Category: friends

Hello to Everyone!

Well guys here is my last update to you before I start making my way home. As I am plagued with cold I have decided to head into the country tomorrow and away from Kathmandu in an attempt to relax and get rid of any last remaining germs and so this will be my last email to you all from Nepal and there is no Internet access in the countryside and my next email will be to my parents to say that i have arrived safely in Bangkok!

So this is a very odd time for me I am now up to the last few days of my trip and I do not feel how I thought would, though why this surprises me I am not sure as nothing here has been as I thought it would. I thought that I would be excited about leaving Thamel and excited about coming home, but also sad at leaving the last few other volunteers here, but I am not really any of these things. In fact I am damn right grumpy and niggled and I have no real concept of how I feel. I know that I want to come home and get on with my normal life, get back to a routine, a good job and my friends and family who I have missed desperately and will up until the second I see everyone, but aside from that it is hard to explain how I feel now and i am hoping that these last few days in the country will help me figure out a lot of this!

Let me start with the last day at the children’s home! Well I went in early having finished the kids room the night before and blew up a load of balloons so that they covered quite a bit of the floor and made sure that all the books and pens which I had brought over and begged borrowed and stolen from other people where put out and the room was presented well. I then went out and gave Mr. oli all of the food (ok food is a very lose description for the junk which I had brought them) and the cake, which I had made, he thought this was great and wanted to try the cake then and there. The only thing that managed to take the wind out of my sails was when he asked me to divide it equally amongst the children. So one hour later I had prepared 60 party food platters for the kids and was quite happy never to see another crisp or sweet again! I then preceded to give each child two balloons, a whistle and lolly, and this was quite amusing as apparently some of the children had not seen balloons before!! The only comparison I can draw to this is to put a puppy or a kitten out in the snow and watch how they react to the snow being on their feet!! So with Kids already hyper and all over the place we let them in for Tiffin – afternoon tea which of course was the party food. I do not think I have ever seen food go so quickly or a 5lb chocolate cake diminish so quickly but a good time was had by all. So I then presented the room to them and they really loved it and I am delighted to report that I am pleased with the way it came out (show you all pics when i come home). This was received with hugs and kisses from the teachers to me and a few tears here and there!! So After 6 weeks, a lot of heartache and one room later I went to say my good byes when mr.oli asked me if I would stay for another half an hour!! The kids had prepared some dancing for me to say thank you, which was really lovely – bless them all. So I then said my good byes which took another half an hour and left and whilst I was upset once I had left, I do not know how I feel about it all now and I hope that I will have a better understanding of what I think once I get home. All I know is that I already miss the kids and I will miss them even more once they are no longer up the road and that in leaving them I also leave a little bit of myself behind as I have fallen in love with them all!! Any further than that I could not tell you and I am afraid it will just have to be a case of watch this space!!

Now my time in Thamel is hollow and I suddenly realise how tired and fed up I am with all the noise, dirt and corruptness which exists within the country so I am headed back off into the countryside for some calm and peace and quiet before i head home properly. But I guess I have achieved what I set out to do and that was to help out and have some input into a children’s home. Whilst it was not the Julie Andrews experience I thought it would be (in fact more the Tarantino balls out blood and guts version!!) It has still be an emotional life changing experience and I hope in some ways there is a small happy ending for the kids there as well as me.

So my mind now returns to home…
Again I am nervous about this as home – the UK – now seems so foreign to me (whilst I know I will) I wonder how I will ever get used to the luxury which the U.K. is. I know for you at home this is an alien concept and you probably think I am nuts, but I have been paying an extra 100 rupees for a sandwich at a nice restaurant just so I can use their linen napkins and I have to say it is a real treat!! So to come home where people wish to know what Christmas presents I want is somewhat odd. For at the moment I feel I have no real needs and particularly when I think about all the nice things I will have access to when I get home – like English tea, real milk and HOT WATER !!! I just think it will be another culture shock and this is an odd feeling when after all I am coming home!

I sat last night is Sam’s bar (my favourite haunt) and tried to think how I felt about the whole experience and the conclusion I came to is at the moment there is no conclusion and maybe there never will be. Nepal is a country captured in beauty with perhaps some of the most ugly things I have ever seen. Two days ago I witnessed a man beat his wife (badly) in the street, Simon (one of the crew) stopped me from interceding and told me to look around at the locals – nobody even flinched!! He reminded me this is their world and not ours and sometimes you just have to accept that, to which my reply was a flood of tears. You see I do not understand how this country and its people can accept the way it exists. I wonder if maybe the fact they are surrounded by such beautiful scenery and exquisite nature means they are able to behave in a more despicable manner because it is soothed by their surroundings, or just simply they are ignorant to the fact that other human beings are beautiful too. I just know that as I write this to you all and try to explain it makes me cry and I am not sure if I cry for the children I have met, the people here or the conflicting warmth and coldness of the culture as a whole. But I know it will be a relief to come back amongst the people where good relationships are appreciated and the world is slightly more sympathetic to its weak. So have i had a good time in nepal – yes i have, have i liked everything – no, would i come back – i’ll get back to you on this – lets just see what conclusions i manage to draw….

So I will end my updates to you by saying thank you to you all. Thanks to all of you who helped in the fundraising that contributed to my getting here, thanks to those of you who have sent me fabulous emails (or two or three a day xxxxxxxxxxxxx) and thanks to you all for being my friends and making me realise what a lucky individual I am, I willing be thinking about you all over the next week or so as I am on my travels home to you all.

I love you all

Penn xxxxx

Hello All!

Well as usual i hope that everyone is well and that things are bright and cheery seeing as you have entered the christmas month at home!!! I can’t tell you what an odd concept that is to me here, that it is christmas at home here they have put soem lights up in the street but that is pretty much it! What with the warm days (nights are bloody cold now) and the running around christmas seems like a million miles away.

Well i really do not know what to tell you all it has been an odd few weeks. I am sorry that the emails have not come to you all a little more regularly. It would seem that there have been problems with emails getting to some people with hotmail accounts so i have been sending emails but i have no idea what is and is not getting there! so apologies if i seeem to have been ignoring you. Things here have been a little eratic as have my emotions and i have been popping in to send the odd mails but could not really face having to look at what i was doing or try to decipeher what i am feeling about the whole trip. It’s difficult as you feel like you should be grateful for being in a place such as this and savouring every moment but there have been times when i have been absolutely desperate to come home and have had enough of the hardship that Nepal presents both to myself and for its citizens. I really do not know how i will feel when i get home. I know that i will be glad to be back but as to whether or not i will miss it i do not know. I now it will be a shock to be back in the luxuries which are usually routine everyday things for me and i am a little nervous about how i will find it all.

SO where shall i start – lets start with the reason i am here – the shopping !!! No only joking my kids!
As you will see i have attached pictures for you
Green fingers – this is painting the kids hands so that they can make the leaf imprints on the wall
Finished wall – this is the picture i took of the kids when we showed them the first wall finsihed
Leafy Hands – a picture of me putting the kids hands prints on the tree
Green Olis – this is Mr oli (the homes cheif officer – real sweety ) and i after he has doen his hand print!

So the tree of life wall is done and i have to say that it was a lot of fun doing it. the kids were fascinated by the paint being put on their hands and it was bliss as i have not seem them so quiet and in awe before or after the event and believe me they are very manic and very noisy!! So 54 kids cames in had their hand painted and made their print o n the wall and then had their little hands washed all to produce the lovely tree!!

Now you would think that i came away elated after this day but oddly i did not. i came away feeling quite numb and a bit shocked really. At the time ( I am feeling fine now) i just felt dispondent and confused. I was thinking how on earth did i think painting one tree was going to help these kids!! I have found out alot about what the childrens future here and it is not necessarily good – some paretns will come out of prison and have no money so will sell their children to child labour, parents will also pay to have their children arrested as it is cheaper than trying to bring them up in this economical situation etc etc and i came away that day with a heavy heart and i felt like the merriment that day was so temporary and i would (still)like to be able to look at those children and tell them that in some way thinsg would be ok. Of course not all children will have a bad future but Nepal is so blooyd corrupt you just do not know what will happen!! There are now 53 kids at the home as little 3 year old Babita has gone back to her mother. But there was no joy when she left the home and you can see the question of “what will happen now” in everyones eyes. As some of you may be aware ;o) i am quite a forthright person and i found it so hard not to pin the mother down and ask her what she had planned for Babita… I feel fine now and i see that what little i can do here will help them in some way but i also feel that the little I have done is a drop in the ocean to what actually needs doing and i think this bit of sadness will remain with me forever and because of it i am changed – i could not tell you how i am changed just that i have been…

Being with these children makes you continually question yourself and your patience for the rest of the western world diminishes – it is hard to explain what happens here to a person who comes to stay here and to the poeple who live here and i will not say too much more other than i will try and convey as much as i can when i get home.

As the pressure has been getting a little much i have been trying to do as much with my weekend as possible to lift my spirits. This has included hiring a motorbike and driving out of Kathmandu now this may not seem likee much but here the traffic is nuts!! they drive in any directiion and make four lanes of taffic in a road that we would not considere driving down at home!! I went to the Ghatts where they hold the cremations and ok this sounds a little gloomy but in an odd way it is not they treat the person (body) beautifully and the whole death thing is not taboo here at all and it is not at all intimidating to watch.

This weekend i went up to Nhagakhort and stayed at the highest hotel in the world in the middle of the Himalayas and it was amazing. Apart from anything else it was just so nice to be out of all the dirt and noisee ( i have got used to the end of my nose being black with dust). Then add to the peace and quiet hot water!! Spectacular viewes and good company and you have one of the best weekends i have had since i have been here. On saturday mornign i hired a horse and rode around the mountains rodes watching the condors and looking at the stunning views. In the afternon we all sat n the ebalcony and watched the views and the susnet and talkede about our experiences. It really was lovely. The only down side to it all was having to come back into Thamel. Got back on Sunday evening and chucked a full on 5 year old temper tantrum at having to be back in this noisy, filth ridden corrupt town!! I know what you’re all thinking but really you try it!

So in a little under two weeks left here and by this time ei will be ready to come home thoroughly knackered minus a few pounds in weight oh and completely non smoking!!!! I think i will probably be back in the UK for the 22nd/23rd depedning on the flights etc so i will hope to see you in or around then some time!

Well i will leave you with that and try to send at least another two updates before i come home, i hope that you are all well and that you are enjoying thesee updates. As always i continue to miss you all and the things which you are all up to

Loving you all more each day

PEnn xxxx