Two thirds done (8 months!), normal village life and the holidays

I’ve written this before the holidays and also after them because there was no time during the holidays since they were so busy, so if some of this doesn’t make sense time-wise just bear with.

The last few months have had their ups and downs and there have been some difficult moments but both Ashvi and I have now been in Nepal for 7 months (now 8!) which is both crazy and amazing. The last few months have been all about living normal village life, eating dal bhat and teaching. There have been some hard moments in teaching but also some very funny moments, as well as some hard moments living general village life and some lovely laughs. There is so much beauty in Nepal in terms of people as well as natural beauty and I know I’ll never forget Harpe and the people that live here. I’m definitely ready for a break, however, and the holiday is fast approaching. We will have a month after the upcoming exams beginning with the colour festival of Holi to explore more of Nepal and visit some of the areas we have not yet seen. We are planning on visiting Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve, which is a beautiful area near on the other side of the hill from Jhimpa high up in the hills where you can apparently ride horses and go for some great wanders. After that, my friend Charlie is arriving in Kathmandu, so we plan on taking her to the Terai plains (the hot, flatlands of Nepal to the south) and also then to the villages to experience a little bit of the village life that I’ve been living for the past 7 months. It’ll be great to show Charlie what life is like here in rural Nepal, which is something you really can’t see by just being a tourist and visiting Pokhara, Kathmandu or even trekking the Annapurna circuit. 

So something big that has happened since I last posted is the new volunteers, Alix and Freya, arriving in Arnakot. It’s been really great to have another few people in the Baglung area, and we’ve had some fun meet ups in Burtibang as well as their village Arnakot. Unfortunately Ashvi was ill for about a month or so on and off, with a bad tummy and just generally not feeling on top form as well as her knee not being great, so she didn’t come to Arnakot one time or Jhimpa. She seems better now though, so I hope she stays well. Just before walking to Arnakot, Ashvi and I went to our first Nepali wedding (since then we have been invited to 4 more! Warm season is definitely wedding season), and (encouraged by Dinu, our headteacher) I had a dance to the drum beats that the Nepali band were playing. It was a quick trip to the wedding, since I needed to get to Arnakot before dark and also meet the boys, but I had some good Nepali khana (food), as you are always given at Nepali events. What’s strange about Nepali weddings is that you can turn up without knowing the couple getting married and not even know their names and still attend the wedding. We got beautiful snow in Arnakot that weekend, which was a Nepali first for all of us. It also snowed in Harpe that weekend, but since Arnakot is about 500m higher in altitude than Harpe it got a lot thicker snow. It was pretty amazing in the evening when the snow started to fall and also exciting (I was so excited I went out for a bit in my flip flops). In the morning Arnakot was settled in white and we went out on a walk to the tower at the top point and were met by some Nepali children, who we made snowmen with and took lots of photos. Classic Nepali, some of the children played in the snow in flip flops for a good while, which must have been freezing. The hill in Arnakot looks over onto Harpe, so you could see where the snow went up to and you could see that there was a dusting where the houses in the village are. The snow melted pretty quickly, but we decided to head back to our respective villages on the Sunday morning rather than the Saturday because the forest route is pretty slippy, and also remembering the last time that Ashvi and I got lost in the dark and it got pretty scary, staying seemed like the best option. The girls cooked up some nice food and it was good to meet them and hear about their feelings of the village, having been there just over a week. It was funny to hear about films and recent happenings in the UK, having been out of the loop for so long; I realised how being in Nepal leaves me detached from things that I’d usually hear about. There’s been a lot more snow than ever before in the villages in Baglung and maybe Nepal in general this year (maybe because of climate change) - it was the first snow in Harpe in ten years and maybe Jhimpa too (someone even died because of the snow this year). That means this winter was very cold and also pretty tough, particularly with the electricity sometimes failing too meaning there would be no light when it was getting dark early in the afternoons. We also got quite a few days off due to the rain being so cold, because sitting in the classrooms with no heating could be a bit miserable. On a few occasions fires were also lit in the classrooms and the lessons turned into dancing and jumping around because of the cold. Despite the snow being a rare occasion and the cold weather being hard, I feel very lucky that it snowed whilst I was in Arnakot, because the snow was pretty deep, so I got my dream of playing in the snow (I’d been thinking how great snow was before this happened).  

A few particularly lovely few days soon after the Arnakot trip were when Ashvi and I went down to Ratna Rajya School to paint the bookshelves with Issy, Juliette and the two Arnakot girls (it was good to hang out with the all the girls togehther, and spend some more time with Alix and Freya). We took a few days off school (which we felt we needed because school had been tiring) and we walked down to the school which is along the road between Harpe and Jhimpa. It was interesting to see another school and spend some time with the girls and paint the bookshelves blue to help Issy and Juliette out with their painting project for Karma Flights. It was also really interesting to meet Issy’s friend Juliette, since she had come back from a trip to Palestine. We had a really interesting discussion about the Israel Palestine situation, and she explained how she might find it hard to get back into Israel again (she was only in Nepal because her visa only allowed her three months at a time) since she’d been working in a Palestinian refugee camp. It was good to be updated and more informed of this topic, which I have to confess I’m not too knowledgable about. After painting for two days we were going to go back to Harpe in the evening, but there was a lot of rain on the second night so we decided to stay, and ended up listening to German rap music and playing kaboo (a great card game that Issy taught us) whilst it poured with rain outside. We also had a sing and a dance on the last night (and a yoga session) and it was just really good to spend some time with the girls. At the school we met some of the teachers, one of which gave us a lesson on English grammar and we failed to answer some of the Nepali exam style questions (changing direct to indirect speech) correctly, which was amusing since we are teachers of English in Nepal. Some of the male teachers were making vaguely sexist jokes which was slightly uncomfortable, and one of the teachers tried to rectify this by saying that he likes to “create a humorous environment”. It seems that in some of the schools where there is a male teacher majority, jokes about sex and women can come up in conversation; we heard about teachers in the school in Puja describing which of the Nepal volunteers they would like to sleep with. Luckily in Harpe, there are only three male teachers and they are all quite young and also really friendly; we live in a very female-centric village, where the women are a majority. This is quite rare for a Nepali school, comparing our school to the other volunteers’ schools in Nepal.

Inspired perhaps by the painting in Ratna Rajya and also by the previous volunteers efforts on the classrooms, Ashvi and I began our painting of the jungle on our Class 4 wall. We first drew the design out with whiteboard pens (based on a great design by the famous wall painter Ashvi Daia herself). It was looking pretty good, until we decided to continue the painting on a school afternoon when we had a half day (we get half days on the last day of every Nepali calendar month) which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. Lots of students decided to come into the classroom and watch our painting, which actually meant sneakily getting the paint and putting it over areas which we’d already covered (slightly annoying). They also wanted to paint bits of the wall too, and by the end of that day, some of the other walls and windows in the classsroom had paint on them as well as the outdoor taps (friends later questioned why there was paint on the outside taps). Class 4 is therefore looking pretty messy at the moment (in terms of paint in places where it shouldn’t be) and I’m looking forward to neatening it all up (preferably when kids aren’t in the near vicinity) - the volunteers in Pyuthan locked their doors behind them when painting so the students couldn’t get in and destroy the paintings. Another mistake was us leaving the paint in the classroom, meaning when we weren’t in the classroom students had painted bits of the walls with the paint that we left in there. We’re now on our post exam holiday leading up to the Nepali new year, and plan to do some painting with the other volunteers in the next few days, so hopefully we can make our Class 4 jungle look a bit better. Another thing that made Ashvi laugh: I painted the space in between the lion’s legs making it look really strange, which made Ashvi giggle to the point of the students asking why she was laughing so much (Ashvi’s so great). 

After that weekend of painting, Issy and Juliette came to visit us in Harpe before heading off to their next destinations; Issy back home to Germany and Juliette to Palestine. But they discovered a temple which we hadn’t actually been to before (if you just follow the path up in Harpe). It made me realise that there are still a lot of places that we haven’t yet seen in Harpe just because there are so many hidden paths and trails that you can take to people’s houses.  They just stayed for the evening and then the following morning before school, but it was lovely to see them off and have some last chats with tea and coconut biscuits on the Sunday before heading back to school.

Last term there were some lovely moments in school which I will put into note form because I’m not really sure how they all link together anymore:

1. My class 6 lesson turned into a lesson about illness and parts of the body after someone said they had a headache - it’s great how useful English can come up and the lesson can sometimes change. I feel like I originally felt quite intimidated by the size and age of class 6, but last term I really got to know them all much better which was great.
2. I can’t remember exactly how he was saying it, but Bikram in class five made Ashvi and I laugh a lot by saying “a kilo of…” (when we were doing measurements) in a really funny voice, and we just kept falling about laughing.
3. We also had a good laugh with Class 5 when we were explaining where Nargakot and also Arnakot is “oooooh mathi”, mathi meaning up in Nepali and the longer the oooooh the further up a hill/mountain a place is. Eg my house is oooooooooooh mathi.
4. It amuses me how keen some students are to learn sometimes, and how another day they can just be so inattentive. One memorable moment of this was when class 3 were in a line, pushing to answer my questions on the phonics alphabet - eg saying the letter and then a word beginning with that sound. I just found the desperate pushing quite amusing; this can be quite common in lessons in Nepali schools apparently. 
5. The same thing happened with class 2 and “What’s the time, Mr Wolf?” - students were quite literally falling over each other in excitement when it was “dinner time” and they needed to run back, even though the wolf didn’t tend to be able to say “dinner time” since they didn’t really understand that was the concept of the game (hence showing that full versions of games do not need to be played for maximum enjoyment). 
6. One time just before lunch, I played a catch game with class 2’s and Mina G where once you catch someone you hold onto their hand, until you create a big chain. This turned into me chasing individual students, whilst they stuck their tongue out at me to get me to chase after them. It all ended up being quite funny, and actually quite hard work.
7. I had a really amusing time with Anju (who used to assist my class 1 lessons) when they were trying to pronounce grapes - they kept pronouncing it like “gwapes” and after a few recitals of “gwapes” even the class 1’s were laughing.
8. I used to teach class 2 with Mina G and in the class 2 textbook there is a bit on hopscotch. I had a good time with Mina G last term because she was always up for playing the games I thought of and she was the one who suggested playing hopscotch in the classroom. It was a good time trying to teach the students how to do hopscotch up the middle of the classroom. 
9. It’s always fun thinking of ways to use resources, and I have a word game that I brought with me from the UK which is just a tube full of letters. I had fun with both class 2 and 5 getting them to spell out words in team 1 and team 2 with these letters. 
10. One time a chicken came into class 5, and I thought that just epitomised the charm of village life; animals wandering into lessons. 
11. Sarashwoti (might have spelt that wrong) Puja is a Hindu festival celebrating education. The students all came in on the Sunday early in the morning to worship. It was really nice to see all the students together in school on that day off, all celebrating their religion and culture.
12. The school is really good at running events, and particularly the school programme on a Friday afternoon, where lessons finish at lunchtime. The teachers here are a lot of fun, and there’s been things like a dance competition with the students where they all wore traditional Nepali dress, as well as a game of musical chairs where the teachers all got involved too. With the dancing programmes there is usually a big dance at the end too, where we dance with all the students. Dancing is always a lot of fun with the students, and so many of them are very good, having danced at weddings and other “rams” (raves) when they were younger. 

On the topic of dancing, another really big thing for me that happened last term during school was the school birthday which is celebrated every year in Harpe. I think this year it was the school’s 30th birthday, which was an event which was hyped up long before it happened. I decided that I wanted to dance at the birthday, so Anita told me that she’d teach me the dance moves to the dance I’d seen Niruta do at the dance competition which was one Friday’s school programme (she won with a very good dance, hence I was inspired to also try the dance). We spent quite a few evenings practising the dance, which involved several evenings of laughter and a lot of fun (I am getting very into my dancing). The morning of the school birthday dawned, and Kieran and Oscar both took the day off to come and watch. Apparently every year the volunteers plan a party game for the festival too, so we planned a tug of war and a treasure hunt, but as is with some Nepali things, there ended up being really long speeches for the majority of the day, meaning there ended up being no time for our game in the end (although musical chairs was played with the mothers and families of the village, and Anita did win meaning that she won a whole box of china mugs which we got to enjoy the tea in later). As is also the case with long Nepali speeches in school, the donors or the important people to the school (still not really sure who they are) keep speaking, even when no-one is listening. They will carry on for at least half an hour in a very monotonous tone, meanwhile all the kids get very distracted and play games and talk throughout. In between some of these speeches, however, there was some nice dancing that had been prepared and also there was “PT” which stands for physical training. This was carried out (and still kind of is) for several months by Dinu’s husband. It is kind of like army training, and they have several routines with counts up to 16, where they do different moves. This did take up a lot of time before school (often meaning that the students would not get a period one, and instead would be doing army training), however I later on found out that the students quite enjoy it (we even did PT with some students after school once). At the school’s birthday the students performed these routines in front of the villagers of Harpe. I didn’t realise before I danced that I would be performing on a stage, but I ended up doing the dance I had prepared to quite a big audience on a carpeted stage. The students rushed me to get changed and ready just before I was meant to go on (classic Nepali); I wore the Nepali Magar dress for the dance so I needed to change into this. I’m really glad I danced (I think it’s also on a lot of Nepali phones) but I was quite nervous for it just before since I’d practised quite a bit and there were a lot of people. I enjoyed the whole learning process with Anita a lot and it was nice to feel a part of the school and show what I had practised.

Other than the school birthday, we had some other nice dancing moments with Anita. One time she and Archan came into our room and we had the fairy lights on and the Hindi music that Ashvi had downloaded from my Spotify on and we all had a dance and a laugh - Archan was being very cute as well with his dancing. There were so many other great moments with Anita last term too, where we chatted in the kitchen and just spent some good times hanging out. One evening, Ashvi put a spice called sampu (I think that’s the spelling) in the food, which is actually meant for women who have just given birth, apparently. We had run out of cumin, and looking like cumin, Asvhi saw it as an appropriate substitute. Anita, whilst Ashvi was cooking, told Ashvi not to put that spice in (I think she asked what it was), but she’d already put it in the food, so she didn’t bother saying anything hoping you wouldn’t be able to tell. I tasted the curry before we took it through to the kitchen, thinking that it tasted funny and then questioned Ashvi on this and she told me this story. I found this very funny, particularly the fact that she hadn’t told Anita that she’d put it in. The face Anita made when she tasted the food was actually hilarious; she looked straight at Ashvi and asked why she’d put it in, thinking that Ashvi had put it in after Anita had told her not to. I couldn’t stop laughing, and this was only made funnier by the fact that Mohindra barely noticed, and just sat there eating it. I couldn’t stop laughing through the whole meal and decided that the badly tasting food was definitely worth the laughs. That evening, we talked about women, sex and periods in Nepal, and it was really interesting to hear about the differences in taboo and the differences in relationships between the UK and the Nepali village. Anita told us that she’d never talked about sex before with any of her friends, and no-one really talked about it - we were the first people that she’d talked about this with. We’ve also had some talks with Anita explaining what Project Trust is and explaining our lives in the UK and comparing the differences a bit more which has been really interesting. We’ve talked about caste and caste differences in the village, for example the fact that she won’t eat in her closest friends houses if they are of a higher caste than her. There have been many cute moments with Archan (and Milan as well in the holidays), one being when he tried to attack us with kisses and kept laughing, another being when Oscar and Kieran were around after the school birthday and we were all dancing, Archan too, and he didn’t stop giggling. 

We’ve also had some great times with food with Anita, and we always share chocolate that comes in parcels, fruit and other things with her and Archan. Ashvi gets sent through cans of fish in parcels, so they always get excited to have fish (not that I eat it). Whenever we have chocolate it’s a lot of fun sharing it out or whenever we have honey, putting honey on roti is a favourite (although living with Archan means we get through the honey very quickly - he eats it straight - although I have to confess I have done that on many an occasion too). On pancake day we made pancakes (“Belaitko roti” meaning British roti) although they did taste very eggy (there were three eggs in the mixture) - I don’t have much of a clue about dairy, and Ashvi doesn’t have much of a clue about how to make pancakes, so Anita made them - although I think it was me that encouraged so many eggs. Anita also makes a great millet roti out of her own grain from her fields, and she also makes diro, which is like a substitute for rice made out of millet (much to Anita’s amusement Ashvi and I enjoy eating this with sugar - it tastes kind of like porridge).

There have been some great times with Anita during the weeks but also some good times with the other volunteers too. We met up quite a lot on weekends last term. Eli came over to Harpe and we all went over to Jhimpa to meet some acquaintances of Kieran’s from the UK who, when he’d suggested partially as a joke to come to Jhimpa, actually decided to come. We played ultimate frisbee that weekend at the school with some students which was fun. Ashvi and I also walked over to Neta in Pyuthan one weekend to meet the volunteers there and also see Adelaide and Stephie’s project. We stayed in Darling one night, after getting the jeep after school on a Thursday, although ended up being joined by some creepy Nepali men who asked if they could share our sleeping bags, so we ended up sleeping outside on the wooden floor with the roof as a cover; not very pleasant. Although we only got 24 hours in Neta and one night there (since it’s a long walk and we didn’t want to miss too much school) it was interesting to see their project. It’s more rural than ours and the school is incredibly small and also looks much poorer - there are fewer desks and in one of the classrooms there is a massive pile of dirt that the girls have to avoid when they’re teaching. It was nice to catch up with them and also see another Pyuthan project; the only one we have left now is Kung, which is where Alannah is staying by herself. We got a bit lost coming through the forest on the way back, but a Nepali person turned up at the right moment to show us the way and help us out a bit. We went to Burtibang a few times, one time seeing a group of communists parading and then having an assembly, and also went to Burtibang for women’s day with the girls from Arnakot and the boys from Jhimpa where we danced, got piercings and had chowmein (Ashvi and I now collectively have over twenty ear piercings). We’ve had some good times with the others in Harpe too, going for some runs and walks up to Takura and Kotha just before the holidays, one evening in which Alix, Freya, Ashvi and I went to one of our students houses called Anjita and were given some amazing dal bhat (maybe the best I’ve ever tasted). One lovely thing from that evening was Anita shaking the blossom tree over my head as the blossom fell down onto my hair and clothes.

The holidays following the exams were something I was really looking forward to, given that the months before had involved a lot of teaching, some of which was stressful at times. The exams after that were also very long and felt quite drawn-out, since we had to do a lot of exam specific practice which could sometimes get quite repetitive. We ran extra tuition classes after and before school in the build up weeks, and also had to stop using the library because we were told to focus on exams. These were hard, especially after a tiring day at school, and although we didn’t run that many, I did feel like I got closer to my class 6 with tuition. We had some fun times, one time being me going through some Chinese numbers with Milan (he feels particularly inspired to learn Chinese) and also one time after tuition some of the students when I was locking the gate were showing me their martial arts skills which was quite funny. Concerning the exams, we also had to mark and invigilate them, and this whole process was drawn out over almost two weeks. This could also get quite hard at times, especially when the students didn’t remember things that we’d gone through time and time again, and had been practicing all year. The exams are also badly written, with questions that don’t actually make grammatical sense. There was also a lot of cheating going on which is the classic with Nepali exams, so it can feel at times like all the exam specific practice was quite useless. This whole period of time was a difficult time, and although we did spend some more time with the other teachers and had some good conversations, I’m glad we won’t have to do another set of these official exams. This exam period has definitely inspired me to focus less on the textbooks and to have more fun with English practice, since we realise now that the students will get help with the textbook questions anyway, and some of the textbook activities and reading activities are very pointless in the grand scheme of English learning. I’m therefore excited, although we have only a few months left of teaching, to get really stuck in to learning different things, focus on speaking and be less textbook specific. I think we’ve done a good job up until now, but there’s also a lot more to teach and be excited by. One morning, Ashvi and I did some lesson planning, looking up creative ideas and reading some books, and we have some ideas for the new Nepali year with teaching, including using songs, playing games and having specific speaking sessions and art days. There are a few international days that we also plan to celebrate. I really would like to make this final term the best one, since it’s the one we will also remember the most. We want to also run a games session once a week after school where we play things like limbo and ultimate frisbee. The exams definitely felt like an interruption to teaching, since we had to stop running things like library club, which was beginning to feel very successful. I’m feeling very positive about the new term and the final teaching period. I would like to make sure that we also get the classrooms painted, since we had a bit of a hiccup in progress for the jungle painting. We plan to do some more in the last few days of this holiday, and also get friends to come and help us. 

Right at the end of exams, just before Holi, Ashvi and I decided to walk up to a student called Anita’s house. She lives an hours walk up from the school (and walks this every day!) and she said that we could come to her house to stay over. She lives on the top of the hill which overlooks the road to Darling and also the Nishikhola valley, and we’d never actually been up there before. She took us all the way up to the top of Harpe (since the village names are named after the hills) which is apparently about 2400m up; it looks down on Harpe and the surrounding valleys. She was so excited about climbing to the top of “Sagarmartha” (meaning Everest) and even though it was getting dark, we decided to head to the top anyway. There were some moments where it felt quite scary, because we were on a steep hill with not much grip, but it was also pretty amazing with the sunset and the wind, and there are some great views of the mountains from there too. We stayed over at her house, and ended up with the three of us sharing one bed, in which Anita alternated spooning each of us all night (she was in the middle, and spooning guests is a very normal Nepali thing to do). After this trip, we had practical speaking exams and then it was the beginning of the holidays!

Holi marked the beginning of the holidays and the end of exams for us. (It also marks the beginning of Spring so end of cold season!) The morning of Holi, Anita seemed upset, and we were about to find out something that seems like it could be very relevant to a lot of Nepali women living in the rural villages. The day before, her husband who lives and works in Dubai for the majority of the year, told her that he liked another Nepali woman. This is obviously hard for Anita, effectively living as a single woman in the village, doing all the housework and also caring for her son Archan. Being so far away a lot of the time and being told that is really hard and when she told us we gave her a big hug. Anita also relies on Nabindra (her husband) for financial support, since working on the farm in the village only really feeds you and provides shelter. This is why so many men from the village go off to work abroad, because farm and village life doesn’t provide you with a living. This will become a problem for Anita, since Nabindra has already expressed his anger in the situation and has said that he won’t send as much money to Anita. Money is needed for rice, dal, chickens, salt, sugar etc so less money to a point will reduce the quality of Anita’s life. Not only this but Anita also lives with Nabindra’s family, since in Nepal it is normally the woman who goes to live with the parent’s family. Therefore, it is more difficult for Anita to speak out about this treatment from her husband yet she also can’t really go back to the village where her own family live, not that she’d really want to since she has a life here in Harpe. This situation that her husband has created has made life more complex for her, and not only this but divorce isn’t really heard of or a thing in village life. This situation has made light to the fact that men really do have more power here, especially financially. Ashvi found an appropriate expression from the book she is reading called “The Dreams of a Common Language”, written by a lesbian feminist called Adrienne Rich. This woman’s goal with her writing was “the creation of a society without domination” and she wrote more than thirty books with this goal in mind. This expression seems appropriate here since it is clearly the man in this situation who holds more power. I am interested to hear some of these poems to discover more about her and her ideas. She seems a lot better now which is good, since Anita is such a lovely and happy person usually, and it’s sad to see her sad, since we love her so much. 

We spent Holi with the other people of the village in Takura. The Arnakot girls came up, bringing all their things with them for the whole holiday (in the heat as well) and we all headed off in our new Holi t-shirts that Subash had brought up from Burtibang. So many of the people from the village went up to Takura (and it was all women that went, apart from the students) so we ended up all meeting there and dancing. I had been a bit ill a for the few days leading up to Holi, so I struggled a bit more than usual with the walk (I can now run there quite easily) but once we got there it was so lovely to run around chasing each other with the powdered colours and dancing with all the amazing Nepali women that we’ve been living around - Smirti, our friend who is a teacher from Devisthan was also there. We went to Dinu’s (our headteacher) house after who we threw some colour on her too, took some photos and she gave us some tea. There are always so many celebrations in Harpe, and us and the Arnakot girls all went to Sagar’s birthday party afterwards. I felt quite ill by that point, so I left early, but what was amusing was that the kids from the house wanted to accompany me back, but when they got near the school they saw the light on in the computer room and thought there was a ghost (there is actually quite a lot of superstition around ghosts in the village) so they asked me to walk back with them. I was feeling to ill, so instead they ran all the way back up to the house. The students think that there is a ghost in Class 4, since someone died from that class years back, so they are scared to be in the room by themselves and ask us to wait for them. It’s strange how these superstitions get to you; when we’ve been painting recently Ashvi doesn’t like being there alone once it gets a bit darker. Not only this, but Anita told us not to go past a specific point in Pulmati’s kitchen, and she wouldn’t tell us why, but I took this quite seriously and when all the other volunteers came I made sure they didn’t cross that point too (Anita also kept reminding me to tell them). There is also the superstition of not whistling inside, for some reason I can’t actually remember, but it’s just bad. My nose also became infected and I was asked if Himala had touched my nose, since apparently if pregnant people touch you bad things can happen. People also put a cactus on the roof of their house to ward off evil spirits.

The day following Holi, the boys from Puja headed up to Harpe to meet us so we could all go together to Dhorpatan on the Friday. Dhorpatan was the beginning of our holiday adventures which have been an excellent chance for a break, to get away from the village for a bit, go exploring around Nepal and also see my best friend Charlie. I feel like we did so much during the holidays, visited so many different places and saw so many different things. Almost all the volunteers had planned after Holi to meet in Burtibang and head up to Dhorpatan by jeep but sadly Stephie was ill and Alannah needed to be in school so only the boys from Pyuthan could join us on the trip. It was lovely to catch up for an evening before heading to Burtibang the next morning to get the jeep up to Dhorpatan. We met the Rukumkot and Jarjakot volunteers in Burtibang, and originally Iona and Emer had only come to meet us (they weren’t given any days off so they were going to return quickly to Rukumkot) which we felt bad about because we only turned up at 9 in Burtibang and the jeep was going to leave at that time originally, but in the end they decided to come along to Dhorpatan anyway, not wanting to miss out. I’m very happy they did because it was so great to have such a big group all together. We also got to meet Kieran’s parents in Burtibang briefly before heading off, who were really lovely, and recounted their experiences of Nepal so far. It must have been one of the biggest gatherings of foreign people ever, since there were the thirteen volunteers as well as Kieran’s parents and their two family friends, so in total seventeen foreigners - there were definitely a lot of heads turning in our direction - we get looks when it’s just Ashvi and I, and everyone thinks Ashvi is a Nepali (they say that she’s Nepali justai, meaning just like a Nepali). After breakfast in the vegetarian place in Burtibang (the place we always go for food; they know us very well by now), we headed off in the jeep, which just about fitted all thirteen of us in.

Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve is a huge flat plane which lies at over 3000m, with big snow covered hills surrounding it. Small rivers wind around the flat grassy plane like ribbons, and they unite to form a beautiful clear river that runs through the reserve. Along this river you can find rickety bridges and little areas of snow which hasn’t melted due to the cold. Flying overhead, you can hear groups of birds flapping harmoniously to the winds across the plane. We arrived early afternoon on the Friday, in the jeep that we took from Burtibang. The jeep winds up the valley, and passes Bobang, which is the village that Eli and Liam were meant to be placed at, before being moved to Pyuthan. Bobang is a very beautiful village, and as we drove past there were a lot of school kids in their school clothes getting ready for the day - there is a private school in Bobang so they hadn’t started their holidays yet, unlike us. As you climb higher up the valley in the jeep, pink laligrass (rhododendrons, Nepal’s national flower) begin to appear, along with patches of snow that haven’t melted. The road starts to get very bumpy and you begin to feel the chill in the air. Our jeep driver was very fun, and we sang Salko Pat (a classic Nepali tune) several times on the way up, and we also stopped for a nice tea break. The view was pretty breathtaking when we reached the top. At the end of the road before getting to the reserve, you get a beautiful aerial view of the plane, and it was so strange to see something so flat but also so high up. We got out of the jeep to get a group photo with everyone before winding our way into the reserve in the jeep. Tourists usually have to pay 3000 rupees to get into Dhorpatan, but the Rukumkot girls had a contact (a teacher I think) who we called and hence we managed to stay there free of charge, therefore massively reducing the total cost of the trip which was only 2000 rupees (for food and accommodation as well as drinks) for the whole weekend which is under £15 for an amazing little holiday. It was very cool driving along the plane trundling through rivers to get to the hotel, looking at the distant little houses surrounding the plane. Dhorpatan is the only tourist attraction in this area of West Baglung, so we always get asked when we’re in Burtibang if we’re going to Dhorpatan, because occasionally there will be the adventurous tourist who decides to go a bit of the tourist trail (Dhorpatan has a small section in the Lonely Planet guide).  

The first afternoon/evening we spent in Dhorpatan was very lovely. After dropping all our things in the rooms (we had two, one that was basically a massive bed taking up the room for the girls, and a smaller room with two beds for the boys) we all headed outside after ordering some chowmein for a late lunch. It was almost like a scout group that afternoon and we played games and made human piles and pyramids and had a lot of laughs. We ate the chowmein outside, and despite it being a little salty, I drew the longest chowmein noodle so I got to throw the leftover portion of chowmein into everyone’s mouths (it was quite amusing). My dream for Dhorpatan was to gallop along the plane on a horse, and although I wasn’t able to do that, there were two horses that the hotel owned, one of which I got to be led on a 20m little walk and a few of the other volunteers also went for a little ride (although Kieran and Eli were definitely too big for the horse). What I did get to ride, however, was a motorbike. Someone that evening said that we could borrow his motorbike, so first I had a go riding along the back, and then Will and Eli tried to teach me (I’ve been wanting to try since riding on the back of Bipul’s in Burtibang before - it’s very fun). I got a bit scared when it started moving and I hadn’t quite figured out how to work the clutch yet, so I ending up speeding off then toppling to the side, and slightly scratching the motorbike (It was on grass, so I was okay, but I think if I ever try again it won’t be in the dark). Everyone was pretty tired after that first evening, so maybe only half an hour into the first Lord of the Rings film (Kieran’s parents brought him out lots of films, including all the Star Wars, Hobbit and Lord of the Rings) almost everyone was asleep. I’ve actually been really excited to watch Lord of the Rings here (and keep telling Ashvi that she needs to watch it), because the hills and mountains in it really remind me of Nepal, and sometimes when we go walking on little paths I feel like we’re little hobbits, plodding through the shire. I really forgot how slow moving it was, however, and I fell asleep just like everyone else. 

After waking up the next morning to the beautiful views of the mountains and the plane, we had some breakfast then headed off for a walk with everyone. We went on a path that Oscar and Kieran had been on before (when they visited Dhorpatan back in the Autumn), which headed towards the Tibetan monastery. There was a really lovely group vibe just walking along and chatting with everyone. Along the way a Nepali man called Suntiger turned up and started talking to us (later on he became a bit of a legend within the group). He ended up accompanying us for pretty much the rest of the day, all the time doing crazy things and asking weird questions - he really was quite the unusual Nepali man. I will describe him in note form because this blog is already very long. Some of the weird things that happened included:

1. Repeatedly saying “Too much power, Bruce Lee.” - he really admires this actor apparently
2. Calling Justin Bieber “Justin Byber”
3. Eli proposing to him
4. Telling lots of things that sounded very untrue - he’s apparently a teacher, a driver, has been to Japan and Malaysia and is only 19 (he said he was 19 to fit in with us all I think, but definitely didn’t look it)
5. He kicked down one of the walls within the monastery and tried to hand us artefacts from it (later some of the group got inspired by him to find some more since it was an abandoned building, but were told by Oscar to put them back - fair enough, given that they belonged to the monastery)
6. He climbed up a very precarious looking tree, and whilst he was there smoked and repeatedly said “look at me!”
7. He wanted to marry Ashvi, then my identical twin ( who I invented for fun) and then he wanted to marry Charlie (who I said was coming out soon to see me) 
8. He came swimming with us, then wanted to jump off the bridge.

We did try to get away from Suntiger eventually, but he did effectively spend the whole day in Dhorpatan with us, and therefore has become a well known name within the Project Trust group. 

That evening we played capture the flag and some other fun hiding and finding games in the dark with torches. Afterwards, we joined some cool Nepali’s who were all studying medicine in Kathmandu round the fire (it gets so cold in Dhorpatan) and we played Kingdoms with them - it was lovely to meet some Nepali’s from the city, and their English was all very good. We had a rave that evening in the room with all of us on the beds, had some Nepali apple roxy and ate smores which were provided from the munch bag that Kieran’s parents brought for him. 

To sum up the rest of Dhorpatan to Burtibang a bit more briefly, on the third and final day we went for a family run (it was noticeably harder to breathe at 3000m), then a lovely walk in the afternoon to the houses where the houses are. We played capture the flag again with the river as a barrier (which was pretty hard to cross hence I and a few others gave up) and went to eat some potatoes in a Nepali house (apparently Dhorpatan potatoes are the best around - they were dherai mito, meaning very tasty). Eli made the children some animals out of the twisty balloons which the children were very excited about, and it was generally nice to be in a Nepali house talking to some people from a different area. Walking back with the sunset was beautiful with Eli, the Arnakot girls and Ashvi, even though I ended up with my leg up to my knee submerged in wet mud; we definitely went a more difficult way back and right through the bog - I ended up walking barefoot after the mud submersion and the grass was surprisingly springy. We all sat at the hotel after that, sat around the table and talked for a while and we listened to some interesting stories (we were going round the table saying things like the best gift we’ve ever received). We slept quickly that night, after attempting to watch Star Wars (which I have still not watched the whole way through) and then lay in a long time the next morning playing mafia, before departing for Burtibang that evening in a jeep. Then, after staying at Sneha Hotel that night, playing Kingdoms again and talking, we all departed for our next destinations - Liam and Eli back to Puja to paint their school, the Rukumkot girls back to project (apart from Ren, who came with us) and the rest of us off to Pokhara to begin the rest of our holidays.

There have been so many bus rides this holiday, the first one being the journey to Pokhara, where we had a few days before Ashvi, Ren, Oscar, Kieran and I left to Kathmandu to pick up Charlie and drop Kieran’s parents back. It was again a bit of a culture shock to be back in Pokhara straight after Dhorpatan and village life and we ended up eating a lot of European food on the first day we were there. We did a family run one morning which was nice, and seems to be coming a bit of a group thing following the group run in Dhorpatan. This entails Kieran leading us (being the best runner, having done the stupa to stupa race in Kathmandu which is 54km!!) and the rest of us following behind, stopping every so often to regroup. There were some great mountain views that morning in Pokhara being such a clear day so we took some family photos with the mountains. Pokhara was a very short trip, since there were only a few days after Dhorpatan before I needed to pick up Charlie, but it was nice to spend some time with the group, before the Arnakot girls (Alix and Freya) and the Jarjakot boys (Josh and Will) went off to do the Mardi Himal trek. They were planning on doing the Annapurna trek like we did back in the first holiday, but one person had died that week and the weather was so bad that the pass had been closed recently so it was deemed too dangerous for that holiday. After we said our goodbyes in Pokhara, we headed on the night bus to Kathmandu, which arrived early morning on the day Charlie was to arrive. We visited Isabel’s (Oscar’s family friend) place again, where Americans come to do Tibetan studies, where we were given a lovely breakfast including toast, egg and jam. We then were then asked by Shanta (our country coordinator) to visit his house so we walked half the way to his house before getting a taxi (once we’d had enough of the polluted, traffic filled roads). We were all pretty tired after getting a night bus (you never really sleep on night buses) so there’s a funny photo of all of us passed out on the grass beside Shanta’s house. Kieran’s parents came to Shanta’s house too, just before we left for the airport to pick up Charlie, so it was interesting to hear about their opinions of their two week experience of Nepal. Something funny that happened was that whilst they were in Jiwokola (next to Jhimpa) for Holi they and Kieran were interviewed by a Nepali reporter who asked them about their experience. Later in Chitwan, a guy recognised Kieran from this video and asked him about it, so apparently this video was spread online all over Nepal - “it’s a small world” is the phrase that comes to mind. 

Although Charlie’s flight was delayed by a few hours and her bag also ended up coming on a later flight due to her really short flight transfer time in Dubai, it was so great to see her at the airport and welcome her to Nepal. It felt so crazy that we’d not seen each other in so long, having spent a lot of our time in sixth form together. It was lovely for the two of us to be back together and for it to be so normal but just on a different continent in such a different country. It was also exciting to hear about the city I’ll be studying in next year (since Charlie is doing an art foundation at Manchester this year and will be staying there for an animation and illustration degree next year). The first week in Nepal was a whirl of doing touristy things which felt strange, but it was also nice to see some other parts of Nepal. We visited the monkey temple in Kathmandu (where a monkey grabbed the bag of the lovely strawberries we had bought and sat on a roof eating them) and wandered a bit around the city. We then went to Chitwan National Park (where the heat was very intense, on our first step outside the bus) where we swam in a swimming pool (very strange to us having not swum in a pool the entire time we’ve been here). That first evening’s atmosphere was pretty incredible; we went for tea in a huge dining hall at a hotel when huge crashing sounds began to disrupt the strange emptiness of the place. We went outside to see hailstones the size of tennis balls falling from the sky to the background of lightning flashes and pouring rain. The lighting was an orange pink, and the outside view looked out to the river separating the town from the National Park. The view was like something out of Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” with the river, the warmth and the intensity of it all. Seeing Chitwan was very strange having lived in the Nepali hills for the year; Chitwan is part of the Terai area of Nepal (Nepal is made up of mountains, hills and flat planes - as the National anthem goes “Terai, pahad, himala) so it’s all very warm and flat, particularly in the season that we went. The flatness makes for some interesting differences; on a morning run Kieran and I ran alongside some students who were cycling to school on bicycles which seemed very cool. Other notable things about Chitwan included going on a log boat ride to look at the wildlife along the river (including crocodiles) and seeing a rhino (very majestic and like something out of the pre-historic period). There were also a lot of elephants in Chitwan, but it was sad to see them being ridden and used for tourism, and we saw none just roaming around in the wild. It was definitely interesting to see a completely different landscape and different wildlife, but equally it felt strange to be in a tourist location and doing more expensive activities than just roaming around the village. 

After Chitwan we visited Lumbini (the birthplace of Buddha), which is very close to the Indian border and also very warm and flat. Kieran headed back to Jhimpa, and Oscar went to pick up his mum from Kathmandu, so it was just Ashvi, Ren, Charlie and I. Ren and Ashvi were both ill that first afternoon however, so Charlie and I went for an afternoon wander (after arriving on the bus which took much longer than expected - very normal for Nepali transport) to have a look round the monasteries. There was a beautiful sunset and it was great to spend some time just hanging out with Charlie and looking at beautiful buildings. The following day we rented bikes and cycled around Lumbini - it was so great to be on a bike again! It was very hot that day, but it was still good to have a look inside some of the monasteries which had some amazing ceiling paintings and statues of Buddha. Ashvi managed to get into the birthplace of Buddha as a Nepali (which cost her 50 rupees as oppose to the expected 500 rupees for a tourist) so I asked her if we could all split the cost including that entrance fee (sorry Ashvi) but in the end, showing our passports and volunteer visas, we managed to get in free of charge. Showing that we could speak Nepali also definitely helped (we did the same thing back in the monkey temple where we also went in for free). This just shows how far speaking a native language can get you, and Nepali people definitely love it when you show that you’ve made an effort, especially since Nepali isn’t a common language, and is only really spoken in Nepal. 

I think the highlight of the trip for Charlie and I together was definitely coming to Harpe and then going off to Nange. After Lumbini we got a bus to Butwal, where we stayed the night in a very cheap hotel (we were told we were going to be able to get a night bus but we realised when we got there that there was none). We didn’t get to look much around Butwal but we went for a little walk and sat and looked across the city. Then, the following day we took a bus that left early (maybe 6am) which arrived in Burtibang early afternoon. I suggested we took our bags and went straight to the jeep park, which was very lucky since the only jeep that goes from Burtibang to Harpe was right there about to leave when we arrived. One of our students was on it and asked if we were coming. The jeep was so full, looking at it I thought they were going to say that was no space, but as is the classic way with Nepal everyone just about managed to squeeze in (with a lot of people on the inside, maybe 5 people on top, us in the open air bit at the back with a lot of other luggage and people, and probably some people hanging off the side too!). Needless to say, I will never forget Nepali transport, the bumpiness of every journey, and the amount of people that manage to fit in vehicles with no seatbelts on. The following few days in Harpe, with Charlie, Ren and Ashvi and later on the other volunteers too, were really fun. When we first got to Harpe, we shared out Charlie’s chocolates and biscuits that I had requested from the UK with Anita and all the other Nepalis which happened to be at Anita’s house at that time. It was really lovely introducing Charlie to my Nepali family, and I think she really enjoyed that first moment where we all sat, chatted and ate good food. Anita was also very happy to see us since it’d been almost two weeks since we’d been in Harpe last, so it was great to see her so happy too. The next few days involved all the volunteers trickling into Harpe, ready for our camping adventure.

First of all came along Kieran and Eli, after having met at the Pyuthan Baglung border. They camped in the woods between the two districts and then walked back early in the morning to meet us. They were originally going to meet at a more central point between Puja and Jhimpa but decided with the amount of unknown forest that they would have to surpass it would be too difficult. They surprised Ashvi, Ren, Charlie and I by coming along pretty early, since we were expecting they had gone a long and complex jungle route, and therefore would probably get there after dark. That evening in Harpe we opened the Shree Annapurna Night Club (which I think is the full name) in the shower room and had our first rave there with the speaker and a handmade strobe with a phone torch (it later developed to strobe lighting with a strobe light app that I downloaded). It was good to have a dance with everyone (all the Project Trust volunteers are honestly so much fun and obviously Charlie too). We talk often of the steps outside our room being like magnets and that is definitely true; in large groups we often find ourselves just glued to those steps chatting and not going anywhere until very late in the day. There was definitely a lot of that that happened over the next few days in Harpe. The whole original plan was to go and sleep wild and walk around near Harpe, Harpe being the meeting point, but with so many people wanting to come we stayed in Harpe a few more days and then afterwards did a few days of gumna (the Nepali word for wandering). The day after the boys turned up, the four who went trekking around Mardi Himal were scheduled to arrive (they were originally meant to do the Annapurna circuit and therefore wouldn’t have been able to come but the pass had been closed due to heavy snow and a few deaths so they decided against it). After a lazy morning cooking breakfast and whatever else we did I don’t remember, Ashvi, Charlie, Ren and I went off to Rajkut to meet Dinu and show Charlie a bit around the village. We ended up spending quite a while there, and she offered for all of our friends to eat breakfast there the following morning. Going to Dinu’s also meant Charlie got to see a bit more of the village, rather than just sitting on the steps until the others turned up. The weather was pretty awful that afternoon; it’s rained a lot more in these last few months in the afternoons than it usually does, and we faced the dramatic rainy weather on both walks. When we arrived back, Josh, Will, Alix and Freya had turned up and we were embraced with happy hugs - it was great to all be together again. I actually don’t remember much from those few days, but it was full of chats, laughs and dancing in our shower  nightclub. I do remember that we made a song about Oscar (he was with his mum and we all missed his presence) and I had some great laughs with Charlie; it felt so good to be back together again, making strange faces at each other and finding amusement in this. Dinu then prepared us all amazing food the following day (I think she prepared food for ten of us, before Emer and Iona turned up later that day which was pretty amazing of her). We took a photo with all of us and Dinu (I’ll try and find it to attach to this blog) and then afterwards Eli and I walked up to kotha and everyone else went back to the house to chill out for a bit. When Eli and I returned, Emer and Iona had turned up so the full squad was complete and we were ready to set off for our trip to Nange the following day. Unfortunately, we had run out of gas and I think the electricity had gone too (maybe because of the bad weather, I don’t remember) so cooking that evening was pretty difficult, particularly for twelve people. However, Anita gave us her fire stove and a fire was also set up in Pulmathi’s kitchen, so this way we actually managed to cook up a really tasty dal bhat and spinach with spiced pumpkin too (the night before the food had been quite interesting, with Ashvi feeling inspired to put food colouring in the rice, making eating feel very strange - I realised that the look of the food does really does make a difference to the taste). We served this up then went and sat in Pulmathi’s kitchen and told ghost stories, until some of the group got pretty creeped out and went to bed (maybe at 4am - we didn’t get much sleep that night, or many other nights around that night really) but it was very ramailo (meaning fun). We had bought 5 litres of roxy that evening from the shop above, a lot of that ending up going on the floor and not much of it being consumed; it really did taste quite disgusting. 

The next morning dawned very quickly since we had had very little sleep; Alix, Kieran, Eli and I had even less since we carried on having a laugh down in the TV room before we went to bed (we also had a final rave in the Shree Annapurna Nightclub, although it lasted half a song since the speaker ran out very quickly). All the boys decided that they were going to go ahead and set up camp in Nange one night earlier, so we could come and everything would be set up, although all of us weren’t entirely sure why they needed to do this. We were going to stay overnight in Liwang, which is on the way, and then meet them the following day, when Kieran and Eli were going to run back down. That day was results day for our school, so everyone sleeping in mine and Ashvi’s bedroom were woken up by the kids telling them to get up, hence Charlie got a real taste of what Nepali kids are like that morning. The boys then left around midday, with a lot of snacks and goods for the overnight trip in their bags and we stayed a few hours later and had some eggs and more food (we’d only had some porridge that morning, prepared by Emer). We set of eventually around 3pm, feeling very relaxed since the goal for that day was only a few hours away. We also figured out the shortcut way, since Liwang is the hill next to Harpe, there is a way that doesn’t involve going through Devisthan and then back, which is what the boys did. It was a really beautiful walk, going down through the forest to the lovely river at the bottom of the valley with a rickety bridge which doesn’t look like it should be crossed. I have to confess that I almost took us the wrong way, not actually knowing on which hill Liwang lies (Anita gave me brief instructions), but as is always the case in Nepal, we were directed down the right tiny little path at exactly the right point. Liwang is a lovely place, with a temple on a small little overhang surrounded by hills and once we were nearly there, I had a conversation with a Nepali woman from Liwang (and I understood her Nepali completely, so I had a little moment of feeling like I’ve become better at understanding the language, despite feeling like I haven’t learnt a whole new load of words). 

The funniest moment on arriving in Liwang was when we arrived at the hotel and were figuring out where our room was, and there turned out only to be one room in the hotel anyway. One of us opened the door to the one bedroom to find all the boys lying there, blatantly having not made it to Nange. Apparently they had paced it the long way round to Liwang, and then had decided that because of the rubbish weather it was a bit risky heading up to Nange that day, so had decided to stay in Liwang. They had texted us at about 5 that they had made it and set up camp, so it was pretty funny to find them there, all lying in the tiny room that was going to host all twelve of us (although some of us did end up sleeping outside given the lack of space). Despite having plans for a night with just us girls, we were happy that we would all head up to Nange together the following day. That night consisted of a good dal bhat and some good conversations, including a debate about if the world is getting better or worse, in which the only reference point was the book “Factfulness” by Hans Rosling, which most of us have read (If you hadn’t read it in that debate you were advised to read it). It is actually a very informative book with facts that prove that so many things are improving in the world, so I would also recommend anyone who’s managed to read this far into the blog to have a read.

The plan for the following day was to leave early in the morning to Nange, which is an open space at over 3000m which has amazing views of the Annapurna range as well as views of Pyuthan, Baglung and maybe even as far as Pokhara if the visibility is good. Eli and his friends Jacob and Leila had gone on that route before to visit Harpe, although they had done it from Pyuthan, and ran out of water and only had dried oats to eat for food. They got very lucky in that they found a shepherd on the way up that gave them blankets (it also gets very cold up there, and they went earlier in the year too) so they were okay. The next day they headed up to the open flat space and back down into Harpe. Eli thought it would be a good place for us all to go, since we wanted to go on a mini camping trip and it’s also a well known place that Nepali people in this area go to visit for Nepali New Year and other festivals. We were much more prepared food wise this time - I think we brought about 60 packets of biscuits, and we bought many plastic jugs of water for cooking, as well as a tarp for sleeping under and even firewood (which the Nepali’s told us that we really didn’t need because there is a lot of firewood up on Nange). As is usual with our group, we left later than we planned (we planned to leave early in the morning but maybe left about 10 or 11, but we did have a filling dal bhat in the morning which would fill us up for the long day of walking that we had ahead of us. We set off in good spirits, although it was already getting very hot, and walked pretty continuously for a lot of the day. The walk is effectively just up, up, up from Liwang, and as you keep climbing you get some beautiful valley views. After the last water point and the last inhabited part of Liwang and after you climb a bit further up, the walk is mostly forest, and as you go further up, there is lots of pink laligrass (rhododendrons) which you can eat the nectar of. We stopped every so often for breaks, since there were a lot of us and the steepness of the climb was pretty tiring. We had biscuit and chow chow breaks, and walked most the day until about half past five, when Eli told us we were near the top. We then put the speaker on and regrouped and all walked together up to the top, where everyone felt so alive at having reached the top. There was a massive group hug and a lot of joy as we watched the sunset over the surrounding mountains. You couldn’t see the mountains at that point, but we were above and in the clouds, so the group was engulfed by a foggy haze. We set up camp in the buffalo shed which was more of a scaffolding. The tarpaulin was put over the wooden structure and two fires were built; one for cooking and one for sitting by. It was getting pretty cold by that point, so we all wrapped up in layers before sitting by the fire/starting to cook. We had brought two pans with us, one frying pan and one cooking pan, so the food was done in two loads, so two big pans of pasta and then two loads of fried veg (pumpkin, potatoes and whatever else was brought from Harpe) and the fried veg was mixed into the pasta. It was very good for an improvised meal (thanks Freya and Alix for the tasty veg!) and we spent the rest of the evening relaxing by the fire (we also translated some English songs into Nepali for fun), and I went to have a look around at all the lights from the surrounding villages at the top of the plane (the camp was a bit further down, which was good because it was more sheltered from the wind). We then slept under the stars, under the tarpaulin and Will (what a hero) kept the fire going the whole night, which was very good because it was really cold that night. We awoke just before the sunrise, and went back up to the flat plane to see ourselves above the clouds. There was a river of clouds flowing down through the trees below, and there was an amazing view of the mountains above the clouds. It was so beautiful being with everyone and watching that sunrise together. I then did a headspace type meditation, and we stayed on the top together for a little while, before going down for some porridge, some coffee and some fried vegetables. 

Walking back down to Jhimpa the following morning was again slow progress getting off, but we had a really nice relaxing morning eating and chatting by the camp we set off. We then set off in a different direction, aiming for Jiwokola and aiming to follow the ridge, but we weren’t completely sure of where we were going. Luckily, everything went in our favour and we found a good path down into the Baglung valley. The path at the beginning was really magical; the trees were old and windy and there were so many pink rhododendron trees surrounding the path. It was also really misty so you could only really see the ridge and the views ahead. We followed the ridge and then found a path down which headed in the right direction and we kept following this, again taking breaks when we felt like it, singing and listening to music along the way. The whole trip, ascending and descending was strange in some ways, because after Liwang and before reaching the village above Jiwokola we were completely away from any kind of civilisation, with only jungle and nature surrounding us. It was the Project Trust volunteers and Charlie only for two days; it felt like Charlie was part of the group because we all got on so well and it was really lovely that we could all enjoy hanging out together. We walked for most of that day too, almost going the wrong way once we got to a temple, but again, a Nepali woman turned up at the right moment to guide us in the right direction. At about 3pm we came out of the jungle area, and you could see Harpe, Arnakot and where to go to get to Jhimpa from the top of a hill. We then started heading down down a path that would take us into the right valley, before realising it wasn’t much of a path. We took a vote on whether to carry on down or go back up (some of us didn’t want to have to wade through the jungle), but then Eli, Will, Josh and Iona decided on going down that path pretty quickly and then disappeared off after a quick shout up at us, so the rest of us headed back up to follow a path round the hill, rather than going straight to the valley. We thought that they were going to get there after us, because they had gone a pretty bush covered route through the jungle, but we found out when we had reached the village above Jiwokola (the route having been found by Kieran) that the others had already got there before us; people at a cafe on the way down told us that they had danced, drank tea and had gone past about ten minutes before (but then again the Nepalis we met after said that they had passed an hour before, so Nepali people clearly have different ideas about time). We sped up for a few moments, thinking we could maybe catch them, then decided to slow back down (we were all very tired by that point, having had little sleep and having slept outside in the cold too). We met them and Oscar and his mum in Jiwokola, and had a feast on chowmein, doughnuts and momos - we were all really hungry by that point; we had only eaten porridge, some biscuits and a tiny bit of chow chow that morning and we had been walking all day. After feasting on that as well as some cake from Jiwokola, we headed to the roxy shop to get some provisions for the night and also some snacks, then headed to the boys’ house. We had the classic Jhimpa fire and a bit of a dance before going to sleep; I needed to drop back Charlie in Kathmandu soon after, so we had to get up early the next morning to head to Burtibang. 

The 6am morning dawned much too quickly and we got chowmein rolls and samosas, before heading off on the bus to Burtibang in order to get the night bus to Kathmandu around midday. Charlie got her nose pierced and I got another ear piercing, although she had to get it pierced twice because they did it really low the first time. The night bus was pretty rough although Eli and I ended up getting the back row of seats once we had reached Pokhara, so I did get a bit of sleep, although I fell on the floor a few times. There was a goat on the floor underneath the seat in front which I felt a bit sorry for given the very bumpy bus journey (animals on buses are common in Nepal; I’ve also seen chickens) but it was quite strange having the goat there because when I woke up my hand was on the goat over the side of the seat and I thought the goat was Eli (he’d ended up sleeping on the floor). We arrived in to a foggy and polluted Kathmandu sunrise and went to the hotel that we’d booked which was quite fancy (it was called the Kathmandu Guest House, and apparently The Beatles stayed there once) where Charlie, Eli and I had the most amazing buffet breakfast I think I’ve ever had. There were cereals, so many choices of hot food including baked beans, toast, pastries and more food items that I have not set my eyes on the whole time that I’ve been here. We took advantage of that breakfast and we all ate loads (I think Eli had four breakfasts) and then relaxed for a while before going for a last wander around Kathmandu before I needed to take her to the airport. It was so great to have one of my best friends from the UK come and see what my life is like here, and saying goodbye was sad but it’s great knowing that she’s now seen Nepal and also met my friends here. We’ll be both going to Manchester to study next year so we’ll see a lot of each other next year, which I’m excited about. 

The final time with all the volunteers together before we all headed off to our projects was pretty great. Eli and I arrived to Pokhara from Kathmandu in the afternoon and we all went off to have a barbecue at the climbing place, where we’d gone climbing at the beginning of the holiday. The guy who runs it is French and is pretty cool; he’s built his own wall and house effectively, and lives there and invites people to climb. He had prepared some stuffed vegetables, rice, snacks and drinks for us all and we all turned up at 6.30 to hang out together. It was pretty amazing that we managed to get all the volunteers in one place (apart from Liam who we met later but was still in Pokhara because it was his mum’s last night in Nepal with him). Bethany had returned from the UK, finally fixed, three months later so all seventeen of us were in Pokhara on Nepali new year’s eve. Adelaide had to go into hospital that night because she’s been on and off ill the last six months because of a parasite, so she Stephie and Alannah headed off, but the rest of us went off to get ready for a night out. There were so many Nepali’s and other people on Lakeside to celebrate the new year; it was definitely the busiest I’d ever seen Lakeside, but it was nicer than usual because there were a lot of Nepali’s there and not only foreigners. We went to the bar we always end up at in Pokhara called “Busy Bee”, then Ashvi and I wandered off to the lake to find Eli, who’d met some cool Nepalis who we then spent quite a lot of the night with. One of them was actually from Uxbridge, which is really near to where I live, and had moved to the UK when he was quite young. His whole group of Nepali friends were a fun and after finding the rest of the Project Trust group in Busy Bee (it took a bit of time to round everyone up) we all went to sit by the lake. Having not drunk much alcohol in the whole time that we’ve been here in Nepal, everyone’s alcohol tolerance is rather low, so Kieran ended up having to be assisted home and Oscar ended up spending the night in the toilet (apparently quite a nice one) - we were actually quite worried about where Oscar had gone but luckily he turned up at 5 in the morning coming straight from the restaurant toilet. Eli and I went off to dance at the Busy Bee, but sadly in Nepal nothing is open past 2am, so we only got to dance for a little bit before the music being switched off (even on Nepali New Year this is the case!). After dancing on our way back to the hostel we ended up finding an American man who needed help because he had nowhere to stay; everything was fully booked because it was the Nepali New Year. We ended up wandering around with him and a drunk Nepali guy and I was dragging along his suitcase. We ended up wandering all over, only to find the guy a place on the floor on a mattress (for 2000 rupees!!) and the guys weren’t even the most pleasant of people. It was quite funny, however. 

The rest of Pokhara went by very quickly, with another day of relaxing followed by a murder mystery planned by the Pyuthan guys in the evening, then we said our goodbyes and Oscar and his mum, Kieran, Alix, Freya and some of Oscar’s family friends headed off on the jeep back to Burtibang. We stayed a night in Sneha, then the following day the others headed off to Dhorpatan to celebrate Oscar’s birthday and Ashvi and I headed back to the village, although we waited about 4 hours for the jeep and almost didn’t get it. Luckily, however, we managed to call and get it to wait for a few minutes whilst the rain poured down, and got a place to squeeze into with a few other people and lots of bags and things bought in Burtibang at the back boot of the jeep, behind the bars of the back of the jeep. As is normal with Nepali journeys, one woman ended up vomiting quite a few times very near me. We made it home in the end despite the uncomfortable journey, so all turned out okay. 

It was really nice just settling back into village life after Pokhara and cleaning up our room after having so many guests. We did some lesson planning, attended another first rice eating ceremony which we danced at, were invited to a wedding (which we decided against in the end because it was really rainy) and watched some films too (which I downloaded on Netflix before coming up to Harpe). School started back on the Monday, so we had a good amount of time to settle back into daily life. I also went to Burtibang with Anita because she didn’t want to go alone, and had a nice time teaching her some English - I’m going to try harder to teach her English this term - it felt good to do a little bit of teaching again leading up to the new school term. To finish off the time before school, we went down to Arnakot to celebrate Easter and do Easter related things. Ashvi and I had some good chats as we walked very slowly up the hill because it was so hot, and we met a cute Nepali woman along the way who found the way I said “yeah” very funny and kept repeating it. In Arnakot we did some slacklining (or watched Oscar succeed) on his slackline he’d got as a birthday present from the UK and we played some Easter related games such as throwing an egg (which splatted on Alix) and painting some eggs which we blew the yolk out of. We had some great laughs at the top point of Arnakot by the tower, and Alix and Freya also did us a great treasure hunt. We went home a day late because of the pouring rain on the Saturday, and I have to say, dealing with rubbish and cold weather is part of what being in Nepal is about. We all huddled in a room and watched “The Intouchables” which I really enjoyed (it’s about a relationship between a paraplegic and his carer). It was probably one of the most Easter-y Easter’s I’ve had, and it was good to spend some time with everyone before heading back to project to begin teaching. 

I only had a few days of teaching, however, before heading back to Pokhara. The first few days of teaching, as is always the case when you get back to something, were hard so I was glad to have a mini holiday to Pokhara again before I went back to school for the term. I went to Pokhara again for a final bit of holiday because Eli’s family had come to Nepal so I went to meet them there. It was great to meet his three younger sisters and parents, and despite the difficult jeep journey (when we got to Baglung there were rocks being pushed into the road so we had to wait for them to be cleared since that was the only way out). I got to Pokhara in the end and had a good few days doing things like swimming in the lake, eating nice food, going to see the sunrise at Sarangkot, celebrating Martha’s birthday (one of Eli’s sisters), climbing and visiting the church in Pokhara on the last day. For Martha’s birthday, the Nepali’s at the hotel prepared a birthday cake for when we got back after her birthday meal out, which was so lovely of them; it was definitely a special moment. It was a pretty crazy few days since it made me think of home and getting back a lot more; I feel like I’d not thought about my life and home in the UK too much before that, even with Charlie coming (since she fitted in so well with the group) but I think seeing Eli’s whole family made me think about mine. I’m really glad that I met his family, and it was a good little break doing something a bit different, and a bit closer to my old life. I managed to buy some books and resources to bring back to Harpe too, and one of the books in the jeep on the way back to Baglung I showed to a little kid, who was very cute. We went through some numbers and the pictures in the book. I stayed a night in Baglung by myself before going back because the night bus had already gone, so I ended up getting three beds, a shower room and a dal bhat to myself for under ten pounds. It was weird spending time by myself; I think that was the first night I’ve slept in a room by myself for the whole year; it makes me realise how much time I’ve spent with other people here. 

So much has gone on in the last few months, and I think I’ve covered most of it here, so if you got to this point, you’ve now got a good idea of what I’ve been up to. It’s actually been 9 months in Nepal now and therefore there are 3 months until my return to the UK. I’m starting to get fully back into term time now, and I feel ready to finish off this year with some good teaching and ramailo (fun) times with the other Project Trust volunteers. There have definitely been a lot of difficult times too, and I’m aware that a lot of the things covered here are very positive, but I think this whole year is about working through those times and making great memories despite any challenges that may come up. I’ve met some wonderful people, and have the next three months to continue to spend time with these people living in this beautiful village.

Below are some photos of the last few months - it is a very small selection and at some point I'll get the rest off everyone - my phone has died at great times which other people managed to capture. I'll make an album with and share it with you all at the end of the year and will maybe caption these photos at some point too. 

Thanks for reading! 

Lots of love to my family and friends x