ONCE AGAIN I SEEM TO HAVE RATHER TOO MANY REPEAT PHOTOS. HAVENT LEARNT HOW TO DELETE YET!!
morning visitors
lutchens. what a smile!
Sometimes, I really have to pinch myself and Im actually laughing inside. Once again the day has been packed full of the most wonderful experiences. Starting as always with the chickens and baby goats who pay me a visit every morning. From school that went really well, Im actually remembering the kids names now. Its taken me ages as you would imagine, as I have so many! On the way to school I met Bharat the local shop keeper, smiling and laughing as always, we frequently pop in and have chai with him on the way home from school. Today he was on a mission. He was going into the forest to find a bees nest which he was going to put into his sack bring home and rehouse in a hollowed tree trunk attached to his house. Most houses have 1 or 2 beehives which gives the family ample honey. I asked him wasnt he worried he might get stung? he just laughed.
This afternoon Man Gurung (the elder of the village) came to visit, we had him up for chai and he wanted to know if I had any problems. I told him that apart from no electricity for the last 3 days I was gloriously happy. Its back on now! We chatted as best we could for a while about the school and the new tables etc. I went off down to fill up some water buckets, sarita was doing the washing. I popped to see Lutchens her son in law was treading the Millet in a bucket to shed the outer layer and then Lutchens sat and shook the grain to make it clean. She insisted I try, I couldnt believe how heavy it is and needless to say I didnt make a very good job of it.
ROSHAM DOING HIS HOMEWORK
Rosham appeared and I went with him to help him with his english Homework. He and his father live in 2 small rooms, one a kitchen and the other the bedroom. Their home is in the south where the family have a coffee farm. Roshams mother is there with the inlaws and the other son. Kedar his father is running the coffee plantation here and is a very lively, talkative, funny chap who is passionate about coffee farming and appears every night to brighten up our evening. We are going out this Saturday to walk the coffee plantation area which is enormous and will take us 3 hours. It is a cooperative and is the largest coffee garden in Nepal. I have to say he is also drop dead georgeous!
Back to Lutchens, Sarita was cooking in their kitchen a tin roof affair with a mud and dung mix sort of hob, it has a wood fire burning underneath.(Mud and dung mixed together is used for all sorts of things the earth is reddish orange colour and when mixed with dung hardens. It is used to build houses with stone,also to create a clean sweepable area in their yards when they are harvesting the Millet and corn, front steps, garden walls,watered down its used for paint, pretty well everything) The Nepalese eat 4 meals a day breakfast very early and light, rice and daal at 10.00ish, another light meal at 5.00ish which tonight was a sort of semolina mixed with Buffalo butter, and then again at 7.00ish probably rice and daal and veg curry. They work so so hard physically that they do actually need all the calories they can get. She then was going to milk her buffalo so I said I would accompany her, I carried her basket with some cut leaves.(Ive been wanting to do that since I came here, they carry them with a strap around their foreheads) The women go out every day to cut leaves and grass to feed the buffalo and the goats if they are kept in. I have spotted Santo(vims mother) high up in a tree many times cutting branches for the goats,
if not they go out for hours to graze them in the forest, ok for the goats and oxen but its more difficult with the buffalo. They tend to run and can upset the locals if they get on to crops. Rings a bell or two!!
We arrive at the lean too where the buffalo are kept below Lutchens house,(the buffalo and oxen are usually kept below the house) and give the old girl some cut grass and leaves. She is absolutely adorable and very affectionate, not all are like that. Lutchens picks up all the dung by hand, and then very carefully pours water from her container onto her hands with a jug. She cleans them as best she can, and then pours the rest into the lid and cleans the tits of her buffalo, massaging and cleaning, this takes about 10 mins.
The milking process begins! Lutchens is a master she manages a really good flow, and the container is beginning to fill up. Im desperate to have a go! Well, laugh, could I get anything to come out? I just couldnt do it, it was as if she had completely dried up! On reflection I think I was being far too gentle about the whole process. Will def have another go and be a little more forceful, although Kaman tells me its all in the thumbs!! hummmmm thats interesting...............
I walk back up the hill to the amusement of Man, Kedar, and Kaman who are all standing on our veranda laughing at me carrying the now empty basket, Lutchens in the back ground giving a blow by blow account of my complete failure.Laughter is so common place here,it makes me realise how little we laugh in the west. Their faces light up and theyre off. After trampling around in the muck in flip flops I decide to give myself a local pedicure at the water pump using the stone floor!
Kaman has cooked a delicious supper tonight, I have told him not so much rice and more veg. I have not lost any weight at all, definitely fit but not slim, eating carbs every day.
The boys, World friend, Roshan, and a few others of varying ages all appear at different stages, some of them are from school and its always great to see them, and tell them how well they are doing.Vim is back from Pokara where he has been helping his brother to build a house. He walked up from Syanga, partly in the dark with no torch. All just normal stuff, and when I think how I struggle with it!!! Lutchens appears with a mug of buffalo milk for breakfast just to rub it in!! And Dear Santo has finally plucked up the courage to pay us a visit.Later Kedar of course bounces back up the stairs having by now fed Rosham who is now in bed.
something I have noticed tonight, the insects that are flying in are bloody enormous. You can actually hear them flying in, like theyve got engines! they sound more like small aircraft. They fly in hit the wall with a huge bang, fall to the ground, shake themselves off and off they go again to hit another wall.
I asked Kaman if he would dispatch them. He said no to me for the very first time. "sorry Deborah I have never killed anything" Bless him.
Just another glorious day in Dandaswara!
ps You will notice the spelling of the village changes every time I write. The reason being that every one here has a different opinion.
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