Back on Line

Is anybody out there?  It seems an eternity since our last blog.  We are in Nepalgunj in a hotel, waiting till our taxi comes to take us to the airport here.  It is a crusty, filthy place and I am glad we are only waiting for a domestic flight, so we won't have to be there too long.  But let's g back 10 days.  After arriving here, we have a two hour winding trip around mountain sides on narrow roads to Chinchiu.  Saw many buses loaded with people, come on top, or hanging off the sides.  The countryside is very dry as it is the end of the season before the big wet.   We arrived in Chinchiu with Agnes, Grahame . Raju, his wife and daughter and Lalima, the principal of the school in Kathmandu, and me.  Raju had booked the hotel, but when we got there, a group of police wanted to stay, so they just took the rooms they wanted.  So Grahame and I had one room, Agnes and Lalima had a room each.  "Cell" would be more appropriate.  Our room wasn't too bad but the single rooms had one bed and a tiny toilet and shower, no window; just an opening above the door.  Mind you having a window did have it's drawbacks.  Grahame and I were sitting on the bed talking, when a family arrived at the door.  Mum, dad, grandma, and three snotty kids.  They just stood at the door, staring.  We tried to ask what they wanted.  No response, just staring.  Finally, we just shut the door thinking that would be the end of it.  The window we had in the room had no glass, just a wrought iron security bars.  So the family promptly came around to the window.  Six pairs of eyes staring.  Felt like a monkey in the zoo.  There were wooden shutters of the inside.  It was boiling hot, and the power wasn't on, so we couldn't use the fan, so we had to shut them to get a little privacy.  Raju and his family stayed in the hostel that has just been completed.  There was no hot water.  We went for breakfast the next morning.  It was an outdoor kitchen.  They had little balls of dough ready to  cook into flat bread.  You could have mistaken it for sultana bread and all the flies were happily dusting off their feet on the dough.  For once, I was glad I am a coeliac.  The food was dreadful.  The safest option was two hard boiled eggs in the shell.  After 3 nights in the best hotel in town (it is) we also moved up to the hostel.  It has just been completed,  The children from the old hostel (it is really a hovel) have been waiting for two years for it to be completed, and they so graciously allowed us to be the first tenants.  They gave us their beds so wilingly.   We have so much to learn from these beautiful people.  I never cease to be amazed at their humility.  More to come

Robyn