Pokahara a small time out

After the last hair-raising week, I finaly made the decision to stay. But as long as I will work for the trekking agency, I will do the most stuff as a freelancer and manage my time as also working way by myself. So with that I’m not kept inside the dark office and can discover Nepal in small day trips around the city. Like right now I’m working outside with a beautiful view on the lake of Pokahara, chilled in pillows with a good coffee in my hand. In comparison to Kathmandu, Pokahara is wonderful chilled, silent, relaxing and surrounded by wonderful nature. For relaxation and getting the head free definitely the right place to be. 😉

Back from heaven…..

Manja’s little castle

The Flat hunting in the city jungle finaly came to an end, I think the universe has a reason for its obscure secret paths. From one to the other moment I had my small castle in the pocket and could move in directly on the next day. I even have, two small chandeliers decorating my Balcony.

Even though everything is still a little hectic and chaotic (I think this is just the common way here) I feel really good and landed by now. Finaly a place out of the big crowd off noise, horns and full streets. For Thamel the (tourist area), the place where I life now is really quiet and peaceful, surrounded by a Tibetan community. Thru the quiet sound from my neighbour hotel, that every night has another live Band on stage, I probably will know all old Nepalese songs, and can sing them in sleep at the end.

Bistaarai, Bistaarai

I can’t definitely say that I get bored over here, sometimes I ask myself where the time is going. Like always I want too many things at one time and after a while I’m getting to the point that it is just too much at one time. The biggest and most exhausting project by now is my self-confidence and the practice in patience and silence. Bistaarai, Bistaarai, slowly slowly one of the most important words over here, you should definitely remember it intensively and get it out ones or twice a day, to not completely lose your countenance ones in a while.

Working way

At the moment I’m jumping in my working fields and tasks a lot. In between I’m working for three different company’s at one time, sometimes I don’t even understand the system and what I’m doing here completely by myself. But at least I learned by now to set my priorities and manage my time schedule properly. I guess another way won’t be really possible over here, soft overtaxing is giving about my person, because I really want to work I mean really. In this case it is not the worst thing that I’m working at the same time for Keep (off course as the top office), the trekking agency and the project for the orphanage home. At the beginning or still I find it quiet hard to see as also find myself in the Position I’m in at the moment. I’m creating the whole appearance for the trekking agency in a new way and try to make it more efficient. On my question about the Cooperate Identity and who the company is, means about us, I became silence and question marks as answer. So my main Intention right now is to create a good company profile and picture, change the existing one and make the best out of it. The presence in the Internet is everything or nothing in this business and at the moment more close to nothing… At the beginning it was pretty hard for me to find myself in this place and position, as a prover, creator and changer in this direction. A bit, because I had a completely different picture in my head of the Internship before, on the other hand because normally something fully trained qualified person should be put on this kind of jobs. But let me say by now I found myself for a really high qualified person for this jobs and giving my best to reach my demands or get them down.

My time management and works huddle is created by myself, even thou I’m still working to quick and too much, what I hear every day again. Bistaarai, Bistaarai, how I already said before one of the most important words over here, and just in case I won’t have something to do in the office in between, I got told to relax more and enjoy my time. (In other words get yourself on Facebook ^^). The relaxing is not so easy in this dark small rooms, also every day I need to close my eyes and take a big breath about the working conditions and moral here. The overhead company H.G. is let it me say in this way a little suspect to me, they have cameras in the whole office, well I think this is non sense and its just for controlling the people as maybe also for showing off as a company that goes with the time. Also the employees have to check out and in with their fingerprint to control the working time.   What I found really strange, as I wanted to go for a coffee after work with my colleges, that everybody leaves the office at different times, so to show it like this, we waited 10 minutes behind the corner to meet up with another college and the next one catches up with us after 15 min. The Explanation for this was that the Boss from H.G. doesn’t really like to see it when they finished work together at the same time, or to say it like this have contact after work and in private life.

But in a completely different way is the working athmosphair and climate in the office, the mood is funny and happy, chips and coffee breaks, Facebooks talking as well as a really dark and funny humour in small chats is a part of the daily office live.

College life in the beauty salon

In the meantime I discovered the best way to communicate with my colleges from KEEP, even sometimes it is still complicated and I’m getting on my limit ones in a while (as I said self-confidence). To picture it that way, I think we are having a really serious conversation to solve a problem, in a sudden a big tumult is going on. At the beginning I always thought something really bad and important happened, somehow in a weird and obscure way it did every single time. Just today it was:  “ oh god no”, “what?”, “did you hear that already? I can’t believe it”; “Angelina is getting divorced from brad, he cheated on her”. After such shocking news and moments, the most of the times it is difficult to continue the conversation we had before, so you should take it easy ,with lots of calmness and put the conversation on the next day or the day after that and begin again from point zero. As I said Bistaarai, Bistaarai everything has its time.

But if you start to adapt the way how priorities ley here and a little bit the way of thoughts and thinking, ever thing is going a way better and easier. So in this case I tried the first time in my life a Nepali beauty salon, a really exiting and funny adventure. I didn’t even started to explain how short or not I won’t my hair, or was sitting fully on the chair, my hair was gone for the half already. But I really need to say for 80 cents, I have a top hairstyle by now, I feel like I jumped out of the 80s into 2016. By now I’m highly delight by it and integrated in the female collegium.

Flat Hunting in the jungle….

You can really title this as a hunting race, unbelievable, how hard it is to get a proper flat here that is achievable. Not half or together with a family/shared house where the latest time to come home is 10^^. It is common here to live together with the family the whole life, so the understanding of the need to have space for yourself goes close to zero. Like this is the flat hunting, quiet hard if you have the claim to have hot water, a back up to have at least one lamp working when the electricity is gone and maybe not to life completely downstairs so you can get some fresh air in between.

But I’m Shure I will find something when I make at least some compromises, means in some hour’s hot water and maybe every second day the chance of electricity while the power is gone 😉

To be continued…

Up to the Mountains… To the Outscort of the Valley…

The last 2 days where even too much for me… everything rely everything so unplanned and unorganised and not talked about anything at all. Not on purpose, communication and arrangements are anyway a little different over here, or let’s say sometimes in a small scale complicated. I ended up in a store room in a orphanage home, 35 kids are living here, in the night they care about themselves as good as they can, the stuff goes around 5.. So Maie alone under 35 kids: D

I should actually help Hari the leader of the orphanage home with the structure and the management plan, as to get a better system for donations, Foundations, new supporters and the advertisement. But I really didn’t know where to start, and again we had a big misunderstanding about my field of work.

It didn’t really match with my skills and my field of work, I should worked out this projects over my company KEEP and not for another organisation, and in a different field. Let’s say I’m not a teacher and not a kid sitter even so it’s a good thing to support this.

I accepted a lot but I wasn’t prepared for this even so the week before gave me already a tuff time on my nerves. Over the day I was sanded to a government school and after that I was going bag to the orphanage home.

The whole scenario brought me really to the edge of my power and mind, as I didn’t got to this point for a long time. The biggest problem that I see here, is to explain the people what is the difference between Volunteering and an Internship, for them it’s completely the same.

So after a short “vacation in the village Kirtipur “and completely overtaxing of my mind and the whole situation I went back to Kathmandu. My biggest intention is it to help the people on another effective way. But how can an effective structure be set up, if not even the ground facilities are provided like water, food, kitchen, sleeping places and so on…

In the orphanage home in Kirtipur the ground facilities are missing everywhere, there is no running water, as also no clean drinking water. They have big barrels where they get the water out with buckets, the washing place/bathroom is just in front of them on the ground. While the big disaster the earthquake in 2015 they lost close to everything. A Kitchen is not existing anymore or a proper place to eat at, same with a bathroom, place to wash them self’s or god save a place to play. I think exactly here is the point to start and set up something to change it in a sustainable way. Hari the leader of the orphanage home is really doing his best and I’m fascinated and impressed by this person. All kids are going to a boarding school, so later they have at least a chance to have a normal life. The government schools don’t provide good possibility’s and without family in the back ground, they would possibly after they leave school have no chance to be integrated in the system anymore.

The most kids are coming out of a village out of the mountains that is not integrated in the society at all. Even Hari who told me about it and who gets the kids down from there is still shocked about the facilities up there. The people from this place are still living in and with the wild, they don’t wear proper close and still live in holes, at grass and are not integrated at all.

Especially the kids out of this place have without support no chance of an achievable life. In October I will go up to this village together with Hari and the kids, it is festival time one of the biggest one over here, so Hari tries to bring food up, cloth up to the village and the kids can see their family.

In-between the live over here is hitting me hard and by now I can see clearly that this won’t be a nice walk in the sunshine. The communication is long lasting, dragging and complicated in between, but always so friendly, helpful and protecting. In the last few days I felt extremely that I’m still in a third world country and many stones will cross my way in between. But on the other hand this is exactly what I wanted to do development aid with at least a small chance of changing something. Docent matter if it is in an orphanage home, in the valley or mountains, company or office. The organisation here needs to be provided, with structure and organisation from the ground.

My organisation KEEP is still a small chaos, but slowly we are getting together. I love my colleagues, but sometimes it’s hard to get to a point together because of the different understanding for things and of course this is a new experience for both sides.

The next 3 weeks I’m going to work in a cooperation with a trekking agency, I will have a few on the system to recommend it out of another view and work over it. I’m anxious about what will happen next, let’s see how this will work out…

My first traditional dress: Kurta Sura

Right now everything is slowly starting to get on the right way, I am diving deeper into the Nepali culture, the Country and the life. By now I’m also an owner of my own Kurta sura, the traditional dress over here, nearly every Nepalese woman is wearing it every day. It’s really comfortable and practical, Kurta is the top of the dress and the sura are the fitting pants to the dress.

How to get it? Walk into a shop, you should take an experienced person with you for finding the right shop and get a good price as also quality. Than the seller will put 100 different fabrics on you, and you will get over 1000 meanings also from the people on the streets, the most often one will be “raamroo” what means beautiful. At the end you will be so confused that you don’t know any more what you actually wanted to buy^^. After you bought the fabric that you like , you need to find the right tailor ,the best one are mostly in the back of small houses and you won’t find them if you don’t know the right people that will bring you there. The tailor will take your body details for the size really persisted, and after two days you can pick up your finished kurta sura. But be aware even they got your whole body length in detail the dress will be at least 3 numbers to big. After a long discussion and changing it three times it will fit you perfectly. Without my Anti I guess it wouldn’t been possible in the way I got mine and for a smart price two piece for 35 euros.

Moving on different ways…

Our office moved, so I got introduced in the Nepali way of changing houses it was really an experience you shouldn’t miss in your live time. Before you move out of the old house, the new rentals are already half moved in, off course this works also the different way around. From the beginning it wasn’t really sure when we would move exactly now, so even my boss was quiet confused as he entered the half empty office that morning. The guys that helped us with the moving haven’t meant it in a bad way they just wanted to do a good job, so they decided to start by themselves to build down the half office in the morning, including computers and working spaces they still where needed that day. (The moving as I found out later was planned for the next day). The system of pacing the stuff over here is fascinating, I would nearly go so far and say there is no system existing, but you just need to start to see it out of another view. How to pack up and store computers was one of the first things I learned on that day, take a big pap carton , fold it up, fix the ground with some ribbon store the 10 computers how they are fitting in , fix the top with some ribbon, finished. Now the box is off course too heavy to carry it, so take it and just role it up and down the steps to the 4^th floor, easy.

The Streets in Kathmandu especially in Thamel are too small for a car or an LKW so we just rented a bike Rickshaw, they really made it to move everything with this wheel without a big damage to the items, fascinating. We should have Internet, water and electricity in the next three days in-between this time we try to get our workplaces in-between our tea breaks in the right position, takes a while everybody is happy with the arrangement of one table.

Even if it doesn’t sounds like this I am really working from Sunday to Fridays, and it makes fun 😉

*Short note: By now the office is without Internet, electricity and water for one week. But we are in good hope that it comes the next few days.

Kathmandu or the crazy Labyrinth…

Today I managed it the first time not to get completely lost and without extra way to find my home, ok I took a 30min non expected sightseeing trip to my Language school, but it was already top time in comparison to the days before^^

Kathmandu a completely crazy wirr warr out of streets and little sideways, is an amazing city, even the third city Map that is under my belongings now is not let’s say on the point^^or useful. The most Streets (Big holes with part of ways) have no name anyway so at this point it’s even better to move with your feelings, like I think everybody does over here. If you are searching for something the best you can do is just look up the whole time, if you are lucky than you will definitely find what you are searching for. Thousands of signs on the outside of the houses tell you really strict and directly that the place that you are looking for must be somewhere around. But now it’s the challenge to guess if the entrance is in this house where the singe is on, around the corner or maybe you need to step in the backyard, always makes you feel like you are a big explorer every day. But against my expectations the city is really clean in comperhason to other city’s that I visited before, nobody is throwing their rubbish on the street just like this the awareness about the environment is unexpectedly high. If you go to a supermarket you want find plastic backs at the counter they are all out of cotton also nearly everybody is using a refilling drinking bottle over here. *found the reason out why by now explanations are following

At the beginning as I arrived here I asked myself  where to find anything in this confusing system off streets, off course not including the souvenir shops that are everywhere around in the Thamel area where I life. But after a few days I found out, that the life in Kathmandu is playing upstairs on the rooftops. First if you enter the buildings you will think that the place is empty and still is getting ready or not^^ but don’t worry after the third floor of empty big dark rooms you will find the Bar you searched for.

World upside down

From the day that I arrived I didn’t see anybody on the street drinking or smoking, so I started to wonder and was completely confused, I asked myself me there really a country existing on the world like this. After the first night out with my host brother to a Nepal bar I got to know the real system of this world. You will never smoke outside NO how you are coming on this crazy idea, off course you are smoking inside! On the street it is strictly forbidden, you need to pay a STRAFE for smoking in the open public. By now I explore more and more signs on the street “Don’t smoke in public places.

Also there is another weird thing that I found out a few days ago, somebody explained me that over here not the public is striking, if there is a strike it is made up from the government. In this case last year the government shot everything down. The busses didn’t go anymore because to fuel was coming into the city anymore, the people couldn’t go to work. Also in that case the electricity system didn’t work at all anymore (I mean here its normal that it shots down at least for 5 hours a day, but still there will be electricity, also the city run out of gas, it was a big disaster. The strike from the government was going over 3 month, so that meant for the Population “back to our roots…..”

But still this country is amazing, lovely and beautiful J