Holi, DVD players and Bahini Birthdays

First off, let me apologies for the long gap between posts. I have been sick for about two weeks now, but finally on the mend and back on the computer!

 

It seems like ages ago that we celebrated Holi, the festival of colours, which basically turns the whole country into one giant colourful water fight! I spent the day celebrating with my friends, throwing colour and water on everyone I passed and the volunteers ventured into town to play for themselves. It's a great festival and you really feel like the whole country is having one big party all together!

We're still in the middle of School holidays, following their exams and we will celebrate Nepali new year on the 14th, marking the start of 2071 in the Nepali calendar and the start of the new school year. Most of the schools will re-open on the or around the 20th. In the meantime, volunteers have been working at the Street Kids Center, trying to keep them entertained during the holidays (lots of crafts, football and trips to the park) and Asha Foundation, an orphanage in the hills.

Juan, our Spanish volunteer, recently brought the Street kids Center a new DVD player so that they could watch DVD's in English to help improve their language skills. Needless to say, this has been a great hit, and when the power has been on they have had a few 'cinema' afternoons. In their collection now they have Cars, Toy Story, Avatar and Monsters Ink!

Bahini celebrated their 10th birthday last weekend. I was so upset to have missed it, but because I was sick, I didn't want to pass it on to any of the girls, but it sounds like they had a fantastic day. They have all now moved into the eco village and are settling in well. Because there are over 80 girls there, and many of them may not even know their birthdays, once a year they have a celebration for everyone's birthday, which I think is a fantastic idea. It also celebrates the opening of Bahini and the great work they are continuing to do.

I am still getting ready for my Everest Base Camp trek, which is now only 3 weeks away (esk!). I've been doing Taebo three times a week, swimming and lots of lots of dog walks, hoping to improve my fitness before the trek. I have already raised a fair amount of money for the PoD Charity but am hoping to get a little bit more in the next few weeks. If your interested in following my progress you can see my donation page here.

If you would like to join us and volunteer in Nepal, then please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org

Shivaratri, Chicken Pox and the new Eco Village.

It's been another great week here in Nepal. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Marion who has been volunteering with us for the past 8 weeks but the same day we welcomed Julie so we're never sad for too long!

Before Marion left, we celebrated Shivaratri, which is the celebration of Lord Shiva's birthday. To celebrate, (and I'm not sure why, but) they heat up sugar canes in a big bonfire in the center of town and then smash them on the concrete, making the biggest sound making you thing explosions are going off all around. We joined in and brought a few sugar canes of our own before heading off to our favourite haunt, Silk Road.

Today I visited the SOS Bahini Village which is looking absolutely incredible and so close to completion. Raymond (the founder) thinks the girls should be in by the next 2 weeks which is fantastic news for everyone. As you know, the Bahini Cafe shut down a few months ago, but when they move into the Eco Village, they have a large kitchen where they will continue their bakery training, sell them at the village and also to local restaurants which means volunteers no longer need to survive without those incredible Brownies!! I was so impressed with the set up of the center, the houses are beautiful, they have a health center, a community room, tonnes of outdoor space, a basketball court, veggie patch, and everything made out of natural materials. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera up with me today, but I'll make sure to get some snaps for you all next time I'm up there.

Bahini Eco Village

The Street Kids are all still down with chicken pox - it is spreading quite quickly amongst them all. Because I am unsure whether or not I have had them before I haven't been up there for the past two weeks. I'm missing them a lot, but have been phoning regularly to check the kids are fine and to see if there's anything they need, hopefully I can start visiting again this week.

Schools are gearing up for their exams. The older kids have their SLC's (School Leavers Exams) soon and then it is a months holiday in April, I know the kids are really excited!

We are currently looking for volunteers to come in April to run extra curricular activates at SOS Bahini and the Street Kids Center. This could be any thing from English classes, sports, arts, dance, music etc. During the holidays, there isn't actually that much for the children to do, and a month of no structure or anything fun can be quite a hard time for them. Over the past few years, we have run a type of 'summer camp' at Bahini. Last year we had volunteers running conversational English classes and dance classes with the girls which they absolutely loved so we are hoping to do the same again this year! If you would like to join us in Nepal then please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org.

A short February Update

It's already mid February now - I've no idea where the time keeps going! It's been quite a quiet few weeks here in Pokhara. We've had the usual unplanned holidays (my favrouite last week was when all the schools shut for a day to worship the Goddess of Education!!! A little ironic I thought, but we had a nice day)

 

Me and Phil made all the donations from the PoD Charity last week and it's great to go to the placements now to see all the things we donated at work. Ward 6are enjoying playing outside on their new matt and the Street Kids are over the moon with their new inverter (and Ama is extremely happy with her new stove). Mark, a man I recently met who was actually volunteering in Chitwan also donated some new towels and sports equipment to the center as well so I'd like to say a huge thank you to him.

Early last week, I received a phone call from the Chairman of the Street Kids Center to inform me that Bidan, one of the children, was sick and suffering from Small Pox. A little worried, I started googling Small Pox and hoped that he had made a mistake, and actually meant Chicken Pox - which is in fact what it turned out to be. He was off school for about a week, but is doing better now, and none of the other children got infected. We asked them about chicken pox, some remembered having it but some didn't know whether or not they had it before. However, a few of our adult volunteers are now not going for a few weeks as they have never had the infection before and it is more serious in adults than children.

 

I'd also like to say a huge thank you to our current volunteer, Marion, who has very generously donated money to buy a carpet for Tika's room at Annapurna Primary School. The PoD Charity has already helped with the other two classrooms so it's great to be able to finish the school off. 

If you would like to join us and volunteer your time in Nepal, then please contact Gemma on gemma@podvounteer.org

Feb 2014 Charity Donations

This is a very happy blog post for me to be writing...!! I'm delighted to say that we in Nepal have received a rather large grant from the PoD Charity this month.

Currently the kids at Ward 6 are bringing their carpet out to sit on.

Once we heard this new, myself and Phil set about visiting all our placements to find our their current needs and wants. We then complied a list and emailed it back to the UK Head Office for them to look over and they have approved where we will spend the money.

We are going to continue to cover lunches for Annapurna Primary School and also provide stationery on an ongoing basis.

For Shree Krishna school we are giving a donation to buy sports equipment for the school. They currently don't have any equipment and therefore their P.E lessons are limited. Our volunteers take in badminton, football and cricket, but it will be great for them to have their own equipment so they can continue these lessons even when they do not have a volunteer.

At Asha, we have agreed to give a monthly donation to provide meat for all the children. They currently do not have enough money for meat (and believe me I can vouch for the fact that the cost of meat has double in the last few years!) and live soulely of the farmland that we rent for them. This way, they should get a meat dinner at least once a week!

We have also offered to run a training day for the Asha Foundation which will cover important topics such as sex education and careers guidance. The schools in Nepal do not cover sex education or women's health issues, but we think it is vital for all children to know how to properly take care of themselves, especially when we have a large group of male and female teenagers living under the same roof. We are yet to confirm a date for this but I will let you all know once it has been organise.

We will be buying a large outdoor mat for the kids at Ward 6. For those of you who have been there, will know that the center has a large outdoor area but there is no where for the kids to sit down and play (except for in the dirt or on the concrete), by providing a mat, we essentially will double the size of the center for the kids to play.

At Shree Pratbhat Primary School, we have agreed that we will give monthly donations to provide lunches and stationery and a one off cost to pay for a new carpet in the nursery. 95% of the children at Shree Prabhat are from the Dallit caste (untouchables), which means they are from the poorest families in Pokhara. The majority of the children turn up to school having not eaten anything and with no lunch, and will not eat until 8pm until the evening. I do not need to tell you how difficult it is to try and get the attention of a hungry child. This is vital for their education and development.

And finally, the Street Kids. We are currently providing 6,000 rupees a month to contribute to their food (meat, eggs, vegetables) costs, and I'm so excited to say that we are not able to double this and give them 12,000 a month!!!! There are 12 kids there, which if you've seen how much Nepali kids can eat amounts to a LOT of food!

We will also be providing them with a new stove, as the old one has pretty much had it, new kitchen utensils, new blankets (this was a last minute idea as I was there the other day when they were having a clean out and was horrified by the state of their blankets, I know I wouldn't wan to sleep with them so I don't see why they should!), new bed sheets and the thing I am most excited about an inverter (battery to power lights). Currently when the electric is off (which it is approximately 16 hours a day!), the kids have to use candles in the evenings which I personally think is extremely dangerous for a group of children to be responsible for. This inverter means that we can put a light in the bedrooms, the kitchen and the outside area where they all sit which will work even if there is no electricity. When I told Ashmita (the girl from the center) that I was brining an inverter round, she was SO excited went running to Ama (the mother) and said 'now I can read and study in the evenings, I am SO happy!'. This was music to my ears!

With the money that we currently have available it also means that for our monthly donations we can commit for the next two years which is absolutely incredible.

I would like to say a MASSIVE thank you to everyone involved in the PoD Charity. Bring 'on the ground' here I get to witness first hand how much of a difference this money will make, and it's true that a little goes a long way and there is always more that come be done. 

If you would like to help us continue this fantastic work then please follow this link to the PoD Charity page. Once again, a big thanks from myself and all the children who we work with in Pokhara. 

Trips to the park, Charity donations and Sweet Potatoes

Once again, the schools were shut for holidays last week so we spent most of our time keeping the children from the Street Kids Center entertained. If we don't go there, they literally have nothing to do, no space to play in, and nothing to play with, so it is in the holidays more than ever, that we need volunteers to keep the children going.We spent a few days in the center, doing arts and crafts, reading stories and just generally chatting and a few other days we took them out to the local parks to blow off some steam. It's great to get them out of the center and playing badminton, football or volleyball, watching the paragliders and just generally enjoying  the lake.

 

Last week we celebrated a small festival that I have to admit that I do not know anything about, except for the fact that on the day you have to eat sweet potato! (I apoligise, there are hundreds of festivals here so many of them I am still learning about!) One of our newest volunteers, Marion, also had a fantastic week when some local friends of hers took her to a festival where she ended up dancing on stage in front of approximately 5,000 people! I'm still waiting to get my hands on the photos, but she's definitely got some great stories to tell when she gets back to the UK.

We had some exciting news the other day, that the PoDCharity in Nepal has been given a rather large grant to help with out placements, which is absolutely fantastic news! So I have been busy, with Phil, visiting all the placements and discussing what their current needs and wants are to see how we can help out. I have sent our 'wishlist' back to the UK who are currently working through it to see what we can do best with the money. It also means that the monthly donations that we currently give can be continued at east for the next two years which is absolutely fantastic. Living in Nepal and working with these placements over the past two years, I can see how much of a positive impact this money has on the placements, and would like to thank everyone that has donated. We went to Annapurna School on Monday to give them their next three months donation of lunch money, which is vital for the kids, as the majority of them do not get given any breakfast or any pack lunch so their first meal of the day would be dinner at around 7pm.

Schools are now back, and we're getting back into a routine now. I'm looking forward to the next few months and hopefully welcoming many more volunteers to Pokhara.

If you would like to join us here in Nepal, please contact Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...

Me and Buttons on Christmas

We're now in the middle of winter in Nepal so it is getting pretty chilly here! You even need your coats on when your inside. Winter also means that we have seen a decrease in the amount of electricity and we are now power cuts of up to 14 hours a day which is always good fun. All past volunteers will tell you one of the most vital things you need to pack when coming to Nepal is a torch! I had a few weeks with no volunteers so it's great to have Orla with us here for the next two weeks (and the school and Street Kids are even happier than I am!), and a few new volunteers join us early in January which is brilliant. 

 

BJ and the dye

This week Orla has been busy working at Annapurna Primary School during the day and the Street Kids in the afternoons, and because on her induction day she found it so hard to choose between her placements, she's also been spending an hour in the afternoons (on her walk home) at Ward 6 day care center. We had a great afternoon at the Street Kids the other day, as we brought a Batik teacher to the Center who taught them all how to make batik paintings. Most of the kids opted to make Buddha's eye's which looked beautiful with all the different colours. Here's a few photos of the process, we're still waiting for the finished ones as they've been taken off to be ironed. We always love doing new things like this with the kids and it's great to see them get into it and learn a new skill.

Out in the sun to dry

We've also celebrated Christmas this week. Although a very small amount of the population is Christian, in Nepal they will celebrate everything!! The streets have been lined with flags, lights and Christmas trees and all the bars are blaring out Christmas tunes (we had a bit of a dance to 'Last Christmas' in Busy Bee the other night!). Orla spent Christmas day with Bindu and her family at the church service - a totally different Christmas than she has had before but it's sounds like they all had an excellent day dressed in their Sari's. And I spend the day with my partner, his family and some friends, kayaking, having a massage and enjoying a roast dinner at Moondance restaurant, I even managed to have Turkey for the first time ever in Nepal!

Happy New Year from Annapuran Primary School

After Christmas was over the whole town got  ready for the New Years Festival. The children will be at school throughout this as they do not have winter holidays which means we are still busy working in the schools, but the whole town turns into a week long street festival. We enjoyed the main night at the festival with Janice from the guest house and a few other local friends - a good night was had by all!

I'm looking forward to 2014, hopefully welcoming lots of new volunteers to Pokhara! If you would like to join us in Nepal, then please contact Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org. Happy New Year Everyone!!

Winter is coming...

So my last volunteers left about a week ago and I've now got about 3 weeks on my own. Which means, for once, it's actually been quite a quiet week. Everything (all the strikes) have settled down again since the elections, but we are still waiting for the results. The schools are open and running like normal, so I am spending my time helping out at Annapurna Primary School and the Street Kids Center in Lakeside.

The Bahini Eco village now

I'm sad to update you all that the Bahini Cafe closed for good this week. Due to their location they were not getting enough trade and losing too much money. Although the aim was never to earn a lot of money, it was to serve as a training center for young women and provide employment, but they were simply loosing too much. There are plans they may re-open in a different location at some point, but for now their focus is on the Eco-village, which is looking incredible, and nearly ready for the girls to move in to.

Another sad bit of information is that the Street Children may have lost one of their largest donors. The Center survives solely on donations, and although PoD give a monthly donation towards food from the PoD Charity, we are all worried that they will not have enough to continue in the future. Me and Phil visited the Center last week to make our donation for the next three months, but you'd be surprised how much rice these little fella's get through! I am starting to fund raise for my trek in April to Everest Base Camp and hope to get enough to help them out in some small way.

BJ tucking into his Dal Bhat at the Street Kids Center

In better news, Bindu is on the mend. She's been having regular check ups and is a little bit more mobile now and hopefully the caste will be off soon.

It is technically 'Winter' in Nepal now, but to me, it feels more like an English summer! But it's actually my favourite time of year, it is still warm in the day time and cool in the evening and the clear skies mean that we are seeing the mountains every day.

I'm looking forward to the next volunteers arriving in the next few weeks, every one has been asking me when my new friends are arriving!

If you would like to join me and the team in Nepal and volunteer your time here, then please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org