Life goes on

Lots have happened since the last time – some photographic evidence in our photo album.

Nepal finally managed to hold the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections in April the 10th: a quieter and safer day than expected, when transportation was banned, "only" 4 people were killed, few intimidations and few constituencies had to delay their elections.
The Maoists have become the largest elected group. It was a surprise, even for the Maoists themselves. People, just wanted some change.

On the 21st of May, the elected CA members met for the 1st time to declare Nepal a Republic, after 240 years of Monarchy. This 1st session was about 10 hours delayed because the leaders of the key parties were trying to get a consensus on who would become Prime Minister and President and which will be their roles. They never reached a full agreement, but they did celebrate the CA assembly at about 9pm and the king has now 15 days to vacate the palace which will become a museum.
In the previous afternoon, the Government decided to declare a 3 day public holiday to celebrate the Republic – just few hours notice.

The role of the CA Assembly is to write a new Constitution. But, of course, the new government, with the Maoists as the major party, faces key issues to resolve, besides the petrol's high price, such as
• Maoist's People Liberation Army (PLA) currently confined in contanmens
• Youth Communists Leaders (YCL), the Maoists youth wing, carrying very violent actions without punishment. The Maoist leaders don't seem to control them
• Federalisms requested specially from the Terai groups

Since the snow is melting and the rainy season has started, Kathmandu has gone from 42 hours / week electricity cuts to about 9 hours. However, we are now facing a huge shortage of fuel and gas because India will only provide the petrol that Nepal can pay – about 50% of what's required. The petrol in Nepal is highly subsidized by the government leading to about 2 billions loss every month. The last time the government increased the fuel price, the people went to the streets "forcing" the prices back to "normal" after just 2 days.

On the personal front, we have had a couple of visitors:
• Guida and Pep, the daughter of one of my cousins and her friend and
• Morris and Margaret, some friend from Wimborne
With them, we did some tourism within the Kathmandu valley and in Chitwan, near the Indian border, where we enjoyed elephant rides, canoeing down a river with some crocodiles on its shores… The locals also killed a leopard that dared to wander near the village and attack a few people.

The construction work (and the noise) in our building is almost over and the top apartment is almost ready for rent. We are still suffering some water disruptions when the plumber comes to do any work in this new apartment, we are expectant to see where the paint will actually reach when they decide to paint the building's outside walls and we hope that when the work is over, they will clean up around the building... but we cannot really complain.
The landlord's family is very nice and they even invited us and the other tenants to an evening meal in their house.

Since April, we have new upstairs neighbours: another couple of VSO volunteers from the UK. We are now waiting to see who will come to live on the top floor.

Simon and I are very busy with our work.

Simon starts seeing some change in his organization and he has been in its district offices in the Mid West a few times. He is also now working, through VSO, with an Italian INGO for about 6 weeks to facilitate defining their Strategic Plan.

I have changed organizations since January/February, and I am now working in a very small NGO of disabled women and in a bigger and more established NGO who produces radio programs on social issues. I also went to a field trip in Rasuwa district by the Langtang valley, where they established a mobile radio station to encourage the local dialogue on their local issues. It was very interesting.

That's all for now. Regards,

Laura

New Year in Nepal

After having spent Christmas and New Year in Europe, we are back in Kathmandu, where we suffer a daily power cut of 8 hours. It is getting hard to plan your daily life because we need electricity to use the computer at work, to pump the water from the well to the water tank, to read in the evening...
There is also a shortage of fuel because Nepal is not paying its import bill to India, so obviously, India stopped selling. If we continue not having electricity and fuel, Nepal will stop running soon!

The weather remains cold so we wear layers and layers of clothes, especially when we are indoors, and we place a hot water bottle in bed.

Simon and I went to Surkhet district in the Mid-West, in a quiet village called Birendranagar, with almost no vehicles, except for bicycles and a few motorbikes. Simon had some work to do there and I went along to learn some of the trainings / work he was supposed to do there. I am saying "supposed to" because the initial work plan had slightly changed before we actually left Kathmandu and completely changed by the time we reached there.

We first flew to Nepalganj, a village just 6 Km from the Indian border, we then took a rickshaw from the airport to the bus station – everybody stared at this rickshaw with two foreigners and their bags! and finally a minivan that would take us to our final destination. The minivan was almost full by the time we left, but it was overflowing after a few kilometres. At least we were sitting in front.

We enjoyed our stay in Birendranagar. The hotel was simple but OK, the food (the typical Dhal Bhat) was good, and the people were very nice to us.

In the way back to Kathmandu, we crossed the border into India to get our passport stamped, which should help us to get a new Indian multiple entry visa in the future. The Indian village was very busy and very dirty, so we were back in Nepal within 2 hours.
There are very few Muslims in Nepal, mainly concentrated in the Tarai, and in Nepalganj we saw the evidence of its presence with a Muslim Mosque, the prayers at 5am in the morning through loud speakers and a few ladies with burkas in Nepalganj.

The fuel in Nepal is being heavily subsidized by the government (this links to the problem of fuel shortage mentioned above) and when last week, the government decided to increase the fuel price, people just went out on the streets, burnt tires, shut all shops, stopped all cars… It lasted for 2 days until the government decreased back the prices. In just a few minutes after that decision was taken, buses started to run, shops opened… as if nothing had happened. It seems that the government didn't want to risk that these riots would link to any of the unrests caused by the coming April elections and gave in quickly to the demonstrations.

That's all for now. Regards,

Laura