Saturday 3rd November 2007

Before I begin today, you should know that this email is going to be a particularly long one, so I’ve split it into 3 parts, as I need to give you some background to help explain what’s been happening in the last week or two.

I have mentioned in previous emails the orphanage in Kocanna, where my friend Alan is volunteering.
There is a very stark contrast between his orphanage and mine, and my time here has been a picnic compared to some of the things he has had to deal with in the last three months.

There are 12 children there, in a dirty, dark concrete bungalow, the roof leaks when it rains and the water pours down the bedroom walls where the kids sleep.
The owner of the orphanage, Ram, is almost never there, and is really not a nice man at all.

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Thursday 1st November 2007

A lot has been happening over here in the last week or so, and I am in the process of writing it all down, but it’s an ongoing problem involving Alan’s orphanage, some serious abuse and neglect of children, and what exactly we’re going to be able to do about it.

We’ve been meeting with people all week, from community police officers, to other orphanages and all sorts of other problems and potential solutions have come up.

It’s such a long and involved story that I’m going to have to wait a bit before I tell you all about it, as the situation has literally changed every day this week, so I can’t type fast enough!

In the meantime, I’m going to tell you all some random little anecdotes to keep you amused, although the next few emails will probably be long and involved – don’t say you weren’t warned! Continue reading →

Saturday 27th October 2007

Hello again,
Just thought you’d all like to know that on Tuesday night, around 6pm, I became a vegetarian.

A bit random, but for almost three months I’ve been loving the food here, and it’s been almost completely vegetarian. Then in the last two weeks during Dashain, I have eaten meat almost every day, as I mentioned in my last email, ranging from chickens and goats, to buffalo, mutton and something that was described to me as “sort-of like baby buffalo” – some kind of veal I imagine. Anyway, I was eating my mutton curry for dinner and was literally chewing on a mouthful when the images of all the slaughters I’ve seen recently popped into my head.
I was chewing away on this sinewy, gristly bit of tendon and muscle and I felt utterly reviled and nauseous!

I literally couldn’t swallow my mouthful – I had to spit it out. It was weird cos it was so completely sudden! Continue reading →

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Friday 5th October 2007

Well hello there all you poor, unenlightened people of the past!
I have seen the future, and it is, well, dirty frankly!

You see, while you poor sods slog out your days in the dark technological age of 2007, I am here, sloshing through the mud and sewage of the future. Time travel may seem like some crazy science fiction concept to many of you, but I am in fact writing to you from Kathmandu, Nepal, in the year 2064.

(Although in fact, the very essence of writing to you instantly across a gap of 57 years may well result in parallel universes, causing a rip in the space-time continuum, the consequences of which, as many of you will know, could be disastrous!) Continue reading →

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