Next day was another full on one, lots of meetings and
places to be and much hilarity to be had.
We started with another team meeting to work out our main priorities for the
coming quarter over breakfast, and from there headed out to our lunch spot at an
organisation that rescues women from trafficking, support and empowers them
and helps them to refocus on new skills like tourism, English skills, paralegal
skills ( to help other trafficking victims) and much more. I find the work of
this organisation truly inspiring and the ladies who we met here were great
fun.
'Stay positive and happy. Work hard and don't give up hope. Be open to criticism and keep learning. Surround yourself with happy, warm and genuine people.' - Tena Desae
We arrived and went straight into making momos – a
traditional steamed or fried dumpling type food eaten in Nepal. There were two
sorts – round or pasty shaped – all mine looked like blobs!
We rolled out the
dough into rounds then filled with a vegetable and spice mixture and packed into
the dough wrapper – the ladies were so talented at this and I was simply awful!
Simple veggies made the filling.
All mine looked like little lumpy blobs, luckily I had made a momo making
friend who kept coming to my rescue and subtly reshaping mine!
They were
steamed and we got a chance to try them, yum.
From here we had a traditional
Thali lunch – rice, lentil dahl, spinach, pickles, chutney, a couple of types
of curry – very nice and mixed flavours. Afterward we had a great a presentation
on their work with lots of good info, which was sure to leave people thinking
about trafficking and the good work of the NGO.
'Inspiration is one thing and you can't control it, but hard work is what keeps the ship moving. Good luck means, work hard. Keep up the good work.' - Kevin Eubanks
After this we moved on to another org whose focus was rescue
and rehabilitation from trafficking, they also had a few care homes and a
transit home for healing and rehabilitation / reintegration time. The staff
here were wonderful and had been involved in this field a long time. They
talked a little about the first rescue they did when they saved some children
from a circus and got chased with a pistol – they now leave the rescue part to
the authorities! The founder here had previously been a Gurkha and spent a lot
of time in the UK, he was a lovely warm man with a great sense of humour and
clearly a lot of stories to tell. The staff took us on to visit the homes and
they were really well run and great examples of healing places.
[In order to protect the identity and dignity of the children here I took no photos]
In order to get this organisation we picked up a taxi, the driver thought we
were tourists, but quickly learned that was not the case. We drove many, many
miles to find the organisation and really struggled with directions. My
colleague speaks pretty good Hindi and we were lucky she was able to
communicate with the driver – not so sure she was so lucky as he started to get
miffed about directions and then when we called the org told them off about
their directions! He insisted on waiting for us to take us back to town, which
was fine and we had a reasonable price negotiated. Then plans changed as we
discovered the homes we were visiting were a half hour drive, on bumpy roads,
and it was getting dark, and his engine fan wasn’t working – he went into a serious
meltdown and for some reason this gave us the giggles hugely, which likely
didn’t help the situation. We drove around down dark bumpy roads with the
irate driver for an hour or to the point where he stated ‘I will take you
here and then you are on your own’ (there was literally no way for us to get
back from where we were at that time and off the beaten track and we eventually
persuaded him to stay and wait for us) and we walked to the final place ahead of him driving us back to town.
"I'm a perfect example of the grumpy, old man. I'm really good at it." - Ned Beatty
We
eventually got back into town at 730pm ish, just before the driver and the car blew
a gasket! We were hoping to catch an NGO talk, but didn’t get the chance, but I
did briefly see my friend again before she headed off to HK, which was nice.
The day ended with us wandering around looking for winter coats, pictures and a
travel agent to firm up potential trips for me at the end of the few days.
After a final morning meeting with an interesting and
developing NGO we headed out and up a huge winding hill to the edges of the Shiva
Puri National Park to visit a school we have been supporting.
Imagine being educated amidst these views!
The school was
absolutely fabulous, especially considering how rural it is, great equipment ,
motivated teachers, nice environment, small classes, wonderful. We were greeted
here with a blessing and a scarf, which was a nice touch. And bade farewell with a short impromptu musical performance that the kids decided to share.
After a couple of
hours here we moved on to the hotel nestled in the hillside, with amazing views over Kathmandu Valley. This was a true treat at
the end of a busy week.
We finished up some site notes and planning for the
next quarter and had some final last meetings before a lovely Thali dinner and
some wine.
"When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator." - Mahatma Gandhi
