Well another two weeks has passed though as we haven't been on holiday it hasn't been that exciting. Though Gordon has finally found out how the disabled people's support system works in Nepal, and I think we can safely say "Not very well"!

The government has 7Million rupees to fund disabled welfare payments. There are about 25million people in Nepal and the UN estimate on numbers of disabled people is about 7% of the population as either disabled or partially disabled so about 1.5million people. So spreading the 7million rupees among them means they each get about 5rupees. That's about 3pence! A year! Bad enough but of course Nepal is nothing if not disorganised so they don't even know how many disabled people they have let alone where they are so they fund by district through committess and disabled people have to apply through their committee. They currently actually have about 4000 people registered as disabled - the lucky ones who've been told about the application forms and been through the process. They get about 300rupees a month - about £2.40. But the entertaining thing is that each of the 75 districts has to have a completely inclusive committee to administer the process so has to have a woman, a Dalit, a disabled person and every marginalised ethnic group you can think of represented so there are more people administering the system than there are benefiting from it! Gordon suggested that as there's only around 4000 he could just make a spreadsheet and they could manage it all from his office but his boss didn't think it was a very good idea!

Never mind, I have been doing some training out of Kathmandu and discovered that amzingly my boss has been listening to me! The last time we ran a training workshop I gave feedback that he spent too much time standing at the front of the class talking at them and he needed to get more interaction. I didn't think he ever listened to anything I said but this time he did quite a bit of group work with them so it was much better and made me feel great! Probably won't last long but I'll savour it for now!

Though they really wanted Marri - the other volunteer who works with my NGO - and me to be at their pre-Dashain party. It was at a luchtime and we had to come in from a VSO workshop in time for a 1230 start. They'd got some lunch delivered at about 1315 so we got called upstairs when it arrived and waited and waited for everyone else - time doesn't mean much here! When everyone did arrive we couldn't start eating. Oh no, everyone had to make a speech on how great it was all working together and what a fantastic Dashain festival we hoped everyone would have. And Nepal is very hierarchical so we started with the most junior member of staff and worked up to the bosses. And the more senior they are the more they will talk so by the last couple of people they were doing 20minute speeches! Of course all this time the food is congealing away and we're starving! When they'd finally finished we scoffed the (cold) food and b*****ed off! Not my idea of a party but very sweet of them anyway!

It is much cooler here now - still warm in the sun but definitely need a fleece or something in the evenings. But now the monsoon has finished no rain at all, just lovely blue skies and clear views of the Himalayas every evening - sorry, I know its rubbing it in. You can get your own back in December when we'll be missing central heating big time! And when load shedding - i.e. power cuts - are up to 60 hours a week!

Talking of load shedding Gordon learnt an entertaining lesson the other week: Don't start shaving your head during load shedding if you havn't charged your shaver! He got half way done and his shaver packed up and of course he couldn't recharge it. All was not lost as he used his standard razor but had a very shiny head for the day!

I have learnt about the Nepali attitude to holidays. I had taken off more than the official 5 days for the Deshain festival so wasn't due to start back till the following Wednesday when I found there was a staff meeting. Unusually this was in Nepali and there was one item where I thought that the boss was expressing disappointment that a couple of staff members took off the Monday without booking it in advance and was asking the others how to stop this happening in future. When I later read the minutes however I realised that every single one of the staff had failed to turn up on the Monday and when the boss arrived he couldn't get in as no-one was there with the keys. And the excuses were brilliant. One chap apparently had no clean clothes so had had to wash them on the Monday! One woman had to go to Hitauda, another city outside KTM, to get tikka i.e. a blessing. I was in stitches - only in Nepal.

Things you never hear in Nepal ;

"The bus is full" - there is always room for one more, on the roof, in the luggage rack......

Give Way - they drive worse than the French

"would you like fries with that?" - everything comes with bhat, and there's no MacDonalds!

Well, more hols next week so we'll have some more interesting photos after that.