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Belle's Tales.
So, the day finally came where I had to say some pretty emotional goodbyes. First on monday I said goodbye to my family, who are so very sweet and have taken very good care of me here, I will miss them alot. Laden with presents from one set of parents to another and Amaa had also bought me a huge bag of Chuira (beaten rice) and dal mhut to give to my family back home although i did tell her there were no guarentees I wouldn't eat it all before I got home. Pallavi also gave me some gifts and on sunday night we had a girlie night and she put mendhi on my hand. Apparently because my mendhi got darker the next day when I get married my husband will love me very much, but apparently because I also have a toe ring again my husband will love me very much??!!
Sorry to cut in but it is so noisy outside and I thought I'd share it with you while it is going on. I am kind of relieved to be coming home as things are getting restless here. There have been a few maoist marches and strikes and I got caught in one the other day with Carolyn. At the minute they are relatively peaceful just a huge mob chanting wearing t-shirts with the maoist leaders face and issuing loads of propoganda but its starting to get a little more uneasy. Today for example they are burning tyres in the roads again, any vehicles on the roads are getting stones thrown at them and so its not the safest time to try get around to do some sightseeing although it is relatively safe. They have planned to march, protest and strike for the next few days as a way of putting pressure on the government as the talks between the two parties are getting worse and close to break down again. With such an unstable political climate it is no wonder Nepal and its people live in such poverty.
Another thing I learned the other day, we were talking about the street children to new volunteers how not to buy them anything as they sell it back to shops to fund their drug addictions etc. when we discovered that they are no longer sniffing glue but the drug of choice these days is to buy shoe polish, squeeze it on to a piece of bread and eat it, basically ingesting poisen.... how do you help when they are solely fixed on getting their next lot of shoe polish?!
So back to the orphanage, I went back on tuesday during the day as it was the orphanage tour for the new volunteers and I of course was making GPPM look appealing and sussing out who I thought would be good for the boys. Then Rupa turned up and I knew it was time to leave as I was having my last dal bhat with her and her family that night. Having hugged all the boys bar one, Mingma I couldn't find him and he turned out to be downstairs crying. Now last year I was fine up until I saw mingma crying and this year it was the same, he was sobbing his wee heart out and that tugged on my tear ducts, which set another 2 boys off. I am glad Rupa was there to comfort the boys and remind me that we had to get going as it is very hard to walk away from crying boys, seeing how upset they are, but they know how much I care about them and that I love them to bits.
So next set of goodbyes was for Rupa and her family. we went to her house where Rupa spent the whole time running around crazy after me, in Nepali culture you treat your guests as a God so I was just getting in her way asking if I could help her with anything. Last year when I had dal bhat with her and amaa it was brilliant, although there was a powercut it was nice the 3 of us sitting on the floor in candlelight eating. This year though, amaa and Rupa have 5 other people staying with them and they only live in one room. Rusha, (say it as roosa) is the youngest and amaa's granddaughter, amaa calls Rusha her egg as she is so little and precious to her it is the cutest thing ever. She is such a friendly little girl and loves all the attention she was getting as Gita, Meena and another lady from the tailoring shop also came over to eat.
They had obviously went to a lot of trouble as we were eating meat and meat is very expensive so I appreciated the effort but would have been happy with whatever they gave me as I just wanted to spend some time with Rupa and amaa and everyone before I left. So there are lots of photos for you all to check out form last nights meal, it was so funny taking a photo of her brother and his wife he pulled ou0t two cushions to stand on so he would look taller. (Nepali people are quite small, I'm a giant in comparison!!) Everyone was laughing and teasing him after that, Rusha kept trying to gatecrash every photo and trying to feed me bits of her food!
However despite all the fun I couldn't escape the politics of orphanage life as I was handed Laxman's letter of resignation, he has no time for the boys and can't give anything (not exactly news to me). I took that opportunity to advise them to get rid of incompetent lazy Bishnu the vice chairman, who admitted that he went into the orphanage board as a business for him. Swine. So we had a bit of girl power going on but I had to re-state the fact that the board have to find funding soon and it cant come through me as donors will want to see nepali people attempting to help and not just foreign aid, that plus some formalities like budgets, proposals will help them to secure the funding they so desperately need.
Politics aside it was time for dal bhat and I was ready to burst by the time i finished eating, plus Rupa was getting a bit snap happy and its really hard to eat with your hand when she's trying to take a photo of it every 5 seconds! Amaa of course kept heaping food onto my plate until i was begging her to stop - she thought I was just being polite by refusing more food- but I was struggling and in nepali culture its rude not to finish all your food - Dad you should have tried that trick on me!- but amaa eventually realised I couldn't eat anymore and reluctantly put her ladle full of rice back into the pot. Then it was time to say goodbye again, and I'm really sad to be leaving my friends here but ke garne?
So today I'm doing some last minute running around dodging the baying maoist mobs and sorting out the possibility of providing eggs to Charity kids as a few are quite malnourished and it costs 5p per egg.....even as a struggling poor student I can afford that! So I'll love you and leave you although I'll see you all in the next few days... you can see my lovely tan form the baking sun haha!
Take care everyone and much love as always
Lauren
xxxxxxx
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