Kathmandu sex lady

I am interested to note that my Blog which has now been running since July has had a total of 1,156 visits. The feedback I receive indicates that a good few of these hits are from readers who are probably researching sexual liaison potential for a forthcoming visit to Nepal. The tell tale sign is the search words that they use in Google which leads to my site; one reader from Delhi has just googled the words "Kathmandu sex lady". So I now make good use of such words in my labels in the hope that those with unhealthy intentions (in every respect) just pause to think for a nanosecond on the consequences of their actions. I hope they think of the vulnerable village girls who are being so ruthlessly exploited by pimps and gangs. I hope they think of the children who are now being criminally abused in Kathmandu massage parlours. And I hope they think of the burgeoning HIV/AIDS crisis that hangs over Nepal and the contribution that they might be making towards that. If they want a fuller picture then I refer them to my Blog post of 6th September.

Above all, I hope they stay at home.

"Today is occupated"

Today it´s day six of my two week break in Spain and I´m in Toledo. I deliberately booked myself into a decent hotel that offered business centre facilities as I´ve a bit of catching up to do on the work of the charity. But the receptionist has just told me that in respect of the business centre "today is occupated". So I am confined to use of the internet which is better than nothing.

For the first part of the holiday I was joined by my friend Kathleen "Kik" Kimball who I´d the pleasure to meet on my mosaic course/holiday in Florence last year. Kik is from New Hampshire and a very talented artist who specialises in fused glass techniques:

http://www.cp-kik.com/About.htm

On this link Kik is the artist on the left of shot; she doesn´t like having her picture taken (as I´ve discovered over the past few days!). Kik also has more than a passing interest in Eastern art and is a Feng Shui Mater:

http://www.waterdragoninc.com

As you might guess from all of this Kik is an inspirational individual and has been tremendous company as we explored Cordoba and Granada together. A great deal of her time during the holiday has been given over to helping me with thoughts and designs for my "Himalayan Mosaics" project. At this critical juncture that has been time very well spent and I´ll be forever grateful for that.

Dubious blessings

Today is the tenth and main day of the Dashain festival. It’s the day when the father of the family gives tika (a red splat of dyed rice on the forehead), jamara (barley shoots tucked behind the ear) and his blessing. This is accompanied by a modest cash gift to the recipients. Nepalese astrologers advised the nation today that the “most auspicious” (auspicious is a greatly-used word over here) time to deliver this is at 10.47 a.m. Not being into astrology - or the Hindu faith for that matter - I went ahead and delivered my rather questionable blessings to the children at the refuge at 9.00 a.m. This gives some semblance of family life to the 50 or so children who have no relatives to be with at this time. For most it’s a bit of fun and all benefited to the tune of 10 rupees each (about 8p). However two of the children were in tears, with the ceremony no doubt reminding them of their being abandoned or unwanted by natural family. This made my presence there all the more important. It also reminded me that our facilities can never substitute for a “home” and should only ever serve as a safety net for kids who would otherwise be on the streets, vulnerable to being re-trafficked or at risk of further abuse.

High as a kite

This weekend sees the Hindu festival of Dashain reaching a peak and the slaughter of goats assuming biblical proportion. This is the highlight of the Hindu year and normally comes at the end of the monsoon and of the harvest, although (no doubt thanks to global climate change) the harvest is a month overdue this year. Aside from its religious significance, Dashain is a time for family reunions and general merry-making. Many of our refuge children are reunited with family members just for the festival, the bare minimum in maintaining those family connections that are all important in Nepal. We buy the children new clothes for the homecoming, this being a custom and the girls especially love to show off their finery. Other children have nowhere really to go to and for them we organised a camp in the hills above Godawari. Arguably they'll have enjoyed a much nicer time than some of those who went back to families.

There are a couple of other Dashain customs that I have come to enjoy. One is the flying of kites, the sight of which I will forever associate with our first arriving to live in Nepal exactly three years ago. The second is the use of large, rather rickety-looking, swings made out of bamboo poles. Children rise to quite frightening heights on these structures that are known as "pings" and their use is not just an act of fun. As per the kite activity, the ping journey symbolises leaving earth and taking one's thoughts onto a higher, more spiritual, plane.

Our Kathmandu refuge children have constructed a ping in the open ground outside the children's accommodation block and this is shown on the right.

Snakes alive!

Back in Kathmandu the petrol queues are no shorter than they were when I left for UK ten days ago. But then again it's been like this for months. A driver will queue for four or five hours for ten litres of petrol and then rejoin the queue for a second allocation. The problem has arised because the Nepal Oil Corporation which imports fuel from the India Oil Corporation hasn't been paying its way. The saga began a couple of years ago when the Nepalese Government tried to introduce a petrol price hike (that would reflect the true import costs) that led to riots in the streets and the Government having to back down. The trouble is that no Government subsidy has been paid to the Nepal Oil Corporation to compensate in the shortfall in the price at the pumps, meaning that a substantial debt has accrued. Now the India Oil Corporation has had enough and reduced the flow of petrol across the border.

This morning we moved a box of toys from our upstairs store room in advance of transferring it to the children's home. Fourteen month old Alisha was fascinated with the partially opened box. Bev noticed her fiddling with the masking tape that had secured it and then with a large rubber band that was attached to the tape. Alisha was stretching it as if it were a bungee. On closer examination Bev realised that it was a little toy snake that she remembered having purchased some time ago. But then the "toy" snake moved...oh yes, it was alive. Heaven alone knows how the creature got into the house but it has been released now and Alisha has survived to tell the tale - one day!

Qualified support

The suitcases are packed and I leave at 5.30 a.m. tomorrow for the return journey to Kathmandu. The last two days have seen very useful meetings. The first one yesterday was with a supporter who's helping us to establish our presence on Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com/). This is a virtual world which I found rather chilling on first encounter. But actually it is very exciting and clearly has massive potential, offering another way to connect with supporters; this medium is already being used by some of the larger charities. The second meeting of the day was more conventional and I had a really useful chat with the Trustees of another charity that is prepared to fund the medication and clinical care required to manage HIV/AIDS. This isn't an issue for us at all at present but I expect that when we get to grips with the problem of trafficking of children into the Kathmandu sex trade it will be inevitably - and tragically - be very high on our agenda.

During this visit I also picked up some supporters' letters from my London office. One lady sent us a donation for our art workshops for circus returnees but wrote:

"Can you not bring them to do things through the schools to lead them all lots of jobs (sic) in our country - a more realistic life style?

I feel that you will fail in the attempt you are making and should help them by concentrating on training that will lead to jobs.

Please try to think of another way."

Some initiatives do indeed fail, others enjoy a degree of success (and even that is a huge achievement in Nepal) while others really take off. It's quite hard to predict which particular outcome one will experience and the only option is to keep trying. But for our art and mosaic training I am very confident of great results. This is already bearing early fruit. For example see the response to our online mosaic auction as of today:

http://www.ebtrust.org.uk/site/auction.php

Things that do not pass away

Earlier this year a supporter in Kathmandu, Anneke, invited me to write an article about the Trust for Mensa Israel - Anneke being a member of Dutch, Finnish and Israeli Mensa associations! The article has just been uploaded to the Trust's website and explains in my own words why I set up the Trust and how it has taken an uncanny direction. A direction that is most appropriate as a memorial to Esther Benjamins. Here's the link:

http://www.ebtrust.org.uk/site/assets/pdf/philipandebt.pdf