Rory O'Reilly Hayes - Platform 2 Blog - Nepal (Sirutar)

Week One

Namaste! Hello from Nepal=)

Before I left England, I made sure I was fully read up on living conditions in Nepal, and also made sure I'd read blogs that previous volunteers had written. As such, I felt I was well prepared for what to expect when I began my ten weeks here. Still, the actual physical reality of stuff can be an experience, if not a surprise.

At my Connect day back in July, a girl who'd visited Nepal earlier this year told me the only problem amongst her group had been fractiousness and b****ing amongst volunteers. I was determined to not let that happen amongst my group, and as the oldest, sort of saw it as my responsibility to prevent it?

I needn't have worried though, as everyone on my team is brilliant. I could tell that from almost the moment we first met in Heathrow. Each person seems to be friendly, outgoing, interesting and a good laugh. I know it is only early days and we have to get on for 10 weeks but up till now it's been a pleasure to serve with these men! And women!

The flight to Kathmandu (via Delhi) from London was incident free and 3 free meals and Hollywood movies on mini screens in the seats in front helped the time fly by! Unfortunately I couldn't sleep and this would catch up with me later.

After exiting Kathmandu airport, we were immediately swamped with people trying to carry our bags or help in any way that would earn them a few rupees. An abrupt introduction to the poverty that a large number of people in Nepal live with.

I kept all my gear close by and battled my way through with some tough but fair rebuttals. I felt sorry for one lad who accepted some help and then had to beat a hasty retreat when his helper's mates wanted in!

Our supervisors in Nepal, Bal + Khem, took us from the airport to the Tibetan Inn Hotel for our 4 day in country orientation. Kathmandu was crazy, flimsy roads and mad traffic! People seem to use their beep as an indicator here! It really made me appreciate how good the roads in Britain are, this was absolute chaos!

The hotel was humble but I wasn't expecting the Ritz so it was easy settling in. After a quick scran I collapsed into a 12 hour catch up sleep.

The next day we began orientation. The lengthy discussions about rules and regulations became a bit monotonous, but I knew they had to follow procedure. We also had some discussions about culture, language, history, etc. Some of the facts about Nepals history were really interesting, but some of the facts about poverty, water sanitation and literacy were quite depressing.

We also had a laugh with our 'energizer', who helped break the ice amongst us even more with singing and daft games. Tons of fun.

Some people have struggled to adjust to the food here. It is generally spicy meats and alternating cycles of rice, potatoes and eggs. Doesn't sound that bad but when that is what gets served first thing in the morning, people are bound to struggle. So far I've been fine though, I'm a greedy git anyway!

As p2 had said would probably happen to us all at some point, I soon became ill. On the 2nd night, still being run down from missing a night's kip, I started feeling quite rough. I banged some paracetamol in me, got dosed up and got on with it. Can't really complain after a free flight to Nepal can ya?

Bal agreed to let us venture out on the 3rd night, as long as we returned by 8pm. Me and a few others stupidly got ourselves lost in a warren of streets and shops, and as monsoon rain hit us and the clock hit 730, we realized were up that creek without that paddle! We ended up in a battered Suzuki of a taxi trying to remember our way back, at one point ending up on the other side of Kathmandu. Luckily our taxi driver was a skilled carriageman, and despite a rough sounding cough and CRACKERS Nepali traffic in driving rain, he got us home just in time.

We really appreciated being let out to explore and would have felt really bad on Bal and P2 if we had have been late. It was daft of us to get ourselves lost despite several warnings prior to our leaving. A lucky escape and a valuable lesson learnt!

We visited Swayambhunath (known to tourists as monkey temple) on the 4th day. Although there were more stray dogs than monkeys I thought? Anyway it was great! You can't not have a good time when there's monkeys involved can you?

Yesterday we travelled to Sirutar to meet our host families. As lively as Kathmandu is, it was nice to get a bit more rural. Sirutar is a smattering of self built houses or various shapes and sizes, all nestled into acres and acres of striking green paddy fields. The colour of the fields and the views of the mountains in the distance are amazing!

Me and another lad, James, have been placed with the Shresta's. They are ridiculously welcoming and friendly. Dai (older brother), Bai (Younger Brother), older sister (Didi) and younger sister (Bhini) all speak really good English and put us at ease instantly. My younger sister was nicknamed Princess by a previous volunteer and it has stuck. she is the cutest little girl I have ever met and speaks and writes better English than I did at 7! the whole family is helping me and James learn Nepali. we are free to ask them to translate or give us the Nepali word for something whenever we please. I couldn't have asked for a better family!

Again, some people are struggling/moaning about cold showers and non flushing toilets (or in some cases no shower at all and a hole in the ground for a toilet), but at the end of the day that's what we signed up for! Can't complain when you have an opportunity like this.

Sleeping can be here rough with the heat, dogs barking, chickens kicking off etc, but again, nothing to worry about.

Work at the project site has been great, I was bursting to get into some hard graft after days in a classroom. we got straight into some hacking down of weeds and hedges to create room for some leveling, lovely stuff!

right I'm waffling now, I promise all my other blogs will be snappier! Haha. But in summary all I can say is I'm having a great time. lovely country, lovely people, lovely supervisors, great team, amazing host family. perfect!

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