Dhaulagiri: Part of the Family
We met Conor on the afternoon of Sunday Arpil 22nd. After spending three days in Thamel, the backpacker district of Kathmandu (which is hardly Kathmandu at all, given it’s Western style bars, trekking stores, travel agents and internet cafes), it was time to head out to the orphanage.
It was sort of strange meeting Conor, given that Bec and I had been reading his travel blog for a couple of years now, and that we’d been in regular email contact for the previous five or six months. But as he took us on a tour around the orphanages, we hit it off like the old buddies we felt.
Walking from orphanage to orphanage, it was remarkable to witness the difference from the tourist area of Thamel to the humble suburb of Swoyambu. Gone was the symphony of car and motorbike horns, the spruiking of touts (you want tiger balm? trekking guide? you want smoke?) and the constant dust, replaced with the innocent laughter of kids, the barking of dogs, and views of the mountains that form the Kathmandu valley.
The buildings in Swoyambu are frequently spread out, with small fields of green hiding amongst the three storey concrete structures. The architecture here is much more Western than I’d expected. The houses are massive, almost always three storeys, and all with roof top terraces.
We followed Conor down a narrow alley between two houses. We were dwarfed by the seven foot high brick walls on either side, one topped with barbed wire, the other with shards of broken glass. Before I could ask the reason for this, a couple of monkeys went galloping past our feet, and my question was answered.
The suburb of Swoyambu is famous for the temple that dominates the skyline. It is one of the major temples in Nepal, and is otherwise known as the monkey temple, in recognition of the endless stream of cheeky monkeys that reside there. The orphanages are at the base of the hill upon which the temple rests, and so monkeys can be often seen around the area, jumping from wall to wall, from roof to roof.
At each orphanage Conor took us into we were greeted by a chorus of “Good afternoon Sister, Good afternoon Brother.” We smiled and waved, “Namaste!” The kids were mostly doing homework, having returned from school not much earlier. The fact that we had arrived, after waiting so long to get here, was almost overwhelming.
But it wasn’t until the next day, when we moved all our gear from Thamel out to the volunteer house in which we are staying (which is next door to Conor’s orphanage, Dhauligiri), that we truly discovered how awesome these kids are.
Having dumped our bags and got ourselves organised in the house that afternoon, there was nothing left but to go next door to Dhaulagiri and hang out with the kids. Conor was away for a few days, which made entering the house feel even more awkward. Meeting someone for the first time who you know you know you will be spending a lot of time with is always a little nerve wracking. Walking into a roomfull of little kids who speak another language, and who are busy doing their homework; now that felt awkward.
The kids greeted us politely and then returned to their homework. I stood, looking over their shoulders to see what they were working on, but not really sure what I should be doing, feeling more self-conscious than I did at any high school dance. After fifteen minutes or so, I sat down next to one of the kids. They do their homework sittong on the floor, with miniature coffee tables on which to work, and so even sitting down next to them was awkward; my knees kept hitting the table, and I shuffled around uncomfortably.
I sat silently, simply smiling at the kids around me when they looked up. The kids grinned back at me shyly. Then, the young girl I was next to, a gorgeous young girl called Beki with short straight hair and cheeky little eyes (probably aged around six), tugged at my arm and looked up at me with a big grin. She then put her head down over her workbook and wrote out a bif letter f, before looking back up at me with a huge grin, as though she’d just solved the peace crisis in the Middle East. She was spellling out “finish” and with each letter she would tug at my arm and look up at me with a grin, waiting for confirmation that she’d got it right.
Then the other kids started climbing over each other to thurst their workbooks under my eyes to correct their English homework, or to show me their drawing, or to ask me my name.
I looked up at Bec, she was grinning from ear to ear and gave me a wink.
And with that, we were part of the family.
The next day was a holiday for the kids, and after spending the morning playing at Dhaulagiri we walked down to one of the other orphanages, Gaurishankar. As we arrived, the older boys (probably aged ten to fifteen) were heading off to play football in preparation for a tournament they were playing the next day. I tagged along, and was soon in the middle of a bumpy green field playing seven-on-seven football. And damn these boys were skilled. They ran rings around me, barefoot, and left me playing the role of the dorky white guy whose only skill was to trip over the ball and get a few laughs. (And they were laughing with me, dammit!)
As the afternoon stretched on, the sky grew dark. Black, angry clouds stomped loudly over the nearby mountains. They threw lighting at each other, sending flashes back and forth across the ever-darkening sky. I looked around me, and wished I had my camera.
Rain started to fall. Not a huge amount, just the odd large drop of icy cold water. The game went on. The rain started to get heavier, and the wind began to howl. The game went on. The rain started to come in sideways, like an advancing army, stinging my bare legs. The game stopped, and we began sprinting back to the orphanage, being blown around by the wind and drenched by the rain. I was glad I didn’t have my camera.
I woke the next morning with a bruise on my ankle the size of a cricket ball, the result of a stray boot during the football.
I didn’t care.
Tags: Kathmandu, Nepal, orphanage, Travel
Dave
May 15th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Just stumbled into your blog (?) when I was reading up on Dhaulagiri expeditions….love your descriptions of getting acquainted with the kids…and the reason I was reading up on Dhaulagiri is because I’m just reading Mountain of Storms re expedition of 1973….I’ll try to follow on your reports if there are more….I’m one of those 63 year old women trying to comprehend what’s available on the internet…thanks for sharing…..Ann
May 19th, 2007 at 6:03 am
Hi Ann,
Happy to share!
I’ve just come back from a ten day trek to Annapurna Base Camp, so there’ll be plenty of trekking stories to come over the next few weeks.
Thanks heaps for commenting too – it’s always nice to know there’s more people than just Bec reading this blog.
Dave