Dashain and other things.

OK, so, I'm failing at this one post a week thing, maybe one a fortnight may be more reasonable. I don't know, I'll do my best anyway.

Right, so, first of all, what have I been up to over the last couple of weeks since my last post?

Well, internet is now working properly in Sikles Telecentre, which is great news for Sikles, we're now properly connected to the rest of the world. Yaaaaaaaay.



(Note; I have more photos to upload to this post, but, annoyingly, and ironically considering the last paragraph, Sikles internet is not working properly today, I'll put a note out on Facebook when more photos are on, if I don't have you on Facebook, just keep checking)

And of course, this last two weeks has been the Dashain holliday, the biggest festival on the Nepali callendar. However, due to the recent landslide I posted about just before flying out here, there was a general decision that this years celebrations would be lower-key than usual in respect to the recently deceased (the official funerals aren't until December so it's still all on-going here).

Still, that's not to say there was no celebration at all. Of course lots of people who are originally from the village but are working elsewhere in Nepal came home for the holiday, so there was a lot of new people here. And there was a few parties dotted around, also, the pool hall was opened for the duration of the holiday. Great times.

Dr Hum Gurung, whom I stayed with in Kathmandu was here, as well as other important figures from the village and of the Sikles Development concerned group. So, I spent a lot of my time with them, so much of my work I needed to speak to them about and wanted to learn from them.

The first night they arrived there was a huge meal to celebrate their arrival. Then the next day, there was a big meeting about a number of village issues, including education. My first time addressing a crowd with a translator. It was actually a little harder than I expected having to stop every few seconds to be translated, you lose your flow quite easily. I also had little idea what the rest of the meeting was about.

We also made a visit to Rishing Dara, a point above the village around 7,000ft above sea level with spectacular mountain views.

Sadly, not all is wonderful here. There has been some issues of youth violence here lately. Two incidents in two days, the first could have been small but escalated quickly and resulted in a dance show (part of the festival) being cancelled. The second was the night after, I don't know the full details but it was between two groups of youths from different parts of the village, and from what I gather was the single largest act of youth violence the village has seen. There was a huge meeting the following day to discuss what should happen as punishment for these individuals, however, as yet, despite the 10 hour meeting, no decision has been made.

On a lighter note, the festival is over and work is starting again, I'm not in school yet but farm work is up and running, we went to harvest rice yesterday as a family, a very new experience for me. I tell you what, it's back breaking work. Admittedly I did very little actual harvesting and spent most of the time taking photos and working on my laptop (I have a few days left to finish editing the BCN annual report) but I had a go, I don't envy those who had been doing it all day.

And as another exciting note, I now have my very own Bhangra and love it so much. I'm wondering what the chances are of me being able to make these fashionable in the UK when I return. What on earth is a Bhangra I hear you ask? Some of you may know it to be a Punjabi dance, and yes, it is, but that's not the type of Bhangra I have. A Bhangra is a traditional Gurung bag/jacket thing, it's very simple in design but so practical it's amazing. It's lighter than a backpack, it's not sweaty like a backpack can be, you don't need to take it off to get things in and out of it like you do with a backpack and you can actually wear it under a backpack easily. It's almost like having pockets that are never full and never too small for the thing you want to carry. I've been using it mostly to carry my laptop and notebook around. Here's a few photos to show you what I mean: