Travels around Nepal

Zach and I are currently in Pokhara after a three day jaunt to Chitawan National Park. We stayed at a nice little lodge with a man a named Anil serving as our host and guide. We met some nice people from Ireland and Israel, and had a fun evening sampling the local spirit and viewing the Tharu Cultural program. It was nice and refreshing to hang out with other English speakers for a while.
Chittawan is a very beautiful place. It is very flat and was formerly covered in jungle, although much of this has been chopped down. There is a nice beach that overlooks the river and the jungle in the town, and there were restaurants and deck chairs there. Good spot to have a beer. As we sat down we noticed a crocodile resting on a rock in the river basking in the warm glow of the red sun.
We took a nice tour our first evening around the Tharu village and they are in the process of harvesting their wheat fields. The architecture is slightly different than at Madhi. There were elephants everywhere. We walked to the elephant stables and saw some of the working Pachyderms, and then did a short walk through the jungle.
The next day was action packed. We took a dugout canoe ride down the river and saw many beautiful birds, such as the intermediate Egrit and the Greater Hornbill, a rare bird. There were also two crocodiles, a marshmugger that looked like a nasty piece of work, and a Gharial, which is a vegetarian crocodile that eats algae and moss. It had a very long thin snout and sharp pointy teeth!
We went for a jungle walk through huge tall grass and forests. Two yellow breasted martins were scampering through the trees in search of bird eggs to snatch. They were very long and thin with a big v shaped patch of yellow fur on their breasts. As we came to a little stream that winded its way in between the tall grass and forest we saw our first rhinoceros, submerged in the water. I think we were less than 15 feet away from it, but a bit higher up. He didn't really seem to care about our presence, and just sat there in water blowing bubbles.
After we finished our marveling at the rhino we journeyed on to the Elephant Breeding Centre. Along the way we saw some peacocks, deer, ox, and Tharu herdsmen. The Breeding Centre was very cool, although the process of training the young elephants is somewhat cruel. They start training at the age of 3-4 and it involves establishing the relationship of the mahout to the elephant as master. This involves physical abuse and month long starvation and deprivation of water.
The baby elephants were incredibly cute, and they liked the attention of people. Surprisingly they are very solid and muscular. They also like water bottles and biscuits! My water bottle became a target for them and wandering trunks and expectant mouths came towards me. So I gave them some water with some difficulty, which they sucked up and then blew into their mouth. They have very rigid hairs on their backs, it is odd. Many of the younger elephants were dancing, which apparently is some way to keep insects away. It was quite a funny site though.
We then went back to the beach by jeep, where we bathed with the elephants. They would never let you do this in the States! We got to climb up onto the elephants in the water, and then the handler would give a command to the elephant to throw you off like a bucking bronco! Oh it was fantastic! Sitting right by its head it's nearly impossible to stay on. I managed a longer time slightly farther back. We'd do this two people at a time. It was incredibly weird to be thrown off into the water, be caught by the current and drift, catch yourself, and be right next to another enormous elephant laying sideways in the water, with it's huge trunk and legs feet from you.
Then we had lunch.
That afternoon we went on an elephant jungle safari, where you ride the elephants through the jungle. This was pretty spectacular and bizarre. Elephants are perhaps the best all-terrain vehicles ever. I was riding backwards for part of it, and when we would go uphill it felt as if I would fall right down if i let go of the guard rails. We would stop every so often to feed him some bananas. His name was Anogile. Namaste Anogile! We saw some deer, lots of birds, monkeys, lots of elephants with people on them, and another Rhino! He was a big one and we were able to get quite close on the elephants. He looked really fierce but docile, and not in any way shape or form capable of traveling the apparent 45 kilometers per hour he is alleged to perform.
Finally that night we had dalbaat for dinner to our amusement and then saw the Tharu Cultural program, which featured a man in a peacock costume dancing, firedancing, and then us dancing with a bunch of Nepali's and other tourists to a Nepali band. It was a good laugh.
Unfortunately, I have no photographs of all of this as my camera fell out my pocket into the river on the dugout canoe ride. Whoops. I have the camera as a Nepali retrieved it for me, but I am waiting to see if it works after drying out. Sorry mum. Welcome to the group Larry Wood! Any improvement in the current situation regarding the internet would be vastly beneficial to the school.

All the best,
David

Computers and Internet

Greetings Pramod and friends of Sarkuwa!
I will begin by addressing the issue of Internet connectivity here, as I think you may have the wrong impression of the situation here. Janata Higher Secondary School does not in fact have any Internet capability. Only recently have they even gained access to electricity, and this is not solidly available on a regular basis. Over the 15-day break of Dashain, we have been conducting computer classes for the teaching staff. Several days classes have had to be abandoned however, due to a lack of electricity. Although the operators know that the school has requested the electricity, for some reason they do not provide any on certain days.
This has been somewhat frustrating, as well as the fact that we only have two functional computers right now to teach with. I will briefly list the problems facing us.

1. HP Windows ME – BIOS password has been set and we’re not sure how this happened or what the password is. This is a huge problem as this is the second best computer in terms of capabilities and age.
2. Dell Latitude Windows 2000 – Hard drive is not found upon booting up, possibly due to the drive having a loose connection. At this point we do not have an appropriate screwdriver to open the casing.
3. Dell Latitude Windows 98 and Toshiba Windows 98 – Hard drives have fatal disk errors and cannot be recovered through reformatting, disk checking, or erasing.
4. Dell Something Windows 95? – Has no operating system and only a floppy disk drive for input.

These are the problems facing us currently in terms of computer hardware. Apparently Megh Raj Dhakal has ordered an appropriate modern antenna for the school’s CDMA phone that will hopefully provide reliable connectivity. Currently the phone has to be walked up to a higher point on the hill to receive a signal. The antenna that Megh has ordered is similar to the one he has at his house, so you may assume that the connectivity and reliability will be roughly on par with his house, although this of course is not a given due to the difference in location and topology of the school. Previously a more basic antenna has been tried with no success, although it seemed like a home built type of device.
Our communications have all been conducted at Megh Raj Dhakal’s house. We have streamlined the process as much as possible to reduce Internet usage, so it usually takes at least a day to respond to any message in detail. The Internet connection is through the CDMA phone, which has a built-in modem that connects to the COM port on the computer. It offers speeds of up to 115 kb/s, which is excruciatingly slow when connecting to broadband dependent websites. Primarily we have resorted to only using this for email and communication. We apologize for not touching the blog site set up, but due to the fact that it takes around 8-10 minutes to access our e-mail which usually must go through 2-3 pages of loading to check, we have neglected the blog.
The rate that the Internet is charged at is 8 rupees a minute, which is very reasonable given the phone rates here. I believe it is 25 rs/m to call Kathmandu. The CDMA phone operates on a charge card, so it is similar to a pay-as-you-go phone. As you may know, the CDMA phone operates via Nepal Telecom broadcasting towers and has no direct line. This means that frequently due to weather or equipment the connection is not available at all, both for phone calls and Internet. The phone runs on a battery that is charged when there is electricity, and the electricity usually only runs from 6-12 pm.
The hydroelectric generator that powers Mahdi seems to be having problems as well, as during the last few weeks power has been infrequent and inconsistent. The problem seems to have been fixed in the last few days, but its reliability leaves a lot to be desired, especially when you are powering computers.
We are eagerly anticipating the arrival of the new antenna for the school, but we have no idea when this will happen. It is a source of some frustration that we have not been able to set up an Internet email account for the school or teach the teachers how to use the Internet. The antenna was ordered around a month ago perhaps, the actual time is unclear.
I am glad the Himalayan Heartbeat event went well, and that Tom and Donna made an excellent presentation! Everyone here asks after you and wants to know when Donna Lea is coming to Sarkuwa. We have tried to explain that it may not be possible but they all want to see you anyway! The people here are also very interested in the next set of teachers to come, whom we have told them are of Nepali descent. This is correct right?
We will try to provide some of the statistics you asked for at a later date. We hope everyone is well and happy.

David

Pramod writes

Dear David, Zach and the family and friend of Sarkuwa:It was most wonderful to hear from you on the occasion of Dashain. ISince yesterday, I had tried a number of times to call there but I could not get through. However, it was reassuring to receive your email. We would like to see such messages regularly so that we could inspire many more people towards the cause of people of Sarkuwa. We had a very good program organized in Ottawa named Himalayan Heartbeat. Donna and Tom came all the way from White Heath, Illinois and gave a great presentation that has inspired people here. We are preparing a small documentary revolving around that presentation. This will be released within a month and be taken to schools around. We will also do a news release when the documentary is prepared and the website is updated. Thanks Tom and Dona! We would like to know the status of Internet connectivity, its speed, reliability, and status of networking in the school. Also, how easy or difficult it was to make it work and what technology and cost it required. I would love if David and Zach could have some tours of the Dalit (Sarki, Kami) villages in Madi, Barsira, Sisnera, Ganwa and take lots of pictures. SImilarly some Magar villages also. Also, we would like to have statistics on youth population, dropout rates, success rate is SLC, trends and so on (as much as possible). Happy Dashain to all. Special Greetings to all Dhakals and relatives on the occasion of Dashain.Congratulations and appreciation to David and Zach for your excellent service to Sarkuwa. Please accept my salutes! Sincerely,PramodOttawa, Canada

NEWS from David and Zack

Namaste!
We recently departed on a lovely educational tour of Nepal on a bus with 38 something seats and nearly 60 people crammed in. It was something else. There was much singing and playing the modal (a kind of drum) on the bus and even some dancing, and the buses here aren’t very large. I tried to dance, but my 6’ frame was just a tad too big and I had to kind of squat dance, which was very difficult especially considering the bus was moving.
On the tour we were introduced to joys such as riding on top of bus, which I’m pretty sure if you tried on a greyhound would result in death or a heavy heavy fine. The buses don’t really go much faster than 40 km/hr, or ~30 mph. Going uphill reduces this speed greatly; so riding on top of the bus is great fun as it is not to fast. The vistas that can be seen from the top are much better than from inside the bus as the windows are tinted and there are metal bars on them.
We visited a lot of places, but we probably spent more time on the bus than anything. We went to a hydroelectric dam in Mirmi that is the biggest dam in all of Nepal and pumps out 144 mW. The Japanese, Italians, Germans, and Indians built it. A few dozen Nepalis were killed in the process of construction. We spent the night in a town called Tansen in the district of Palpa and in the morning visited a nice Buddhist stupa and temple on the top of Srinagar hill after a very long walk up tons of stairs.
That afternoon we drove to Lumbini, and visited the Mayadevi temple that is the birthplace of Lord Siddharta Gautam, aka Buddha. The government of Nepal had also leased land nearby to foreign countries to build their own monasteries and temples there. We visited the Chinese monastery, which was beautiful, and the monks there performed a very nice song, and then we visited the German monastery. Oddly enough the German temple was lavishly decorated in authentic looking Buddhist art but ended up seeming a bit like a Buddhist Disneyland.
We stayed that night in Gaindakot and the next day we set off for Gorkha, the capital of Gorkha district. It was here that King Pirthwi Narayan Shah ruled 250 years ago and from this location went and conquered the rest of the small kingdoms to unify Nepal into one country. He had a large palace on the top of a hill with an endless amount of stairs so I guess his troops must have been in very good shape. The exterior of the palace was very beautiful with ornate woodcarvings and metal works aplenty. There were lots of bells that people could ring as well. Unfortunately Zach and I were not allowed inside because they be hating on whities. Ok, it was really because we were not of the Hindu faith. They could have said it nicer though. King Pirthwi Narayan Shah must have had some foresight as well, because to one side of his palace there was a conveniently located stone helipad, an essential feature of any pre-modern palace for heroic conquerors.
That night we stayed in Pokhara. The next day we saw Fewa Lake, which Pokhara is next to, that was beautiful. We took some small boats out to a little island were there was Barahi temple which is devoted to Durgas who is a goddess that is a symbol of power. The island was very serene and there were many pigeons that took up residence there, as well as some fish that you could feed. The boatmen became somewhat upset when Zach and I were included with the schoolchildren; I guess they figured that they were going to charge us exorbitant foreigner fees. We showed them. We went to a power station that I assume provided power for Pokhara and the surrounding villages. Our final stop in Pokhara was Mahendra Gupha (Cave), which was a neat little cave.
Zach and I were able to take lots of good pictures that I will share with all of you at some later date. The trip was a lot of fun, and it was a great experience to spend some time with the students outside of the classroom. Today was Dashain, and we both took Tika’s and Jamarra. This is red rice applied to the forehead and yellow plant stems put behind the ears. The purpose is to provide happiness.
We ate much food today, including banana’s, kurownie (a milk item), cell roti, many vegetables, goat, pickles, and lots of rice. We are stuffed silly and quite happy, as today has been very relaxing. Many relatives of the Dhakals came and visited as is their tradition and took tika and food items. We played a lot with a newborn goat kid, and Zach looks very cute when he is cradling the kid in his arms.
Hope everyone else is well, Happy Dashain! May you be happy.

Saba Tikh
David and Zach