Tuesday 25 August 2009

School mosaics

During my holiday on the Scilly Isles during July I couldn't help but notice the little school on the island of Tresco. The outside wall was covered with mosaic, and although the mosaic work wasn't technically so well executed it was very sweet indeed. The children had clearly had a lot of fun going hands on with the piece and embedding in the mosaic ceramic inserts that depicted various aspects of island life.

The concept is actually not so remarkable as mosaics are increasingly popular in schools in the UK. It got me thinking today about how we could be innovative in developing education and school development projects here in Nepal. I can see the potential for school-based fundraising in the UK (which is lucrative) being used to support named schools in Nepal. And a share of the funds raised could be dedicated towards making a mosaic at the schools which would not only give work to some of the Trust's beneficiaries but also provide an eyecatching feature at what would probably be otherwise very grim schools.

I am now in contact with a mosaic artist in the UK who has good links with a large number of UK schools and is willing to help. Nepal will be a more colourful place in future and some of its poorest children a little better educated.

Monday 24 August 2009

ITC

When I first came to live in Nepal almost five years ago I attended a month long language course at the rather grandly named Intercultural Training and Research Institute in Thamel, the tourist district of Kathmandu. In spite of its two staff members it was a great course and my teacher, Parbati, was brilliant. The problem was that I forgot all my Nepali within a week or two of starting work here as English is the lingua franca within the development sector.

Today I returned to ITC for the first time since then and once again Parbati is my teacher. From now on I am determined to have a two hour session at lunchtime every other day until I have a working knowledge of the language. Hmmmm. Today, at my request, we started with the Nepali alphabet which consists of 11 vowels and 36 consonants. At the end of class I took a picture of Parbati's whiteboard. This in on the right.

Wish me luck.

Monday 4 May 2009

Resignation

This afternoon the (Maoist) Prime Minister of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka "Prachanda", resigned in a televised address to the nation. This followed his attempted sacking of the Army chief yesterday (see yesterday's post) being overruled by the President, Ram Baran Yadav. I imagine other Maoist ministers will follow suit later on today.

I do have some empathy for Mr Dahal. Last year he stated that he'd found it easier to manage a conflict during the "People's War" than to run the country in peacetime. Nepal can be a very frustrating place to try and get positive results or to attempt to move quickly with any kind of initiative. It's a shame that there is such inertia as underneath it all the economic possibilities for this country are huge in spite of this being the world's fourteenth poorest nation.

Sunday 3 May 2009

Caterwauling in Kathmandu

Today the Maoist Prime leadership in the coalition government of Nepal decided to sack the head of the Nepalese Army, General Rookmangud Katawal.

This controversial move was the culmination of deliberations over the last couple of weeks as to what to do with a General who had, on the face of it, taken decisions in what he saw as being in the best interests of the Army but that went against the wishes of the government as the ultimate authority within a democracy. The dismissal has thrown the cat amongst the pigeons with Maoist opponents believing that the Maoists are pursuing an agenda of securing supreme control through the emasculation of the Army (along with the judiciary and the media).

These national concerns are reflected in India, whose ambassador to Nepal has been shuttling between Kathmandu and Delhi in a bid to convey the displeasure of the Indian government at the prospect of Katwal's removal. For India has its own Maoist insurgency and the authorities there are very concerned about a sympathetic regime in Nepal supporting that cause. The Nepalese army has been seen by the Indians as a bulwark against a Maoist takeover and they made it known that they would oppose the sacking of Katawal which they could not acknowledge as being an internal matter for Nepal. It remains to be seen how India will retaliate.

Meanwhile, the other main parties in Nepal have all objected to apparent Maoist high-handedness and this evening one of the coalition government partners, the mainstream communist party, pulled out of government. As for Katawal he has refused to accept his dismissal.

So this Sunday evening everything is up in the air. It is quite predictable that the coming week will see widespread protests and demonstrations both for and against the decision to fire Katawal. Of course I have no view one way or the other, but this kind of disruption doesn't help with us trying to get on with the task of making Nepal a better place for its children. This is the worst that the situation has been in Nepal for a very long time.

Saturday 2 May 2009

Oh no, it's the breeding season....

...for snakes. Our snake in the garden problem became worse today as we spotted two of them, writhing and intertwined in ecstasy. Soon we'll have a real infestation. All we need now is an outbreak of snake flu to compound the problem further.

Concerned by the possibility of the snakes being venomous I had bought a couple of days ago the definitive text on the subject "The Herpetology of Nepal" by Dr T K Shrestha.
It didn't help much as many of the pictures were in black and white and the descriptions included statements like "the females lay eggs" and "the pupils are round". I wasn't going close enough today to find out the shape of the pupils of the snake in question but I imagine that they were fairly dilated. My best guess is that this is a common rat snake which is only aggressive when attacked, so sooner or later my dog Bryher is in for a shock.

Today marked the start of my two year old's sex education - "what is those snakes doing?" she asked. This must be Nepal's variation on the birds and the bees.

Friday 1 May 2009

Missing the point

One of our partner NGOs in Nepal, the Nepal Child Welfare Foundation (NCWF), is based in Bhairahawa which is just 20km from the birthplace of the Buddha at Lumbini. The Lumbini Garden, which measures 7.7 square kilometres, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been developed over the years by the Lumbini Development Trust. It includes the spot where the Buddha was born in 623 B.C. and incorporate within its large area a number of temples that reflect the differing temple architecture of Buddhist nations around the world.

As part of my charity fundraising this year, I had planned to complete my fourth 10km run at a new event we'd set up ourselves as "The Lumbini 10km". The concept was to have an early morning run one Saturday in November that would take sponsored runners through the park area (away from dangerous Nepali traffic) with the event all over and done with by 9 a.m. This would raise badly-needed funds for the NCWF's ongoing childcare and allow me to hit my personal £40k fundraising target. Initial approaches to the Lumbini Development Trust (LDT) were encouraging and included discussions of possible routes with one Board member, Mr Hari Rai. However two days ago our team at last managed to arrange a meeting with Mr Parma Syangbo Sherpa, the Board Secretary. Dressed in his monk's yellow robes he flatly refused permission to allow the event to go ahead, saying that it would disturb the serenity of the place.

I have now written to the LDT, questioning Mr Sherpa's authority to take such a unilateral decision, that has such far reaching consequences, without consulting the Board. Moreover I have pointed out that his stance seems to be at variance with the remit of LDT to develop the site (sensitively and sustainably) as a national and international tourist site. We'll see what the Board says.

But sometimes I feel some of those who are central figures within organised religions are so immersed in their religious practices that they miss the point and forget the (almost universal) central calling to help the most needy members of society.

Thursday 30 April 2009

From a Kathmandu garden

Here's a picture I took this morning. The snake seems to be resident judging by the number of appearances that it makes in a day, each being accompanied by frantic barking from my two dogs. I don't think it's venomous (only 20 of Nepal's 80 snake species are in that category) but I will buy a book tomorrow so that I can identify the beast and be certain....

My year from Dental School

Thirty five of us graduated from Queen's University Belfast Dental School in 1982. I am only still in touch with one of the group who continues to serve in the British Army (which I resigned from in 1999). One of the 35 took his own life a couple of years' ago. This evening I picked up this story in the Northern Ireland newspapers about another one of my former fellows:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/accused-dentist-on-suicide-watch-in-jail-14283908.html

An earlier press report suggests Howell also faces charges of drugging and sexually abusing four women who where all former patients. I couldn't have imagined a more benign chap from my peers but I suppose that's what you hear so often said of the worst criminals after the event.

Wednesday 29 April 2009

How not to compose a photograph

I love the imagery that appears in the largest English language paper in Nepal, The Himalayan Times. On the right you see a picture that appeared in today's edition of a presentation of a token of gratitude at a ceremony in Kathmandu yesterday. I love the stoical face of the security guard in the background who just looks like he's involved in someone else's photograph. Or participating in a magic trick.

Tuesday 28 April 2009

Too honest

I've been eyeing up an interesting-looking Indian restaurant just off Pulchowk in Lalitpur called "Masala". But driving past it today I noticed that they are turning a necessity into a virtue with a sign on the door announcing "We care for your health. Closed for pest control". So that one has been dropped off my already very short list of suitable eating out spots in Kathmandu.

Donkeys

Much has been written in the Nepali press in recent weeks about how NGOs and INGOs may soon to be brought into line by the Government, with greater transparency and contribution towards the "national agenda". No one can challenge the desirability of NGOs showing clearly their sources of income and expenditure; many if not most don't measure up in this regard. I know of one or two NGOs out there who source their funds by withdrawing cash directly from their overseas' donor accounts through an ATM card that they've been given by their funder. That can scarcely be considered to be best practice. I do have problems though with any suggestion that NGO funds, non-governmental funds, might be harnessed towards the greater good as determined by a local governmental agency that might take precedence in decision-making over donor charity Boards and NGO committees. These suggestions - which seem to be strongest in "letters to the editor" sections of the papers - reflect an ignorance of the nature of public giving abroad and that any attempt to hijack funds that are given for a specific purpose, entrusted to Trustees, would undermine the ethos of charitable giving. It is the individual member of the public's right to give their own hard-earned cash towards whatever cause that is dear to their hearts, be it children, animals, the arts, medical research etc. If a donor country doesn't want to receive funds towards what might be seen as fringe issues then all that has by national government is to decline the charity's proposal. The funds can go to another country where the perceived need is as great or greater and where the contribution is welcome even if it doesn't go towards meeting development priorities.

Also, one of the tasks of a charity can be to identify and highlight something that isn't already on "the national agenda" but that most definitely should be. For example, six years ago when The Esther Benjamins Trust began working with the problem of trafficking of children to circuses no one knew anything about this particular problem. Had our modest resources been channelled into paying for other worthy things like providing rehabilitation and training facilities for trafficking survivors (this is high on the national agenda) then Nepali children would still be languishing, abused in the circuses. Instead we were able to get on with the challenge of sorting the problem out and now that child trafficking route is closed down.

Other causes like animal welfare seem to be of only academic interest to many of the decision makers within Nepalese society. Thank goodness for those few good people out there, Westerners and Nepalis, who have made stray dogs and working donkeys issues that need addressing and thank goodness for those overseas who give money that supports the animals' relief. I hope nothing is done in the future that will restrict the activities of such people who may be seen as "eccentric". It is such people that are the bedrock of charities.

Pictured right is a donkey that was rescued from a brick kiln last week by my friend Kit Spencer, Managing Director of the Summit Hotel.

How a two year old sees the world

Last week I showed my two and three quarter year old daughter, Alisha, this newspaper picture of the Nepalese Prime Minister emerging from a conference. "He's blowing out candles" she declared having enjoyed her parents' birthday celebrations that fell within recent weeks. I sometimes test her on what things are for. One day I took her through body parts - what are ears for? (A. hearing), what are teeth for? (A. eating) etc. When I asked her what fingers are for she answered "noses". She also told me on another occasion that the fridge was "for taking the white wine out of". Hmmm.

She's also become a great animal lover and can identify an amazing range of animals through her visits to the zoos and study of books. But she floored Bev the other day when she asked if she could have some "armadillo crisps" as a snack. Then she pointed to the packet of tortilla chips.

Kusum (see previous post) has just arrived at my house ready to be taken off to a toddlers' library group by Bev and an adoring Alisha. She's coming along really well since she arrived at the Esther Benjamins Trust children's refuge and is now starting to talk and smile. Heaven knows what vocabulary Alisha is going to teach her.

Monday 27 April 2009

Martin Cheek

One of the big names in the international mosaic scene, Martin Cheek, has agreed to come out and give us some consultancy between the 5th and 13th May. I got to hear about Martin first through my wife Bev who attended one of his weekend courses about fifteen years ago. I ended up going to his summer course in Greece five years ago and then the following year, with Bev, to another of his courses in Florence. As you can see from his website his work is not only very artistic but full of humour. But be warned that if you attend one of his classes you'll have to endure the other side of Martin's humour - his really grim, very old jokes. You'll find one or two pictures of me looking remarkably cheerful under the circumstances on his website's courses page.

Anyway, Martin will be providing training support to the trainers who are running the integrated art workshop in Bhairahawa and helping with design input. He'll also be helping us to prepare for a photographic/mosaic exhibition that we'll be running at several venues later on this year to mark the Trust's 10th birthday.

One of Martin's other students is leading British journalist Libby Purves who has shown some interest in following up his visit and our work. And I discovered last week that one of the charity's Trustees, Sue Duncan, has also been on a Cheek weekend course. Small world!

London Marathon

Yesterday was the London Marathon and this year The Esther Benjamins Trust fielded a record 15 runners. Most were made up of two teams from two of our leading corporate supporters Ramboll Ltd and Joules Clothing Ltd. One of the individual runners was James Caulfield, the youngest participant of the day, who was celebrating his 18th birthday in fine style. I am still awaiting news on the times but I gather from one runner that, as usual for the Marathon, it was a scorcher in London so the times are likely to be on the slow side.

My paltry contribution to running yesterday was an early morning 10km training run in Kathmandu which I completed in 50.5 minutes. That is seven and a half minutes faster than I ran in Hong Kong in February.

Saturday 18 April 2009

Kusum

In my post of 24th February, "Raw Poverty", I described my visit to a trafficking-prone community in Makwanpur District which had left me profoundly shaken. This followed my seeing a little four year old girl, Kusum, hiding under a quilt inside a grubby hut. Her mother had died three months previously and she was refusing to speak and hiding from all visitors. We had the dilemma of what to do with this acutely traumatised child. Many aid organisations would maintain that this child should be supported within her community and kept close to her remaining family. That's easier said than done in a Nepalese rural community. On top of that her father had little time to dedicate to his daughter; he had to labour during the day and Kusum was keeping company with a young couple who had their own children to look after.

We decided, with her father's blessing, to bring Kusum and her ten year old sister Anisha to our Kathmandu refuge and I saw her there on Friday, the day after she arrived. She's still not speaking but is in the loving care of the refuge staff, surrounded by curious and exuberant refuge children. This is the first traumatised child we've admitted to the refuge in a long time and her rehabilitation is going to be a challenge; my daughter Alisha is looking forward to doing her bit and plans to buy her a teddy before going to see her again on Monday. Within a month Kusum will be a totally different child. The cost of care for the two girls will be £1080 per year but that's a small price to pay.

Any sponsors out there?

Tuesday 14 April 2009

2066 and all that

It's New Year's Day in Nepal, today being the first of 2066. There has been some controversy in recent months over a government proposal to reduce this calendar year from 12 months to 11 months to bring the year into line with astronomical realities but in the end it was decided to stick with a full year. I imagine if there had been any perception within the populace that their collective lifespans would have decreased by one month there could have been a wave of strikes and protests. Now let's hope for a bright 2066 and a less disruption to daily life than we experienced in 2065.

Happy New Year!

Monday 13 April 2009

Dhanyabad

Around thirty of the children that The Esther Benjamins Trust is caring for at its refuges in Kathmandu and Bhairahawa in the southwest are the dependents of prisoners. I prefer to call our facilities "refuges" rather than "homes" as, in the ideal, they provide full time care only on a temporary basis. In the case of prisoners' children this is pending their parents' release. It's important to keep tabs on the prisoners as, in spite of what they agree at the time we admit their children, it is common for them to vanish into the ether after they are freed in the expectation that we will continue to care for their offspring. For our part we are proactive in reuniting the children with parents as soon as they have found work and can provide a family home but we give the releasees a little leeway after release to sort themselves out. Moreover we are happy to help with some short term financial support (e.g. for educational costs) to smooth the reunification path. This approach is in the best interests of the children and ensures that our refuge facilities can be extended to other, more needy, children.

Two brothers, Raju and Rajesh, came to us back in 2001 after their father was jailed in Tulsipur prison in the far west of Nepal. They have been staying at our Bhairahawa refuge ever since. Towards the end of last year the father was released and it was easy to see how keen the boys were to go home and resume family life. However, this had to be delayed as he needed to find work. Two days ago one of our field staff went with the older brother, Raju, to trace the father. On arrival in his village it transpired that he had remarried and was building a house. He was not at all keen to take the boys back - prisoners enjoy the prospect of a totally fresh start - and would have been more than happy for us to continue to look after the boys to a standard that's better than he could ever afford. But he will take them back; as I see it if he's sufficiently well off to build a house then his finances are good enough to fend for the children.

One of the disappointing things that I see about the parents that we have to deal with is a lack of responsibility (often fuelled by alcohol abuse) and an unwillingness to take ownership of their children. We have to be careful not to indulge these unhealthy sentiments. But the other thing that gets me is the lack of appreciation. Purely in monetary terms, the cost of daily care for Raju and Rajesh over the years has probably been in the region of £8.5k but dear old dad will never say thanks. Instead he clearly expects more off us. This thanklessness is not unique to him by any means. The word "dhanyabad" ("thank you") is a fairly recent addition to the Nepali language. This grates a bit but then you have to remind yourself that what we do we do for the children, not for the parents.

Shailaja has just phoned me to say that gymnast Aman Tamang, who was one of our two refuge children taking part in the National Games last week, has been named as one of the top nine athletes from the games. This means he has won a purse of 25,000 rupees (£210) which equates to six months' salary at the national minimum wage.

Sunday 12 April 2009

10km musings

This morning was my first full ten kilometre early morning run in Kathmandu as I train for my competitive fundraising 10km events of this year. And I ran the course this morning in 53 minutes which is five minutes faster than when I competed in Hong Kong two months' ago. Extrapolation of this improving performance would indicate that in 20 months time I should be able to complete the distance in 3 minutes, which would surely be some kind of record?

En route at 6.30 a.m. I met a squad of Nepali armed police out on their own training run. Rather bizarrely they were running with rather than against the flow of traffic; maybe they know something that I don't. They were also running in their boots, a practice that is all good macho stuff, but one that was abandoned by the British Army about 25 years' ago. That followed the realisation that running in boots wrecks knee joints creating long term disabilities that were usually compounded by well-intentioned attempts by cack-handed military surgeons to repair the damage. Fit young soldiers were being turned into cripples. It is all very well running in boots (very quickly) when the bullets are flying, but the rest of the time it makes much more sense to wear trainers.

There are two sources of aerial pollution to contend with in early morning Kathmandu. The first is the clouds of dust that are swept into the air by Nepali women whose obsessional use of brooms seems to rival my current obsession for training. Given how common spitting is over here and the incidence of pulmonary TB this must constitute a major health hazard. The second pollution source is the smoke from the burning of rubbish which in Nepal tends to be done at the beginning or end of the day. One of my friends who is visiting at the moment deals with proper waste management back in the UK. He said to me that it would be so easy to use a modern incinerator to replace these bonfires, filtering out the toxins (apart from the CO2) and generate some badly-needed electricity for the city. That is something for me to chew upon - much like the free range cows of Kathmandu view the piles of combustible rubbish by the roadside.

Saturday 11 April 2009

Good Friday in Nepal

Yesterday I attended a children's picnic for the 100 kids who are at our Kathmandu refuge. A picnic consists of a trip to a park in the surrounding hills, music, dancing, games and of course (copious) amounts of food. Meanwhile eleven older children from our Bhairahawa refuge in the south were rounding off a five day trek in the Annapurnas, north of Pokhara (for those who know the area this included Ghorepani, Chisopani, Pun Hill, Tadopani, Ghandruk). This is a super challenge for the kids and all part of our overall aim of not just providing for children's basic needs but, quite literally, going an extra mile or two.

These kinds of activities are funded through our "recreation sponsorship" where we invite sponsors to contribute £5 per month for a named child; I can't think of a better way of spending 17 pence a day. We also invite supporters who have a little more cash at their disposal to consider an educational sponsorship of £15 per month or a general sponsorship of £25 per month. To commit to one or more of our children in this way please visit our website.

Friday 10 April 2009

Socially responsible

I read in today's Nepali Times under the headline "Socially Responsible" that the NMB Bank has launched a social responsibility campaign which includes helping renovate and maintain temples. Recently the bank put marble flooring in the Hanuman Mandir (temple) and has introduced a scheme to clean it frequently.

Pictured right is the home of one of our Kathmandu refuge children in Makwanpur District.

Something to smile about

Our two Kathmandu refuge kids who have been competing in the 5th National Games in Nepal (see my post of 8th April) completed their gymnastic events with no fewer than seven medals to their credit. Aman Tamang won three golds while Bijay Limbu won a gold, two silver and one bronze. Next stop for the lads will be the next South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) games in December but I'd love to see them at the London Olympics in 2012. That's unlikely to happen as the training here would be inadequate and Nepal historically hasn't entered a gymnastics team to the Olympics. I've considered sending them abroad (specifically to Hong Kong where there is a large Nepali community) to continue their education and training but that doesn't seem to offer the appropriate standard of training either. Does anyone out there have any thoughts?

Palden (see 1st April post) seems to be recovering in hospital and is now conscious and off his ventilator. Yesterday one of our staff managed to coax a laugh out of him for the first time. He is recovering quickly but it remains to be seen how complete that will be.

Thursday 9 April 2009

Holi in Bhairahawa

In my post of 9th March I wrote how the Hindu festival of Holi was my least favourite of the year with anyone being liable to find themselves sprayed by revellers with water or with coloured dye, whether they like it or not. A picture I received today indicates that our UK volunteers in Bhairhawa seemed to enter into the spirit of it with more enthusiasm than I could muster.

The Esther Benjamins Trust newsletter

One of my charity tasks is to assemble a six monthly newsletter. Following my efforts, complimented by design and editorial support from our London office, the Spring edition has just been published and you can see the online version here:

http://www.ebtrust.org.uk/images/newsletter/Newsletter_spring_A4.pdf

Wednesday 8 April 2009

The National Games in Nepal

The Nepalese National Games started on Monday, the first time these have taken place in five years. Two of our Kathmandu children's refuge boys, Aman Tamang and Bijay Limbu, were taking part in the gymnastics events using skills that they learned the hard way through their time inside an Indian circus. After we freed them in January 2004 they chose to continue to train, attending the National Stadium in Kathmandu each morning before going to school. Today their efforts were rewarded with both boys picking up gold medals in the group event, and Aman winning a gold, Bijay a bronze in individual events. Two more gold medal events take place tomorrow so it's fingers crossed....

Tuesday 7 April 2009

Measuring up

I read in the UK papers that there is to be a new drive against obesity with general practitioners screening patients in the age group 40-74 and prescribing weight management and exercise for those who are overweight. Not before time as Britain turns into a nation of slobs, but it takes time and willpower on the part of not only the patients but also of the doctors to see this campaign through.

In my post of 11 Nov ("Not so vital statistics") I gave my baseline measurements prior to embarking upon training for my 10km running events in 2009. Worryingly I found that these indicated that I was in the high risk bracket for a coronary or a stroke, so I was determined to do something about it. Today my dimensions are quite different from then, with my weight having dropped from 80kg to 73kg. That gives me a Body Mass Index of 24.11, down from 26.42 and bringing me into the "healthy" bracket of between 18.5 and 25. I'll be more comfortably within the bracket after I've shed another 3-5 kg. My hip measurement has reduced from 101 cm to 97 cm and waist from 99 cm to 91 cm giving me a waist/hip ratio (which is apparently a better guide of health) of .94, down from .98 last November. So things still aren't quite so good as they might seem as a ratio of above .90 puts you in the death zone.

The thing that amazes me is that last November I visited a GP who diagnosed me as having hypertension (high blood pressure) and prescribed ACE Inhibitor medication. Over the last couple of days I have been testing my blood pressure without taking this medication and I am now enjoying a normal blood pressure reading. Tablets are perhaps too often the easy way out and I'd have been better managed if he'd called me a "fatty" and shamed me into making the lifestyle changes that in the end I decided to embark upon unilaterally. It's the doctors who need the guts if their patients are to shed them.

Wednesday 1 April 2009

The slums of Butwal

Last month our volunteer photographer Jonny Cochrane recorded a visit by some of our Bhairahawa refuge children to their home area in the slums of Butwal, which is half an hour's drive away. It proved to be a very bleak visit and I have now uploaded Jonny's pictures to Flickr.

We are now researching how we might provide support to the children who are in the midst of this urban poverty which is every bit as grim at the rural poverty of Makwanpur District. We're aiming to launch a new project in Butwal in the middle of this year.

Palden

On Sunday one of our field workers from Hetauda, Palden, was knocked off his motorbike by a truck. He is currently on a ventilator in a Kathmandu hospital and it seems likely that if he survives he'll be left with brain damage. The truck belonged to a major haulage company and the company agreed to fund Palden's immediate care and, if need be, long term family support to his wife and children.

When I first came to Nepal I was told by my driver during a road journey that the immediate action in the event of an accident was to get out and run for it. Irrespective of whether or not the fault lies with the driver, a mob of locals can form very quickly and summary justice meted out. I remember on one occasion as we were driving along seeing someone up ahead fall off his bicycle. My (Nepali) driver was insistent that we shouldn't stop for if we had we'd most likely have been blamed for whatever had happened to the cyclist and there'd be a demand for compensation. Nepal's roads are no place for a Good Samaritan.

Compensation to the victim of a traffic accident is the norm in Nepal, if the victim survives. I have heard it said that it is common for a victim to be "finished off" in a bid to avoid a life-long bill to the motorist concerned.

Monday 30 March 2009

Sunday Life

The work of the Trust had some useful coverage yesterday in "Sunday Life", the Sunday edition of The Belfast Telegraph. I hope this leads to some additional sponsorship and a few fellow runners when I embark upon the Third World Run in Belfast on the 31st May.

Sunday 29 March 2009

Colour at The White House

The Esther Benjamins Trust's first children's refuge, the so called "White House", was set up in Bhairahawa southwest Nepal in 2000. It is currently providing a temporary home for 30 schoolgoing children. Most are children of prisoners but there are also some former street children and conflict affected children in their number. Over the last couple of months the refuge has received the support of eight gap year students. Volunteer photographer Jonny Cochrane visited the refuge last month and I have just uploaded his striking images to Flickr.

Childcare at the refuge costs in total £45 per month and we need sponsors to help us meet this cost. Sponsorship can be at three levels; £25 per month to cover general care costs, £15 per month for educational costs or £5 per month as a recreational sponsorship. Let me know if you can help.

Saturday 28 March 2009

How to defuse a crisis in Nepal

This week The Kathmandu Post published a front page article explaining how over the past year a number of commissions had been appointed to investigate pressing issues ranging from natural disasters to the causes of unrest on the streets. Essentially these inquiries, which each cost around £10k (good expense claims for the board members), lead nowhere as the recommendations are never implemented. The implementation of recommendations is not what these activities are all about. Instead the setting up of a commission takes the heat out of a particular crisis and settles down protests and disorder on the streets. Invariably the media reports that a "top level" board has been appointed and the rioters go home. By the time the commission reports chances are the original problem has become history and no one notices or cares much whether anything useful has emanated from the process.

Just above this report on the front page of Wednesday's Post there was another report saying how the private education sector had finally caved in to government pressure to pay tax that could be directed towards the benefit of the (poor) government schools. After a lot of wrangling the private schools had agreed to pay subject to the tax being retitled "Education Development Support Fund" from the original "Education Service Tax". And to the appointment of a "high level" National Education Service Commission to define how the taxes would be spent...

Returning to the real world, I have just uploaded to the Trust's Flickr collection a batch of pictures taken this month by our volunteer photographer Jonny Cochrane. They show our integrated art workshop activities in Bhairahawa where deaf students work alongside child trafficking survivors whom we've rescued from the circuses. As well as learning mosaic techniques the students learn English and IT. It's been a great success and unlike commissions of enquiry the Workshop delivers real results.

Thursday 26 March 2009

Jim Edwards

Long term resident of Nepal, Jim Edwards, passed away on Monday. Originally from Jersey in the U.K. Jim came to Nepal in the early 1960's as a big game hunter but metamorphosed soon afterwards into a leading conservationist. He set up a company, Tiger Mountain, that inter alia managed exclusive holidays in Chitwan National Park ("Tiger Tops") and at Bardiya National Park where guests could indulge in tiger spotting from the safety of the back of an elephant. He'd a great sense of fun and introduced Nepal - and the World - to the sport of elephant polo which is now also played in Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Jim was very supportive to the work of The Esther Benjamins Trust through Tiger Mountain and has channelled support and sponorship to us, while allowing our refuge children to enjoy an occasional free holiday at his centres. This very distinguished and charming man will be missed by the British community in Nepal within which he was such an enormous presence. And as I read in the papers of how the endangered Asian one horn rhino population has been almost eradicated from Bardiya National Park through poaching, I can only reflect upon the scale of the loss of Jim to the conservation scene. His full obituary can be read here.

Outside my window I have just heard the first cuckoo of Spring announce its arrival.

Iron gate

The School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examinations have just started in Nepal, which equates to the GCSE examinations in the UK. It should in theory be taken by students when they're around 16 but older candidates present themselves who are re-sitting the exam or who have missed out on education for whatever reason. This year quite a few "People's Liberation Army" (PLA) personnel who are veterans of the recently-ended conflict are taking the exam. SLC is a critical qualification and is known as the "iron gate" for without it there can be no progression to higher education, to decent vocational training or much of a chance of finding a good job. In this very poor country there's always a great deal of hype around SLC and each year there is usually the tragedy of a few suicides that follow exam failures.

We had a very different experience of an iron gate last week. My mosaic art workshop "Himalayan Mosaics" moved out of its old premises in Godawari, just outside Kathmandu. It transferred just a mile or so up the road and is now sited in purpose-built rooms on the roof of my partner Director Shailaja's new home. The problem was that two of our dogs had to move with the workers and Shailaja's compound had to be suitably secure to prevent these former street dogs from exploring their roots. That meant a gate had to be fitted and we took a chance and allowed local staff to install this for us. The outcome was the placing of an expensive monstrosity of a metal gate that looks quite incongruous and ostentatious in the midst of a rather poor hillside village. Fitting the gate took a long time as the chap who was supervising the work didn't think to measure the available space so they ended up having to cut away a lot of adjacent bank to make room for this expanse of metalwork. Shailaja, who is currently in India, is blissfully unaware of these goings on and will have a fit when she gets back.

I have seen this behaviour pattern many times over my years of being in Nepal - something I call "catastrophic decision making". Local workers can come up with the most bizarre solutions to problems the thought processes behind which just defy comprehension. Recounting the gate saga to a friend of mine the other evening she put it another way, referring to the "I" and "J" words. These stand for initiative and judgement and to her mind the two do not go hand in hand in Nepal. It takes quite an effort for a show of initiative to be displayed by a local worker, but one's delight at this is shortlived as it is rarely balanced with good judgement.

In my own display of folly this week I have registered for The Third World Run in Belfast on the 31st May, taking me back home to Northern Ireland for the first time in 13 years. This will be my fourth 10km run for my charity, The Esther Benjamins Trust, in its 10th birthday year. I have increased my sponsorship target to £40,000 and with £26,660 raised so far I am sure I can get there. If you'd like to support me either join me on one of my runs. Or, if you are blessed with better judgement than to do that, please visit my online sponsorship page.

Monday 16 March 2009

Quixote's Cove

Nepali friends of mine have just opened a delightful bookshop called "Quixote's Cove" which is in the grounds of the New Orleans cafe in Jawalakhel, Kathmandu. If you go there you'll find a superb collection of classics and best sellers concentrated into a few shelves and a conducive environment to sit, relax and browse for a while. The proprietor, Pranap Singh, also knows his books very well and is well placed to give you a recommendation or two.

I am very happy to give the bookshop a well-deserved plug as Pranap and his friend Abinash Pradhan were kind enough to commission their logo from Himalayan Mosaics, a job that was completed very nicely by former circus girl Chameli. You can't miss that on the right of the door as you go in.

Tuesday 10 March 2009

Hatemalo e.V.

Five years ago two German clinical psychologists, Katharina Tomoff and Micha Luedecke, volunteered for us at our Hetauda centre. They came as unknown quantities, but made a huge impact during their time with us, returning to Germany fired up to help us further. This is easier said than done as people return to their busy lives back home but last evening I heard from Katharina that she has now managed to register a supporting NGO in Germany. Her charity is called Hatemalo e.V.; Hatemalo is Nepali for "garland of hands" and e.V. indicates that this is a German registered charity.

Katharina will now have her work cut out in setting up website, literature and presenting plans to potential supporters. But this process has received an unexpected boost from Spain from where a translation agency, Uyngo.com, wrote to us out of the blue a few days' ago offering to translate documents and videos into a language of our choice as a free service out of respect for our work. Katharina's English is perfect but I have taken them up on their offer of subtitling one YouTube video which would otherwise have presented a technical problem. I will post the video on this site once it has been translated,

I love it when things come together like this and how marvellous are our worldwide volunteers!

Monday 9 March 2009

Holi

Tomorrow is the Hindu festival of Holi and my least favourite time of the year. Once it was a time for good natured fun, with celebrations consisting of devotees throwing powdered dye and squirting water at one another. It used to be that this took place between families and friends with consent to becoming a victim being implicit in the merry making. In recent years though this behaviour has gone out of hand and become indiscriminate with anti-social behaviour being tolerated for a few days either side of the festival itself. You can't walk down the street without risking someone water bombing you. During the present water shortage one shudders to think where the water is being sourced from. Yesterday a water bomb narrowly missed my two year old as we went for a Sunday afternoon stroll in a back lane near our house. This kind of terrorism leads to the closing of schools for several days as teachers try to avoid the antics of the street being transferred to the playgrounds and classrooms - just as the end of year examinations have got underway.

Sunday 8 March 2009

The coal mines of Meghalaya

This past week I went on a five day research trip into northeast India, joined by my colleagues Nick Sankey, Shailaja CM and Dilu Tamang. As our Circus Children Project draws to a successful close we have been looking at various other situations that could be considered as having a negative impact on Nepalese children who have found their way, by one means or another, to India. Over Christmas I had picked up a press report which suggested that there were trafficked Nepalese children working in the coal mines of Meghalaya, the Indian State which lies on Bangladesh's northern border. We decided to look into the mines (so to speak) and sent a research team there last month for a preliminary visit to meet the NGO Impulse and its dynamic Founder/Director, Hasina Kharbhih (who was named in the article). Upon receiving their intriguing report I felt that I wanted to see the situation for myself.

The target area for our visit was the Jaintia hills in the eastern part of the State, this being the main coal mining area. I suppose that this could once have been considered to be an area of outstanding natural beauty with considerable tourism potential but it seems to have suffered from years of environmental indifference that probably even pre-dated the mining which started just a generation ago. Driving into the area I noticed the almost total absence of bird life, including even the common scavengers that you see in the Himalayan countryside such as crows and myna birds. I suspect this is through a combination of hunting, the planting of sterile pine forests and burning of scrub which seemed to be going on all around. On top of this there is now the uncontrolled mining which is open cast, pit or "rat hole" - small tunnels that lead to seams in the hillside.

We had heard before our visit of the existence of a "coal mafia" which dominates the mining industry and of the risk to life and limb of nosing around and asking too many questions. However when we got to the area of the mines we were made most welcome and families were quick to share with us details of their lives. OK, perhaps we were being misled but the impression we gained was that we were in the midst of a community of Nepalese men, women and children - families - who were economic migrants, earning good money and living a decent domestic life. That's more than can be said of the rural areas of Nepal whence many of the families originate. Undoubtedly there are health and safety issues at the mines. Unlike Dilu Tamang (pictured bottom right) I elected not to descend a pit on a rickety ladder where the handrail consisted of no more than a branch. I am sure deaths and injuries go unreported in this isolated part of India into which the authorities or police allegedly fear to tread.

For now our jury is out as to whether or not we are looking at a trafficking problem as opposed to economic migration of families. We are assured by Impulse that unaccompanied children are trafficked there and that there are worse coal mines than those we visited. That is good enough to merit further research both in Meghalaya and in Nepal in the coming few months.

During our discussions with Hasina the issue of what constituted a "child" was raised. From Hasina's point of view the answer was simple; it is as per the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) which has been signed by all the countries in the world with the exception of the USA and Somalia (strange bedfellows) i.e. under 18 unless national law puts the age of majority at younger than this. That is fine in theory but in practice it is a different story altogether. For if that criterion were to be accepted we would most likely have to end child labour and remove thousands of "children" who are in their mid teens from the coal mines. This would be tricky if the teenagers were there, desperate to work to avoid starvation for themselves and their families with no alternative social support in Nepal. And if you were to extract these teenagers it would be not only traumatic and violent but also probably a total waste of resources as they'd be back at the mines within a week of being repatriated back to Nepal with all its economic woes.

It takes a brave person within the development sector to risk becoming a pariah by challenging the widely-accepted truths of CRC but, very sadly, to me there seems to be a huge gap between its provisions and the needs of the real, impoverished, world.

Saturday 7 March 2009

Uranium and urinals

I returned yesterday evening from a five day research trip to Meghalaya State in northeast India. The reason for my visit is that the State, which lies on Bangladesh's northern border, is home to coal mines which are reputedly a destination for trafficked Nepalese children. I will post on that subject tomorrow. There are also significant uranium deposits in the eastern part of Meghalaya and, as India flexes its nuclear muscle, this has become a highly important national resource. The deposits though lie in tribal lands and there have been strong local objections to the potential for mining to leave a legacy of lasting environmental damage and a very long term health hazard. It appears that these objections have been largely overcome recently, most likely through local leaders being bought off at the expense of the environment and the poor people the leaders are supposed to represent. Mining will start soon.

It is a cliche to write that the "incredible" India of the tourist brochures is a land of contrasts but I am constantly amazed by how this new world power can have such ambitious national and international goals while showing so much disregard for the basic needs of its population. These include provision for essential bodily functions. On the trip down to Meghalaya I stopped off in Siliguri and after a light meal in a cafe opposite the railway station decided to use the lavatory at the rear of the premises. Beyond the door pictured top right lurked the worst toilet that I have ever used in my life. It consisted of nothing apart from a tiled room with two foot pedestals. Essentially the toilet receptacle was the floor around these comparatively dry islands with drainage being through seepage from around the floor margins. When you see an indoor facility like this you might justifiably prefer a simpler al fresco solution but later on in the trip I was warned that this option can come at a price. See the picture bottom right.

It was with some relief that we reached the Nepal border late yesterday morning. However this was short-lived as upon arrival we were advised that there was an ongoing "bandh" (strike) that was paralysing the south of the country and potentially preventing us from getting to the domestic airport and catching our flight from there home to Kathmandu. The strike, which started five days ago and is indefinite, has been called by the indigenous Tharu people who have objected to being grouped with the ethnic Indian (Madhesi) population in the discussions that are underway about the shape of the future all-inclusive "new" Nepal. During bandhs roads are blocked with rocks and fallen trees to prevent vehicular movement but we made it through by hitching a ride in an ambulance. The ambulance disgorged its patient at the airport, an unfortunate young woman who was clearly very seriously ill; she had no medical carer and all that the airport could provide was a wheelchair that didn't have any brakes. My colleague Dilu Tamang went off to find a couple of bricks to put behind the rear wheels. The woman's accompanying relatives were doing all that they could to try to get her on to the earliest flight possible, through showing her hospital notes and a doctor's letter to the airport staff. I imagine that they succeeded in the end but Nepal is no country for sick young women.

I read in the papers this morning that three people were killed yesterday because of this unrest. The police opened fire on protesters at a road blockade killing two and the locals retaliated later by hacking a policeman to death. If this strike continues it will add significantly to the national problems as much of Nepal's food and fuel supplies have to come north by road from India through this troubled region. As if the country hasn't enough to think about - as predicted in my last post the energy crisis deepened while we were away. We now have just four hours of electricity per day.

Sunday 1 March 2009

Money going down the drain

Water and electricity are currently at a premium in Nepal. The two are quite inter-related as the country depends upon hydroelectric power. And this electricity is in turn required by those of us who live in Kathmandu valley to pump to the surface the ground water needed for domestic use. The problem is that Nepal is now experiencing its worst drought in 20 years; last monsoon season was not as damp as usual and this winter's rains have failed totally. Normally the rivers and reservoirs get topped up in the Spring with melting snows in the Himalayas but the drought has meant that there's not much snow on the mountains. The 16 hours of power cuts per day means that whatever groundwater is available in Kathmandu valley remains largely untappable.

One solution to the water difficulty is the water tankers that shuttle between the springs in the hills around Kathmandu valley and the town centre (which is where our house is located). A tanker can fill our domestic water tank and that gives us a supply of reasonably clean water for about a week. It seems though that the springs are drying up, queues of tankers are forming at the springs and households all over Kathmandu are struggling to find a friendly water tanker that is prepared to deliver water. We've now been without mains water and had an empty tank for the last four days. I am having to flush the loo using mineral water which costs fifty pence a flush.

Essentially a full blown electricity and water crisis is about to break upon us as there is no prospect of significant rainfall until the monsoon begins in three months' time. And one of the main reservoirs that has been providing electricity to Nepal will only be operational for another week. Tourists who stay at decent hotels will be largely oblivious to this as the hotels have good generators and sound contracts with the tankers. The rest of us are in for a very difficult time indeed. I learned the other evening that the charity "Concern" is about to leave the country and no doubt others will follow.

Yesterday the Prime Minister attended a function where he took the oath as patron of the Nepal Scouts Association. He looked dapper in his uniform.

Friday 27 February 2009

Burning bright

For the past few months our students at the Bhairahawa art workshop - a mixed group of deaf school leavers and girl trafficking survivors from the Indian circuses - have been working on a large mosaic of a jungle scene with a sinister tiger. It measures 5 feet by 8 feet and the original design was by our volunteer art teacher from this time last year, Rebecca Hawkins. The work has just been completed and now it is on its way to an appreciative wall in Kathmandu. We hope this beautiful piece with spark some orders from discerning customers in Nepal.

Thursday 26 February 2009

A good day in the courts

Three years ago our field staff were directly involved in the arrest of leading child trafficker Kajiman Shrestha (pictured right). He was responsible for the trafficking of scores of Nepalese children into the oblivion of the Indian circus industry, condemning them to a miserable existence of abuse and de facto imprisonment. He has been in jail ever since he was picked up. Yesterday he was convicted and sentenced to a further 15 years imprisonment.

Meanwhile in a court in India yesterday it was the fourth hearing in the trial of Indian circus owner Lakhan Chaudhary. Once more we provided a witness (one of his victims) for the prosecution. We expect there to be one more hearing next month and then hopefully justice will be done.

Tuesday 24 February 2009

Raw poverty

My two day visit to Hetauda left me profoundly moved and with an image that I will never forget.

The aim of the journey was to accompany one of the charity's Trustees, Chris Haworth, on a factfinding trip to the rural areas around Hetauda which have been the main source of trafficked children to the Indian circuses (and elsewhere). On top of that I would be able to catch up on the circumstances of some of our beneficiaries' families through being guided by Shailaja, my partner Director in Nepal. And photographer Jonny Cochrane was with us, tasked with documenting the poverty.

Yesterday I went to visit the homes of several girls, including that of the girl who has just given evidence against the circus owner who (allegedly) raped her before we intervened to secure her release from The New Raj Kamal Circus in January 2007. She is one of eight children and we met the latest arrival to this very dysfunctional family - a babe in arms. The family home, pictured right with two of this girl's younger siblings, wasn't even made from wood; a lot of it seemed to consist of bark held together with mud. This and other village abodes, although sad to see, didn't shake me as much as one might imagine. I have seen this kind of hut many times before in Nepal and in other parts of the world.

This morning though I was taken unawares. We went to a very different kind of community where families were living in regimented brick-built cottages that had been constructed for them by a major international aid agency. We wanted to meet Basante and Hari, a couple whom we had freed from a circus in April 2004 (two of 29 releasees) who had subsequently got married and are now parents to two little girls. On the way to their cottage I was impressed with the layout of the buildings and their adjoining gardens and when we got there, the cottage looked fine as well. Then we went inside. It was then that I realised that we were still in the midst of raw poverty; it was only the walls and roof that surrounded it which were different from yesterday's experience. Somehow the juxtaposition of solid walls with the emptiness and grime within seemed to accentuate the hardship that the two families who were sharing the premises were having to endure. Indeed, the solidity of the walls even made it feel like a prison. A baby girl lay on the bed, with flies crawling around her eyelids. She was unresponsive to my attempts to connect with her.

Then came the haunting, surreal image. Shailaja beckoned to me to look inside one of the back rooms. There she indicated a lump on the bed. The lump was Basante and Hari's older child, a four year old girl, sitting upright, who had hidden herself under a quilt, something that she does for all visitors. It reminded me of the game that I play with my two and a half year old daughter - "Where's Alisha", as she hides in really obvious locations. But this wasn't a joke. The child was clearly traumatised by her environment, and harboured a terror that had been exacerbated by the death of one of the young women in the house a month ago. Another woman who was sharing the cottage told us how her brother had taken his own life by hanging a few months previously, an occurrence that was quite common within this desperate community. Eventually we coaxed the girl out from under the quilt and she posed with her parents for the picture on the right (the girl with the red collar). She was but one of a handful of similarly aged children who were just loitering at home, totally unstimulated.

Afterwards we visited a local school and discussed with the Headteacher how we might provide some community upliftment through broadening the educational provision available for the local children. This currently goes to only Class 5 (9-11 year olds). We discussed the possibility of introducing a creche for the kind of children that we had just seen and how education could be extended into Class 6 and beyond. He was very receptive and I believe something useful and positive has emerged from that meeting.

Nonetheless I came away from the village deeply saddened and wishing that those toddlers could be just scooped up out of there and given an infinitely better chance in life in the developed world. I am sorry, that's not very politically correct and quite naiive but that's how I felt.

Aid International

I've just returned from a two day visit to the rural areas of Hetauda and will reflect on my findings overnight before posting on that subject tomorrow. It was sobering stuff though - a bleak contrast to the insobriety that I witnessed in some parents of our beneficiaries.

On Sunday an article appeared in The Kathmandu Post entitled "Aid International" the content of which echoed some comments that I have made in previous posts. In it the author "S. Gurung" mocks the world of the International Non Governmental Organisation, its sycophant locally-recruited staff (of which she claims to be one) and its disconnection from the needs of communities in the impoverished rural areas of Nepal:

"Aid International (Al) is a non­profit, non-political, non-sectari­an, humanitarian organisation that provides handsome salaries, perks, trainings and foreign exposure to a massive crew of personnel. Its target ben­eficiaries are the poor and marginalised, but its real beneficiaries are the staff who run the organisation: Head Office staff in a faraway continent, country staff in Kathmandu, partner NGOs in program districts, and the dazzling array of local and globe-trotting consultants. Its benefi­ciaries also include the luxury hotels, resorts, travel agencies and airlines it patronises.

Like their nineteenth-century prede­cessors, most Head Office staff think all developing countries are the same. Donors are busy people burdened with alleviating poverty, managing conflict, fighting HIV/AIDS, raising gender aware­ness and setting Millennium Development Goals across the globe. So they imagine the world in templates and measure progress with global indicators. For them, the strategy for developing a village in east Africa will also fix the prob­lems of eastern Tarai [south Nepal], and vice versa.


Al’s primary concern is to amass more and more money for, well, helping people. As soon as a major donor announces funding for, say, ‘community empower­ment project in the Mid West’, Al hires a consultant to write a ‘strong’ proposal. The proposal must prove that Al is the most eligible and fund-worthy organisa­tion for implementing the project. Beneath the heap of pseudoscientific jar­gon, the message of the proposal runs to this effect: “The community in the Mid West needs empowerment because you say so. You may never have set foot there, nor read a thing about its people, but you have the funds so you know better. So just give us the dollars; we will follow all your guidelines, achieve all your targets, and meet all your deadlines.”

Al has global solutions for the most localised problems. Say, Som Kumar in Shripur, Saptari quit school and went to lay bricks in town because his father can’t work (he was hit by a bus while pulling his rickshaw) and his mother just had a baby. How will Al help him? It will send Som Kumar, along with all other beneficiaries in his village, to participate in its Multimillion Transnational Awareness Raising Programme. Al’s strategy is not to respond, but to ‘implement’ pre-made, pre-packaged, mass-produced solutions to specific, evolving, complex problems.

Under its Operational Plan, say, Al decides to provide iron tablets to all its beneficiaries in the Far Western region. Then, in a village in Achham, Gita is suddenly taken ill with typhoid. Al’s partner NGO in the region can do nothing but give her iron tablet; for typhoid medicine is not in their Operational Plan. While Gita’s condition worsens and her parents borrow money for her treatment, an NGO staff sits in his office and composes a success story about the miraculous effects of iron tablets on Gita’s life. This, along with a smiling photo of Gita, will be included in the annual report for donors who can then pat themselves on their backs - and get more money for bigger projects.

The chain of command in Al is so glaring that its pet terminologies - ‘bottom-up’, ‘local partnership’, ‘commu­nity-based’, etc. sound like self-irony. All Head Office staff are bosses to the Kathmandu staff, who in turn are bosses to the NGO staff. Every interaction and corre­spondence between them reinforces this hierarchy. As for their ‘target beneficiaries’, in whose name the show runs, their job is to listen, accept, smile in front of the camera and provide information for reports and success stories.

For all their weaknesses, district-based NGOs have one solid advantage over Kathmandu and Head Office staff: physical and cultural proximity to the local community. If Al were truly commit­ted to its professed aim, its top brass would ensure that these local NGOs voiced, defended and engaged with the community’s real interests at all cost. But at every ‘capacity building’ training of NGOs, Kathmandu staff hammers the same message into the heads of NGO staff: the donors’ command is unquestion­able, inviolable.

Behind the backs of their Kathmandu bosses, NGO staff often admit how useless and at times damag­ing Al has been for its ‘beneficiaries’. But at meetings and conferences, amid smart, English-speaking Kathmandu colleagues and white experts, these dis­trict-based people feel so insignificant that they are reduced to head~nodding dummies. Yes, the project has failed miserably, they think, but we must do as we are told. We can’t mess with the hand that feeds us.

The Kathmandu staff, of course, could have changed this reality if they really willed it. They could at least speak out, reject readymade tools and solu­tions, decide where the funds would be spent and how, and refuse to endorse the donors’ misconceptions. But they will do none of this because we don’t want to risk anything - not our salary, not our com­fort, nor our chances for promotion and international travel. Which leads me to confess that, yes, I am a staff member of Aid International. As an ordinary mid­dle-class woman in Kathmandu, I realised sometime ago that the surest means to secure my financial independ­ence, live comfortably and give my children the best education is to work in an INGO. Besides, I belong to a nation whose leaders bow to the wisdom of donors where even principled citi­zens are forced to reap the harvest of dol­lar kheti [dollar girl] every now and then. How, then, could an average person like me, with average dreams and desires, resist its pull? I have thus sold myself to Aid International. I, like many others, have surrendered to the inescapable power of aidocracy."

S.Gurung fails to understand how projects are funded but broadly speaking I found most of her comments entirely valid. I wish more would speak out against the racket that I see going on around me.

I do love The Kathmandu Post. In today's edition it advises us that tonight is the night to witness Comet Lulin. After informing readers that the Comet follows a parabolic course through the universe that takes 50 million years the journalist - without the slightest hint of irony - says that it won't be visible again for "the foreseeable future".

Saturday 21 February 2009

My running hero

It's not an Olympic athlete like my namesake Dame Kelly Holmes. It's Trust supporter Cliff Simm, pictured right at our Kathmandu refuge on a visit to our Kathmandu refuge last month. Cliff runs every day and races once a week, with a 10km running time of 56 minutes. That's two minutes faster than my run in Hong Kong. The thing is, Cliff is 78 and an inspiration to all of us. I am sure I'll beat his time at my next 10km event in London on the 25th May. I am training hard and shedding weight rapidly. The first five days of my fat-burning diet this week led to a loss of 2.3 kg which I won't miss.

A greatly overused word in Nepal is "hearty". You see it a lot in banners bidding visitors "hearty welcome" or in newspaper ads that say "hearty congratulations" on a certain individual's achievement. It conjures up quaint images of bonhomie and back-slapping. It didn't work in one newspaper ad that I saw this week where a family was offered "hearty condolence" on the loss of a loved one. Perhaps they meant heartfelt.

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Sophie's choice

The Trust attracts all kinds of volunteers for its work in Nepal - varying in age, experience and nationality. Last year was a bumper year in both quality and quantity with more volunteers than ever helping us out. 2009 has got off to a similar start with no fewer than 12 volunteers in country. These workers usually come to us well in advance but sometimes they just stumble upon us, an example being Tasmanian Sophie Shugg who volunteered at our art workshop in Kathmandu last year. Sophie has just described her experience in "The Advocate" magazine:

http://www.theadvocate.com.au/news/local/news/news-features/mapping-out-a-future/1437006.aspx

We very much look forward to Sophie's return later on this year when we can hopefully make even better use of her services as the programme evolves.

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Ohio is on the up

Today marked my six monthly pilgrimage to the Indian embassy in Kathmandu to renew my visa. It takes nerves of steel to join the smoking hobos at 7.30 in the morning to queue for two hours in the cold before the office even opens. A survival ploy is to take a book and I thought Andrew Marr's (outstanding) History of Modern Britain would be as good a shield as any. No such luck. I found myself fourth in the queue behind an American girl who was in the company of a couple of geeky German kids. The girl's incessant chatter - interspersed every fifth or sixth word with "like" (one of my pet hates) - ensured that I was prevented from making any significant inroads into the social history of Britain in the 1960s. At one point she was asked where she came from and she confided that originally she was from "boring" Ohio. I reckon that Ohio must be less worthy of this slur now that she is over here.

OK, OK, I'm feeling a bit grumpy today and that's all down to my latest strategy to improve my 10km running performance. That involves the fat burning diet and at the end of day two of cabbage and onion soup and nothing bar water to drink the novelty has already worn off. Only five days left to burn, and this morning I'd lost 200g through day one's efforts.

Last week I reported on how the rescue team had gone to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh to free three boys from domestic slavery. The team took along the boys' two sisters (former circus girls) to try and identify them in the bustling Moslem district of town. This was potentially quite dangerous but the girls were provided with a method of concealing their identity. See the picture on the right.

Sunday 15 February 2009

Failed veterinary care

I read in this morning's paper that the rhino which had its horn removed by poachers a couple of weeks ago died on Friday evening in spite of "round the clock" medical care. And a very sombre Bev has just returned from the vet's to tell me that the owl has died too. Injured animals such as these must go through such stress and pain and I know from experience of living here how the smallest of wounds becomes readily infected.

A new hardline Maoist party has just formed in Nepal based around prominent revolutionary Matrika Yadav who left the main party accusing its leaders of nepotism and of being revisionist. Over the weekend many have deserted the mainstream Maoists to join his party. It seems that there is a great deal of discontent in the rural areas, some of it ethnic but some also arising because those who fought in "The People's War" feel overlooked and betrayed by their former leaders who are now in power. This is but another problem to add to those that are besetting the new republic and it echoes the difficulty that has arisen with the peace process back in my home country, Northern Ireland. There too we are now witnessing renewed attacks on the police and security forces from diehards and the biggest obstacle to resolving residual disquiet seems to be time.

Saturday 14 February 2009

Jonny Cochrane

Photographer Jonny Cochrane (http://www.jonnycochrane.com/) joined the team yesterday, after volunteering his photographic services for the coming 2-3 weeks. I took him up to the Godawari refuge this morning where we challenged his photographic skills through inviting him to snap our two resident gymnasts, Aman and Bijay. Both these boys learned some of their gymnastics inside the circus. After we rescued them they continued to develop their techniques through training at the National Stadium in Kathmandu. They attend the Stadium every morning before school. Pictured right is Aman in flight.

Hopefully Jonny's images can be incorporated not only into our literature but also into exhibitions that we'll run later on this year. Tomorrow he heads to Bhairahawa, then Hetauda and then will undertake an assignment for us in India.

Further to my post of 11th November - "Not so vital statistics" - I reckoned it was time today for another weigh-in. I am now down to 76.7 kg and a 96 cm waist which gives me a BMI of 25.33 (only just in the "overweight" category) and a waist/hip ratio of 0.96 which is still above the desired ratio of .90. But I am getting there...

Friday 13 February 2009

The very wealthy Dr Thapa

Dr Thapa of Lalitpur, Kathmandu is undoubtedly the wealthiest vet in the whole of Nepal if not in Asia. I am quite convinced of this for I know just how much of our personal money my beloved wife Bev gives him in the cause of street dog rescue, relief and rehabilitation. I went with Bev this morning to see the latest two puppies that she’s scooped off the mean streets of Kathmandu. They’re doing well and Dr Thapa’s eyes glinted as he told us of how one of them had got the day off to the best of starts by passing worms this morning. Nice.

The reason for my visit though was to see a bird that he is currently treating. Someone had picked up a barn owl with a broken wing and brought it to Dr Thapa who, aside from being ridiculously wealthy, is, I suspect, quite clever. He has managed to splint the broken bone with a steel rod and he told me that when he removes the rod in a month’s time the bird will fly once again. Meantime he’s lovingly forcing meat down the bird’s gullet to ensure it lasts the course.

Afterwards I consulted the internet to find out the lifespan of a barn owl. In the wild they live for 1-5 years whereas in a more sheltered environment like an owl sanctuary they can last for 20-25 years (I noted in the papers this week that the converse applies to zoo animals). But I also found out that barn owls largely hunt by hearing, not by sight; apparently their hearing is so acute that they can pick up a mouse’s heartbeat in a 30 square foot room. Just imagine how this morning’s owl must have been deafened by Dr Thapa’s pounding heart as Miss Moneypenny arrived at his practice.

Yesterday I met up with my partner Director, Shailaja, in Bhairahawa. She was fresh back from India with the three boys that she and her Deputy Dilu Tamang had rescued on Tuesday evening from domestic slavery in Varanasi. She was in buoyant mood as she told me that circus owner Lakhan Chaudhary, the defendant in Wednesday’s court hearing in Gorakhpur, had placed a 50,000 rupee (£700) price on retrieving our key witness against him. Shailaja said that this girl, who alleges that she was raped by him, gave a perfectly clear – and brave – statement in court as Chaudhary yelled at the Judge to listen to his voice as well as to hers. He was also screaming at his relatives and unsavoury friends in court for having let him down – presumably in part through failing to find this girl.

They didn’t find her because she’s been safely in our care ever since the rescue in January 2007.

Wednesday 11 February 2009

Child rescue

I was actually quietly kicking myself at being in Hong Kong over the weekend as it prevented my taking part in a child rescue operation that occurred in Varanasi, north India last evening. The date of the Standard Chartered 10km event was inflexible as was that of a court hearing today in India that the rescue was linked to. In essence the story started with a circus rescue in January 2007 at the New Raj Kamal Circus in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh which was reported on by Tom Bell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTs1NQOS9_I

The only inaccuracy in Tom's otherwise excellent report is that it turned out subsequently that we had found all of the girls who were at the circus. And the circus owner, Lakhan Chaudhary, went to jail where he has been ever since, pending trial. The trial started last month and the third hearing is due today. At that hearing we wanted to present two girls as witnesses, including the one who was interviewed at the start of Tom's film. The snag was that the girls were unwilling to speak as they each had one brother still in India in a bonded labour situation and potentially at risk from Chaudhary were they to give evidence. Last evening these boys and another one were rescued in a joint operation with ChildLine India and other partners. My colleagues Shailaja and Dilu, who were on the operation, are attending court with the girls later on today.

This is a big case for us as, if convicted, Chaudhary will be the first Indian circus owner to be sentenced. I will report in a future post on the details of what happened yesterday (once I have them) and how the legal case is progressing.

On a more mundane level, my official time on Sunday was 58 minutes and 22 seconds placing me at 1702 out of around 35,000 runners. I am thrilled to be so close now to my £20k target with the sponsorship now at £19,385. If you'd like to congratulate Shailaja and Dilu by adding to that total you can do so through:

www.justgiving.com/philipholmesbupa

Thanks....

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Sue and Bill Thornton

Sue and Bill Thornton were two excellent and very popular volunteers at our Bhairahawa art workshop in November/December. Between them they extended the range of the tuition to incorporate lessons in IT (Bill's area of expertise), English lessons and "Iris folding", a craft technique favoured by Sue. I write belatedly about them as I have just found a film that they shot during their time there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3-BQ2LZuoU

I found this through Sue's fundraising page (hint, hint) as she and family members will be joining me on the BUPA 10km run in London on May 25th. Visit:

http://www.justgiving.com/susanthornton1

By the look of Bill's chin he must have had to leave us in December to carry out duties elsewhere as Santa.