A few words from Mar, a volunteer of Amics del Nepal in Bhimphedi

Once upon a time there was a little girl who wanted to know Nepal, it was her dream. When it came the time, she traveled again next to the window of the plane.
The impact was such that nothing it would never be like before.
After doing a bit of tourism in the country with two friends… she was all alone again. Again, but this time with fever. This time it was not in a tropical country, it was far away from paradise. This time she wanted to leave and go back home. A new kind of feeling.
But then, she arrived to Balmandir, “the temple of the children”. The objective was to cooperate helping 30 children of all ages, abandoned by their parents. What she did not know was that they will save her.

A month in Bhimphedi (a remote village in a hidden valley and away from the crowded Kathmandu) and it seems like I arrived here last week … when you are comfortable in a place, time flies. In Balmandir (Temple of Children in Nepalese) there is no time for boring, there is always something to do; crafts with children, helping in the garden, peel vegetables with “Didi”, playing volleyball with the oldest children, build a water channel, studying in the library, make games, hiking in the river…
I have traveled all over Asia, but there is nothing like Nepal. Struck me from the beginning and now nothing will ever be the same.

I leave you some pictures of these unforgettable days of winter!

In Nepal Saturday is the only day off. But do not think that this makes the children to go to school more often or the offices to open more days than in other countries, on the contrary, there is always a good reason to take a holiday: a festival, a general strike, a competition sports, holding a summit…

Nepal is a relatively small country, it hardly reaches 30 million people, but it has a huge cultural diversity. To give you an idea of that diversity I speak, in the census was in 2011, it was determined that there were in Nepal 123 different languages as first language. You can also observe the various factions of the inhabitants, some Mongolians and other Indian… To respect this diversity of cultures in the Nepali calendar there is a long list of public holidays. Most festivals are celebrated only by one of the ethnic groups, and if you ask someone of another ethnicity he will most probably do not know the name of the festival, but anyway the schools and offices close.

So the mornings the children are not in school, we split into groups and each group is responsible for the cleaning and improvement of a different area of the children’s home. Last week the kids have had three free days: a festival and two strikes, so we have been able to do some work: improvement in the area of waste, cleaning of plastic and herbs, stones removal of the playing area, and the biggest challenge: creating a super-channel to carry the water from kitchen and sinks for washing clothes and hands until the end of the garden.

Till now every day there was a pool in the garden area and mud was made on the toilets’ way, we hope that it will work, at least for a while…

Miguel and Montse from Petit Món have come to visit the Bhimphedi Children’s Home. Petit Món is a Catalan Foundation, it has a Children’s Home in Jorpati, Kathmandu, called “Sano Sansar” among many other projects. It makes us very happy that they could finally come to visit us, but they brought still another surprise. At night, Miguel becomes Santa Claus! Although Nepal doesn’t celebrate Christmas that much, everyone recognizes the character at first glance and in a second the entire center is upsite down. Children come from everywhere, running with a huge smile on their face, to meet Santa Claus.

Once we are all in the room, Santa Claus takes out of his bag plenty of paper cups containing candies for all boys, girls, didi and volunteers. There are of all flavours and even some chocolate! This gift was prepared by the Seolmi, a Korean girl living in Nepal (Thank you!).

Finally, when everyone has his candy cup. Santa Claus takes out a final gift from his sack: A projector! (donated by Andrea and Jordi from Terrassa). There is a ovation in the room. But just when the ovation is over, younger children ask older children in nepali “What is a projector?”, when the big boys explain, the second ovation comes, louder than the first.

Just after few minutes, the projector is already working to show “Chicken Run”, although the sound is not very good. But no matter, no child misses the first film of the new cinema. They don’t look away from the screen (a bedsheet) until the popcorn comes.

A few days later the projector has a good sound system and it’s ready to project television, DVD, flash drive… From now, every Saturday, the only holiday of the week in Nepal (apart from a infinite number of festivals and holidays), we will watch a movie as if we were in the cinema.

To be able to update this blog and have good communication with the office of Amics del Nepal Kathmandu and Barcelona, we decided to get a phone line and Internet in the Children’s Home. This sounds to me like a new adventure!

Ram (the super-cook), Papu, Edu and Daniel (myself) go to Hetauda with infinit determination. First minute in Nepal Telecom and we realize we have done a big mistake, on Sundays (not holiday in Nepal, only Saturdays) the Internet office close at two. We have to go fast!  Let’s see…

First lead to the office number 10. We fill a form, give a photocopy of Nepali ID, passport photograph, fingerprints… and they tell us to go to the office number 9, then the office number 15, then 11, then to pay in the counter, and come back to the office number 10. Easy? Well, this was only the begining…  After visiting 6 or 7 different offices 4 or 5 times, they tell us it’s enough for today. In five days they will call us and then we will have to go Hetauda again to buy telephone cable, a phone set, a router and pay the first month internet service.  Then the technicians will come with us to Bhimphedi to make the installation. Sounds relatively simple… we will see…

Noooo! We have a small attack of “Urush” (a type of bug) in the girls room. Immediately girls change of room and we disinfect the chamber. Good opportunity to paint the room! And we will also paint the small kids room, it has been already 3 years since we last painted it, so it’s time to do it again. Children say that the “painting party” begins! Fortunately, Arun, one of the kids who left the center a couple of years ago, currently studying class 12 in Hetauda, will come on Saturdays to help us paint (he worked last year painting walls, so he is an expert) .

It certainly end up being “painting party”. Some of the older boys, Sujan, Jay (now he claims his name is Anish… here in Nepal some kids change their name before class 10, it’s very confusing … ), Papu and Ashok join to the painting team with Arun. In two days both rooms are clean and well painted. They look so good now! The small boys room smells so good now that even Tomi, one of the dogs of the center, when noone is looking, sneaks in to the room to make a nap (but he gets scolded, so he may not repeat…).

Edu, a volunteer from Barcelona, has brought four top quality bed covers. Great! Some of the small kids some times pees in the bed. We tryed to put some plastic covers but the small kids didn’t like them, so in the middle of the night they used to take them out of the bed.  And then, Beli didi had to clean everything every morning. The new covers absorb pee so everyone is very happy, children and didi.

Now all the kids want their room painted… “bistarai, bistarai” (slowly, slowly) we tell them.