photo I was showing her.


I am constantly amazed at the ability of 80 and 90 year old Nepalis to wait patiently in this position for hours.



We returned on Saturday evening to finish preparing the "operating room", which was actually a classroom, and do final tests on the 22 cataract patients we identified and the other 30 or 40 the other screening camp group found.

Surgery Day 1 - Sunday was the start of surgery. From 8am Suha-daai started anaesthetising patients. Dr Ruit and two American doctors, Matt and Paul showed up and got straight into it!

One of the most amazing stories was an elderly mute man with bilateral "hand motion" visual acuity. Meaning, he could effectively only see you waving a hand in his face and not much more. Constantly frustrated in waiting around for he knew not what he often yelled out angrily, banging his stick on the ground.

[waiting for anaesthetic for surgery 1]

The surgeons got through about 60 patients on the day and we didn't get back for dinner until about 8pm.

[surgery 1]

I popped over to the hall where the patients were staying. That was it, a hall. With blankets and pillows.

[post surgery 1, not a happy camper]

Food, Cards and Good Company - As last time I found the field trip to be a great friend building experience. People I had previously only seen around the hospital were now joking around and making fun of my lack of Nepali. The girls would say stuff to me and then giggle hysterically. Pemba-daai gave me a new nickname. "Aloo Rob". Apparently "rob" also means "plant" in Nepali, I asked "what? like a potato (aloo)?" This caused a huge burst of laughter from the girls and solidified my new name. Pemba still thinks its funny a week later.

Surgery Day 2 - The second day of surgery, all the bilaterally blind patients (first eye operated on the day before) went back for their other eye to be done, following a post-op inspection. The eye-patch put on following surgery the day before is lifted and the ophthalmic assistants check the position of their new lens. It was a very special moment when my special guy's patch was lifted. His son stood at the top of the stairs and held up two fingers. He held up two in response and yelled excited nothings. I don’t know that there are many points in life where you feel the way I did in that single moment. I could not help but giggle as a wave of welcome happiness rushed through my entire body.

[post-op from surgery 1, yelling and pointing at his son]

Surgeries continued as did the screening downstairs. The patients had to wait calmly as each of them had their turn 'inside the room'.

Last Day - It was the last day, we had to finish up our post-ops, pack up and get back to Kathmandu. The patients needed instructions for any problems they might experience and we checked their visual acuity so we can analyse the camp for its level of success later.

[post-op surgery 2, laughing while everyone pointed at me and said "white man"]

The camp was such an amazing experience. I'll have to do another post to tell more of the special stories.

[the man in the beanie was a gorgeous gentleman that always gave me the thumbs up when he caught my eye, he was so happy to be able to see again {massive understatement}]

I was quite amazed to see people the DAY AFTER SURGERY with unaided visual acuity better than mine! Lucky buggers.

[one cool cat]

In total, we did 110 eyes and screened more than 700 patients. Less than 4 days work. That still amazes me. I'll put some links up soon for those of you that want to be able to contribute to this amazing phenomenon. For as little as $25 you can give one of these people their sight back. ;)

The Didi Dramas

Didi is the word for "older sister".  It is a polite word that is used far more regularly that you might imagine and is generally applied to any woman older than you in a much more comfortable way that going "hey ma'am" - which reeks of facetiousness and is disgustingly unfamiliar.

Didi is also generally applied to a lady that does your washing for you.  If you are super lucky, you might have a didi that does the washing, cleaning and maybe even some cooking.  I'm just a washing kind of guy - I think its best for both her and me if only I have to deal with my mess.  

There have been some interesting stories flying around about my friends' various didis, and what they get up to.  A&G for example, employed a didi that took objection not only to the type of washing powder that they elected to use but also to the cord they had bought for hanging their clothes and their dishwashing detergent.  This would probably be understandable in a land like Australia, where people miraculousy develop allergies to different forms of chemicals, tomatoes, peanuts and hard work, but amazingly, people here seem to get by without all that garbage.  There were suggeestions of some kind of pilfering scheme that was going on, and if there wasn't, then there probably should have been.  A&G's staunch devotion to the products they had already purchased, that were also cheaper than the ridiculously overpriced stuff their didi wanted was enough to end their relationship.  For 6 months now A&G have been washing all their stuff by hand.  That sounds a lot like the aforementioned hard work, so I don't think that option is for me, plus I have much more interesting things to do with my weekends.

JKS&C (who I believe now have a K and a T living with them) are in a phenomenally ridiculously large house (as you could probably assume by the 6 residents they have living in it).  Supposedly, they have a 9-5 didi 5 days a week.  Overkill you say?  Well you are probably right,.and it seems she agrees because apparently she shows up at 10 or 11 and leaves at 3.  There's other dramas associated with that but they are way over my head and probably not for public discussion [for the details go to www.dirtonthedidi.com....shhhhh]

Katherine has found the idea of locating a didi and trying to communicate what she wants done all too confronting so opts to walk to the tourist section of town with her load each week and pay for them to clean it, which is probably a more cost-effective option however more labour intensive than the one I employ.

I simply leave my washing at the door on Sunday and Wednesdsay nights, and she comes to take it away in the morning, returning it that night or the next.  The most difficult part is remembering to put it out.  This has proven to be more of a challenge that a normal person might expect, but as I think my didi (Reeta) has a washing machine and dryer, so a bigger load later in the week doesn't really seem to be much of a issue.

My drama starts when forgetting to put it out one fateful Wednesday two and a half weeks ago.  I thought "no problem, there's always Sunday.  Monday morning however, I woke up swearing, knowing that I had forgotten to put it out again (she's busy doing other people's washing or being out and about, so Monday and Thursdays are the only days she is prepared to allocate to me).  The next Thursday I was leaving for work and tripped over my bucket of clothes, as they hadn't been collected - "oh what's going on here then?  that's ok, I can make it to Monday with the clothes I have at the moment". The following Monday was similar, only I caught Danesh on his way out:

Me: Is Reetadidi here?

Danesh: No...coming

The "..." probably represented a rather important part of that conversation I didn't understand, as Reeta was not coming, nor was she actually anywhere near Kathmandu.  My investigations led me to believe that she might have gone back to her village for some local festival.  Complaining to Gemma, that I had gone for almost 2 weeks without any washing, "Gemma, I think my didi's gone bunk", she cleverly suggested that I might be capable of doing it for myself for a change, just this once.  With my underwear supply desperately low, that's exactly what I started doing.  Until today.  A conversation with Laxmi (the lady that keeps the lovely garden downstairs) relieved my troubles.

Me: Laxmi-didi, is Reeta back?

Laxmi: Yes, yes, you must have big pile, dirty clothes!?

Me: Yes, I do

Later tonight, Laxmi came and knocked on my door with Reeta in tow.

Laxmi:  Reeta is back, see?  So you have clothes tomorrow, isn't it?

Me: Yes, tomorrow, OK. OK.  Hi Reeta, did you have a good holiday? Good festival?

Laxmi: Her father died.

Me: Oh. ...

Nice Rob, very nice.

Rockclimbing, Puri Sabji, Banana Splits and the Bookclub

What an EPIC weekend to end an epic week.

Friday night was Katherine and I relaxing at home watching DVD's. The problem with a plan like this, as I will illustrate when I get around to doing a "characters" post on Katherine, is her inexplicable ability to fall asleep the moment any part of her body reaches a parallel angle to the ground. 10 minutes into the movie she was a goner.

Early up on Saturday to join Flo and Mike and head towards Nagarjun forest, where Flo had been a number of times before on the advice of someone that told someone to tell his fiancee that it was a good place to go rockclimbing. The place is so out of the way that that's a rather normal way for you to hear about it. It was the party of people from countries beginning and ending with 'A', with representatives from Oz, the US and the land of the Sound of Music.

[Flo, trying to keep me alive and save me from myself]

They were amazing climbers and I was a total novice, I don't think I held them back too much though, and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely. I'm still sore. We did get the chance to meet Freddie Wilkinson. Sound like someone important? No? Well, I'll have you know that he's a pretty famous climber. Yeah, I didn't know either, Mike was impressed though (he did well to hide his awe, except for that moment where he went "DUDE! That's Freddie Wilkinson!").

[Mike trying to be all nonchalant]

Leaving the forest I spotted one gigantic monkey. This big guys testicles were off the scale (if there even is a scale for such things). He was easily scared though, as two baby monkeys invaded his territory and moved on. Those things are so agile they scare me, youj never know if they are gonna go for your eyes or not. He didn't get away before we could knock off a few impressions:



Rockclimbing was followed by a rather intense nap, that left me wondering whether I was actually awake or just severely drugged. You know, when you sleep for a little bit too long in the afternoon?

I went to meet up with Flo, Mike and Mike's roommate Mana. Mike and Mana are Dartmouth students her working on Engineering Internships with a Nepali NGO. They do pretty cool stuff like pull apart batteries and attempt to reverse engineer Nokia stuff, and in their spare time they build bridges. They both have blogs going (checkout my links to the right to see what they have been doing [and their versions of the stories I have been telling], they're not all lies).

We had dinner at a place that Mike has been raving about for weeks. Puri Sabji was the order of the day for 30 rupes (about 50c). Potato curry that you shove into a thin puffy little bread thing. It was fabulous! And you get about 5 of them! I will be going back for more.

We followed this up with drinks and banana split sundaes back at Mana & Mike's house. There we were joined by Avi, Gemma and Annette(from Norway) and Katherine (who again pulled off her imitation of a tall blonde American with a sleeping disorder. They couldn't get us out of their house until about 1am. Just for future reference, after the first glass, Nepali whiskey isn't all that bad.



Monday night saw the inaugural meeting of the AYAD book club, with appearances from special guests Liz and Sanjana (whom I accidentally called Sandika - for no apparent reason other than a completeinability to remember Nepali names). Liz is an American I was introduced to by Lena and Sanjana works with Gemma, Annette, Katherine, Danielle, Sascha and Kat at Save the Children ("SAVE THEM! SAVE THEM!" - actually, with that many people to look after them, I hope they'll be ok).

We have been reading a book called the White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. I think its an absolutely fantastic bok that I got right into (I still haven't finished yet, as it proved mighty hard to find, and the Tihar festival got in the way of deliveriess, "come back tomorrow sir....not today sir, maybe tonight....no sir, please come tomorrow"). My enthusiasm was met by equal enthusiasm in the opposite direction with the others finding no sympathy for the protagonist, an Indian servant turned murderer . I don't have any sympathy for him, but I did appreciate his cynicism and wit. Check it out, it won the 2008 Man Booker Prize.
The bookclub will reconvene in 1 month to read "Snow" by....... [someone] set in Turkey.

The Good Bits

So apparently I have been making it sound like Nepal is unbearable. I have absolutely no idea what would give anyone that impression, but thought I would make a post of all the really cool stuff that has happened or that I see everyday, or that puts a smile on my face. I warn you now, if I ever complain, its usually because I find negative things rather more comical. I think most people do. That's why we have sitcoms, and like watching people cry on Big Brother. Misery is more entertaining than a list of happy feel-good things.

Nevertheless, let's stop wasting time:

Raju lifting the phone of the hook, taking his shoes off, putting his feet up on the desk and saying, "Rob, I sleep", and promptly doing so.

- Copping out on my Halloween costume and just going as a "local biker" - this is what I wear to work everyday BTW, (sans 2Pac shirt obviously, that was there to make me more "local", I just couldn't find a Britney Spears shirt to look hardcore)

Rosie after the Halloween party in an effort that just goes to prove that you never can exaggerate the danger of sewage filled manholes.

Trekking awesome-ness

Hashing goodness

The amazing people that I have met here (I have more than one for every single day). I made a specific list just to see how many I had. Its an amazing list, with entries such as "chow mein guy", "chow mein guy's wife", mohan's family, "grumpy fruit man" but also such amazing names as all the other AYADs and various volunteers I have become friends with, Raj, Gunga, oh yeah! And the "loud female rights activist lady".

["smiling kiosk dude" from work]

The "Australian Big Day Out in Kathmandu" - a bizarre spectacle of 'Australian culture' right here in the Du. Complete with dancing and of course, man-love.

The local equivalent to a lorry passing me on the way to work.

Monkeys!

Sunrise over the Du.

In This Country

There are two important happenings that I want to talk about. Each significant in its own right. So I will keep them seperate.

Firstly, on Friday, I was fortunate enough to catch up online with my South African friend Sheena. She did a 20 Q interview with me regarding my experiences so far, my mental state and explaining just why there are so many men around touching each other. You can read the interview here* (of course, I must stipulate at this point that any swearing contained therein was her creative input, and not mine..;))

It was strangely ironic that, in the evening of Friday I went to the Lazimpat Gallery Cafe to watch one of their weekly movies. The movie was called "In My Country", and was about the South African Aparteid and all the trials that took place. Knowing very little about the entire subject (it pains me to admit), I was very moved by this movie. It goes through some of the stories of victims of the racist regime and how they confronted their attackers. Amnesty would be granted to abusers (often white police) as long as they made a full confession, were confronted by their accusers and prove that they were under orders [anyone feel free to clarify my brief version of history]. The purpose of this amnesty was to allow the country to move on through their terrible past and start over.

The reason this was important to me is not just the movie itself (although I found it very informative and emotive), but what happened afterwards. Raj (the very friendly guy that seems to work at LGC 24/7 and now knows us quite well) asked if I had liked it. He said it was a very good movie and very significant to Nepal. I have found it all to easy to miss the fact that Nepal has been engrossed in a messy civil war for the last 12 years. In fact, it was only months before my arrival that the king was kicked out of office, and since my arrival that we had the "election" of the President, Vice-President and Prime Minister.

Raj said he saw the significance of the reconciliation and said that he thought it could easily work here. There were many human rights crimes committed by both the government/police/army and the Maoists as they battled for control of the country. He told of a story of a family in the village where he grew up "very far from 'ere". This is my understanding:

"A man and a woman had gone out to speak to the Maoists about the seizing of their land. The police arrived at their house and found their 7 year old child there. The child, completely unaware of the politics told them that the parents were speaking with the Maoists. The police shot the child and threw the body into the river. They believed that the parents were Maoists, and in that case that the child would grow up to be Maoist."

Raj believes that if there could be a confrontation and a complete and honest admission of guilt, then Nepal will be able to get on with getting on, and fix this country up some. If only things could be so simple.

It was a horrible reminder to me that this country is struggling with some terribly deep running scars, and that they are desperately recent.

*Not available yet

Toilet Language

Just a quick update to let you know what has been happening, and what is on that abstract to do list.

IMAGINARY THINGS TO DO LIST

• Get some lights for the damn bike - seriously! It's getting dangerous out there! See the next point.
• Find someone official enough and demand they do something about that open manhole on the main street in Lazimpat. Currently a green tree branch is sticking out of it, warning all and sundry not to drive into it. Of course, this is quite an acceptable solution, until such time as the branch dies, and then people won't know what to do.
• Work out how to convince my didi (literally, 'big sister' but actually the lady upstairs that does my washing) that the money I am waving around in my hand is actually for her, for services rendered over the last month. The broad just won't take it!
• Write a paper on the optimal intraocular lens power for North Korean cataract patients based on a minuscule dataset that may or may not be complete and accurate.
• work out how to work out what the optimal IOL power for North Korean cataract patients should be.
• Work out how to convince colleagues that I don't know actually know how to work it out. There must be some research, formula or method for deciding these things. Not some Australian guy with no experience pulling numbers from tea leaves (while apparently a widely accepted fortune telling technique, I'm not sure the scientific community is likely to accept it) - however i could document it in the Methodology section.
• Find a colleague that doesn't nod and smile as I ask the above questions. I want some head shaking, frowning and even some yelling just so i know I'm getting somewhere, even if it's wrong.
• Determine how to jump the locked fence after 9pm without waking up the entire compound.
• Sound proof my bedroom from the morning sounds of neighbour's sex, dishwashing at the communal well, taxi music, taxi drivers, taxi exhaust and taxi maintenance sounds (apparently I live above some kind of taxi gang hideout).

THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN DONE LIST

• Established the phonetic difference between four and six (being 'char' and 'chha'). To the point where I was actually able to request half a dozen bananas. Seriously, what the hell do I want with 4 bananas anyway?
• Followed a conversation with a local shop keeper.
  "namaste, tapaailaai kasto chha?" - "I greet the gods within you, to you how is it?"
  "namaste sir, Thik chha" - "i greet the gods within you sir, OK is"
  "chhawataa keraa dinus" - "six bananas give please"
  "oho! countrymaa aaun-something something" - i interpreted as "hey! what country have you come from?"
  "ma Australiamaa aaue: bhayo" - "I Australia at, came"
  "ma Australia something something something something something suhuji" - i interpreted as "I want to open a shop in Australia"
  "raamro chha" - "good is"
  "paache-teis rupiyaa: dinus" - "25 rupees give please"
  "la" - "there ya go"
  "pheri aaun:aulaa" - "again come!"
  Of course, at one point in there we broke into English to discuss the potential of his business and expected salary in Australia, which I craftily avoided, but I was pretty happy with my efforts.
• Sunil came back from India about 2 weeks ago, and came to check in. Technically he wasn't "in" India, or anywhere near it in fact, but was working on an infrastructure project somewhere translating for the Japanese. So, not India then. Apparently Danesh (Denis, I have now worked out his actual name) couldn't work out how to use the key in my lock after I showed him), it is tricky - I'll give him that. Sunil "fixed" the toilet, by buying a new hose and applying duct tape. Always a good solution when times get tough. Aside from some acceptable sprinkling when you flush, the toilet seems to function to a most satisfactory level.
• I determined that Danesh is not the son of, but in fact the husband of my didi "Rita". Who knew?
• Had a lesson from my neighbours son (Bin) on making dhaal baat. It wasn't a lesson so much as him cooking for me using every food item in the fridge and every pot and pan available.
• Worked out that Jingo is called by a different name depending on who speaks to him. Bin dislikes him so much that he just calls him dog (cucuur). Bin's mum calls him something else and his brother Prim (they like to keep it simple for me) calls him something else again. SO I'm gonna stick with Jingo.
• Wrote a program in VB with Raju, technically its not part of either of our job descriptions, but it is "capacity building" so I'm not feeling too bad about it. It adds 7 days to a date of your choice. Sure, it hasn't got the most practical of applications, but it worked, which is a big improvement on my stuff from uni.
• Felt like I have lost a significant amount of weight. Not so much because I feel thinner, but because my favourite shirts have doubled in size due the Rita's "technique". What used to be a chest hugging arm-strangling polo now reaches to my knees and would probably function better as a nightie or some kind of short towel.

"Training"

well I finished "training" if that's what you call it.

For me, I learnt a great deal more from the networking than I did from the training. I'm sure that there's parts of training that will come in handy to me down the track, but as it is with these things I'm sure I won't recognise the moment until well after it happens. Like the moment after you just stepped in dog poo with bare feet you remember firstly, that you don't like stepping in poo, and secondly that usually you would wear shoes to prevent the gross "oozing" effect it has as it slides uncomfortably through your incy toes.

No for me it was the networking, I met tens (I'd say hundreds, but there was only 100 of us) of people all with amazing back stories, future assignments and objectives. They're all doing this for different reasons and expect different things from it. I can barely remember all their faces now, let alone their names (praise the lord for stalk book an its wonderous ability to join faces to names) [except when those rude people put more than one person in their ruddy profile photo! Now is not the time for sharing the limelight!].

It came as a shock to me (and it shouldn't have) that so many people have either worked in or studied or wanted to get into the Development industry. Don't get me wrong. I've known all sorts of people that have studied international development and I have heard about development in the news all the time. I didn't actually realise, however that THIS is was it actually means!!!!! [apologies my dear friends...please stop gaping like codfishes]

That shock however was not quite as big as when I realised that most people (those that I met at any rate) were all very forward, strongly opinionated and dominating. I know that not everyone falls into that personality category obviously. However it does seem that there is a common characteristic among the people that are throwing their lot into this adventurous challenge.

I walked away feeling I had known these guys for so long. Like we had been at uni together or re-building a grass hut. No, we'd just been through lectures on Buddhism and condom wearing together, but I have a feeling that we have many adventures yet ahead.