Another day, another danger!

Hello all,

Sorry it’s been so long since we last blogged. Since then we have been to yet another conference in Kathmandu! We can’t groan too much about this one though, as Steve was one of the organisers. Actually, it was a lot more interesting than the usual groans about the hardships of being a VSO volunteer!! The theme of the conference was ‘young people in Nepal’ so there were lots of young speakers and participants. These young people were involved in politics, young people’s rights, volunteering or education. Many of the young people were inspiring speakers and we also took part in a really good youth led workshop on HIV/AIDS.

In between our two quite recent visits to Kathmandu, schools have not been teaching because of exams, the inaccurately named ‘Welcome to School’ programme, and generally taking a long time to get going for the new school year. We kept busy, however, mostly by giving training. Some of this was at the Education Training Centre (government run centres for in-service training). We also had fun at some nursery school training organised by a local NGO. This involved learning and teaching some new silly songs and games. We hope to be doing some more nursery training soon.

Since we returned from Kathmandu a few weeks ago, we have been taking advantage of the fact that schools have been open and running (at least half time – the very hot weather means that teachers are quite happy to shut up shop at any slight opportunity). Two weeks ago, the temperature reached 43° Celsius – the hottest ever recorded in Mahendranagar. The heat on its own is not unbearable. It’s the humidity which is really uncomfortable! As the monsoon approaches, the humidity builds up over a week or two weeks and then is finally broken by the rain – a great relief for a day at least. Then the rains get closer and closer together until it rains on most days.

Despite the heat and humidity, Steve continues to cycle for up to 3 hours to reach his schools and tries to avoid cycling at the hottest times of day. As school times in this season are 7am-12.30pm, he sometimes leaves the house at 4am or stays in the villages overnight to be able to get to school on time the next morning.

The house update is… the builders are still here making a racket and a big mess, but despite looking around for a smaller place, we haven’t yet found anywhere that is as good for birdspotting and seems worth the hassle of moving.

We have heard that the British Prime Minister is facing some problems. We in Nepal now have a new Prime Minister, whose name, somewhat confusingly, is Mr Nepal. About a month ago the previous Prime Minister resigned, leaving us slightly worried that in the absence of a Prime Minister, anarchy would break out. In fact, the opposite happened. For weeks, there were few road closures and strikes because no one knew who they were complaining to! With Mr Nepal now in office, things are back to normal with strikes and bandhs as regular as ever.

Now onto this week’s theme:

This blog is dedicated to Mr Steve Briggs, health and safety officer in Student Services at De Montfort University… and all other Health and Safety folk out there, many of whom often had to put up with our complaints (about filling in endless risk assessments when we want to leave a building or walk down a street, for example).

Now, we’re not promising to give up our moaning, about the excesses of caution that we experience in Britain, but some of our experiences in Nepal have reminded us how lucky we are in the UK to have enforceable health and safety laws. The lack of laws, lack of law enforcement and belief in fatalism (what will be was already meant to be), means that Nepal is unlikely to win the gold medal for health and safety.

Here are a few examples of daily hazards in Nepal:

Taking a walk down the street, especially in Kathmandu, can be dangerous here. If you’re lucky, you will see potholes, uncovered drains and metal wires sticking up all over the place. If you’re unlucky, for example if there is a power cut or the monsoon rains are covering the street, you won’t see the hazards, and fall into one. Two volunteers have had serious accidents just by walking down the street:.As well as there being plenty of work for road repairers, electricians also don’t need to worry about lack of work anytime soon!

The law in Nepal says clearly that the driver of a motorbike must wear a helmet. However, it doesn’t say anything about whether the helmet has to be done up, or how many passengers can be on a motorbike, their age, or their safety. As a result it is a common sight to see 4 or 5 members of a family, including babies, on a motorbike without helmets (apart from the driver). Motorbike accidents and injuries are very common.

We have conflicting feelings about the access of children to dangerous materials here. On the one hand it can make the children more skilled and careful at using tools and dealing with things like fire – we have yet to see a child injure themselves on the razor blades they bring to school to sharpen their pencils (from the age of 3). On the other hand we have heard of a number of children drowning in rivers and child mortality here is high.

One of the biggest dangers here and the cause of a lot of illness and some deaths (especially of young babies) is the lack of health and hygiene rules for food and drinking water. This is a daily problem for us as we need to boil, cool and carry with us all our drinking water and try to eat in restaurants where the food is served piping hot. But this is not always a possibility and Mel’s stomach can testify about the results! On the other hand, the government is now attempting to test drinking water supplies for arsenic. This powerful poison is found in much of the water in our area. We don’t know what happens to pumps that fail although Steve was recently told that the water from a village pump had a certificate to show that it had “5% arsenic levels” (although there may be some translation or mathematical reading error here!)

This overloaded vehicle is just one hazard when it comes to road travel. Lack of laws to do with bus and lorry driving means that one bus driver can be driving a bus for the entire journey to Kathmandu (more than 18 hours). We don’t take those buses by the way, but break our journey into two instead.

A bit closer to home, a ‘safety at work’ policy would be a welcome start for the builders at our house, which can seem pretty hazardous with frequent chunks of cement and bricks falling and being chucked off the roof.

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So, health and safety issues allowing, we’ll try and blog again soon.

P.S. For photos of a slightly more colourful and maybe more interesting nature, don’t forget to check out our latest photo album which you can access on the right of the page.

Men in sparkly pink tank tops

Hello all,

First our news. Apologies for being 'off-blog' for so long, but thanks to Ailsa and Mike, you were able to get a bit of an update. Since we last blogged, we have mostly been working in schools (until Ailsa and Mike's visit), holidaying with them, and getting stuck in Kathmandu, after a VSO conference, because of a two week long bandh (strike and road closure).

Since our return, schools have not been running normally due to exams and end of academic year business, but we have been managing to keep fairly busy with giving training at various places and with various people. We really enjoy giving training but we often wonder if what we try to convey will actually be used in schools. Apart from training, we have been enjoying some lovely birdwatching walks and visiting friends for food and festivities. We have also been harassing the builders about when exactly they are going to finish and tidy up our garden! Hopefully within a few days.

We would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year! Tomorrow is Nepali New Year's Day, the first day of 2066. We expect to be very well fed by the end of it (the day that is, not necessarily the year!)

Now on to the main subject of the blog this time. We like to strike a balance between lighthearted and more serious issues, so here are our thoughts on gender in Nepal:

When we first arrived, we not only had to learn the language, but also the social customs and traditions.Working in education makes it especially important to understand these customs and how they might affect what is happening in schools.

As in all cultures, in Nepal there are many traditions and values to do with the roles of women and men, boys and girls. We are interested in what some of these are, how they are different from some British ideas and how things are changing for women and men in the ‘New Nepal’.
It’s important to point out that there are many different cultures in Nepal and the role of women and men is different between cultures (and of course within cultures too). Many of the traditions relate to religion (in practice, the Hindu tradition) and some to specific ethnic groups, but many are similar to other countries the world over.

During our in country training, we had a talk from a women’s rights campaigner, who highlighted some of the issues she thought we should know about. She demonstrated to us, from the outset, that there are some Nepali women who are very well educated, assertive and outspoken.


Until very recently, Nepal was the only country in the world where women had a lower life expectancy than men. One of the reasons for women here dying at ayounger age than elsewhere are some traditions linked to women giving birth.
Following the birth of a child, women are traditionally viewed to be ‘impure’ for some days and are expected to sleep outside the home, sometimes in a cattle shed. The same thing is the case for a woman who is menstruating. These traditions are changing though, and it’s far more common for women to sleep in a separate room within the house these days, and in some cases, the tradition is not followed at all. We met a woman who works on a project which encourages women to come to hospital to give birth. Women can claim travel money when they get to hospital. At the hospital, advice can also be given about looking after the mother and child in the days after the birth. According to the woman we met, this sort of project is reducing the number of women dying during or soon after childbirth. Another area where education and increasing public awareness are having an impact is in the age of girl brides. It has been traditional to marry girls off as young as 12 or 13 but the average age of marriage is on the rise.

The other reason for women’s life expectancy being lower than men’s is the often back-breaking physical work that women are usually expected to do. It is still a very common sight to walk past fields where women, often in very hot weather, are planting, cutting or carrying…..

…. and minutes later, in the same village, walk by a group of men sitting in the shade of a peepal tree, playing cards or 'carom':

Often women can face some difficulties if their husbands die before them. This is because, traditionally, a woman who has been widowed, is viewed as having been the cause of this 'bad luck' upon her husband. The outlawing of the practise of widows burning themselves to death on the funeral pyre of their husband, may be another reason for women's life expectancy being on the rise. For many widows, however, life can continue quite normally, although some people believe that they should not smile or laugh and they can be bullied by their neighbours and members of their husbands' families. This 'buddhi' (old woman) however, seemed cheerful enough when we met her, especially when we agreed to take her photograph.

It has been traditional here, for families to value boy children more highly than girls. Many Nepali men have openly expressed to us that Nepal is a 'male chauvanist society'. This is partly because, in Nepali culture, sons remain at home when they grow up, and support their parents in their old age. Daughters, on the other hand, go and live with their husband’s family so cannot contribute to the care of their parents. Also, the oldest male child is, traditionally, the only person capable of performing the correct rituals, on the death of his parents, to ensure a safe transit into the next life. This is a reason why in some families, girls' education is not as highly valued as boys' and therefore why female literacy rates are very low here. The big gap between girls and boys education is changing though. Most girls are now sent to school at least for a short time.

Some Nepali people, especially the older generation, express their sadness if they have not had any sons and are often surprised that Mel does not have any brothers. On the other hand, we know some families who are perfectly happy with only daughters.

Having found some of the issues regarding women and men quite distressing, we were pleased to have the opportunity to join Nepali women in their celebration of International Women's day recently. At this event, it was clear that women's groups have a growing voice in Nepal and that there is a lot to celebrate in women's achievements and empowerment. Despite traditions that seem to hold women in a lower esteem, sometimes things come along that surprise us, and remind us that things are not always straightforward. Below is a picture of a woman at her wedding, having her feet washed by a visiting male member of the family.

There are also plenty of exceptions to the 'rules'. Below, for example, is a headteacher in one of Steve's focus schools who often does the cooking. When Steve told him that he had not been cooked for very often by a man in Nepal, he explained that both he and his wife have jobs outside the home and, therefore it is right to share the housework. He is also teaching his son to cook. This is unusual and, more often, women are expected not to work outside the home to avoid this sort of situation. Not unlike Britain until very recently!

.... and here is Janaki Madam. Another teacher and another exception. Unlike most Nepali women, she wears her hair short, wears trousers and t-shirts instead of kurta surwal or sari, rides a motorbike, and does not wear a sindur (red mark on head) or other signs of marriage.

Being in Nepal, not only makes us conscious of gender roles, but also reminds us of some of the 'funny' gender rules we have at home. Here it is perfectly normal to see a man wearing a sparkly pink tank top in the middle of winter or any other pink garment. Here, pink suits men just as well as it does girls, highlighting the UK myth that pink is a colour for girls only.

Mel has recently joined a dance class. Here also, a UK stereotype is challenged. Most dance classes that she has attended in the UK have far more girls attending, whereas here it is the opposite and Mel is usually the only lady in the class.

The idea that women cannot do physical jobs is really challenged here too. A number of the builders building at our house have been women, and women do nearly all the physical farm work.

As we said, things in Nepal are changing for women and men, and although this can seem a good thing, it is worth remembering that with any change, there will be good and bad aspects. With an increasing emphasis on formal education, much of the work done and skills traditionally used by women are being devalued. Also, young women here are starting to wear whatever they like. In many ways this is a good thing but they seem, to us, to be becoming far more looks and body conscious and comparing themselves with, often very pale skinned, scantily clad TV and advertising models for inspiration. It is difficult to find a shop which does not sell a 'Fair and Lovely' product, intended to make the skin look paler. Again, this is similar to 'Western nations' such as Britain except, ironically, many men and women in the UK are seeking darker skins!

As a final thought, one of the most rewarding things for us here is the interest that people take in our culture and experiences. Even if our training or our lessons in the classroom are of little educational value, perhaps the chance to show and discuss how other cultures have different ideas, has ultimately the greater impact on Nepalis, whether as a positive model or as something to be avoided! Speaking personally, we certainly benefit, and are better educated, because of our contact with other ideas and cultural viewpoints.