Lokhanthali

Hello,

This will be a very quick post as I’m stealing the admin bloke’s computer at VSN headquarters. I didn’t expect to post a message for a week anyway so stop complaining, alright?

So…two days ago, I hopped on a plane from London to Doha. The flight was very cushty – loads of legroom, an empty seat beside me and my own little TV. I watched Spiderman 3 for the second time (it was just as crap as the first) before I realised I could have changed channel. I would have been annoyed except I rarely looked at the screen, instead captivated by a man with a flawlessly cubical head. Although he was mostly inanimate, I happily watched him for hours, wondering if the effect was a natural oddity or artificially created. I finally decided on the former, as I can’t imagine anybody requesting such a geometric phenomenon. Also, I don’t believe plastic surgeons carry rulers. Anyway, the hours flew by and before I knew it I was on the second leg. This wasn’t so nice. I was crowbarred into a child’s seat (in a vertical-brace position) next to a thin woman with a walnut-sized bladder. I think I hit my head around 25 times, but the whole thing’s a little hazy.

Finally, I landed in Kathmandu and greeted programme-leader Sugandha and his (mute) wife. Judging by the look I received, greeting women is a terrible faux-pas, and not to be attempted! They took me to a family home in Lokhanthali (in the Kathmandu valley) who are very nice but whose names are too complicated to recall here. I greeted the father, uncle and son (duly ignoring the mother and daughter) and sat down for a meal of rice, dhal and potato. Then, as I hadn’t slept on either flight (damn that man’s fascinating head) I went to beddy-byes.

I woke up and for breakfast I had…rice, dhal and potato. Apparently I should expect this – daalbhat, twice a day at 9am and 8.30pm. That’s nearly twelve-hours between meals! For 6 weeks! A woman called Milan popped over to give me some English lessons then I insisted that I took her out for a rice-less lunch (already I’m dreading tonight’s meal). As it is illegal to eat beef, or even stroke, gaze at or stop a cow destroying your motorbike (those crazy Hindus!), they have a lovely meaty substitute. Buffalo! I had it in little pasta parcels and it was yummy. Buffalo!

Then I came here, nicked a bloke’s computer for “two minutes, I promise” and typed this. Sorry if it seems a little rushed but I’ll post again soon! I start proper stuff on Sunday (alternating between working in an orphanage and teaching English in a monastery) so I’ll wait until after that.

Take care,
Joe x

PS. Anyone else know there were chimpanzees all over Kathmandu?

Eng-er-land

Morning all,

Thankyou for signing up to the blog, cunningly designed to save me hours of painstaking emails, letters and phone calls (sorry mum; speak to you in February). I hope you enjoy the forthcoming tales of my epic misadventures in dramatic third-world places. Next week…orientation. Hurrah!

Right, well I haven’t actually left yet. I’m about to do some last minute repacking, having forgotten all my vital medication, and I fly from Heathrow late this evening. I have a short and thirsty stopover in Doha, Qatar (thirsty as I have zero local currency) before flying to Kathmandu. I'm due to arrive at 3.40pm local time tomorrow – which, rather bizarrely, is 10.55am in Blighty – to be met by a Nepalese man with an amusing hairdo. That’s essentially as far as my research has taken me: I think I might be doing some teaching or building or something, I don’t know…

I’ll inform everyone when I post my next, lengthier entry via the omnipresence of Facebook (see left, below my writerly pose, down, down…) This will be in approximately one week’s time – assuming that the orphanage meets my demand of 24 meg broadband – so you shall hear from me then.

All the best,
Joe x