This message was written about 5 days ago but was unable to be uploaded so here it is:

Hi everyone!

After a whirlwind journey from London to Kathamndu to Gorkha , I am finally here! So there's actually not a huge amount to say! A very uneventful journey, sat next to bideshi people (foreigners) so hence was not pulled into any random conversations with Nepalis. Was fully prepared for the whole visa process this time so just had to queue with all the other bideshis (so many more than I've ever flown with before - I suppose it's the season!) and had no problems with picking up my bags either!

I stayed over with one of the younger sisters from my family last year, she has a room in the real backstreets of inner Kathmandu - no dodgy, just incredibly busy, smelly and dirty. I was SO tired, but completely jet-lagged this time, and couldn't sleep till about 3am that night - it didn't help that I had to share a bed with her and she snores!!

After changing some cash and buying a relaxing book to read (I thought if I was going to have any more problems with sleeping I ought to buy something relaxing to read!) I jumped on a 'micro' bus and sped off to Gorkha. By the time I got here I was so tired that I hardly had the energy to recognise anyone I knew! I went to bed early, managed to sleep for about half an hour at time before waking and then finally getting to sleep at about 1am. I forgot how horrible jet lag is!

This morning I went to the hospital to meet some of the doctors and then met some other old friends. Nothing much else has happened - I am making plans today and generally relaxing. I will write again if I have time and if I have something more interesting to say!

Hope all is well at home, please send me any news, it's great to hear from home when I am so far away!

Chiara

I have less than five minutes to do a quick summary of what I've been up to:

Had several meetings with people to try and sort stuff out, work has been as frustratingly slow as expected but also should be satisfactory in the end

'Played' Holi on Friday and got covered in red tikka, was great fun!!

Eaten dal bhat at hundreds of people's houses

Electricity is really dodgy atm due to upcoming elections and oil shortage due to closing of the border between Nepal and India (or something) so makes it triply difficult to get on the internet, hence I might not be able to write again until I go to KTM on Sunday!

Hope all is well, if u want to email me please use chiara@yaksteak.co.uk or snowslider84@hotmail.com

See you all soon!!

Chiara

It seemed ridiculous to come home so early this time - two and a half weeks is definitely not enough time to spend in Nepal, especially when each time you return you acquire a longer list of people to visit. However, I managed to fit in a fair amount of stuff in that time, as you will see.

Some of the smaller tasks I did in Gorkha included getting updates on everything to do with the sponsorship programme run by GDHEDS in Mahendra Jyoti School, updates on GWA (Gorkha Women's Association) activities and Youth Movement activities, and have meetings to talk about future ideas etc. Of course, as usual, some of these took forever to arrange and the youth movement meeting didn't happen until the day before I left!

I also had meetings to follow-up the previous sanitation programme and make plans for the next sanitation programme, including which school it would take place in and how it would be done. I visited to next school, which is set on the hill above Gorkha, very close to the town this time but serving a very low-caste, very poor community, with no water supply and two toilet shared by all students and staff... not nice. The only thing I didn't achieve was visiting and interviewing students and teachers from the old school, due to it being school holidays and the school being so far away. I was quite disappointed about this but it seemed there was nothing I could do, since I needed someone to take me and introduce me to people, and no-one was available to do this.

So really, although I had a lot to do, it all got done in fits and bursts, with a lot more sitting around waiting for things to happen than last time.

In the middle of the two weeks I went to Pokhara to meet up with Sarah and Phil (Ecclebourne friends) - sooooo bizarre and yet sooooo nice to see them there!!! They had some amazing stories from the Annapurna Circuit trek - definitely made me want to attempt it myself one day! And I got to eat normal food and use a normal toilet with toilet paper for a day or so!

I also 'played' Holi, the Hindu festival, where everyone runs around throwing tikka and coloured water at each other - I got targeted by a rather unfair number of water bombs - some of my clothes are now permanently blotched pink! It was great fun though and I have some great photos!

At the end of the two weeks in Gorkha, I went down to visit my old host family in Rupandehi again, with my bahini (younger sister) Sabina. It is SO much nicer down there when it isn't too hot at night! I spend a relaxing couple of nights visiting old friends, going round places on the back of Chintu dhai's motorbike and visiting Manigram bazaar, which brought back brilliant memories from my first time there, and I bought some blue glass bangles for about 25p!

The next day Sabina, Chintu dhai and I all caught the bus to Kathmandu. It was an interesting bus ride - we had two glasses each of sugarcane juice, from a roadside stall where the man put long sticks of sugarcane through a juicing machine and poured it into re-used glasses of questionable cleanliness... I was fully prepared for some diarrhoea later on, but it didn't happen; I think I am actually developing an iron stomach! Completely coincidentally, I also met an old SPW staff member on the bus - it was really good to catch up with the news with her! However, when we arrived in Kathmandu valley, things started to go wrong... we got stuck in three hours of almost unmoving traffic. I had the most gigantic headache and we didn't get to the hotel until about 10:30!

The next day was spent visiting a temple in outskirts Kathmandu, where the sky decided to completely fall in on us in terms of rain, and we ended up sheltering under cover of some roadside stalls until we found a couple of umbrellas. Unfortunately that day was also a bit of a disaster because my three bahinis decided to fall out with Chintu dhai over carrying a bag - don't ask, I still don't understand it and they have all decided they will never see or talk to each other again!! That will be fun next time I go to visit!

The last day we went to visit Godawari, where the Royal Botanical Gardens are, and where I also did three weeks of training before my original placement 5 years ago (yes, five years ago now!!!). I met the family I stayed with, though they obviously didn't remember me that well and they're a very shy family - it was slightly awkward but nevertheless interesting!!

The morning of my flight I felt a bit awful but put it down to lack of sleep the night before, as well as really really not feeling ready to leave Nepal... however, I began to feel worse and worse on the plane, then on the second plane from Doha to London I developed what felt like a real fever, and ended up vomiting.., I just made it to the toilet! However, it cleared up soon after I landed.. I wonder if that was my first experience of travel sickness?!

Overall a short but worthwhile visit to Nepal, I am definitely looking forward to going back!