So today is the six month anniversary of us arriving in Nepal. Sometimes it feels like no time at all and at others it seems like ages! A lot has happened and it still feels like an adventure - I suppose that's why we wanted to do this! We certainly don't have any regrets although there are things here that drive you mad - the traffic, noise, dirt, work quite often! etc but it still feels exciting and there is so much more for us still to see and do here.

Anyway, a load of volunteers went out last night to celebrate but poor Gordon missed out as he is in Nepal Gunj in the Terai with his colleague from the ministry. They've gone for 4 days for one meeting and its 40+C so I don't think G is very happy about it! He gets back on Sunday and next Tuesday is off to Biratnagar. Typical sn't it - 6 months not going out the vally and then two trips in just over a week! Biratnagar is also in the south and is right by where all the floods have been happening. I don't know if you've heard much about the flooding in Nepal but it is the Kosi river here too, i.e. the same one that's causing the problems in India but it started here about two weeks before iit did there. It is receding now and people are starting to return to their homes but G should be able to see a bit of the devastation when he flies in. It certainly brings home how vulnerable countries are here. One of the Australian volunteers who lives downstairs works for Save the Children and was out in the flood area for a couple of weeks delivering aid. She said it was just dreadful with people camped on the roadside as that was the only high ground. They have additional problems because all the snakes are trying to get to the high ground as well so loads of people are getting bitten! It doesn't rain but it pours as they say!

The floods have also taken out one power plant which means we are already at 31 hours of no electricity - load shedding - a week. The rumour is that in the winter it will be up to 80hours a week! Its worse in the winter as that is the dry season so the hydroelectric plants can't produce so much power. Its annoying at home without power in the evening but we can cope however work will really suffer. At the moment it is a blessing in disguise as a couple of hours without power three times a week means I can get them to have meetings which normally they wouldn't want to do, but 4 or 5 hours a day will be hard to manage! Maybe I'll just have to take lots of holidays!

Talking of holidays, we had the Teej festival last week. This is a festival for women where they have the privelidge of fasting in order to get long life for their husbands! I obviously did not join them in the fasting activity however they do have two days off work which they spend dancing. The men still have to work so I pointed out that we'd call this discrimination. My principles told me I should really work too so I compromised and took one afternoon to go and see the dancing but worked the second day. The men though I was very odd but I think they think that anyway!

But maybe I should have done the fasting as one of my female colleagues kindly told me that I had put on weight - she could tell apparently as I had a new chin! Great!! so I have started going running with G a couple of mornings a week.

Work has been OK recently. I am certainly busy enough. We had one success with achieving rights for the Dalits as there are one group called the Haliya who live in the far west. They have been bonded labour i.e. the whole family forced to work for virtually nothing because of some centuries old debt. My organisation has done a big push on protests and lobbying against this and finally last Sunday the government announced that they were free and their debt was cancelled. Its not the end of it as presumably their "owners" won't be happy and they have no means of income or anywhere to live, but its a start!

What else have we been up to? Our landlady invited us to dinner which was fun. We turned up after hash on a day that was apparently Fathers Day so the Didi who usually does their cooking had gone to see her uncle. Our landlady, Meena, was apologising as she had made the food and brought in lots of little snacks like spicy fish pieces, poppadoms, a peanut salad etc and then the lights went off for load shedding. The snacks were lovely and we assumed his would be it with the Didi away. We chatted away for a couple of hours by candle light, she'd even got some beer in, probably as they'd seen the number of bottles going out with our rubbish, and we were just thinking about thanking her and saying good night when the lights came back on and she says, now we will have dinner! So it was the full dahl baht experience with spiced spinach, a bean curry, chicken, potato curry, ............ fantastic but after two hours of snacks and not much appetite left quite hard eating enough not to offend!

The weather has changed again. We actually thought the monsoon might have been over at the start of the month as we had 3 days with no rain at all - the first time since May - but no, its all cranked up again with incredible thunderstorms every night and rain all night long, but clear days. In fact we've been able to see mountain views from the city eg the snowy peaks in the distance in the photo above. Just makes me really look forward to seeing them a bit closer up when we get off to Pokhara in three weeks!

Well, I can't think of any more for now. G can do the next update and tell you about his escapades around the country - there may well be more white silk pyjama stories so look out for that!