Mosaics at an exhibition

The girls in my studio in Godawari, Kathmandu, are working flat out to meet a mosaics exhibition deadline. Our old friends at Namaste-UK Ltd (http://www.namaste-uk.com/) visited the studio last month and were so taken by the work that they immediately offered to stage an exhibition in Skipton on the 4th December. That is excruciatingly tight, but we've pulled the stops out to not only deliver the goods but also to produce some new designs. These include some Tibetan themes like the jewellry and carpet motifs pictured right. I will be giving a talk at the exhibition and we're crossing our fingers that it will be well attended by potential buyers and give Himalayan Mosaics a great early boost.

But of course these days you don't have to leave home to attend an exhibition. London law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse are now very kindly hosting an exhibition of our mosaics through Second Life. If you haven't signed up for Second Life you can get a flavour of this initiative here:

http://www.ffw.com/news/2007/nov/art-exhibition-realsecond-lif.aspx

Prosperity in Nepal

Last night was a noisy one, with drums and singing going on in the village above our house until daylight (and even a bit beyond). All of this was on the eve of today being the main day of the Tihar festival and no doubt the rumpus represented a final drive to encourage a visit from Laxmi, the goddess of prosperity. Having a goddess of prosperity seems a bit of an odd concept within a religion. It certainly goes totally against the drift of other main religions, like Christianity and Buddhism, that postively eschew wealth (at least in their teachings if not in practice). It also strikes me as being rather simplistic to assess prosperity in terms of rupees; a nation's true prosperity lies in its values and how it manages those at the bottom end of society. From what I have seen here this nation is very poor in that regard. It also seems that it is optimistic in the extreme to expect a goddess to arrive and deliver "prosperity" in whatever form one wishes to intepret that term. Prosperity, be it financial or social, has to be worked for and in respect of the latter a sea change in attitudes within society is an absolute prerequisite.

This was Remembrance Sunday and the occasion was marked at The British Embassy in Kathmandu in spite of the general disinterest of The British Ambassador who, as anticipated, was absent from the ceremony. The service was held in the open air and I was delighted to see extra chairs having to be brought in to accommodate the numbers that attended. The Gurkha officers and soldiers looked splendid in their Service Dress and slouch hats; they were displaying an admirable collection of medals, reflecting a huge amount of service to the Crown. And the padre spoke well, the criterion of that being that he kept my attention from drifting unduly on a day that in its nature lends itself to mind wandering.

That said, I did find myself thinking a lot about a lad called Gordon Turnbull, killed in 1943 at Anzio (south of Rome) while fighting with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers at the age of 23. Gordon was my father's cousin and 24 years ago while on holiday in Italy I made a pilgrimage to his grave. That visit was particularly poignant as at the time I too was in uniform as a young Army captain, I was also 23 and I believe the first member of the family to pay respects at his grave in 40 years. At the time of his death Gordon was unmarried and I had thought that was the end of it all. That is until this year when I dipped into "Genes Reunited" on the internet and found a lady mentioning his name and seeking relatives. I responded and it emerged that Gordon had fathered a girl before joining up; that girl had been adopted out and forgotten about. She had lost her roots, a loss that must have seemed very final after her father's untimely death. She has suffered severe depression and is now in care back in Northern Ireland. However I have been very pleased to make indirect contact with this hitherto forgotten second cousin through her daughter and to start to broker links between her children and their cousins that I do know of from within the family. This all illustrates that a soldier's death sixty four years ago is not necessarily in the past and as well as remembering that sacrifice we must also remember the legacy of loss that so often continues to this day.

On a brighter note, the Kathmandu refuge children came to my house yesterday to perform song and dance ("Bhailo") as part of the Tihar festivities. Seventy of them - former street children, prison children and circus children - turned up along with a few of their carers. It is amazing and hugely rewarding to see how they have matured (some have been with us for almost seven years now) and exude confidence and joie de vivre. For me, that's what the charity is all about. Here's some of the footage that I recorded:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h0CdZ_BWxA

A short film from Bhairahawa

Last evening there were a series of power cuts as a result of the feeble local grid collapsing under the overload of the system by people illuminating their houses for Laxmi. Even if Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, were to be enticed into people's homes and lives it seems that the local power supply's failings could undermine any attempt at their attaining the desired prosperity. The power cuts also prevented me from uploading a video I took yesterday of the children rehearsing a dance. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVpmzyC463A

The boy who is dancing, Akash, is one of two brothers that we found outside Tansen jail away back in October 2000. They were sleeping rough and getting food through the bars from their imprisoned mother. Akash is now a tremendous all-rounder, great academically, at sport and also at dance!

A visit to our refuge children in Bhairahawa

Today I paid a flying visit to Bhairahawa in the southwest of Nepal, close to the Indian border. It's where our work started out eight years ago before it expanded to Kathmandu and Hetauda. It remains home to 28 school age children (rescued from prisons or life on the streets) at the so called "White House" refuge and another 25 former circus children in the "Blue House" and "Red House" who are a little older. This latter group are undertaking a fast track course that will take them from zilch education to joining class 8 (about age 14) in a couple of years, essentially joining school at a level more appropriate to their age.

At the White House I was pleased to meet our four latest arrivals - two girls who are sisters of a former street boy that we'd been caring for and a boy and a girl that we have just brought from inside Tulsipur jail in the far west of the country. Assisted by the Director of our partner organisation, ex British Army Gurkha Gunraj Gurung, I was able to mount five mosaics at the buildings, mosaics that had been made in by Godawari studio and commissioned by supporters in the UK (www.ebtrust.org.uk/site/commissionamosaic.htm). The kids were clearly thrilled by these.

The White House children were all of school today as this is Day Three of the Tihar Festival. Day One and Day Two involved worship of the crow and the dog respectively. Today it was the turn of the nation's cows to receive a tika on the forehead and a garland. And after dusk the goddess of wealth, Laxmi, is worshipped and Nepali houses are festooned with lights (fairy or candles) in an attempt to entice her inside their dwellings. Children go from door to door singing and dancing, the so called "Bhailo", for which they receive modest amounts of money from appreciative neighbours. The White House children were rehearsing this afternoon and are aiming to raise enough pocket money to pay for a picnic for themselves.

Tihar concerns

Today we asked our staff member, former circus girl Anita, to make flower garlands for our four dogs. To outsiders that may seem like evidence that we've finally cracked after three years of living in Nepal and that we are now engaged in eccentricities worthy of Zsa Zsa Gabor or Paris Hilton. But no, this is day two of the five day festival of Tihar which follows hot on the heels of Dashain and is the equivalent of Diwali, the festival of lights, in India. Day one sees the locals worshipping the crow and they leave out food for them to enjoy. Day two, Kukur Tihar, has the nation paying homage to the dog population with dogs receiving garlands and tika symbols on their foreheads. Like many things in Nepal that all feels a bit false given how little interest is paid in dogs for the other 364 days of the year. Worse, dogs are the victims of mange and horrible injuries that everyone ignores. Stray dogs are stoned, beaten and teased. From our own monitoring of the road between here in Godawari and Kathmandu we are all too aware of how many are killed by reckless drivers. I remain haunted by the sight this day last year of a garlanded dog lying dead in the middle of the road.

Birthday mosaics

The Kathmandu mosaic studio re-opened yesterday. Two other girls haven't returned after the Dashain break. One, Bipana, who had been struggling somewhat, has stayed behind with her family. Another, Bishnu, has got engaged. I doubt if either of them will come back to us.

It is quite a challenge to keep the studio girls' interest going, especially if one is working to favourite designs that can become repetitive (sadly a business requirement). So I work hard to give them some variety. Yesterday we held a special children's lunchtime birthday party for the daughter of one of my expatriate friends in Kathmandu. Six children spent about four hours with us making their own individual mosaic pieces to keep. As children's hands tend to be a bit too small to hold the cutters and too weak to cut the tiles the studio girls ended up doing most of the work. Although this is fun it is also a source of income to the organisation. There's no such thing as a free lunch....

Dashain difficulties

Each October we reunite children who are in our refuge care in Kathmandu with their families for the main Hindu festival of Dashain. We see this as being the bare minimum that we can do to maintain the family contacts that are so important in Nepalese society. It´s always a nerve wracking time for us though, for in doing so we expose the children and teenagers to family agendas that may not necessarily be in their best interests. Village families have little comprehension of the progress that their youngsters are making with us and they can spoil that success by pushing children in other disastrous directions. Last year we only just managed to stop a father sending his very talented son back to the exploitation of the circus, no doubt for a few dollars in return. Under our care that boy is now not only doing really well at school but also has become one of the top gymnasts in the country. I wouldn´t be surprised to see him in a future Nepal Olympic team.

This year we had a mini crisis over Priya. She was one of the two girls that I started training in mosaic art this time last year - an initiative that has now been extended to 16 others in my Kathmandu studio. She quickly became a top artist, having the perfect combination of skill and speed at her work. But her vulnerability is a case in point. She had returned from the circus to find both of her parents had committed suicide. Her aunt duly packed her off to another kind of slave labour inside a Kathmandu carpet factory and we rescued her from there in July last year. Last month she, like many other kids, wanted to go "home" for Dashain and of course we couldn´t stop her as she´s a free person. Then we received the news that she´d got married (she´s barely sixteen) to a boy that she knew from the carpet factory. That seemed to be the end of her short career and this otherwise totally uneducated girl appeared to be rejoining the cycle of poverty from which she had so briefly emerged. However it seems that all is not lost as we have since heard that she is very happy to be married and will set up home in Kathmandu. She also wants to continue with her mosaic work and I am very glad to agree to that wish. Hopefully having a good income - no doubt better than her husband´s - will help with the stability of the marriage. In the harsh reality of daily life in Nepal a wife who has economic value will be valued all the more.

This is the last day of my holiday in Spain. It has provided a break from the chaos of living in Nepal and allowed me to find some time to relax. I have also found the creative space to plan the future of my new company "Himalayan Mosaics" and develop some fresh directions for the Trust. It´s really been just what the doctor ordered - or more correctly what my wife Bev ordered. I am now ready for the fray once again.