Cave Canem

I noticed in Thursday's LA Times that a lady called Michelle Page has stumbled upon a novel idea for business. She has spotted the metal hand-painted "Beware of the Dog" signs that appear on many Nepali gate posts (just like my own, pictured right) and is selling these to commission in the USA and elsewhere. The attraction seems to be the very loose depiction of the animal that bears a resemblance to the dog within and to the sign, written in Nepalese, that sometimes reads "Beware of enlightened dog" or "Brilliant dog in here". Other variations of the warning sign have included "Beware of the goat". Through her site, Michelle is accepting commissions for these Nepali sign painters, based upon pictures sent to her by customers and then selling the final product for up to $200.

Spotting an opportunity, I have written to Michelle to see if she might be interested in promoting these signs in mosaic. After all, that is the medium that the Romans used. The famous "Cave Canem" mosaic from Pompeii is a case in point. This possibility could offer a lot of work to the former circus girls who are in employment with my company Himalayan Mosaics.

By rights I should have not one but four signs on the gate post. Not that any of my pooches are remotely threatening. It would have taken a great deal of enemy activity at the front gate to have coaxed Agnes off her mat this morning as she basked in the Kathmandu sunshine.

See the LA Times full story at:

http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-dogs24apr24,0,3963198.story

Esther Benjamins Trust - Canada

During this visit to UK I have been delighted to learn that the Canadian Revenue Agency has approved the establishment of an affiliated Trust in Canada (Esther Benjamins Trust - Canada) backdated to 1 January 2008. This new Trust will allow tax efficient donations from Canadian citizens and it is the initiative of Paul Richards, with whom I have been in correspondence for several years. Paul introduces himself:

I am a commissioned officer and Inspector with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver, British Columbia. I have been involved in Esther Benjamins Trust after working in Kosovo with Gurkhas and having a desire to help the people of Nepal. I worked again briefly with the Gurkhas in Afghanistan. The more I learned of EBT, the more I wanted to establish a Canadian Branch of the organization to assist the children as you outlined in your [my] message. My participation with EBT included purchasing commissioned art from one of the young people in Nepal.To establish EBTC under Canadian international charities law, I sought to establish EBTC as a way to provide educational scholarships and bursaries to children under EBT care. I think this is the best way to"pay forward" as they say, to the lives of these young children. Education can heal the past and create opportunities for fulfillment and growth. In this sense, the objective will be to raise money for scholarships/bursaries for candidates nominated by EBT and partner agencies in Nepal. After two to three years of working on getting approval, we are in the final stages and have been informed that we will receive charitable status under Canadian law and officially begin the work of EBTC. Once completed, we hope to report on successful fund raising in Canada and allocation of educational bursaries in Nepal to help the wonderful children and young people in their quest to re-establish themselves.

It's taken a couple of years of perserverance and vision to get this off the ground but as we know a Mountie is famous for always getting his man in the end. Well done Paul.

Kirkcaldy Church

Each year I make this annual pilgrimage to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's home town in Kirkcaldy, Fife. This is not out of deference to Gordon, but rather to the tiny congregation at West End Congregational Church which has been supporting The Esther Benjamins Trust right from the very start. Every Sunday there is a plate by the door which collects small change in favour of the charity and after a year that builds up to anything between £1500 and £2000. That's quite amazing given the size of the congregation and its declining numbers but they seem to be motivated by one of the congregation's number, Ann Watters, its minister, Willie McNaughton and by the talk that I deliver before receiving the annual cheque. It's of course great to see everyone again, but it's also a challenge for me to keep the content of my talk interesting and fresh. This year I'll be drawing heavily on the material that I have spent the last few months building up on the EBT channel on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/philipinnepal

I hope that I manage to have them all on the edge of the pews later on this morning.

Tikli Bottom

I spent last evening in the very agreable company of Martin Howard, former Royal Navy officer, conversationalist and now owner of a splendid guest house at Tikli, near Gurgaon, Delhi. Martin and his wife Annie built their dream home over three years between 1996 and 1999, to their own design but in the style of a Lutyens bungalow. Then they decided to give it a very English rural touch by humourously adding "Bottom" to the house name. With their hospitality, its friendly Nepali staff and cool ambience it's an ideal spot to unwind after arriving at or before embarking from Delhi airport which is just 45 minutes drive away. It's a regular venue for filming of TV and Bollywood dramas; there was a shoot underway during my visit.

Martin and Annie enjoy good company very much but they are certainly not self indulgent, and are putting something back to society through their building of a private school for village children within a stone's throw of their home at Garatpur Baas. This will be no ordinary run of the mill Indian school that achieves results of a sort through rote learning underpinned with liberal use of the cane. Their vision is to truly educate the children, who will be the community leaders of tomorrow through positive, imaginative instruction by motivated teachers.

The school is being supported by their locally-registered trust, The Baas Educational Trust (BETS), which receives donations in turn (mainly from Tikli Bottom visitors) channelled tax efficiently through The Esther Benjamins Trust. The project has all the essential ingredients to merit my Trust's modest support - a person with vision and commitment on the ground and tangible, quality outcomes for children.

I hope the children are taught the use of straightforward English. On the flight home with Jet Airways I heard the announcement "Due to the non-availability of landing cards we will not be issuing the same".

A clean sweep

This morning I drove past a Standard Chartered Bank signboard praising "Magnficent, Mystical Nepal". Now another "M" can be added to that; Maoist. For the Maoist party has enjoyed a landslide success following Thursday's polls. Through the ballot box they have won a battle that they were incapable of winning militarily - the conquest of Kathmandu valley. The scale of the Maoist victory has surprised everyone, probably even the Maoists themselves. There isn't the slightest question of vote rigging and there was a remarkably good turn out considering the logistical difficulties of getting to election booths in Nepal. So what has happened? My suspicion is that this has been in large part a protest vote against the mainstream parties who have done so little for the electorate in the past. Now another party is being given a chance to deliver on promises and at least while the Maoists are in power there will be no return to violence for the war-weary population.

Maoist Chairman Prachanda is already sending out reassurances to potentially unsettled foreign stakeholders that the Maoists will follow a constructive path and I really hope they can. At the end of the day we are all (development organisations included) aiming to make society a better place and to help the downtrodden, although our methods have differed somewhat in the past. There is such a need for social reform in Nepal that it can only really be fully addressed by action from central government. Organisations like mine can only nibble at the edges of issues like the trafficking problem and child labour, hoping that through our advocacy and example others more powerful will intervene. Now the Maoists can do something that really would be revolutionary in Nepal.


This afternoon I took a little trip out to Dwarika's Shangri La Resort in Dhulikhel, about one hour's drive out of Kathmandu. It was great to escape the filth of town for a few hours and to see in the Nepalese new year with a drink, a dal bhat (lentils and rice) and the sound of the cuckoo.

Home of Compassion

My last post was rounded off by saying that at times it felt like life here resembled that of "some kind of mediaeval hell hole". In my experience of recent years it's just when one begins to despair in this manner something happens to redress the balance and restore belief. That's what happened today when I visited "Karuna Bhawan" ("Home of Compassion") in Godawari and stumbled upon a beacon of the faith, hope and love that is referred to in Corinthians.

I learned of the facility's existence through a visit to our Godawari arts centre two days ago by a British man, Geoff Pugh, who had been volunteering there as an English teacher. From the arts centre's balcony he had pointed out to me the buildings where he had been working, these including an HIV/AIDS home that he said had 23 residents. This was the first that I knew of its existence, not surprisingly given the stigma that is associated with HIV (along with so many other things) in Nepal.

This afternoon I paid a visit to this home and was shown around by the nun who seems to be looking after the 10 women and 13 children well nigh single-handedly. She is such a remarkable, inspirational lady, who seems to have the delightful trait of rounding off everything she says, no matter how unhumourous, with a jolly laugh. "Here's the vegetable patch, hohoho" and such like. But she's doing a wonderful job and the children there were tiny and oh so sweet with their innocent smiles, pig tails and ruddy cheeks. The facility is newly built and in pristine condition, its only drawback (to my eye at least) being the over abundance of bare walls. I have now offered to make mosaics for the rooms, mosaics that can be sponsored by supporters overseas. Father Pius, who runs the centre, may not take up my offer but I'd love to have this as a project for later on this year. Whatever his decision I already have agreement to our sending up some of our older refuge children, suitably equipped with guitars and toys, to interact with the children and brighten up their lives.

Wonderful stuff.

The working donkeys of Kathmandu

I met my friend and portrait artist Jan Salter at an art exhibition the other evening. She is the founder of Kathmandu Animal Treatment Centre (http://www.katcentre.org.np/) which is now a registered charity in the UK. Over a glass of red she told me that she was now looking into the circumstances of working donkeys in Kathmandu, as if she hadn't enough on her plate with the city's stray dog population to sort out.

On the way back from my Godawari arts centre this lunchtime I passed a donkey grazing by the roadside, clearly with an open sore on its bank. On returning home I opened this e mail and adjacent pictures from another animal welfare activitist:

"I took these pics at a brick factory site in Siddhipur. The donkeys carry unfired bricks from the place where bricks are made from mud to the factory and back. According to the staff (many of whom are children) the boss hardly cares for the donkeys. So many have died already. One donkey's ears were cut off when it was young, no idea why. Half of the donkeys have open sores which go untreated."

I am now looking at how I might extend my children's charity work beyond the immediate facilities we operate and out into the community that straddles the Godawari road that runs southeast out of Kathmandu. Whilst our expenditure of course will continue to have to go on children and young people, sights and messages like this make me think of what we might do for young people that can offer some parallel advantages to domestic animals and wildlife. And one day soon I am going to have a look at the brick kilns and their child labour for myself.

Sometimes it feels like one is living in a kind of mediaeval hell hole over here and no one seems to care that much.

Tuesday

Tuesday is the best day of the week in this part of Kathmandu. The reason for this is that during the dry season we endure 40 hours of scheduled power cuts (load shedding) per week but on Tuesdays we are given some relief with electricity all day. The simple pleasures that one takes for granted elsewhere can really be enjoyed on a Tuesday - including watching television, feeble as the available channels may be. As the monsoon season approaches next month there is the prospect of the reservoirs being replenished and the annual lifting of the restrictions. This may even come a little sooner than normal as we have been having a great deal of unseasonal rain over the past week or two. Habula, our elderly domestic security guard, attributes this latest reflection of climate change to the Nepali people having been "bad". I expect he's probably right.

Nepalese Garden Birds

The bush outside my office window serves me well for a spot of birdwatching in between e mails. This afternoon I photographed these two chaps - an Oriental White Eye (well named) and a Jungle Myna. There are a number of Myna species in Nepal. This one, in spite of its name, is frequently seen in inhabited areas. Yesterday morning I heard the first cuckoo of Spring, so maybe he will present my next photo opportunity.

Last week on April 1st (note the date) a news item ran on the front cover of The Himalayan Times saying that sale of alcohol had been banned in the run up to the election. After quotations for and against the move the reader was directed to page 2 where it said "Cheers". Bizarrely though this April Fools Day prank has been prophetic as the Election Commission has since decided that such a ban will be a good idea after all. Other restrictions will come into force including no vehicular movement being allowed on the day of the election itself. This is presumably in the assumption that all voters will be by then back in their home areas and within walking distance of a polling station, which I find rather optimistic. The cuckoo's arrival could be well timed.

The British Cemetery in Kathmandu

Few tourists would think to visit the British Cemetery in Kathmandu, as I did this afternoon. It's in a very secluded spot just down from the Indian Embassy, this having been the British Ambassador's residence up until the middle of the last century. In fact it's very easy to just walk right past it without realising it's there; no sign indicates what lies behind its high wall and chained padlocked gate. Hover around for a few minutes outside though and the caretaker who lives inside will spot you and let you in. Her curious dog will escort you around the graves, which are immaculately maintained - an amazing thing for Kathmandu. The headstones reflect styles ancient and modern, final gestures both ostentatious and modest, and sentiments tragic and triumphant. They mark, inter alia, the last resting place of the victims of avalanche and altitude sickness, of the diseases that killed children in Victorian times, of bon viveurs and missionaries. There's even a Jewish grave tucked away at the back of the cemetery, its inscription partly in Hebrew.

Some headstones really stop you in your tracks. I was particularly struck by the tragedy that befell the Wilkins family, husband and pregnant wife with three children who all died in the PIA air disaster of 1992. Reflective of the Wilkins couple having been Christian missionaries is the statement of faith on their headstone, an arguably defiant verse from the Gospel of John - "I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand." And I felt for the British residency surgeon, Dr Wright, who must have felt so impotent in spite of his profession as he lost his young wife in February 1873 followed by his only child, aged 18 months, the following June.

There is also some humour to be found. There's the grave of former British Army 10th Gurkha Rifles officer, Micheal John Cheney, "Friend of Nepal", with a Buddhist stupa that I think must have deliberately comically-lugubrious eyes. John Richard Fletcher's epitaph states that "To have known him was to have known laughter", while three year old David Wilson's memorial reflects that he was one "who chuckled through his short life and so enjoyed the sounds of Nepal". A favourite has to be the headstone that lies over Freddie Bowles, "the bartender bard - who was the first Englishman to become a Nepalese citizen and who found his Shangri-La in Nepal".

My newly-written Will stipulates that if I die in Nepal that I be laid to rest in the British Cemetery. Where better? I hope that someone can find something good to write about me in spite of the vituperative content of some of my Blog posts.

Former circus slaves illustrate trafficking through drama

Charities that work with children and young people should make every effort to allow those in their care to express themselves. This is particularly important if there is a need to come to terms with past trauma. Last summer a group of our volunteers in Hetauda, south Nepal, were taken aback when some of our hostel girls (circus returnees) staged an impromptu play about their experiences. This drama was then refined for the girls by a subsequent volunteer, British playwright Nic Discombe.

Watching in the wings at the final performance, I found the play very disturbing, especially hearing the audience laugh at some very bleak scenes. However a clinical professional later reassured me that being able to laugh at such things represented great therapy and advised me not to worry about it.

Here is the final product on film, recorded by my friend Subi Shrestha and edited yesterday (at long last) by me. Like the best drama it is much more powerful than a factual documentary on the subject.

The power of blogging

So many of my Blog posts represent a much-needed opportunity for me to vent some steam about daily life in Nepal. On the other hand many of its visitors seem to be attracted through their use of search words like "massage", "sex" and "Kathmandu" - words that I have used in the course of describing my Trust's work against trafficking rather than as advice intended for sex tourists.

But today the Blog proved some other real worth as I was delighted to meet one of my readers for the first time when she came all the way from the USA with a bag of 30 pairs of top quality shoes for the use of our refuge children.

Rhino poaching

Just last month the news was that the endangered one-horn rhino was making a comeback in Nepal with an increase in numbers recorded in Chitwan National Park. Whether that is true or not (and I naturally disbelieve most things I hear in Nepal) it is clear that poaching is still a huge problem in spite of the Nepalese Army guarding the parks. Just today I read that a rhino was found dead in Bardia National Park yesterday, its horn removed, along with the body of a soldier 400 metres away. The poachers are ruthless and there's a lot of money involved in the trade in animal parts, many of which find there way to the discerning Chinese. I wonder if the victim of the poaching was the magnificent specimen whose picture I showed in yesterday's post?

Increasingly I am becoming interested in somehow supporting conservation projects here (not that there are many to choose from), perhaps through sales of mosaics. Much of Nepal's wildlife seems particularly fragile in the midst of the current chaos and no one cares less than the politicians who are jockeying now for power.

Sudhin Pokharel

In my post of 14th September ("Lose your mobile") I described how supporter Emma Triplett left her mobile behind in a Kathmandu taxi. Thinking that was the last she'd seen of it, she phoned the number to discover that it had been picked up by the father of a famous Nepalese pop star and national TV presenter, Sudhin Pokharel aka "DA 69". When Emma collected the mobile, Sudhin expressed an interest in coming to see our work and maybe in singing for the children.

He kept his promise on Wednesday when he joined us for lunch and volunteer Rebecca Hawkins' farewell party at our arts centre in Godawari. He's a very confident, handsome chap with outstanding English who made quite an impression - especially no doubt on the older girls. Afterwards he went to the refuge where he rounded off a programme of entertainment that had been laid on by the children with a little bit of rapping, a foretaste of the concert that he says he will do for us "after the election" (commonly heard words these days!). The kids were bowled over by their surprise visitor and it's young men like this who provide such great role models for the teenagers that we are caring for.

Bardia National Park

Mention Nepal to even well-travelled foreigners and most will associate it with mountains and cold thin air. Many are surprised to learn that there is a very different Nepal in the south of the country where the dominant topographical feature is not mountain but plain. The altitude isn't much above sea level, the climate is usually hot, sometimes wet and humid, and the region is home to several large national parks with exotic jungle wildlife. I spent a couple of nights at the start of this week at one such nature reserve, Bardia National Park. This was my second visit and my late birthday present from my wife, Bev. There are quite a few companies in Nepal that offer limited safaris around Nepal's jungles but none compete with Tiger Mountain (http://www.tigermountain.com/). Tiger Mountain is pricey but offers real value for money and has the best access to the parks, allowing the greatest possibility to see some decent flora and fauna.

The central "Tiger Tops" accommodation at Bardia is the Karnali Jungle Lodge. This is accessible through a one hour flight from Kathmandu to Nepalgunj followed by a two hour drive. My tip though is to bypass that Lodge and go straight to the Tented Camp in the jungle itself. Surprisingly the accommodation is arguably more comfortable, you're right in the middle of it all and the views over the Karnali river from the campsite are phenomenal.

Safaris are conducted on elephant back, jeep, and by dinghy with these options offering very different perspectives on the park's wildlife. Many tourists go to the Park in the hope of spotting the elusive Royal Bengal Tiger which is not seen that often as, like many of the big cats, it is nocturnal and during the day it hides in the long elephant grass. This time around I managed to see the tiger from the top of my elephant twice but I am afraid these were too fleeting glimpses to provide you with a photo. But I did enjoy the very rare sighting of a leopard in the early morning light during a jeep safari; see the very grainy picture on the right. There's loads more to be seen though - the one-horned rhino, the gharial crocodile, four species of deer, the freshwater gangetic dolphin, and a vast number of bird species. I guess that on Monday we must have seen around 100 bird species ranging from flocks of bee eaters to woolly-necked storks.

I have to declare an interest in Tiger Mountain as they've given The Esther Benjamins Trust a lot of support over the years, including allowing us to film elephant racing for a charity fundraiser and laying on a free overnight visit for our refuge children. Moreover Tiger Mountain is contributing far more than most to wildlife conservation in Nepal and on that basis alone merits my money and yours if you are passing through. And if you visit Bardia, do leave your mobile behind. I had hoped to call someone with the message "I'm on the elephant" but there's no network connection. That's what I call relaxation.