Monthly Archives: September 2009

Honouring Fridays: September 11th, 2009

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Well folks, this is the beginning of the end.  The beginning of my vacation (well, almost) and the end of working like a maniac…for a whole 4 weeks! We look forward to greeting my parents at the airport on Tuesday night and embarking on a trip to Pokhara, a short mountain trek, a bunch of small day trips around Kathmandu, and then a 9 day trip around Rajasthan in India.  And with this adventure comes the great need to disconnect from my life in Kathmandu…just enough to clear the mind and rejuvenate the spirit.

So, this will be my final Friday gratitude post for the next 4 weeks.  I may post some photos of our trip or the odd note during this time but will return in earnest with my weekly musings on things I am grateful for on Friday, October 16th.  Until then enjoy the beginning of Fall – bake an apple crisp, buy a new sweater, and  crush some dry leaves underfoot.

  • XMind.  On two instances over the past month I have needed to pull together a partnership map to show the connections between various stakeholders, community groups, partners, government, donors and volunteers.  In non-development speak this is really just a  complex organizational diagram that shows how any involved is connected to anyone else involved.  After fiddling for some time with the PowerPoint org chart functions I quickly realized they were much too hierarchical for our holistic approach.  So, off to the web to find something better (and free, and open source…of course!).  Enter XMind, a great tool for mind-mapping of the complex and chaotic variety.  Here is an example of what I was able to do.
  • Dhaka topi.  I have been taking more notice lately of the tradition Nepali caps that men here wear.  Topi ithe general word for hat and dhaka is the cloth used to make traditional Nepali mens wear.  When used together they refer to the hat worn when wearing the dhaka clothes.  They are jaunty, colourful, and rather charming.  Somehow, they remind me of time passed – I imagine what Kathmandu might have looked like years ago, with bikes being the main mode of transport, when colourful dhaka topis topped the head of every man riding a bike…it must have looked something like this.
  • Sel roti.  Sel roti looks like a large skinny donut.  It is a sweetened rice flour bread that is deep fried and eaten with Nepali tea or with a snack of curried chick peas.  I ate my first sel roti last week as they are a common snack around festival time.  I have not yet had the guts  to try and make them but if you want to give it a go, here is a good recipe.  The slight crunch of the ground  rice bits gives the texture of cornmeal and the sweet dough with the slight hint of banana flavour all drenched in a crispy greasy crust…delicious!
  • The right amount of time.  Enough time to appreciate, notice, and enjoy what is around you.  Not so much time  that you feel stuck and stagnant.  Enough time to soak it all in.  Not so much time to feel you might never make it to the end.  Enough time to feel powerfully connected.  Not so much time that powerful connections turn into resentful relationships.  Just the exact right amount of time when everything makes sense.

Honouring Fridays: September 4th, 2009

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The countdown to September 15th has kicked into full gear! The excitement of 4 weeks of vacation combined with visitors from home arriving on that day is making the days fly by. Plus September and October hold the biggest Hindu festivals (akin to Christmas in Christian countries). First is Dashain which is a large, 10-day, family celebration with lots of sacrifices, meat eating, dancing, singing, and returning to home villages to give prayers and offerings to family members. Then about 2 weeks later is Tihar (like Diwali in India) the festival of light. So, lots of joy and celebration ahead has left me feeling incredibly grateful this week – the cup runneth over with goodness, prosperity, and happiness!

  • Pants with no holes. Such simple pleasures really. After toting some rather tired-looking clothes to Nepal, hoping that they would wear themselves out while here, I discovered that they listened. But only in the form of large holes in the crotch (too much information? sorry), while the rest of the fabric is like new! Ordinarily, I would just buy myself a new pairs of pants, but when your entire 4-pair pants wardrobe is in cahoots and decides to commit collective suicide and to reveal your bits to the world, it means war. So, those old pants got a new lease on life this week thanks to a neighbourhood tailor. After trying about 6 different shops and getting full belly laughs from the proprietors about my large-thigh problem, I finally found a man who was willing to help. Granted, he and his friend spent a good ten minutes exclaiming and laughing to each other about how fat I was, but finally he agreed to help. The solution, while not perfect but absolutely acceptable, was to cut about 3 inches of length from the cuffs and use those two pieces to sandwich the weak fabric in the middle. So, 4 days later and they are as good as new…we will just overlook the fact that my entire pants wardrobe is now an awkward mid-ankle crop…
  • Cinnamon rolls. I inherited a big jar of yeast from a friend who was moving back to Canada from Nepal (Hi Anne! Say hello to Vancouver for us!), along with a great big bag of walnuts and an almost full can of dark Canadian maple syrup (and many many other lovely kitchen items…I am also grateful for hand-me-downs!). Inspired to bake something that reminded me of home, I quickly decided on the comforting yeasty-ness of cinnamon rolls. When I was younger my mom would sometimes get up very early and bake us fresh cinnamon buns before school…such a treat (I also remember the homemade elviss mcmuffins…real cheddar, English muffins, egg…my absolute favourite!). The husband loved them – he ate most of them in fact – and the maple walnut crunch with cinnamon was delicious! The bun recipe was an adaptation of The Pioneer Woman’s but instead of the maple glaze on top I  slathered inside butter, maple syrup, and cinnamon.  It may not feel like Fall here but it sure did taste like it!
  • Money. The pain was all worth it. I received word this week that the National Campaign for Education, Nepal (NCE Nepal) with whom I am working, has been approved for a rather large sum of money for this year and two more years funding contingent on success this year. It amounts to about $100,000 USD, in Nepali rupees is close to 7,769,999.69 NPR. To put this into context the majority of Nepali families in villages live on 3000-4000 NPR or less per month…this is BIG money! The proposal writing process was probably one of the most painful and exhausting times I have had here in Nepal but I couldn’t be happier that at least it was all worth it. This will be enough to hire two more staff and do some really exciting work on education advocacy including research, policy advocacy, and setting up regional advocacy networks. So, it is an exciting and wealthy time for NCE Nepal. It makes me slightly sad to be leaving and unable to see the implementation of all these great ideas. But it leaves them in a good spot…all I can do now is hope they use it effectively and ethically.
  • English translation errors. Last weekend we went up to near the Tibetan border to stay at a lovely resort called Last Resort. A beautiful and peaceful place to recharge the internal battery and refocus on what is inspiring about Nepal. We enjoyed the company of good friends, good food, and adventure! But I also enjoyed this – almost more than anything…I am still chuckling about it actually. 🙂   Whoops!   Just a bit more space needed between the first 2 options and the last option, unless of course vegetarian is in fact a new gender!  And I was thinking that this would be a good submission to Engrish.