30 November 2008
Dear all,
It’s time to give you some news ! As the connection here is extremely slow, I write you from my laptop at “home” and will then send the file, if there is electricity and if the modem works, which are two conditions which are rarely fullfilled!!!!
The trek in the Himalayas was absolutely amazing although very tough. I didn’t manage to go to the summit : at about 6000m, I started to suffocate so much that I decided to go down before it was too late! I don’t really understand why I was like that as I didn’t suffer from any other symptoms of altitude sickness: no nausea, no headache. And I even slept quite well the night before the climb! Anyway, despite I was of course quite disappointed, the summit was not necessarily the highlight of the trek. The days after were absolutely awesome with surreal landscapes, in complete wilderness: whereas the beginning of the trek was quite busy, we didn’t meet many other trekkers during the few days after the summit as we took a more original and more difficult route. We stayed indeed for a few days above 5000m and it was very tiring. On top of that, we had to pass the 2nd most difficult col in Nepal, at almost 5900m. That was quite tough but surely the crasiest and probably the most beautiful part. You’ll see yourselves on my pics the magnificience of the scenery ... when I will be able to put them on line! ;-)
After 15 days of tough trekking, I was happy to spend two days in a very luxuous hotel and be able to take nice hot showers, sleep in a good bed and do all my laundry in hot water, before going to Jhyanglang (the village where I’ll be teaching) where I had no idea what to expect in terms of comfort (although I knew it would be quite low)....
After a very unconfortable 6 hour bus trip on a terrible unsealed road, we arrived in Rasuwa, a province north of Kathmandu, at the tibetan border, only 100 kms away!!! Then, another 30 min walk on a steep mountainous path to arrive in Jhyanlang where what I found was beyond I could imagine! Below is a picture of the house of Hari’s family who warmly welcomes me. Hari is the general secretary of Porters’ Progress Nepal, the NGO fo which I work, and mainly lives in Kathmandu because of his job. However, as it’s the off peak season for trekking at the moment, he could take one week off and luckily came with me here. Anyway, that would have been impossible without him as people don’t speak much English so I wouldn’t have been able to organise all the teaching classes myself. I will miss him when he will leave Wednesday, as he is the only one with whom I can have a decent conversation (except of course with Pierrick on the phone!). And he knows so many things about his country, it’s fascinating!
Here is a picture of the house :
My bed (well, just a wooden board with a pillow... luckily, I have my camping mattress!) is on the first floor, in the left corner, so not really inside as there are no walls, just a roof. But everybody here sleeps “outside”!
And below is a picture of the unique room, which is an extremely basic kitchen (only a fire place and a few shelves with plates and cups) and as the same time a huge table as you eat with your hands (well, I should rather say with your right hand), while sitting on the floor. But believe it or not, the place around the fire place is slightly higher and is called the high table!!! But being a Cambridge fellow doesn’t help here ;-) ... it’s reserved for the elderly people, i.e. the father and the mother of Hari, and Hari’s wife when she cooks. The analogy with Cambridge colleges stops here: the “table” (ie the whole floor!) is cleaned after each meal with cow dung!!!
There are two meals per day and they are the same morning and evening, every day of the week: rice with vegetable curry (mostly mountain spinach but sometimes (a bit too rarely for my taste!) pumpkin or potatoes with radish or beans) to start, then rice with curd and to finish, rice with fresh buffalo milk and sugar (this is my dessert!).
There is tap water in the form of a fountain (picture above) which is shared by three houses, and there is electricity (well, when it works!!!), mainly used for sparse lighting (one light in the front of the house, one in the kitchen and 2 upstairs). But there are a few plugs which are never used by the family but which are useful for Hari to charge his mobile when he comes and for me to charge my laptop (although I never stop wondering when it’s going to explode regarding the archaism of the electric installation as you can see yourself in the picture below!)
There are turkish toilets in a little shed not far from the house (although the path to it is extremely dangerous, especially at night!
If I don’t fall before the end of my stay, I’ll feel extremely lucky!!!) but no paper toilet. And impossible to find some (neither tissues) in the village neareby, where there are shops and the internet point. But I was saved yesterday, with a special delivery from another village!!! When I say village, don’t imagine a concentration of houses like in Europe. They are spread all over the hills and the “streets” are rocky pathes, usually very steep. Local people just run in flip flops but I’m still quite slow, even with good hiking shoes, especially on the way down, at night time, after I’ve finished my classes!
The family is composed of Hari’s parents, his wife and their three children. His parents and his wife work like hell at the moment as farmers, mainly harvesting (maize, millet), looking after their different plantations, getting the milk from their buffaloes every morning and evening, and getting the food for their cattle (5 buffaloes and a few goats) by collecting straw and carrying it by 50 kgs on their heads (using a “namlo”) on steep moutain pathes!
Hari’s family: his parents with his 15 month old son Manes
on the left
his lovely daughters, Manilla (7 years old) and Monica (5 years old) in the
middle, and his wife Januka oiling Manes on the right..
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Well, enough for today, I’ll tell you about the school tomorrow. Oh, I forgot to mention something funny so I’ll finish with that: here, I’m really a blond and white giant among a community of black dwarves as the pic below shows it quite well ... But a less funny thing is that as a consequence, I bump my head each time I pass a door, and I can’t stand straight in many places!!!
Find the odd one out! ;-)
Next (01/12/08)