Mark and Jo's Nepal Mission Trip: Mid West Trip

Well, we spoke too soon. We had said that we hadn’t seen the effect of bandh’s (strikes which at least close roads and shops but some can be severe and stop you leaving your house) and our health was good.
Mark got giardia so we decided he should come down a day later on another vehicle to allow the medication to take effect. However, a two day bandh was called and so he got another sleep in.

Jo went to Ghorahi and was staying in a hotel with another expat as by this stage we realised that Mark wouldn’t be able to get to Ghorahi. The room was little but sufficient. The bathroom hadn’t been cleaned since it was built including wiping the extra grout away which had since caked onto the floor making the bathroom look really dirty.

We had an extra friendly young boy who felt it was his duty to make us really comfortable – at the expense of personal space! He knocked on a door on the first night to offer us complimentary chiyaa (tea) in the morning. We since learnt that black chiyaa was complimentary but while chiyaa (normal Nepali chiyaa) was chargeable. We ordered chiyaa for 8am – it arrived at 6.30. He was then back to take our breakfast order and then came back with the menu just to check we were happy with our order! He then came back to tell us it was ready – all while we were in various states of dress after having a freezing cold shower. We went to the restaurant to eat only to wait ½ hour for the food to be cooked!!!! Bless him, he was trying so hard!!!
We attended a local Nepali church where about 10 people gave testimonies of God healing them. This is the main way that people are turning to Christ, healings that the local holy men have failed to achieve. We were invited back to the pastor’s wife’s house for lunch (he was attending training in Kathmandu). She was a very lovely lady and lunch with her was a real blessing for Nicola and I.

Ghorahi is a lovely, semi rural town although a lot bigger than I expected. It has a good sized bazaar with lots of local products and then the houses are scattered around. It is very spread out and there are lots of empty plots of land. It rests in a wide, flat valley with hills in the background but I really did miss the mountains and I am glad that we are staying in Pokhara so that I can look at the mountains with snow on them!! (We were going to be working in Ghorahi after language training.)

The work in Ghorahi was limited due to the bandhs meaning we couldn’t drive anywhere to see the community work. We sat in a few meetings that were in Nepali of which I understood nothing!! One meeting was in a cute mud brick church that used bamboo as its scaffolding. There was about a ½ metre gap between the walls the roof to provide ”air-conditioning”. The roof was tin so I don’t know what you would hear during the monsoon. We sat on the floor in a circle with all the village and church elders and had another meeting – all in nepali that I didn’t understand. I felt like I was in survivor and managed (I don’t know how) to walk out with my torch still ignited and was allowed to carry on with my day!

We got to meet a very lovely old lady called Suk Mya who developed leprosy just before she was to be married off. She was sent away from her village and occasionally her mother would bring her some food. She slept near the edge of the jungle with the cows.

She heard about INF personnel who came to her village but by the time she walked there they had left. Therefore she walked 16 days on ulcerated feet to the Ghorahi clinc. There she was treated but the staff failed to reintegrate her back into her village. A local church man allowed her to have some of her land and INF built her a 3x4m house incl toilet and kitchen area!! She was sooo proud of the house even though all it had in it was a stack of firewood for the woodburner, some rice, dahl and a packet of biscuits which she insisted that she shared with us.

We had another day in Ghorahi looking at the TB hospital before driving to Nepalgunj. We saw jackels and monkeys on the road which was a treat!!!

We finally arrived in Nepalgunj at around 6pm and meet up with Mark who had arrived earlier at about 1pm. We stayed with Ross and Ester a couple our age who are working in Nepalgunj with INF. The temperature was a significant jump on Pokhara it was hitting mid thirties during the day and not dropping below 25 at night. Nepalgunj is smelly, hot, dusty and has the most vicious mosquitos even seen (they bite through trousers and socks!!) and it made us appreciate Pokhara even more. We spent the next day visiting various patients of INF who had been through the community based rehab program (or CBR). In these CBR programs INF helps patients to integrate back into society following a disability. INF oftens helps by setting the patient up with some form of income, typically this is in the form of a shop or some goats or pigs that they can breed and make an income from. There are often housing modifications required as well as wheelchairs which can all be provided by INF.

We had dinner on the Tuesday night with most of the INF team in Nepalgunj which was great they are a wonderful bunch and all really close. The next day we had a quick tour of Bheri Zonal hospital in Nepalgunj, all I will say is don’t get sick in Nepal!!!

After the tour we ended up sitting around waiting for nearly five hours for a meeting to finish before we could leave for Surkhet, so we found a fan and plonked ourselves under that to pass the time. We finally left at about 3pm, we were supposed to be in Surkhet at 1pm for a meeting. On the way we came across an INF expat stranded on the side of the rode with a puncture on her motorbike. One of the Nepalis with us rode her bike slowly to the next town (11km) where we fixed the tire. After all that we ended up arriving 7 hours late in Surkhet. The drive to Surkhet is beautiful, the road goes through one end of Bardia national park which has some pretty good scenery and mobs of monkeys hanging out on the road.

The next morning we had more tours similar to Nepalgunj and more meetings in Nepali that we didn’t understand. That afternoon was a meeting in the INF Surkhet office of all the Rehab teams from the various programs, this was a chance for everyone to find out what the other programs had been up to and toss ideas around. The next day was a full day rehab meeting which I (Mark) was noticeable in my absence. I decided that rehab work was not really my forte so I teamed up with a couple of young English guys on their gap year and climbed the hill behind Surkhet. It took us about 9 hours and was a great day despite being outside without sun cream for the whole day in the scorching sun I only got a very mild dose of sunburn (no hole in the ozone layer over here!!!).

The next day we set off at 7am headed for Butwel which is small city half way back to Pokhara. We arrived early in Butwel so decided to continue to Tansen. The road between Butwel and Pokhara is quite narrow and in several spots it cuts across large cliff faces. At one point the road is being repaired following a landslide which probably occurred around last years monsoon and will no doubt occur again this year. The road is down to one lane and we had to pull over to let a large bus through, we ended up perched on the edge of a cliff with millimetres between us and a huge drop into the river below and millimetres from us on the other side was the bus. That was a nail biting experience!! After a night in Tansen to break up the journey we returned to Pokhara the next day thankful for the higher elevation and cooler temperatures.

Ghorahi Church - mud brick with bamboo supports

The small house belonging to Suk Mya (lady on right)

Nicola (another expat) and Suk Mya

Horse and cart in Nepalgunj

Jo with Nepali baby in a village near Nepalgunj. This baby was 2 months old and the parents were very keen for me to hold her but very unwilling to take her back. She appeared very small so I think they hoped I would nurse it back to health.