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.