Rain, rain and more rain

Namaste!

Can it rain!! Not like Singapore in intensity but impressive in consistency.

As you probably have seen in the news, Nepal (along with much of South Asia) finally got its monsoon season in July but got the whole season in one month. Similar to the UK, roads became rivers – but really deep rivers, housing collapsed, crops were wiped out, and a lot of people died.

We're certainly ok in Kathmandu, other than the constant damp causing our clothes and furniture to grow mould and mushrooms – a seemingly huge problem last weekend but rather pathetic in comparison.

And hopefully (!) the weather will continue its improvement of the last week and we can get back to our normal worries like avoiding the disproportionate amount of dog shit on the streets (we are presuming its dog!) and being tagged by the unbelievably accurate crows and bats taking poop shots at passers by on the main road through Kathmandu .

And of course next weeks language lessons, which are already giving Simon some home grown bowel movements – having not had any chance to really practise Nepali from the first round of lessons.

Work is gruelling at the moment. Laura now has two jobs on the go (IT at the Dalit Welfare Organisation and Organisation Development in a disability group). Simon continues to try to light a fire under the management at DWO – but the matches and kindling must have got damp in the monsoon!

Hopefully towards the end of September we'll finally manage to visit some of the DWO field programmes – in the Mid Western region. Simon has had some success in getting funding for a child soldier programme in the region and we'll probably go there to build management capacity.

But that will probably be the last opportunity for a field visit ahead of the Constituent Assembly elections in November – a return to democracy after ten years of civil war. Most likely October and November will be a period of disruption – (mainly) peaceful strikes called by every possible interest group.

So it will probably be a good time to go hiking in the mountains. Which is exactly what we intend to do!

Oh and of course the Kathmandu marathon. Not the whole thing but for Simon (hopefully) half and Laura a quarter. More news to follow.

AND , Simon found Christmas puddings on sale. Real Christmas puddings. Bit of a challenge without an oven or microwave. But encouraging. Now the search is on for Christmas crackers and a fairy 

Enough for now. Hope all is well with you all.

We'll blog again in about a month.

Bye

Simon and Laura.