Nepali times

Over two months in Kathmandu....love hate relationship with this city, especially in the monsoon. Seems to make the streets extra busy, noisy, polluted and dirty. We did a count and counted 45 beeps of car and bike horns per minute. The last week the sun has started to shine in between the rain and its amazing how different things look in the sun. I was thinking that I'm not sure I can survive in this city for very long, but when I really think of some of the moments we have been having in the last 2 months, it drives me on.

One of the moments was seeing 2 of the street young people our project supported with their photography get their taxi driving licences. But actually yesterday I was even prouder I think. Going down to Pashupati which is the cremation site in Nepal and walking amongst the burning bodies, breathing in the smoke from the fires and getting covered in human ash, we found one of

the young people we have supported. There he was wading in the river with a shovel bringing up silt looking for the coins and jewellery fallen from the bodies into the river. He was working so hard in that river trying to provide for his wife and his two boys.

It was Teej yesterday so the temple was bursting with women, queues of thousands of women in red trailed back out of the temple and far down the road waiting to make an offering to god for a good future. As far I understand Teej (which I realise is very little), the women fast and go to temple wearing red which is a lucky colour and also the colour they wear on their marriage day. If they are married

they ask for a long future with a husband and if they are unmarried they ask for a good husband to come soon. To be a widow here is a terrible burden and can mean being a complete curse to others and leave many woman a complete outcast. I heard the government had tried a new scheme where men receive a payment to marry a widow, supposedly to try and stop women being outcasts and giving them another chance but women are uprising against this. The women waited in the queue for several hours in the heat and many spent the day dancing with fervour to the sounds of Nepali beats. It was a beautiful display of sisterhood.

Things have been so busy recently I haven't had much time to write or think or update my blog...hoping the reasons for this I can share soon. This morning though, I was so struck that I felt the need to reflect. We are staying in Boudha which is the Buddhist Tibetan area of the city. We stay next to a monastery and listen to the young monks practising the Tibetan horn (not sure how its called) which sounds a bit like someone learning digeridoo! Amongst the nice buildings is a shack at the bottom of the guest house where a family of 8 (at the last count) live and work. They take care of the street dog and its new puppy and prepare foods to sell from their street cart in the evening. At the end of the lane is a Tibetan lady who sets up her noodle stall every day and does a roaring trade with the locals who enjoy slurping the white slippery noodles from the small bowls. Behind the noodle lady is a wall which at first looked like a pile of rubbish but at closer inspection is a woman's home. She has attached a clear plastic sheet to the wall that makes up her little cocoon. Everyday I see her peaking out of her little cocoon with a lost face looking too frightened to come fully out, just her head watching the world go by. Once I heard her sobbing and the locals were laughing. I tried to think about why that might be before judging. This morning the sun was shining and I headed out my guest house past the monastery towards the noodle lady and there the lady under the plastic sheet was. Someone has given her a bright orange tent which was obviously used for trekking at some stage and she was sitting bolt upright in the entrance of the tent smiling and waiving at me. The smile could have finished me off, I hadn't even realised that she had noticed me before. Such a small act to create such a smile in a person and encourage them out of their little cocoons.

p.s I've being trying to upload some pics but the internet is too slow so it keeps failing so i'm giving up...will add more later