OUR 1ST MONTH IN KATHMANDU - LAURA

Hi!

We have finally moved into our apartment!

The whole process of moving in and buying some of the stuff we needed, it has been an interesting experience.

The sense of “quality” doesn’t seem to exist in Nepal. We have moved into a new apartment but the person who painted the walls also left numerous drops all over the floors and tiles, several tiles are already chipped, the kitchen top is scratch… and the owner doesn’t seem to be bothered about it. The washing machine we bought came with some scratches and the mattress with a bit of dirt and a little hole, all probably caused when they delivered the goods to the apartment…
At the beginning I got a bit crossed but now we see it as a way of life and we just try to get the less damaged product we can find.

You can find a lot in Nepal… well, in Kathmandu. So we cannot complain. We have even installed Internet at home (not a very quick one, but hey! it’s there!!). Here again, at the moment of installing it, they just pull a cable from the nearest pole of the street and directly into the house, attached with a nod to a water tube.

We have started cooking at home, although just a little bit since there are 2 cafes with good food and quite cheap right by the corner. Actually, I don’t think we can eat cheaper at home if we see what these places charge, but it is nice to be at home and to cook simple things. And we have managed to find some ham, cheese, sausages… we will try them today.

We have started going to the gym, just 1 minute away from our place: it will hopefully keep our bodies and minds healthy.

We suffer electric power cuts about 3 hours a day. It is quit disturbing for businesses that don’t have generators - specially the small ones.
The various strikes continue: against some Maoists actions, against the non-actions from the government… and this is really disturbing the country since everything stops.

Simon is working very hard at his organization – nothing unusual for Simon. He enjoys it a lot even though sometimes he finds frustrating the way work is being done (… or not done).
We visited a Dalit village near by Kathmandu to see two projects a couple of ladies implemented: quit interesting. Simon will explain this in more detail later on.

While Simon is at work, I am currently aiming to have the apartment 100% ready before we start our Nepali training in April. And it seems that VSO should offer me a placement in May, after the language training. That will be nice.

That’s all for now. Laura