CFFN (Canada Foundation for Nepal)

We are awake by 7AM for tea and a small snack. Gyanendra's father is busy thrashing the rice with the use of 4 oxen which trample the rice straw beating out the last of the stubborn rice grains still clinging to the stem. He laughs as he goes by me commenting that the life of a farmer allows no time for rest. How come he looks so happy?

We have dal bhat and say goodbye. It has been a great diversion from our trip back to Pokhara and Tineke and I would both love to return. The trek back to Naya Pul is spectacular in view. The day is overcast so it is not hot and perfect for walking. The mountains views are crystal clear but you can tell winter is on its way - they look cold and ready for snow. After about 3 hours we arrive at the roadhead and wait for our taxi to take us to Pokhara. On the way back I catch glimpses of the mottos written so carefully along the back of the public buses; GO SLOW - LIVE LONG being a classic but overshadowed by the occasional bus marked FEARLESS - but why would anyone climb aboard MY CELEBRATION OF DEATH? We let that one go ahead, far ahead. After arrival at the Snowland Hotel we shower and then head off to the Moondance restaurant for some hummus and white wine. It's been a great trip.

We are up at 6AM and packing as this is our day of departure. Manikula makes us some breakfast and tea and by 8 we are on our way. Megh goes with us part of the way as the path is wet and a bit dangerous so he stays with us through the worst parts. At one point he points to a path and says that it would be impossible for us to follow that route - it's the one we took yesterday.

It is a beautiful day for waking and within 2 hours we are sitting down at the guest house in Kusmi Sera and ordering soup. We walk up and down the street and, as with our Spring trip here, we provide the local entertainment. Tineke buys some bracelets including a set for the woman at the guest house who spontaneously bought her a set last Spring. Outside many young children gather around to look at us so I take all their pictures and show them. Then another group comes and they want their picture taken and that cycle continues on for awhile until our soup is ready.

The next stage of the trek is quite difficult so we decide to hire a local porter to carry the heaviest of our bags and this turns out to be the decision of the day as the heat and the climb are quite a challenge. Nevertheless the views are spectacular. Perhaps my memory is fading but I suspect that this view is as good at that from the famous Poon Hill - without the 300 tourists. Some of the jeepable roads are washed out but ironically this might be better for tourism as what remains is a very acceptable trekking trail.

After some time we finally arrive at Dhakalthar, a part of Amalchour VDC and Gyanendra's family house. On the way we meet countless relatives who come out to see Gyanendra. Everywhere people are working to get the rice harvest in. It is an intensive effort that goes on each day well past sundown.

Gyanendra's mother and father are very happy to see him and treat us like visiting royalty. Soon they have a big pot of water boiling for us to shower (we oblige) and have already "cooked" drinking water so that our sensitive internal plumbing doesn't get upset. We show the family pictures of what Gyanendra has been up to. His father is the Head Master of the local Higher Secondary School. Despite the high status what we see is just another farmer working at feeding the buffalo, cutting the rice and so on. For a snack he asks us if he would like some cucumber and then takes out the biggest cucumber I have ever seen - the size of a small pumpkin.

The farm has lemon trees with lemons the size of grapefruit. Lime trees as well. Gyanendra's mother makes us a snack which includes this special lime sauce she has made - tart and spicy but delicious. Later instead of traditional dal bhat we have the rice served as khir (a rice pudding made with buffalo milk) and that makes a wonderful difference.

We have a great chat with Gyanendra's father about traditional farming and the various technologies. He shows us the traditional pati container used for measuring amounts of rice or millet for sale. The container is made of thick brass and is very heavy and bears the stamp of the standards association marked as 1945 - but that would be Nepali 1945 (this year is 2060 ?) which would make the jar more than 115 years old and still in use.

Our last full day here. Tineke and Gyanendra put the finishing touches onto the design of the report card to go home with each child every month. While doing this another neighbour and his wife and daughter come to the house to use the phone. The man is clearly distraught. His son has been in Qtar for 3 years and the man is desperate to talk to him given yesterday's news. The connection is made but the man is too distraught to say more than "Namaste" to his son before handing the phone back to his wife. Tears run down his face. Mother and son talk for a long time - maybe 30 minutes which shocks me, thinking of the cost, but I'm told the price is as cheap as 1 rupee per minute so even here, where cash is so rare, it is affordable.

Later that morning after dal bhat we go to the school for our final visit. First we travel across the river to a small shop to buy some treats for the children and a snack for tomorrow's trek to Gyanendra's village. On my advice we take a "short cut" which is always an adventure and in this case is particularly steep. Also we end up at the river bank in a place where we have to wade across the river. In the distance we see the bridge that everyone else is using.

On the way up to the center Gyanendra gets engaged in a conversation with a fellow villager about what we are doing. The rumor is that this man is against the project and we want to know why. It become clear that in fact he is fully supportive of the child care center but does have a long standing feud with Megh over local politics. He assures us that despite his differences with Megh, he is 100% supportive of the center and will make sure his neighbors know this. This is nice to hear. At the school we hand out the treats and take many photos and then say goodbye.

There is a early morning phone call that wakes us up but since today we have a Board of Directors meeting we assume it is people phoning in to confirm the meeting time and place. It will be held at the standard meeting place which is nearby - a few hundred metres above Megh's  house. Tineke, Gyanendra and I show up at around 8AM and most of the members are there already. We wait a few minutes and then once everyone has arrived, Megh starts the meeting.

After introductions I speak and congratulate the Board for the fact that only 6 months after discussing the idea of a child care center they now have one up and running, have hired two teachers, have purchased a beautiful site, have a design for the building and have started to gather the basic building materials (stones for the structure and timber for the roof beams, doors and windows).  Board members ask us about the way the money we already have provided can be spent. Originally we suggested 50% be used for the building materials and 50% for preparing the land etc. The 50% is insufficient for the task so we approve that they can spend 100% of the funds on the building  For additional funding we ask that they prepare an estimate and submit that to us but we are open to an increase to get the center launched. Then I ask about the legal status of the land purchase (underway) and then start to talk about sustainability of the center after the three years we will support. We suggest adding an additional floor to the building to make the building now a multipurpose community center. Also we can house tourists/guests on the upper floor and this will provide additional funding. Once we begin to bring tourists into the region it opens the possibility of other sources of income such as guides and porters, "fooding", sale of handicrafts and perhaps a cultural show. The Board has already talked themselves about the value of a second floor so they agree and we look at a potential design of the building with this in mind. Several of the Board Members get heavily engaged in discussing how the construction can be done.

Tineke than talks about the school program, the over-expectations of parents for "results" from children 3 or 4 years old and the need for teacher training. She mentions how pleased we are with the teacher selection after having seen them in action several times. The Board has looked into the training available from Seto Guras in Baglung. They agree that the teachers will be trained according to the Seto Guras schedule. There are a few questions about the state of the toilet and access to drinking water at the existing temporary building. The Board agrees to all the necessary repairs and the meeting closes.

Later that morning Tineke, Gyanendra and I go to the school and Tineke and Gyanendra do an exercise with the felt board and the children jump right in. This is an amazingly versatile media; cheap and portable and endlessly extensible to whatever the teachers want to discuss. Tineke and Gyanendra do this for about 1 hour and maintain the children's concentration throughout.

Later that evening we are reminded about the veil of misfortune which seems to hang over these small villages. The phone call that woke us up was to inform Megh's  neighbour that his son had died as a result of an industrial accident in Dubai. Megh has one of the few phones and among his unassigned duties is to bring bad news to local families who have relatives abroad. Later the father of the victim shows up looking completely drained in order to talk to Megh about funeral arrangements. The phone rings all evening as the word spreads. In the Spring when we were here a local woman was electrocuted in a storm and the year before Megh's  daughter (the mother of the beautiful Susmita) died of complications after childbirth. All this in one small village. Of course no one mentioned any of this tragedy at the Board Meeting earlier this morning including the uncle of the victim who is a Board Member. Life is hard but it goes on.

Megh joins us for a long chat that evening that covers religion, politics, philosophy and the value of humility is daily affairs. He tells us about cleaning the toilets at the high school and sounds almost Ghandian. We have watched him doing field work and there is no question he is at home with an ashi cutting rice in the field as he is as head Master or representing the region in the ongoing constitutional talks.