Category Archives: News

Happy New Year 2072 from Bhimphedi!

In early April in Nepal children finish the school course. Everyone, including those studying nursary make final exams. For one week students only go to school to make the daily exam. After finishing exams, holidays!

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Basu happy to be on holidays after scoring very good results in his class.

The Nepali new year begins in mid April. This year we start 2072, we celebrate it by eating chicken and and shrimp bread! And, of course, rice with lentils soup (no Nepalese is satisfied if he doesn’t eat Dalbat twice a day).

This year, all 28 children living at the Bhimphedi Children’s Home have passed the course. Everyone is very happy. Binita, one of the girls of the center, has been the first of the class (about 55 students), here they don’t care much about the marks but on the possition within the class.

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Binita, in holidays, cooking “rotis”.

Ashok S. is the only kid of the center who has finished class 10 this year, so he had to do SLC (very important exams for Nepalese students). To do this test Ashok moved to Hetauda for 10 days, living in the nearest town (they can not do the exam at the same school where they study). The results of these examinations will not be made public until the end of June, so Ashok has gone to Kathmandu to start a new stage in his life, now out of the children’s home. He has to think what to study, where to work, to meet interesting people who do interesting projects in the capital, and start making friends there; so Ashok will spend his holidays doing a course in EduLift (www.eduliftacademy.org) we will tell you how things are going for him!

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Ashok (left) leaving the children’s home to do the examinations after class 10 in the nearby city.

The other children, staff and volunteers of the center, we continue our daily life in Bhimphedi. One day we went to play cricket in Hetauda with children from other children’s homes, our kids were very confident about their victory, but after an hour and a half we were already out… “They were small but they were very good playing cricket!” say the our kids! “We do not ever play cricket and they had a lot of practice; we didn’t win because we have failed to make any point “balling” (no idea what balling means) and they have made twenty” they complain. And it is true, because since some weeks ago, the only sport they practice is basketball, but that we will explain in the next post!

We are also doing the usual work at the center, we collected all the potatoes and planted corn (lot’s of them for the animals and weat, and some to make pop-corn). We have also improved the entrance to the center, cleaned the water channel, cooked roti (a type of bread shaped crepe), practiced typing, planted trees and did other projects we will explain in future posts as well.

In early May the new year begins, here between course and course students don’t have very long vacation, but they do have, instead, many festive periods; in August nearly a month of holidays for monsoon, in October another month to celebrate Dashain and Tihar (most important festivals for Hindus), and many other festivities… I will keep telling you about many of them!

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Don’t worry, Manoj only has the bottle of beer on the hand to use it to flatten the mass of the “rotis”, what a chef!

 

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Some of the kids and staff cooking “rotis”.

 

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This group turn: helping in the kitchen garden.

 

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After recollecting the potatoes, it was time to plant the corn.

 

Mar in the Children’s Home

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!

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Working Teams

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.

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The begining of the channel, it was always a quagmire.
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The water now flowing under the path.
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The channel surrounding the onion field.
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The channel going to the third level of the kitchen garden.
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And finally surrounding the potato field.

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…

Internet at the Children’s Home – Second Part

Days pass and nobody calls us to go to Hetauda to buy the cable, phone and router. We begin to worry… But suddenly, a car stop at the entrance of the center, and two gentlemen say they have come to install the phone-line…

– But you bring the necessary equipment for installation – Ask a surprised Ram, the cook of the center.

– Oh, still haven’t you bought the cable? – asks an even more surprised technician.

– You told us you would call us so that we could go to Hetauda to buy everything you needed and then the technicians could come with us. – Assures Ram.

– How could we have called if we didn’t have any contact number on our papers? – Protest the technician.

– I gave my phone number – Ram answers.

There is nothing we can do now, maybe some other day we will be more successful… but at least we make the technician to tell us exactly what we need to install the phone-line: 120 meters of cable, a phone, a modem, a couple of line boxes (or something similar)…

– Sunday we will go buy everything! – Ram says.

– Uff, but we will not be able to come till next week, on Friday… – says the technician.

Ram protest a little bit. But I would be very happy if we get the internet connection next week…

On Sunday it rains, on Monday Ram has a meeting with “neighbours” (he lives on a mountain, in the middle of nowhere, I do not know who will show in this meeting…), Tuesday is a holiday, so on Wednesday we go to Hetauda to buy the cable…

After all the shopping we go to the office of Nepal Telecom to confirm that the technicians are coming this week. The bureau chief sees us there again and asks us if we have not yet Internet. “It can not be!” says flatly. And he asks for an explanation to the technician. The technician explains the misunderstanding, and says he will go on Friday to finalize the work. The boss asks “Why Friday? What work do you have to do tomorrow? Go tomorrow”, the technician says “Hunchha” (meaning “ok”), so he will come to install Internet tomorrow morning.

Friday morning the technicians come to install Internet.

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When they finish to connect the cable and equipment, we are asked to sign some papers, and then they will go to the office to activate the line. Signed, they leave, and after a while we have phone-line but no Internet… It was too good to be true…

After two weeks of repeatedly calling different employees of Nepal Telecom, ask a computer technician to try to solve the problem and even change the year, the head office of Nepal Telecom decides to send a technician “Thursday, Friday morning or Sunday. “Maybe someone will come Sunday, if we’re lucky…

Surprisingly on Friday they tell us that a technician is on the way! I just do not believe it until he reaches the center.

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After two hours, we have phone line and Internet. It seems that this 2015 will be a good year!

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The first website never opened in Bhimphedi Children’s Home.

From the Bhimphedi Children’s Home, through our new ADSL, Happy 2015 to everyone!

Santa Claus visits us

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.

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When the kids are around a fire, suddenly Santa Claus appears.
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Santa Claus walks around the center, talking with everyone.
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All the kids want a picture with him, as if he was a Bollywood star.

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!).

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Santa Claus gives a sweet cup to Maya.
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He has sweet cups for everyone.
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Smiles.

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.

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Bhimphedi Children’s Home Cinema.
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Some kids and Montse eating popcorn.

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.

Internet in the Children’s Home?

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…

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Nepali queue.
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In fact it’s quite entertaining.
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Office number 15. You can read in Nepali alphabet: “out side” ¿?
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On one of these piles will come our application…

The Paint Party Begins

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…).

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The volunteer kids painting the small kids’ room.
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Job finished.
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The quality control team: Beli didi, Sita and Kush. Also Som in the background checking his bed is ok.
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It seems that Manoj is happy with the result. Nice room!

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.

Medical check ups

Paula, a doctor volunteer of Amics del Nepal, arrives at Bhimphedi with two assistants, Susana and Anae, with the aim of doing 40 medical checks in two afternoons.

Just after arriving, they open their bags and prepare all the equipment to measure height, weight, arterial pressure, visual acuracy, heart auscultation, skin afections, check for louses… After some hours of hard work, the team has completed the job in just two days!

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Some kids in the line to have their medical check-up. Do they look worried?
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Susana introducing the results of a check-up to the database.
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Paula and Anae making the check-up to Ashish.

One kid shows an arrhythmia, but after some extra tests (in Hetauda and Kathmandu) everything looks good. He is now on the way back after a few days of “vacation” from school. No problem, he is very clever, so after a day or two he will be updated.

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In Hetauda, Eating a chocolate doughnut just before doing some medical tests for the arrithmia. Nobody seems very worried, so everything is going good.

Some other kids and staff showed some vision problems, so we will have to visit the ophthalmologist.