Village Life

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Alan Stock

An old lady sits on the sidelines of the wedding

Day 93 – Location: Karmidanda Village, Langtang Region; Nepal

03/12/12

I managed to get some much-needed sleep despite the grumbling tummy. Downstairs Jhabraj was shelling rice. Because a baby had been born the other week, they’d had to delay a festival ceremony for the occasion until today. He made a mixture of rice, millet and some other stuff to feed the goats, even the animals get to celebrate! The family had also mixed up a milky concoction for us containing milk, grated coconut, bananas, cinnamon, cloves and pepper. I managed to eat a little bit of plain rice with salt, my first food for a day, and tried a bit of Sophie’s milk mix – it was quite good though a bit too peppery for my tastes.

Jhabraj was off in the morning to visit Januka’s father about 40 minutes away who was very ill. He’d caught Typhoid and another condition. Although he had the right medicines he was very weak and hadn’t eaten for a week.

A friendly village chap

Feeling a little more human today, but still suffering from dioreaah and a midly churny stomach, I did some chores and managed a bowl of noodles. In the afternoon me and Sophie went up the hill to a nice spot in the sun with a good view, and relaxed up there in the peace and quiet. In the evening Jhabraj returned. He thought Januka’s father would be ok but he was still very weak. I wasn’t feeling too bad now. Just before we went to bed, the drunken teacher appeared again in his usual state!

Village houses painted in the traditional colours

Day 94

04/12/12

Another very cold night. Januka had left to Kathmandu to visit her daughters. I was feeling stronger but not 100% and managed some curry. When the others left for school I was in the company of Ama, Jhabraj’s. Unfortunately she doesn’t speak a word of English and speaks to you like you should understand what she’s saying, without using any sign language. This makes communication with her pretty much impossible!

I worked on my diary and helped with some house chores. Ama surprised me by appearing with a big pile of fresh cow poo in her hands and dropped it on the yard! Then she brought a bowl and a bucket of water with a cloth. I then understood what she was up to. She was adding a new layer of dung onto the yard floor, as it was getting patchy. When it’s dry you can’t even tell it’s poo, being light grey and dusty. All traditional Nepali houses use this method for painting their floors and walls. She set to work with a bowl of water and poo, smearing it over the yard floor. I swept ahead of her to get rubbish out of the way. It smelt pretty bad, but to her I guess it’s just another chore that she’s done her whole life. She didn’t seem bothered by it at all. Half-way through an old man, blind in one eye, came round and chatted to her, and tried to speak to me. Of course I couldn’t understand a word he said so could only nod, shrug and smile at him. It’s a bit awkward when you’re being spoken to by people that you simply can’t understand. All you can do is react with exaggerated confusion, laugh or smile but who knows what they’re saying to you? For all I knew they could be telling you a heart-wrenching story, or maybe just giving you a good telling off!

Ama gets down and dirty!

Sophie arrived to give me a welcome respite from Ama’s one-sided chats. The flies were driving us crazy today, swarming loud enough to hear. I carried on updating the diary. We chilled the rest of the afternoon. In the evening Jhabraj got some bad news. Januka had been to the dentist in Kathmandu about her toothache, and they said she had to get half of her teeth removed as they were rotten! Although she brushes every day, it’s a genetic disease which her father also had. And it would cost a lot, another blow to the family’s finances.

Sophie and Januka in the local town

Days 95-99

05/12/12 > 9/12/12

I spent the next four days relaxing and recovering from the stomach bug. Ama continued to chat to me whilst I was home alone, and I spent a good deal of my time watching Dexter and playing games on my laptop. When the others were around we’d chat or I’d go for walks with Sophie. The nights continued to be bitterly cold. With all of his family’s financial problems, Jhabraj decided to sell one of the milking cows and its calf. He found a buyer when he visited the local town. On the day he sold it, a bunch of his friends came round with the buyer to help move the animals. The cow and calf were not happy to be moved but were led and dragged along the path towards the buyer’s village. For the calf it was the first time it had left the house so it was understandably nervous! Jhabraj was feeling a bit down afterwards, after all, the cows are almost like family to him; he looks after them and they provide for him. His new plan was to to save up enough to buy a more expensive cow from Indian bull sperm, which would produce over double the amount of milk his old cow made per day. With only one cow remaining the days of limitless curd and milk every day were over, to Sophie’s dismay!

Village boy

Sophie had finished her term at school, with the kids going into exams. She admitted she’d grown fond of them, even the troublemakers. Jhabraj agreed that the school in general has problems with discipline and non-attendance; Sophie had been facing the same challenge as the other teachers. She’d been partly successful in getting their attention; English children’s songs were a favourite of the younger class. A girl had vanished from Sophie’s class – it turned out she’d been pulled out for another arranged marriage. Apparently she was quite intelligent but there is nothing the teachers can do to stop it.

Awijit and his teammates were entered in a karate contest in the nearby town to earn their next belt grade. He did pretty well and earned it by drawing in a fight – all that training paid off.

Another nice sunset over Karmidana

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Would you like to stay in Karmidanda village with the Neupane family? Read on…

Cheeky little villager Jeneet

If you are thinking of visiting Nepal and would like to do a homestay with Jhabraj’s family and see his village, or you need an experienced trekking or private tour guide, Jhabraj is very happy to accommodate you. He can do tours anywhere around Nepal and for trekking, he is very experienced and a safe, responsible guide, having guided on all the major Nepali treks multiple times as a guide (including the popular Everest, Annapurna and Langtang treks). It is also possible to do some spectacular trekking in the Langtang area from his village area so you could always combine a homestay with a trek. Jhabraj charges very reasonable prices, he speaks good English, and you couldn’t meet a friendlier, more interesting and hospitable guy! Your enjoyment, satisfaction and safety are his primary concerns. Money that Jhabraj earns from visitors and clients goes towards the higher education of his children, which is extremely expensive for a village family. If you want to hear more, please contact me via this website and I will put you in touch with him. Highly recommended!

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Would you like to help Jhabraj’s village community of Karmidanda? Read on…

Onlookers at the wedding we went to

Like many outlying villages in Nepal, the village Karmidanda is extremely poor and the community has many serious problems as a result. Almost all the families here are in a lot of debt, living on the breadline on the meagre earnings they can eke out – most are farmers. Other avenues of work are simply not available up here and most families cannot afford to put their children into higher education to improve the cycle. Public welfare does not really exist in Nepal and the area only has one health clinic staffed by volunteers and supplied by charity. If a villager requires hospitisation the villagers have to pool together to get enough money to pay for an ambulance to take the patient 5 hours to Kathmandu and also pay the expensive hospital treatment fees, if they can afford it. The village school was built thanks to charitable efforts but staff wages are low, equipment and resources are always scarce and there are not enough teachers for the number of students. These are just some of the problems that the community has – yet despite the difficulties the community spirit is amazing here, people help each other, they have a smile on their face and they are welcoming and friendly. If you think that you can help with donations, volunteering (including English teaching at the school) or charitable projects, please get in touch. Jhabraj has many contacts and can direct you to the right people so you know your money or resources are going directly to the local community and no share is going into anyone elses’ pocket. Some charitable efforts have also been started by foreign visitors who have visited Jhabraj and decided to help the community of Karmidanda – please check out the following websites: (links coming soon!)

Food Poisoning!

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Alan Stock

Jhabraj’s sister-in-law, a cheeky woman for sure!

Day 90 – Location: Karmidanda Village, Langtang Region; Nepal

30/11/12

Another cold night. In the morning Jhabraj’s sister-in-law arrived to collect me, a funny, loud but good-natured woman who’d been nagging me for a while to come and harvest millet with her. She only speaks a few words of English. I agreed to join her today and so we set off with two other women up a steep path to some terraced fields where we began working.

With four of us at work we were clearing pretty quickly, emptying a field in a few hours. All the ladies smoked. Jhabraj’s mother (Ama) arrived to help. After a few hours the sister-in-law’s son brought us a sari used as a sack for a vast amount of popcorn! Huzzah! We stuffed our faces and after devouring a pile I couldn’t eat any more, despite them trying to force-feed me more! I left after 4 hours work when we’d cleared a few fields.

She flings the millet over her shoulder into the basket

The rest of the day was chilled out. I watched the goat kids becoming more and more adventurous. They were getting brave enough now to venture quite far from the house, but would dash back at the first sign of trouble. The male one, Hump, enjoyed using me as a trampoline when I was lying on the bank. He isn’t the brightest and likes to nibble at your fingers. But if he gets his back teeth gripped on them it’s a whole world of pain – Sophie has the scar to prove it!

Ama at work in the field

Day 91

01/12/12

Saturday. Jhabraj and a contigent of his friends arrived in the yard carrying big bales of hay, which they stacked into a storey-high pyramid. He’d had to buy it for the dry season to feed the animals, although it is quite expensive the pay-off is he gets milk every day and can sell the animals when he needs to.

We all relaxed in the yard after lunch. I started to get a churning stomach. Whilst me and Sophie were sat out in the sun the guy who had been in trouble for not feeding his dad appeared. As usual he looked out of place with his camo clothes and shades. He was wasted and slurred away to us for a while trying to explain something about being a trekking guide. Awijit reminded us he’s an alcoholic and said he had been drinking since 5am!

The house cats curl up by the fire

My stomach was feeling worse in the evening. Jhabraj had some friends round. One had a big wooden pipe like a small shisha. The smell from it was terrible. I need to find out what they were smoking! I turned in early, feeling awful. Jhabraj came up to check my temperature and pulse, I didn’t have a fever and my pulse was normal so we guessed it might be food poisoning, perhaps from the home-made yogurt we’d had at lunch, but no-one else had problems from eating the same food I’d had today.

A rather large inhabitant of the kitchen! Check the padlock at the bottom for size reference!

Day 92

02/12/12

The night was hell. My stomach got a lot worse, churning horribly and I got pains as well. Although I felt like I wanted to vomit, I couldn’t. I tossed and turned, the minutes passing seeming like hours. I barely slept a wink. It’s the most ill I have felt since getting heat exhaustion when I was 18. After 12 hours of suffering, I came downstairs. I’d been drinking water all night. I managed to go to the toilet to be greeted with dioreahh. Jhabraj was concerned. Sophie said the symptoms were of bacteria in the stomach and the best thing to do would be to drink lots of water and wait for it to get out of my system. She recommended chamomile tea to help my stomach, so Januka made me one. I couldn’t even think about eating anything, and this is me we’re talking about!

Sophie gets serious

It was Awijit’s 15^th birthday but they aren’t usually celebrated in Nepal, and disappointingly he didn’t want me to buy him alcohol, cigarettes or chocolate! I spent the morning in a haze of pain. I suddenly knew I had to be sick and violently threw up in the bucket. For a short while I felt less bad. Unfortunately it returned just as bad, accompanied by very painful stomach cramps. I felt very weak. Januka was kind and kept offering me things, but all I could do was thank her and lie around, reading for a distraction. Bouts of dioreahh kept me close to the toilet. Around midday I was violently sick puking up a mighty 2 litres!

Two boys from the wedding the other day

The afternoon passed slowly but it started to get a bit better. Sophie said the colour was returning to my face. By the evening it was definitely improving although I still felt bad. In the late evening we had a visitor. It was the drunken teacher who’d entertained us on the night I’d smoked too much ganja. He was exactly like the last time, very drunk and chatting away enthusiastically about random things. He kept calling Jhabraj “Jabba” which me and Sophie found very funny! Eventually Jhabraj managed to get rid of him and he waddled off into the night. I went up to bed but couldn’t sleep because of my stomach. But, after a few episodes of Dexter I managed to nod off and got a few hours sleep, thank god!

Onlookers at the wedding we went to

Making Butter

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Alan Stock

Day 86 – Location: Karmidanda Village, Langtang Region; Nepal

26/11/12

It was a very cold night and I didn’t sleep well. Poor Jhabraj had to get up at 6am to plant potatoes before school. Strange noises were coming from downstairs. It turned out to be Januka churning butter. They make it at home – as you can see in the photo, there are two handles and you pull alternately to spin the mixer in the churn. I helped out too – it was hard work!

Churn harder, Januka!

After about twenty minutes of churning, lumpy bits of butter were formed on the surface. Januka scooped them off and put them in a pan for cooking. For breakfast we had some with roti bread. It was quite rich and not too bad, but not like any butter I’ve ever had before!

Lumpy butter from the top of the churn, ready for cooking

That morning I went to harvest millet again, this time in a higher field. After a few hours Januka joined me. It was back-breaking work as a lot of the millet stalks were competley flattened, forcing us to stoop over. Eventually we started sitting and kneeling to save our backs! Januka exchanged shouted conversations with women in nearby houses and fields. Jeneet, the funny kid from next door was being a monkey today and was shouting at us from half way up a tree in another field. I wish I knew what he was saying! After 4 hours and about to topple over, we stopped with two baskets full of millet heads. I helped Januka to chop some leafy branches from the trees for her animals and she chopped some millet stalks, then bundled both piles together with rope and hauled the huge load up the fields to the house the traditional way, using her forehead as a brace. It was so heavy I had to help her stand up at the start!

The cats’ little present for me. Thanks for that. Bedroom door staying closed from now on!

I met Sophie at the house and we relaxed in the afternoon sun in our favourite spot on the path. Plenty of villagers use this path and they stopped to watch in curiosity as Sophie dug around with a needle in her foot to extract a splinter, surely wondering what madness the westerners were up to this time! I became acquainted with the Neupanes house cat, Soorie, who looks like a leopard. Soorie is a friendly chap when he’s in the mood, and jumped into my lap, purring away. There’s also a very young cat, a female, who just turned up one day a few months ago and stayed. The Neupane’s aren’t sure if she is Soorie’s daughter but they look after her anyway. She loves to play-fight with Soorie and you can watch them for hours running up trees and laying ambushes for each other. She is very scared of people though and won’t even go for food until everyone is far away. Me and Sophie chatted in the evening and we turned in early. I started to read “Into Thin Air” by Jon Klauser, the true story of the 1996 Everest disaster as told firsthand by Klauser who was there. It’s a really good book, recommended!

Day 87 – Location: Karmidanda Village, Langtang Region; Nepal

27/11/12

Another day in the millet field. Januka joined me after a few hours and we managed to finish the field we were working on. Jeneet joined us and practiced his monkey skills again, shimmying up the satsuma trees in the field, bringing us down little yellow satsumas, which inside were quite sweet. Ama, Jhabraj’s mother was also harvesting in a field above us. Impressive considering she’s in her 70s!

Awijit looks out at the view from the top of the rocky outcrop. You can see the beam of sunlight at the top as the sun slowly rises over the valley. The white section on the top right is a huge landslide, you can make out a village to the left of it – why would you want to live there?!

In the afternoon after some tea, curd and beaten rice me and Sophie walked up to the big viewpoint rock I’d climbed with Awijit previously, to admire the view. Unfortunately it was already quite cold by the time we arrived and we only got twenty minutes before the sun went down. We had taken up beer from the village shop and had to use rocks to get the bottletops off! We came back as a lovely blood red sun dissappeared behind the mountaintops. In the evening I smoked some ganja in the chillum, just a little bit to avoid the horrors of the last time, and got a mild but not unpleasant effect. Jhabraj told us an old man in his 80’s had died in the village today. After going to bed I couldn’t put “Into Thin Air” down and ended up finishing the whole book!

Sophie unleashes her demonic powers to push down the sun! Nooooooooooooooo!

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