hum

We've been trying to organise a film night for the circus kids for so long now. We want to show them that circus is not what it used to be. Those big tops full of sawdust and elephant poo still exist, yes, but there is a lot more to circus these days. We want to nurture their creativity, so that we can come closer to giving them creative control over their circus company. People often say that Nepali people just aren't very creative, and when I hear this, I want to slap them. Also, I want to prove them wrong. We also want to give the kids a chance to do something different, something social, show them that it's not all just push-ups and handstands. After constant set-backs, cancellations and miscommunications, we managed to finally have our film night yesterday. In the morning.

They loved the videos, all of them. In that way, at least, we succeeded. Amazing to show them one of my favourite old clowns, George Carl, and see those Nepali kids just lose it. That's what it's all about, it's not exactly high-brow comedy, but the universality of clown  is beautiful to behold (and to readers who hear the word clown, and think of Ronald Macdonald, or some other over-the-top technicolour nightmare, check out George Carl. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0eAVjaQrUA ). It's funny to watch if you grew up in a middle-class family Hawthorn, Australia, and it's funny to watch if you were sold off to be a child-slave in India at the age of 5.

I'd pictured the film night as an opportunity for the kids to unwind and open up. A casual thing, you know, groups sitting around tables, maybe some couches, bowls full of nibbles on each little table. I'd imagined promoting dialogue by asking simple questions, getting to know what people think, letting the kids talk freely. I got to our venue at 9:30 a.m. to see that it was set up like a cinema: rows of seats, all facing forward. Oh well, I suppose they were only trying to help. Between video clips, I stood up there and made an idiot of myself, asking everyone what parts they liked, what parts they didn't like, trying to talk about the difference between contemporary circus and old-school circus, or trying to tell them that if there were any skills which they wanted to learn from what they saw, then we could work it out together. Everything I said was met with mystified silence. I might as well have been talking Swahili. It reminded me of way back when I studied physics, and would sit in those massive lecture halls, with that little lecturer rattling on about quantum theory, completely oblivious to the chorus of snores and text messages all around him. I felt very alone just then. Towards the end of the session I finally gave up and just snuck around the room, chatting to people individually. This worked much better, and I discovered many of the kids' secret aspirations, and fears. I was explaining to one of the girls that these acts take years to master, and she said something like "But you're going to go away in a few months anyway, like all of the volunteers". I replied that I'm going to stay for at least a year, and she seemed genuinely pleased. It felt good to say this, because I'd been trying to decide how long I'd like to stay for, but now that I've said this to the Sapana kids, I have to follow through with it. It will be sad to dwindle away my last reserves of money by staying in a volun

Since that morning of the film-night-morning, I've been hitting the Nepali books hard, I'm determined to get enough fluency with Nepali that I can break down this language barrier. Then we can really start making progress towards building this company together.

I don't tell them about this blog

My experience as a volunteer.

I have been in Nepal for over a month now, although it feels like so much longer. People are always saying that something feels longer, or  that it feels like shorter. Never will you hear it said that it feels exactly as long as it appears to be. Why longer? Because each day is stuffed full of new exciting experiences. Our new house is next to an army barracks. I assume it’s an army barracks, because of the razor wire, and gun turrets. Those lonely men in their gun turrets, gazing out onto a suburban street. Army uniform, khaki, and it occurs to me that khaki is a very Nepali-sounding word, I wonder where its origin lies? Last night as I rode my bicycle home, one of the men had night0vision goggles on. I’d never seen night-vision goggles in real life, here in the poorest country I’ve ever seen I was not expecting something so futuristic. I smile and wave to those men in the gun turrets. Usually they smile and wave back, grateful for something to break the tedium. One day I will have a conversation with them, tell them about my life back in Australia. Sometimes when I smile and wave, they look back at me with a look of foreboding, uncertainty with a gun. This is the worst kind of uncertainty. I don’t blame them though, things are different here.

I sing to myself on the bicycle. Mostly I sing ‘Stormy Weather’, the Peggy Lee version inspires my rendition. It is not my song, but then again, it is not my bicycle either. I am borrowing it from my housemate Noah, while he is away ‘in the field’.. Before that, I had another friend’s bicycle, my other friend was away in ‘the field’ too, a different field. Her field was a village, the poorest village she has ever seen, one of the poorest places in Nepal, and therefore, almost perfectly wealthless. Apparently there are 7 aid organizations acting to help that village in some way, but their help is not apparent. Not slightly. Meanwhile, in London, people take to the streets, burning things, smashing windows and going midnight-shopping. Everyone is eager to attach meaning to this, condemning it as mindless or comparing it to historical revolutions. Political unrest? Why not? Opportunistic looting? Certainly. Flecks of meaning swimming through a soup of chaos, a feedback loop fed by alienation, disempowerment and innumerable personal stories that should not be hidden under blankets. No-one who has lived in London, who has been poor in London, should be surprised. Here, it is a different poverty. In some ways better, in some ways worse. Better in the way that people know how to make things out of junk, how to fix things rather than throw them away, how to grow their own food, distill their own alcohol and most importantly how to come together as a community, how to look out for each other. Worse in that they have no hope for the future, they are stuck where they are, and sometimes food just doesn’t grow. They leave in the thousands, once again I cannot remember the figures because I cannot fathom them, let’s just be conservative and say that thousands of Nepalis try to cross the border every month. In many cases, cowboy-NGOs and celebrity-endorsed charities catch them, stop them, send them back to starve in their own village. Tick, job done, the NGO-workers catch a group of women at the border, take them to the police for a severe beating, vision obscured, dollar signs in the eyes. The women are sent back to their village, and of course they leave again, are again caught, this time by the charity I work for, and so this story comes to me. We don’t do border rescues, as far as I can tell we are way less dodgy than the big players. We are a small charity, and very transparent about what we do, how we do it.

In Brisbane, I used to steal things from supermarkets, just little things. And the more the supermarket experience annoyed and nauseated me, the more I would steal in kind. In kind support from Safeworth. In this way, instituting my own pay-as-you-feel system, I found the supermarket shopping experience bearable. My housemates found it hilarious, which only encouraged me to steal more, and to steal weirder things. A particular favourite of my housies was a large bunch of bananas (my own obscure protest, for at that time bananas cost $12/kilo), which I just held in my hand throughout the whole shopping experience, so that when my time came to check out, it was the most natural thing in the world for me to continue holding it, no-one in the world would dare question it, least of all disillusioned supermarket staff. Aren’t we all just monkeys anyway?

Here in Nepal, I would never steal from a shop. Authorities predict that violent conflict is just around the corner, and I would not be surprised. It was certainly not what I expected, this place. The lovely people at the charity I work for asked me to write a couple of paragraphs about my time in Nepal so far. Something personal, entertaining, something they could quote. I accidentally wrote this. I should start again.

I left a very nice life in Brisbane to be here. I worked a little every day, teaching circus and sometimes performing. The rest of the time I would do my own training, or go to the beach, or visit my friends, or listen to live music, or drink delicious coffee.  Life is very different here. Every day I work in the office. EBT-N is a small team that does big things, and so there is always a lot to do. I came here to be a circus trainer, and for 6 hours a week, this is what I do. The rest of the time, I do things I never expected to do, not in my wildest dreams. Things like working in an office. On the street corner nearby, a man sits and mends umbrellas and shoes. People ride around the neighborhood, calling out in a special guttural voice, perfectly tuned to reach through the farthest window. Sometimes they call out “Aap!” which means they are selling mangoes, other times they call out what sounds like “Talagag gag Talagag gag”. I don’t know what it means, but I think they’re collecting junk to recycle.

I ride my bike through streets where staying on the left side of the road is not so much a rule as a guideline. As far as I can tell, there are only two road rules: Look everywhere all the time, and don’t hit anyone. Once you get used to it, and so long as you’re not in a hurry, it actually works really well. When you cross the street, just keep walking and the cars, motorbikes and miscellaneous vehicles will dodge around you like a school of fish.

I was only supposed to be here for three months, but now I want to stay for longer, at least a year. I don’t know why exactly. There is something beautiful about this project. People in Nepal need hope. If we can rescue a small group of kids, give them hope, and then let them share their hope through the medium of circus, then perhaps we can spread this hope. Who knows? As my friend would say, it’s worth a red-hot go

Why monkeys do not talk, the volunteer and the cake, and other stories.

Yesterday I learned a phrase, "Hawaa lagyo", which means "Taken by the wind", and is used to describe the effect of globalisation and Westernisation on Nepal. Nepal opened its borders around 60 years ago, there are many people alive here who remember when it could have been described as a medieval kingdom. Kathmandu is progressing and Westernizing like an avalanche, unaware of where it's heading and completely unable to stop. Hawaa lagyo.

I've been reading a book of Nepali folk stories. They are delightfully random, and often contain no discernible lesson or moral. Refreshing. Probably my favourite so far is the story of why monkeys do not talk. Basically, there once was a man who had a loyal and intellegent monkey companion. This monkey could understand everything that was said to him, and this made the man perplexed: he wondered why the monkey would never speak. He contrived a way to make the monkey talk by setting him an elaborate task, involving minding a bowl full of Buffalo butter which sat in the sun. The man hid nearby and watched when, as planned, the monkey could bear it no longer and called out "Sir! Sir! The butter is melting!" And at that, his head exploded.

And that is why monkeys do not talk. The end. Shaun and I have been talking about making a stop-frame animation of this and other Nepali folk tales.

I woke at 5 this morning, so that I could watch the gymnastics training that some of my circus students undertake. There are concerns from some of the caretakers at the refuge that doing gymnastics at 6:30a.m. then going to school all day, and then circus training in the evening, might be a little too much strain. My initial stance on the issue was that if the kids want to go to gym so badly, then they should be able to. Nothing is uncomplicated here, and I've since heard that the gym class is causing falling grades at school, and a couple of kids are missing breakfast in their determination to take gymnastics class. On the other hand, one of these kids has been rated amongst the top gymnasts in the country, and would have been sent to the Beijing olympics if he had come from the right family. Also, some of the circus students have been getting injured at gym class. The only thing to do was to go and see for myself. So I woke before the sun and made my way to the hall where the national gymnasts train, a ramshackle little room, stuffed full of mats, rings, high bar, etc. It was arranged by the people upstairs that a certain gentleman ex-Gurkha would accompany me. He has a politeness and a presence which commands respect, and of course the Ghurkas here have an almost celebrity status (their name decorates walls throughout Kathmandu, my favourite one "Show me a man who claims not to fear death and I say he is either a liar or a Ghurka"). Unfortunately, he never showed, partly my fault for not mustering the courage to call so early in the morning to confirm that he was coming. Partly I guess I wasn't really sure what I was doing there, what I would say to the gym coach, wanted an excuse to bail on the whole thing. So rather than meet the gym coach and say all of those things I thought of afterwards, I tried to talk to the circus students for a while, about being responsible, careful, safe, about the importance of school, about all kinds of things which I was the least qualified person on Earth to be preaching about. They got suitably defensive, and I felt like a real twat. So I shut up watched training for a while. What I saw was that the two circus students were there with their friends, were away from the refuge in the hills and in the heart of Kathmandu. I saw that they were having a great time. I left, feeling like I had made a complete mess of this supposed meeting, and that I would have to answer for it to my pseudo-military pseudo-bosses, but on reflection I can say that if nothing else, I got to see the circus students there at the gym class, being away from the refuge, amongst friends, having a great time.

There is a cafe near the office, which I frequent, espresso coffee and a small machiatto-stain of guilt. The place is nice and cool, has comfortable couches, and therefore it is usually full whitey bidesi folk, from the vast array of NGOs that pepper this part of Kathmandu. The owner of this cafe is a nice guy, with an interesting story of returning to Kathmandu after living in England for some time, so that he could grow his own coffee and live his own version of the dream. He was telling me that a Swiss NGO has offered to send top-shelf bakers to his cafe, to train up the staff there to make croissants and other such delicious pastries. These pastries would go to the mouths of the NGOs, and was therefore a wonderful real life allegory of the Trouble with NGOs. I do not know the name of this NGO, but it occured to me later that "Let Them Eat Cake" would be an excellent name.

I reflected on all of this as I sat in Cafe Soma this morning, after leaving the gym where I couldn't pluck up the courage to cross those cultural barriers and language barriers and try to talk to the gym coach, try to call the gentleman Gurkha, try to do all of those things which should have been so easy. I sat, drinking good coffee and eating a delicious brownie in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Someone told me that there are literally hundreds of NGOs here whose aim is to clean up the Bagmati river, but none of us have seen a single person actually picking up rubbish from that festering stream of junk. This is among the nicer NGO stories I've heard. That's enough stories for now.

pause

Writing is a thing which requires stillness, sitting, and not being distracted. This is the problem, has always been the problem with writing. There are so many things to do, so many wonderful distractions. There are periods in life when the only time you find to write is when you are waiting. Just now I am waiting for a bicycle to arrive, at which point I will go salsa dancing. Whilst riding bicycles, and whilst salsa dancing, writing is almost entirely out of the question. I try and collect these moments, so that when I finally get time to sit in front of a computer screen, I can pull them out and examine them. It takes a long time, and many of these moments have gone stale in my memory, whilst others have aged like wine. Some are lost, many turn up at unexpected moments.

There is an urgency now, if the bicycle doesn't turn up soon, I will have to find another plan, head footwards to salsa, perhaps moving my hips a little more than normal in preparation, until a small boy in a school uniform gives me a strange look, at which point I will most likely pretend that I'm stretching out a sore hip.

Last night we went to see live jazz. Up in that small room, the saxophonist requested, in his Spanish accent, that if we wanted to talk, we should go 'out the door to the other ambiance'. He then proceeded to play self-indulgent solos that went for too long, whilst the keys, double-bass and drums had their own conversations behind him. When someone else did a solo, he would walk off stage and sit down somewhere. We watched the band, a little uncomfortably, doing our best to enjoy the talent and inventiveness of the musicians despite the obstruction of this ego. On the way out of this place, we espied a Ugandan dance party. Perfect remedy, we danced along until everyone was gone. The next day, we went to a market for Ex-pats, a pocket of Jane Austen-esque ostentatious opulence. Then to an israeli cafe where we thought about eating but decided against it. A strong coffee at a table full of Dutch architects, spicy tea and momos, the delicious Nepali dumpling. We don't question the strangeness any more.

A letter I wrote to mum, just now

Hi mum,
Nepal is great, I have walked up and down a great many hills, and when
my legs complain, I tell them "Well what did you expect? We're in
Nepal!" I've met a great many goats on my walks, although I haven't
had any goat curries. Lots of Dal Bhaat, and sometimes I'll treat
myself to buff momos (buffalo dumplings). We have Nepali lessons twice
a week, I love the challenge of learning a new language, even though I
can't imagine it will be very useful once I leave.

I would love some New Scientists, or any reading material you'd like
to sent me, although where to send them to? Three of us have just
settled into our house, the new home of the circus volunteers. And
we've just found out that they are having issues negotiating rent, and
may have to move us somewhere else. I will hopefully find out, one way
or another, in the next few days. The house has been unused for a
while, so we cleaned, mopped, swept away mouse crap, rubbish and other
more ambiguous refuse. Now we have a lovely little house, with a stone
staircase, stone bookshelf, a big backyard with a secret pathway
leading up to a giant statue of Buddha. It is far away from the
dubious Westernness of Sanepa, (a district in Kathmandu, the home of
our charity's office, the UN, and a huge number of NGOs and ex-pats)
and the sprawling mess and noise of central Kathmandu. I hope we can
stay there, it's even worth the 1-and-a-half hour journey into the
office, where we squeeze sardine-like into the Micro, a toyota van,
one volunteer claims to have counted 29 commuters. I too woke up too
early, to try and beat the rush and get a seat that I could stay in
for the entire journey.

I would love to stay for longer than my initial three months, although
sometimes I feel like getting out of here as soon as possible. I have
been given a lot of responsibility, but not the respect that this
responsibility accords. My flight from Brisbane, a promise of regular
training space, and now the house in Godawari, from these I have
learned that I cannot rely on this organisation to follow through with
its offers.

Unfortunately you brought me up very well, but I am starting to learn
how to break my programming, to tread on toes, butt in to
conversations, bang heads together, so that I can get training space,
essential items for the students, organise time for them to see what's
going on in the world of contemporary circus, and just have fun
together, build some group cohesion, things like this. Everything
takes time here, but if I can just get these few things sorted out,
then I would happily stay for a long time. If it doesn't work out,
then it's back to Australia, where I have received a few job offers
via email, and have applied for a couple of festivals.

The actual job which I ostensibly came here to do, the circus classes,
are great. Quite a challenge though. I'm looking forward to having a
bit more Nepali language to talk to them with. The kids are all aged
between 14-22, and mostly you would never know that they have been
disconnected from their families, trafficked, and abused. They are
bright, funny, keen to learn and willing to try new things. The issues
that come up are the same kinds of issues that all teenagers face:
self-esteem, body image, jealousy, etc. but there is a general level
of respect here that is rare among Western teenagers. I'm trying to
slowly bring in more theatre and general performance training, to work
on their stage presence a bit, sometimes this goes really well, and
sometimes it is a complete fiasco, but we always stay positive. One of the
kids goes off quite often to brood, staring out the window for long
periods with a look that speaks all too clearly of the past trauma and
current pressure that he must live through. A grim reminder of the
complexity of this situation.

I'd best get back to work. I've got to a report now to the project
manager in the UK, where I will no doubt repeat a lot of the things
I've just written here, but perhaps maybe couch some of them in more
diplomatic terms. I'm glad to hear that you're getting the move back
to Australia sorted. Will you move back into Carlton?

Bye then,
Love Ivan

requiem for a dying computer

Load shedding is what they call it here. The power is cut for at least a few hours every day. In Winter times, there is a schedule can be worked around. Now, in monsoon times, there is much more electricity, but the cuts are unpredictable. Here in the office, all of the computers are connected to little black boxes. Today is Sunday and the office is deserted. As I sat alone in the room full of computers, I discovered the purpose of those little black boxes. When the power goes out of Kathmandu, each little box starts beeping, and keeps the computer alive for precious moments. They each have their own way of beeping, their own pitch and tempo, so the result is an electronic choir, a minimalist opera, requiem for a dying computer. Hearing this symphony for the first time, I realised that the boxes were there to give us, the humans, enough time to save our work, finish our emails, log out of facebook.
And this is why it's hard to write. When I try to write, I am paralysed by the sheer volume of moments, some hilariously surreal, some devastatingly real. So much good material, where to begin? So I begin right there, with the choir of beeping boxes, and then zoom out to the view from the rooftop of my new home, the majestic Kathmandu valley stretching out into the distance, little houses, babies in baskets, goats. Then I settle into the rhythm of it. My friend asked me what the kids are like who I teach, so I start writing about them, each one so different, so amazing, and so much like a regular teenager.

And then I lose the entire post. I try to rewrite it, but the task is beyond me just now. Especially with life intruding at every sentence. Someone's key doesn't work, so I must jump the fence, unlock the gate from the outside. Dog escapes, so I chase it down the street. Babu the gate keeper tries to explain something to me about oil. At any moment the power might go out again, and I will have to rewrite this whole thing again. I will post this for now, even though I've barely described the landscape or the people here, or even covered a fraction of the amazing things that happen all of the time here. It will take time to settle into this enigmatic place, to be able to write about it in anything more than fits and starts. This is part of it, the lesson, live life now, write later.

A quick post, written whilst waiting for girls to get ready

Raincoat, umbrella, gumboots/wellingtons. Today I will go shopping for these things, take the fight to the monsoon, now that we've moved to Godawari, up in the hills, with the leeches, the winding mountain pathways, the house that is half an hour's from the office where the school bus takes us and all of the circus kids to training.

So much to write about. Yesterday we were moved to Godawari, away from this office, away from NGOs, UN road-hog vehicles, pollution and the honks, away from money, away away. Up there, children come up to you, not to ask for money but  out of sheer curiosity, and they giggle to each other and then run back to their parents, who are nearby, farming, cooking, washing, smiling.

A few days ago, we had a volunteer induction, and we were told that if we keep a personal blog, and if we write anything about the Esther Benjamin Trust in it, then we have to show it to the head of the organisation for approval before posting. On the same day, I found out lots of dubious things about the organisation, things I would love to write about, but which wouldn't go down so well. It has been almost impossible to write blogs since then. I'm still trying to decide whether to tell them anything about this blog, whether they'll find out anyway, I guess I need more time to know them better and see just how they'd react if I started talking about military connections and other such scary things