I thought I'd try to show you some pictures.. but I only managed to upload a couple (the internet is not cooperating today).
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The Stupa by night.
Voilà the table where we pretty much live (read, eat, sit, write, sit, drink tea, visit, sit..)
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Work
Time for an update! We have now been at work for almost a week, and have nearly gotten used to being covered in considerable amounts of spit, pee and the occasional dose of throw-up at the end of every day. As you can see, our daily routine has changed a bit since I last wrote, we are done with Nepali lessons in Jawalakhel and have started work in Jorpati.
As lovely as our job sounds, it’s a little exhausting. Six to eight physically and mentally disabled children are kept in one room all day, with, until now, one teacher and one didi (responsible for washing and cooking). Several of the children almost require one adult to watch them 100 % of the time; I have no idea how Mana, the teacher, managed by herself... I guess most of the children entertained themselves a lot of the time. One of our main goals for this year is to teach a couple of them to read – they have been capable of learning, but there has been noone with the time to teach them. Mana is excited about this, I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to work full-time with these children, seeing the potential and knowing she just can’t possibly meet all their needs; the widely varying diagnoses make it even more difficult to give each of them ideal treatment. For some of them, learning how to read and write will be absolutely crucial, possibly giving them a shot at a normal life.
Most of the others are less fortunate. According to Mana, many of them have improved their communication and cognitive skills a lot since they came to ABBS, but some still seem to be completely oblivious to the world. Sometimes I catch myself wondering what they might have been like, had they not been neglected and isolated for many years.. But this only makes me want to kick things, so I try to stay focused on the job we actually can do to help them now that they’re here. The sad truth is that there are still a lot of disabled children out there, with parents either not able or not willing to make the effort of bringing them to a center like ABBS. At the end of the day when the parents show up, we may cringe at how a father slings his blind daughter over his back like a sack of potatoes, and wonder what these kids really go home to. But the fact remains that this little group is priviledged.
On the not-so-depressing side, the tired feeling at the end of every day is a good, very satisfied tired. The kids are so happy to have us there, and those who don’t need constant attention (those able to feed themselves, walk and talk without danger of falling over) still very much want it. Playing games, reading (well, sort of) and running around in the sun is always popular, as well as turning the Hindi-music up till the walls shake and dancing (again.. sort of). :)
We are making good use of our limited Nepali at the center. Or should I say, parts of it. For instance, we are getting very good at phrases like, ”have you peed yet?”, "what color is your hair, do you remember?" not to mention ”be careful!”
Well, I must be getting back to the world (sigh). Right now I am floating in a sea of prayer flags on a rooftop, with the sun almost setting behind the stupa, and the distant sounds of talking, chanting, barking and hammering. Soon half the horizon will be taken up by the Himalayas... After a blog post, a bowl of soup and about 4 cups of tea here at Saturday cafe i can escape from the world no longer, and must go home to make dinner. :)
Sentence of the day:
”timilaai dukhkha laagyo?? (with emotion) ke bhayoooo??”
(Are you sad? What happened??)
As lovely as our job sounds, it’s a little exhausting. Six to eight physically and mentally disabled children are kept in one room all day, with, until now, one teacher and one didi (responsible for washing and cooking). Several of the children almost require one adult to watch them 100 % of the time; I have no idea how Mana, the teacher, managed by herself... I guess most of the children entertained themselves a lot of the time. One of our main goals for this year is to teach a couple of them to read – they have been capable of learning, but there has been noone with the time to teach them. Mana is excited about this, I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to work full-time with these children, seeing the potential and knowing she just can’t possibly meet all their needs; the widely varying diagnoses make it even more difficult to give each of them ideal treatment. For some of them, learning how to read and write will be absolutely crucial, possibly giving them a shot at a normal life.
Most of the others are less fortunate. According to Mana, many of them have improved their communication and cognitive skills a lot since they came to ABBS, but some still seem to be completely oblivious to the world. Sometimes I catch myself wondering what they might have been like, had they not been neglected and isolated for many years.. But this only makes me want to kick things, so I try to stay focused on the job we actually can do to help them now that they’re here. The sad truth is that there are still a lot of disabled children out there, with parents either not able or not willing to make the effort of bringing them to a center like ABBS. At the end of the day when the parents show up, we may cringe at how a father slings his blind daughter over his back like a sack of potatoes, and wonder what these kids really go home to. But the fact remains that this little group is priviledged.
On the not-so-depressing side, the tired feeling at the end of every day is a good, very satisfied tired. The kids are so happy to have us there, and those who don’t need constant attention (those able to feed themselves, walk and talk without danger of falling over) still very much want it. Playing games, reading (well, sort of) and running around in the sun is always popular, as well as turning the Hindi-music up till the walls shake and dancing (again.. sort of). :)
We are making good use of our limited Nepali at the center. Or should I say, parts of it. For instance, we are getting very good at phrases like, ”have you peed yet?”, "what color is your hair, do you remember?" not to mention ”be careful!”
Well, I must be getting back to the world (sigh). Right now I am floating in a sea of prayer flags on a rooftop, with the sun almost setting behind the stupa, and the distant sounds of talking, chanting, barking and hammering. Soon half the horizon will be taken up by the Himalayas... After a blog post, a bowl of soup and about 4 cups of tea here at Saturday cafe i can escape from the world no longer, and must go home to make dinner. :)
Sentence of the day:
”timilaai dukhkha laagyo?? (with emotion) ke bhayoooo??”
(Are you sad? What happened??)
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Everyday life
Today I thought I’d give you an idea of what our daily routine has become over the the past week or so. After the festival of Dashain (in a couple of weeks), we will start work, but until then our daily life will continue to go something like this.
The day begins, slowly but surely, at around 6 a.m, to the sounds of Kathmandu waking up. Some of these sounds are almost pleasant, laughing, talking, barking and bicycle bells. Others are less pleasant; the tearing down of our neighbor house comes to mind, as well as the incredible throat-clearing, slime-pulling, cough-spitting concerts. I believe it is the goal of certain neighbors to empty out the contents of their entire upper body through their mouth. This does not happen quietly.
Andrea gets up first at around 8, usually followed by Anna half an hour or so later. I bravely attempt to ignore the lively sounds right outside the window and have been known to doze as late as 9 a.m. A sleepy breakfast is then followed by a quiet morning of waking up, doing some laundry, cleaning, or reading on the roof. At about 11 it’s time to lock our two doors and one gate (security is good) and set out to attack the day’s busride (this is a separate chapter, more stories will follow in future episodes..).
Our Nepali lessons with Samjhana take place at the Norwegian House. This is a guest house not far from the old Norwegian School, and here they have saved quite a bit of the old furniture, books, and other equipment from destruction along with the school. :( Samjhana (an old Norwegian School staffer too) meets us at around 1-2 (you may have noticed that we don’t do exact time; Nepali time and Nepali traffic make this rather difficult), and for two enjoyable hours we sit and drink tea or ice water and talk Nepali culture and language.
Getting home in afternoon traffic doesn’t leave much time for post-Nepali lesson activities. Depending on what needs to be done, we go for a walk, get a snack, and do some errands on our way home. It gets dark quite suddenly between 6 and 6:30, and it’s usually very dark by the time we get home. If it’s one of our electricity-free evenings we spend a few stressful minutes knocking things over and stepping on eachother, trying to find the matchbox or a flashlight (as we rarely remember to leave them in their designated spots). Dinner, Nepalipractice, and tea make up our plan for most evenings. We always manage to fill the hours at home, and always seem to have things to do: writing the occasional letter, reading, visiting with our neighbor, watching a movie, taking in the laundry from the roof.. Somehow even sitting around doing nothing, talking about nothing in particular, and listening to music takes up a lot of time.
On Saturdays Sushma-didi comes, and we make yummi Nepali food with her. That is, she does most of it and makes it look very easy; she can make 3 different dishes in less time and making less of a mess than if I were to fry an egg. We ”help”, watch and entertain her by our less-than-perfect skills in the kitchen (and in Nepali), and then we all sit down for a fantastic lunch. Most of Sunday is spent attempting to copy Sushma’s performance of Saturday, with varying results. We have a bit of practice to do before we can reach her level of ease, not to mention her perpetual good mood while cooking...
Last Monday we spent the morning at one of the ABBS centers, to get an idea of what we will be doing. At this center there are around 30 children with 6 staff members, and one volunteer. For those of you who don’t know what this is: ABBS is short for ”Asha Bal Bikash Sewa”, which means ”Hope Children Development Service”. ABBS offers a rehabilitation program for children with disabilities and their families, and there are now three, soon to be four, centers in Nepal. Two of them are in Kathmandu: one in Jorpati (the smaller one, where we will be) and another in Lalitpur (where we visited). ABBS is run by HDCS (Human Development Community Service), a Christian Nepali NGO involved in health care, education, and community development.
Our first impression was that the staff at ABBS is nothing short of amazing; with limited resources, equipment and space they do a wonderful job with the children. It’s draining work, children officially up to age 16 (really up to 21) and challenged in many different ways are divided into groups of about 6, with one adult per group. It is apparent how devoted those who work there are to the children. And ABBS is an amazing offer when you consider the fact that a few years ago, children like these in Nepal were shut up and hidden away; seen as a disgrace to their family.
Well, I'd better stop this novel before it looks too long to be interesting!
If you want to read more about HDCS and ABBS: http://www.hdcsnepal.org/
Sentence of the day: "Aaja bihaan, maile chhaanamaa kitaab paDhe."
(This morning I read a book on the roof.)
The day begins, slowly but surely, at around 6 a.m, to the sounds of Kathmandu waking up. Some of these sounds are almost pleasant, laughing, talking, barking and bicycle bells. Others are less pleasant; the tearing down of our neighbor house comes to mind, as well as the incredible throat-clearing, slime-pulling, cough-spitting concerts. I believe it is the goal of certain neighbors to empty out the contents of their entire upper body through their mouth. This does not happen quietly.
Andrea gets up first at around 8, usually followed by Anna half an hour or so later. I bravely attempt to ignore the lively sounds right outside the window and have been known to doze as late as 9 a.m. A sleepy breakfast is then followed by a quiet morning of waking up, doing some laundry, cleaning, or reading on the roof. At about 11 it’s time to lock our two doors and one gate (security is good) and set out to attack the day’s busride (this is a separate chapter, more stories will follow in future episodes..).
Our Nepali lessons with Samjhana take place at the Norwegian House. This is a guest house not far from the old Norwegian School, and here they have saved quite a bit of the old furniture, books, and other equipment from destruction along with the school. :( Samjhana (an old Norwegian School staffer too) meets us at around 1-2 (you may have noticed that we don’t do exact time; Nepali time and Nepali traffic make this rather difficult), and for two enjoyable hours we sit and drink tea or ice water and talk Nepali culture and language.
Getting home in afternoon traffic doesn’t leave much time for post-Nepali lesson activities. Depending on what needs to be done, we go for a walk, get a snack, and do some errands on our way home. It gets dark quite suddenly between 6 and 6:30, and it’s usually very dark by the time we get home. If it’s one of our electricity-free evenings we spend a few stressful minutes knocking things over and stepping on eachother, trying to find the matchbox or a flashlight (as we rarely remember to leave them in their designated spots). Dinner, Nepalipractice, and tea make up our plan for most evenings. We always manage to fill the hours at home, and always seem to have things to do: writing the occasional letter, reading, visiting with our neighbor, watching a movie, taking in the laundry from the roof.. Somehow even sitting around doing nothing, talking about nothing in particular, and listening to music takes up a lot of time.
On Saturdays Sushma-didi comes, and we make yummi Nepali food with her. That is, she does most of it and makes it look very easy; she can make 3 different dishes in less time and making less of a mess than if I were to fry an egg. We ”help”, watch and entertain her by our less-than-perfect skills in the kitchen (and in Nepali), and then we all sit down for a fantastic lunch. Most of Sunday is spent attempting to copy Sushma’s performance of Saturday, with varying results. We have a bit of practice to do before we can reach her level of ease, not to mention her perpetual good mood while cooking...
Last Monday we spent the morning at one of the ABBS centers, to get an idea of what we will be doing. At this center there are around 30 children with 6 staff members, and one volunteer. For those of you who don’t know what this is: ABBS is short for ”Asha Bal Bikash Sewa”, which means ”Hope Children Development Service”. ABBS offers a rehabilitation program for children with disabilities and their families, and there are now three, soon to be four, centers in Nepal. Two of them are in Kathmandu: one in Jorpati (the smaller one, where we will be) and another in Lalitpur (where we visited). ABBS is run by HDCS (Human Development Community Service), a Christian Nepali NGO involved in health care, education, and community development.
Our first impression was that the staff at ABBS is nothing short of amazing; with limited resources, equipment and space they do a wonderful job with the children. It’s draining work, children officially up to age 16 (really up to 21) and challenged in many different ways are divided into groups of about 6, with one adult per group. It is apparent how devoted those who work there are to the children. And ABBS is an amazing offer when you consider the fact that a few years ago, children like these in Nepal were shut up and hidden away; seen as a disgrace to their family.
Well, I'd better stop this novel before it looks too long to be interesting!
If you want to read more about HDCS and ABBS: http://www.hdcsnepal.org/
Sentence of the day: "Aaja bihaan, maile chhaanamaa kitaab paDhe."
(This morning I read a book on the roof.)
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