Days at the children’s home

April 17th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kruithof

Namaste friends,

Dad pointed out a typo in my last journal (internet isn’t cheap in Thamel, so I just type fast and don’t bother proofing). All I eat is CARBS…not CARDS. Thanks Daddy.

Woke up last Wednesday and managed to get a hold of Mom on the phone. Don’t worry Mom, everything is going well here! Just because something’s different (poverty, dirt, culture, or otherwise) doesn’t means it’s bad, remember? I walked in to Thamel for our weekly volunteer meeting at the VSN office. One of the volunteers walked in with me because she was ill, so I dropped her off at the hotel so she could recover with a western toilet (!) We went over earthquake prepardness for the Children’s Homes at the meeting, but to be honest, this whole poorly constructed city would crumble to the ground in a pile of dusty red bricks if an earthquake hit (apparently Nepal is due for an earthquake around 7-8 on the richter scale once every forty years…and the last one was 1937 or so). Found out at the meeting that three of the volunteers have decided to come on the trek with me, which means there’s a group of five in total (including Mike and I), which is great. I visited a shop outside VSN which I plan to bring some things home from, and had chiyaa with the shop owner (he’s really friendly and it’s cool to be offered tea instead of having an agressive Nepali try to sell you everything in their store). Went to Raj’s office (the guide I’ve hired for the trek) and had more chiyaa there (Nepali milk tea is so good…I need to learn how to make it so I can teach Courntey and have her make it for me!! Hahah!)

I met a volunteer who had started with VSN a month before me and who had just returned from the Annapurna trek at the hotel and we caught a ride with the VSN jeep back to the Children’s home, where she had been volunteering before she took a break to trek. She’s a great girl and I’ve enjoyed working with her at the home so far, as well as the other volunteer who was already a the home. The three of us keep ourselves in good spirits.

Did I write about Nepali New Year in my last entry? Now I can’t remember, and I should have talked about that before talking about the meeting…I’ll finish this journal and then stick it in to the next one if I really didn’t mention it before.My brain is fried….it’s been a long day.

The next day, one of the other volunteers and I took two of the girls from the home to the dentist, which was a big open room with many dentist chairs in it full of young children. All the dentists appeared to be very young Nepali women. After finding out that I was going to be doing the suction while the young woman dug around in my kid’s absolutely rotted out tooth with no freezing (as if I was the hygeinist) I decided nothing better go seriously wrong with my teeth while I’m here. All the children’s teeth are actually quite disgraceful, as teeth brushing does not seem to be part of their daily routine (imagine what your teeth would look like if you made it to the age of 7 or 12 without ever brushing them). Dentists here are so cheap, but I don’t think you even get anesthetic for a root canal, so I don’t think it’s worth the deal.

Got to talk to Daddy today too which was wonderful, even though the phone cut out. It’s actually cheaper to call Canada from Nepal than it is to call a Nepali mobile phone (go figure). I watched the woman at the chiyaa pasal (tea shop) across the road from the children’s home squeeze pancake-like dough from her hand in a circle motion in to a bubbling pot of oil. “Donut” type shapes formed and fried in the oil. I tried one (like a deep fried ring of grainy dough) and it was quite good…but obviously so bad for me. You can’t get healthy snacks here. They just don’t exist. Forgot to mention that this morning I nearly wet myself trying to get to the charpi at 5am. You may think this is too much info, but you have to know this in order to understand the true experience of having no western toilet, and of your body still telling you after being here over 3 weeks: what the hell are you doing to me?

Ate my daal bhaat tonight and realized I’m starting to get a rice belly, even though I’m often accussed of not eating enough of my family’s food. I’m not so thrilled about this…but I guess it’s unavoidable (told you Brandin!) Then after dinner I watched my first Nepali movie with my family. I can’t even try to describe it….all I can say is that it was two dvd’s long, all in Nepali, and absolutely horrendous.

Next morning I got up around 5:30am and washed my clothes. I’ve resigned to the fact that my clothes have stains/dirt that will never come out with hand washing. At least they don’t smell after a wash. By the end of this trip I’m sure the clothes will be beyond wearable. I haven’t been truly clean since I got here anyway, so I guess it all fits the picture of Nepal

I found out the the kids won’t be enrolled back in school until we move to a new home (which has been the plan for a while, but hasn’t happened yet). I feel bad for them, because I think they like school and it may be quite a while until they move. Also, the new house has running water, and it’s getting hard to hear the kids say “pani chhaina” (no water), when you ask them if there is any water for them to drink. The other two volunteers and I (the third volunteer is still very sick and staying at the hotel in Thamel) went for a walk along the putrid river and we baked in the incredible heat and sucked back huge clouds of dust that stung your eyes as you walked (even with sunglasses on). At the end we actually got a COLD drink though, which is really a treat because of the lack of refrigeration here. All the Nepali patrons in the place we bought the drink started at us with no shame for the entire time it took us to finish them. I guess it’s not considered rude here…or maybe it is, and they just don’t care. White person, I guess. We got back to the home and made a twister board with the kids using crayons and a dirty white sheet. We haven’t told them the concept of the game yet, though.

I’ll leave it at that for now, since I’ve been on the internet too long and I’m hungry for dinner (right now I’m in Thamel, so the girls that I work with and I can get some good food).

Love and miss you all!