Written by Joana Alsina, volunteer of Bhimphedi Children’s Home from 4th May of 2016 to 30th August 2016

There is a place in the world that few mortals know and where only the privileged have been reached. The mountains guarding as it was a fortress are gray and inhospitable during the dry season, offering a lethargic panorama to anyone who walks there. Suddenly the sky becomes a party, and as a noisy alarm relives the mountains and fields, spreading slowly across a blanket of water. Within few days gray and brown turn to bright green, the streams begin to revive, fields of corn growing unstoppable inch per day and buds of the old caterpillars hatch to butterflies so spectacular that they might be confused with mythological animal.

There is a place in the world where there parsimony and improvisation, where timetables and plannings lose all validity, forcing outsiders to develop a sense of patience to a professional level. Ke garné!

In this place of bright colors, the hours pass peacefully and often too fast between tea and tea, surrounded by bollywoodians rhythms that flow from the radio at full sound and the smell of incense every morning to honor the infinite deities that take care of maintaining the harmony of the place.

Always with wet feet you walk through the fields or up the street among strong small men pushing heavy carts and goats that seem horses. The bus that carries the milk reaches and distributes its cargo to the women of the town, using the opportunity to chat about the news about other villagers, laughing and shouting with their characteristic endearing and stridency. On the other side of the street starts a parade of dozens of uniformed lads with miraculous white clothes way to school, and dozens of uniformed youth also carefully disheveled way to college.

There is a place in the world where teachers play truant more often than students and where every little event is reason for celebration. In the afternoon the students return home undoing their ties and pulling their shirts out of the clamp trousers. It’s time to go back with family. In this corner of the world there is the most numerous of all, a family where brothers and sisters are counted by dozens. His home is a temple in the middle of the valley, although you should not expect to find the mysticism and peace of a sacred place… nothing further from reality! When you enter this temple, often you can see some of the its young inhabitants hanging over ten meters high trees taking the tasty spring fruits or on roofs next to the water tank that needs a simple and temporary reparation. Yes, there is a place in the world where children run and jump and climb without the help of any adult and without any soft surface where to land safely on. They fall, and sometimes they get a scratch or hound, but nothing happens, on the contrary, because these young men and women adore everything that can be found in a simple medicine kit and the shock of the moment immediately becomes excitement with the first drop of Betadine and the smell of hand sanitizer.

Between laughter and shouts, brothers and sisters take care of each other with delicate words… or with a slap! Their relentless sincerity and spontaneity will make you feel the most special person in the universe or sink you into the cruelest misery. Nothing eludes these little beings!

You can find them all over the temple playing guitar, rehearsing the choreography of the latest megahit, practicing complicated magic tricks, cooking wild plants, planting pumpkins, helping to bring to the world small goats or building any new (and when I say any is any) device. The members of this particular family have infinite abilities. You can also see them with bored face in the study room, memorizing and repeating like parrots the lesson or in the most critical moments, laying on the floor with the head on the notebook sleeping. But if you really want to make sure to find them, look for a screen! Computers, phones, televisions… screen addition is the strongest of the pathologies that suffer these kids.

After much excitement it’s time to sleep. The amazing and loving mothers check that no clever kid goes to sleep without washing teeth, while elder boys gather with absolute secrecy to discuss which the most charming girl in school is. Then, very early, they fall asleep, in pairs, in threes under the fans of the hot room of the temple. Peace reign again for a few hours under the stunning starry sky of this village.

There is a place in the world that has a strange magic that prevents you from leaving it. A place where the emptiness that you feel when you are going from, can be only filled when one day, months later, you wake up and realize that all the memories are real, you were one of the few mortals who had the privilege of reaching Balmandir, Bhimphedi.

Article written by Tony Fibla (volunteer of Bhimphedi Children’s Home) published in three back covers of the magazine in Catalan: La Veu de Benicarló

 

First Part

After finishing the story of Manaslu now, as I promised you, I will explain the experience I had as a volunteer in an orphanage in Nepal, precisely in Bhimphedi Balmandir. “Balmandir” literally means temple of children, and is used sometimes in Nepal for the Children’s Homes or orphanages.

Bhimphedi is a small town 60 km south of Kathmandu, we could almost say it’s a village-street in the old way linking Kathmandu with India. After building the new road, far from the old path, this town is not living the brightest of its times.

The way to the capital town is not easy. Only jeeps dare to go through the dangerous road. When I was there another problem was added: the lack of petrol and gas. It turns out that because of political problems as a result of the new constitution in Nepal, India closed borders and fuel and gas supply was almost inexistent. The price of the fuel increased dramatically and the number of running vehicles dropped to almost zero. Queues to get some liters of petrol were very long, not to mention the huge queues to obtain a gas cylinder.

Lluc and I met with Dani, Catalan coordinator of Balmandir and Anna, in charge of the volunteers of the Association Amics del Nepal in Barcelona, who by chance was at that time also in Kathmandu. We took a reserved jeep where we traveled 8 volunteers, including parents Dani who had come to meet their son.

The journey takes three hours to cover the sixty kilometers. There are two possible tracks, one bad and the other one worse. On the way I had the time to explain to them my relationship with Nepal and the reason of my involvement as a volunteer in Amics del Nepal in Barcelona.

All of us we settled in a guest house near the Balmandir. There is a kitchen, a large living room and four nice rooms. All was good but Nepal we had no gas to cook. What do we have to do?

After leaving all our packs and choose our rooms we went to Balmandir where we were welcomed with a simple and beautiful welcome ceremony. Then we had the first contact with the children. There are thirty students of which four were girls. Were ages ranged from six to eighteen.

All children attend school. The elementary students attend to the community school where classes are taught in English. The secondary students attend to the public school, there is no other option for secondary in within Bhimphedi.

That time, between Dashain and Tihar festivals (the most important festivals of Nepal that we have discussed on other occasions), it was also holidays for the students

Dani told us that this year the studies were pretty bad because of all the national problems generated by the earthquake and blockade.

In the Children’s Home the earthquake had left a mark on the older building, but the other buildings are in good condition.

Luckily when the first earthquake happened, kids and staff of the children’s home were in the opening of the basketball court, outdoors with no buildings around. No, no one was hurt but all of them were scared by the big event.

 

Second Part

The schedule of the orphanage may be a little bit surprising for you: children get up at 6 in the morning, drink tea and study for an hour. At nine they eat rice (dalbhat they call it), we have talked enough about this meal in the stories of trekking. At 10 they attend to school. At noon again they come to the center eat something and go back to school until 4. They play for a while and about six and a half they eat the second plate of dalbhat. Then they study for another hour and at 9:30 all go to sleep.

During their stay, volunteers make all kinds of activities with kids: Help with the study time, games, trips, jobs, baths in the river, works of all kinds… But of course, in Nepal, time doesn’t flow at the same speed than here.

The orphanage has lands six buildings: one holds the dining room and kitchen, two blocks have the bedrooms, another the showers and services, still another for the library with a computer and finally the old building that currently is used only as a workshop because of the damages made by the earthquake. There is another structure with roof where kids can clean and dry their clothes (each child has to wash his own clothes, no washing machine here).

When cooking the dalbhat, there is always someone helping didis (“didi” means literally “elder sister”), who are women who are always ready: cooking, serving, helping on anything and often they play the role of mother, always with a smile.

In the rest of the compound we can see a football pitch (made by the kids: they took out the stones, leveled it, put the goals…).

There is also a farmyard with chickens, rabbits, ducks, goats and a buffalo that gives milk for all kids. Kush is the responsible for the animals, a charming 14 years boy. If he has some free time, he goes running and singing to watch the goats or buffaloes.

His twin brother, Lov, is a handyman. Always with a hammer and four nails in hand or with a saw or doing some carpentry works. Before finishing one work, he has already planed the next two.

When you start doing something, immediately you have three or four kids around kind to help.

 

Third Part

At that time they were making a fence to protect the kitchen garden from the goats. The doors had to be done. There Kul comes, a 18 years-old boy, serious, hard-working and good person, ready to do all the works. His head, at that time, was focused in the pond for ducks, though finally we have use it to make compost.

The kids also help to take care of the kitchen garden of the children’s home: onions, beans, spinach, beans, fodder for animals… it’s wonderful to eat what you grow!

Everything about drawing and decoration is work of our artist Ramesh. For magic tricks Rojan, a wonderful kid always ready to help. These are two very special kids, like many other in the home. I feel bad not being able to name them all for their qualities.

There are those who do not stop and are always asking you for something. Often you have to say no, but they never get tired of begging. It’s normal, they are kids.

Toys? What toys? They build their toys themselves. First they think what they want, then they build it, and finally they play. Simple. Three activities are much better than any toy. Cutting paperboard, using some plastic bottles, four pieces of wood, two bamboos, four pieces of paper… Their brain and hands never stop.

You could say, looking with our occidental eyes, that there is material scarcity. But seing the human quality of these kids, it makes you reconsider you much of what we do here, how we educate and how little value we give to things.

Problems? Of course there are. But everything is solved by good faith and understanding with each other.

We must also emphasize the solidarity between the elder and younger kids. How they help each other!

From these lines I want to thank all the children of Balmandir Bhimphedi: Jay, Anuj, Arati (Irati, tireless) Ashish, Ashok, Basu, Binita, Bipana, Bishnu, Bishwa, Kamal, Kiran, Manuj (the little mouse), Sushil, Raju (nonstop), Ramraj (Tiago), Ramesh II, Sanu, Saran, Sita, Som, Sujan, Sumit (always elegant) and the ones mentioned earlier. To all, thank you.

When I go there again, some will be already in other places and new small kids will be there. Life doesn’t stop.

I also want to thank everyone who helped somehow with Balmandir Bhimphedi through me: The schools Francesc Català of Benicarló and Jaime Sanz of Peníscola, Caixa Rural of Benicarló, Penya Setrill and many of my friends… Oh! And everyone who attended to the wedding of the century (Marta-Gyan) that came to Nepal loaded with clothes for the orphanage till we filled a jeep.

In October I will return to Nepal if anyone has any laptop that you are ready to donate, contact me.