HAPPY HOLI !!

Today (Saturday 3rd March) is Holi, a Nepali festival when everyone throws small bags of water at each other! We have no clue why but it looks like great fun – at least from the relative safety of our hotel balcony (where we are staying put for the day!).

We’re very quickly getting used to the chaos of Kathmandu and beginning to appreciate the really very tough conditions many people live under here. While being successful in limiting the powers of the monarch, the Maoist led rebellion over the last decade has led to a huge shift in population to the centre and a consequential overload on services and livelihoods.

Disadvantage really is “right in your face” here with many people reduced to scavenging through waste bins for scraps of food – which we perhaps naively hope is to feed their animals.

So it’s great to see at least one day when at least most people can forget their problems and have a water fight!!

Good news, we’ve found a very nice apartment to rent in a quiet street just a minute’s walk from the British Embassy and a couple of minutes from one of the two Western standard gyms in Kathmandu. The apartment (ground floor) is in a new block of three and in the garden of the owners’ house. Actually only the first and second floors are complete (or nearly) and third floor will be added some time in the future. Now we’re busy buying furniture and curtains and will hopefully move in (and out of our suit cases!) on the 10th March.

Immediately after we move in we’re going on a week long “field trip” with Simon’s VSO placement organisation (the Dalit Welfare Organisation) to really get an understanding of life in the Dalit communities.

Then it’s back to Kathmandu for our month of language lessons and then getting stuck into work full time – although Simon has already spent quite some time at the DWO offices getting a handover from the volunteer he is replacing. For Laura, we’re quite confident that VSO will find her a placement by May and if not, then there are so many other NGO opportunities here there should be no problem in finding work.

Anyway enough for now. Our next blog entry will hopefully include some pictures of our field trip and our apartment !!

Simon