A Wedding?

It was our least productive morning of digging yet. We had finally finished digging the difficult jungle section and were looking forward to making a start on the rice fields. However, what should have been a triumphant moment, was quickly soured by a few of the locals starting to argue. The dispute was over which level of the tiered rice fields we should dig on, and with no resolution in sight we decided to call it a day.

The mood was understandably low after lunch, but it was quickly saved by an announcement from Amita. Her host mum had family in a neighbouring village, and there was to be a wedding.

The rest of the day had a buzz of anticipation in the air, which made the usually boring tasks of the afternoon feel even more motonous. This afternoon we were putting together a calendar to map out the tasks ahead, and make sure everything got done in time. We very quickly realised that we would have to more than double our digging pace if were to finish the pipeline in time. This may sound like an impossible task, but with the jungle section completed and us getting stronger by the day, we were feeling optimistic.

The training and awareness commitees also delivered a session on the very sensitive topic of diarrhoea to a group of villagers. This mostly focused on the educating them on the seven stages of handwashing. In the UK all seven are probably only used by medical professionals, but in rural Nepal where there’s no access to any sort of modern healthcare, they could mean the difference between life and death.

With our first session delivered, it was time to head back to our host homes and get ready for the wedding. For me, this just meant putting on the very crinkled shirt I’d brought and some chinos, but the girls in the group went all out. Jess had borrowed a Sari from Rina, Loulou had let Amita do her make up and Rosie had borrowed a shirt from Masum, which she was somehow rocking. Everyone looked their best… apart from John, who had dressed up like a mime.

The ‘neighbouring’ village turned out to be over an hours hike away, most of which was in darkness, and the wedding was actually the pre-party the night before the event. But that didn’t stop us having a great time. There was dancing, music played on drums and huge curved horns, and best of all, roti!

The main event of the party was a singing/dancing call and response between the men and women of the families. This had all the feeling of a dramatic dance battle scene in a Step Up film, except for the minor difference of language and the fact that everyone was in traditional Nepali dress. After a while of watching, we decided to join in the dancing for a song or two, much to the amusement of the other party goers. It felt a lot like we were dancing in a locals pub back home, complete with a few handsy old men making the girls feel uncomfortable.

The walk back to our own village definitely wasn’t safe at that time of night. But spirits were so high among the group, that no one was thinking about the tigers.

Nature Poo

The problems of yesterday morning followed us into today, with the villagers deciding that the original route through the fields was right all along. This, alongside me nearly concussing myself with a pickaxe, should’ve made for shitty morning. But with a little Fleetwood Mac, we actually pulled a decent shift.

Lunch was more eventful than usual, as my host sister Dipika had been put in charge of preparing the meal. Unfortunately, she had forgotten that I wasn’t a fan of spicy food and had given me the same as everyone else. From all the conversations I’d had with Raj about his love of chili’s and pickles, I expected it to be way worse than it was. I’d say it was about a medium on the Nandos spice scale, but either way Dipika was super embarassed when she realised. I discovered it’s very hard to be a polite Englishman, and tell someone “Really, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it” when they can’t understand you.

With our day off tomorrow, I was apparently alone in my desire to have a shower after lunch, so I went down to the waterfall on my own. Whether due to the extra spice in Dipika’s meal or some other reason, I felt a rumble in my stomach just as I got there. Being fifteen minutes away from any toilet, and feeling in a bit of a rush, I decided to embrace my natural state and dig a hole downstream. It actually felt pretty liberating, but with only leaves to wipe with, I was definitely glad I was having a shower after.

The afternoon was spent doing a skill share among our group. This translated to Rianne leading a meditation session, which was rudedly interupted by a loud Buffalo, and other people sharing primary school playground skills like how to make those paper fortune teller things. The star of the show ended up being the team leaders Ama, who just so happed to be making bowls from leaves and bits of bamboo in the background.

We also had our very first meeting with the women’s committee of the village, which didn’t exactly go well. They didn’t seem to understand why we were in Archale at all, and asked us, among other things, to build them a temple. To say they seemed dissapointed when they found out we could only provide them with training and educational classes, would be an understatement. The meeting broke up when two of the women started arguing over who was the leader of the committee. Evidently, Loulou and Amita’s Ama and John and Sudhaka’s Ama didn’t get along. I spent the whole thing, playing tug of war with a stick with Meg.

Evening was spent having a weekly waste bonfire, and chatting shit with Jess. You would think that without tv or the internet that you would run of things to talk about with people , but you would be dead wrong.

Rain

It was Sunday, our day off, and I had been looking forward to having a lie in. Unfortunately, Nepali’s don’t seem to understand what Sunday’s are for and I was awoken at 6am by Raj and Dipika having a loud conversation.

After a while of lying there, hoping they’d stop, I got up and went to do my washing. This is when Raj told me there was no water to the village taps, and we’d have to go to my host families’ water butt in the middle of a field. Initially this was fine, but as the sun rose higher in the sky, it became uncomfortably hot, which made the whole task even more of a chore than usual. I hung up my clothes on the makeshift washing line and left Raj to have a wash.

Following on from lunch, I met up with the usual crew of Jess, John and Loulou to have a shower and just generally laze about. At some point, we decided to go to Jess’ and see if her Ama would make us roti, but on our way there a spectacular storm began. The thunder seemed to echo around whole valley, and sudden branches of purple lightning lit up the sky. This was quickly followed by the the rain. Imagine the heaveist downpour you’ve ever been in, but it lasting two solid hours and the only protection you have is a corregated iron roof.

When the storm eventually ended, the whole landscape had changed. Where there was once dry, cracked earth, there was now a hillside of mud. We slid our way back to our host homes and on my return, my host family reminded me of the washing I’d left in the field. My heart sunk, but with the sun down there was no hope of me finding it in the dark. I told them as much, roughly translated through Raj, but they kept repeating “Nathan, where are your clothes?”, which got quite annoying after a while.

Finally, when dinner was over, my host dad revealed my clothes, hidden in the corner of the room. They all rolled about in laughter at my reaction, and even I was laughing in the end. I had been told that the Nepali people had a great sense of humour, but this was my first experience of it.
In hindsight this was hilarious, but at the time I remember being a bit grumpy about the whole thing.