Bus Trips.

"You're My funny Bunny, I'm your little cupcake "
I can hear Lukey singing to himself quietly as he bashes his ball around the hotel room. The last glimmers of Bollywood music ringing around his head from our bus journey 2 days ago. The only thing that has changed on busses in Asia since I was last here 10 years ago is that flat screens have been installed in the front of some busses. The deafening screeching of Bollywood singers is now accompanied by  actors dressed in lollypop colours and actresses  wearing relatively coversome bikinis and very, very, very long hair all dry humping like exited puppies but never ever actually kissing in deference to Nepali cultural values.

All bus journeys are different.  This was out eighth and final bus trip in Nepal.  We have got the hang of the factors that we can influence. We feed the children minimally before embarking and request "plastic" ( small plastic bags supplied for you to spew into if required) as soon as we get on the bus.  Boyd climbs up on the roof and secures the bags on top. We by tickets for 3 seats, hop on the bus early and bag the seats  one behind two others then defend them determinedly as more and more folk get on the bus children are expected to sit on their parents knee.  On one particularly memorable journey we only bought 2 tickets s for a micro bus ( minivan) and ended sitting  the whole family on one and a half seats for 7 hours.

There is a phenomenon  in reptiles where they become limp and docile when pressure is applied to their eyes and in chickens if you cover their heads then they immediately fall asleep. Well it seems that the same process occurs to small children when squashed into a minivan ( the van had 20 seats and there were 35 people inside) . Aside from vomiting over everything ( we hadn't asked for "plastic")  in the first 5 minutes they both promptly fell asleep and then on awakening just stared docilely our of the widow until our arrival .

But then there are he factors that we cannot influence. If you sit on one side of the bus you get to stare glumly at the 800m drops inches from the wheels of the bus as it squeezes past a truck on the single lane track. And if you sit on the other then you can watch the near misses as the driver overtakes on blind corners.

The morning before our last trip I happened to read the headlines of the Paper ;   
"4 electrocuted in fatal bus crash with power lines. "
Boyds saftey tip as we got on the bus that morning was :
" Never  attempt to disembark from  a bus when it is in contact with high tension power lines" .

Traveling on Nepal's roads are never dull!

Further Progress on the School

Volunteers start digging the upper terrace away at the school

Site. The millet has been harvested, 

The project gets heaps of interest from the local kids and today school finished early and they joined us to help. 

Sona and her Ama

Tara admiring the site. Note the pointy rocks dug in to mark the front face of the schools and the walls. We had used bamboo but it disappeared. Possibly used as firewood or just handy play swords. 

Baba( Shamsers father) bringing up some Iron from Besishaha for his own roof, not the school.  But gives an idea of te labour involved to collect materials on site. :-)

Tummy bug and final days.

Mummy got a tummy bug and spent a day in bed in the foetal position groaning quietly. Boyd was also quietly queezy so the kids spent the best part of the day watching movies on the tablet and ......

 Reading books with lovely Roz and......

The next day it rained alllll day so we did the same again.

When Mummy finally came right we enjoyed e sunshine of the bright post rain days.

When we weren't working we wandered through the village challenging ourselves to find new paths never explored by us before.

We found some new faces in the lower part of the village were the lower caste and poorer families 

Lived.

Luke with the pot used by Bosanda on the morning to rub down her floors and walls with a clay mix to keep the clay render crack free.

New house for a family

Minas sister with attitude:-)

Luke and Babbu watch Baba and Ama plough with the ox. Baba shouting and yoddling at the ox and Babbu mimmicing Baba in falsetto from his haystack perch.

Luke with Bossanda s chicks.

East vs West

Developing country.  The name suggests that a potential has not been reached, that a country "could try harder". The school report no nation wants to receive. It also suggests that the country has the potential to " be like the West " as if this is the ultimate state.

In biology, creatures evolve to perfectly adapt to the environment that they are surrounded by. There is a misconception that Monkeys are further down the evolutionary tree than Humans and that bacteria are an archeic biological state. In fact all three have evolved perfectly to different environmental conditions over the same amount of time. All three are at the tips of their respective evolutionary branches.

So I am lying in bed thinking of another label rather than "3rd world" or "developing". What I value in Nepali culture is the strong social fabric combining  the extended family with a strong respect for elders and a great community orientated work ethic. There is no such thing a going to work by your self Nepal.  Whether going to the jungle to cut firewood or grass for the cow to building a house . It is all done with a neighbours or 49 neighbours in the case of a building, and children and aunties and brothers all looking on. Food is scarce, that is true of a self sufficient diet and the children supplement their daily Dahl baht with tiny sour berries and chestnuts that they forage  from the forest. They spend hours climbing trees and working together to gather up the precious treats. And always share. Always whether on the path or in the family or on the bus . All food from nuts to crisps are shared with everyone around. 

Sustainability, a buzzword from home is seen in action every day , not just in sourcing food. For example in the villiage the buildings are made by hand from materials within a 1 hour radius. Wood from the forest, stones from the quarry for building and a flaky  stone  for the tiles on the roof. And the plaster? A slurry of buffalo dung and clay makes a beautiful and  insulative render to the inside and outside walls and floors.

But what of health care, what about retirement funds and care of the poor.  In Maslow's hierarchy of needs security of  "food" and "safety "requirements  are right at the bottom and  basic requirements for a peaceful human.  And yes people go hungry here, but neighbours are supported. There are no retirement homes but fathers and mothers are looked after in the he home and valued as a wealth of knowledge. Hospitals are basic and mumps measles, and tuberculosis replace diabetes ,obesity, heart disease and cancer on the patients board - not better, not worse, just different.

Where Nepal adopts western characteristics, emerges an ugly cachophany. Litter from 5 rupee kitkats that block the drain and  the cheap chocolate turn children's teath black. Bulldozers carve a path that undermines the banks and create landslides  Concrete building's with fancy facades sprout up over the landscape their grey backide s obliterating their neighbour views.  Bovine Sacred incarnations of the goddess Sita scarred from collisions with traffic or prostrate and groaning, their four stomachs blocked by the ubiquitous plastic. The small gem of western adoption is the pharmacy stocked with antibiotics and lotions and a trained pharmacist all available for less than 50c : so affordable to the average Nepali

Mm

West vs East
Industrial vs Rural
Exploitative vs Sustainable
Individual centric vs Social Centric
New Zealand vs Nepal
Not worse, not better , just different

As a wise man once said

" There are no problems,  only people."