Notes from the Week

A wedding procession in front of the house

The groom's carriage

This week we would get up each day and make coffee and tea, and Claire and Sajal would prepare breakfast for themselves of D.B.T. (dal bhat thakari, lentils, rice, and vegetables), which would be lunch for those of us who stayed home, then they would be off to work—Claire at Kopila Nepal (Kopila means “flower bud”) and Sajal at Li-Bird (which stands for (“Local Initiatives for Biological Research and Development”). Both of these are NGO’s (non-governmental organizations, which in the U.S. we more often call non-profits). More about them in a moment.

After they went to work, I would work at my computer, finishing study notes for Isaiah for the Common English Bible, preparing classes and a public lecture I am giving in Bethlehem next month, and reviewing books for an article for the Christian Century. Lots of deadlines coming up quickly.

Claire in front of new Kopila Nepal building

About 11:00 Rajya would warm up lunch, and we would eat together, then I would go back to work. In the mid-afternoon we would drink some of the apple tea I brought from Turkey. And in the evening we would often play cards by the light of the one bulb in the livingroom that runs from batteries charged up when the power was on. I have learned a lot about both electricity and water this week.

One evening Claire’s director invited us over for dinner, along with a young volunteer who had just arrived from Germany for nine months and a couple who had recently moved from Australia with two of their children. Bina Silwal had started Kopila Nepal eleven years ago, along with her husband Prakash Wagli and their friend Tirtha Thapa in the second floor of their house when she saw that so many women and children weren’t receiving the services they needed to thrive (hence the name “flower bud,” which they describe as “something delicate that needs nurturing and protecting until it comes into flower.” They do counseling, train counselors and social workers in remote areas, support gender equality and children’s education, and in other ways promote psychosocial well-being especially among the very poor and remotely located people in Nepal. Just a couple of months ago they completed their beautiful new building.

Claire leading the group

Mero naam ke ho? "What's my name?"

Yesterday they had the first meeting of a program called “Hamro Chautari” (“Our Chautari”) with youths from four local children’s homes. A chautari is a resting place, a stone wall made into a raised bed under a Buddha tree where people gather to talk or people carrying heavy loads can sit to rest. You see them frequently not only here but throughout the country. This is a new program for children displaced during the recent civil conflict, to help reintegrate them into their families and communities. Claire led the group in games to get to know one another, and then led a conversation about the group’s purpose, and then they all had lunch together. She was nervous leading a youth group for the first time, but the kids were very eager and happy, and she was pleased. She said it reminded her of how important her church youth group was, growing up at Crescent Hill.

A chautari in Pokhara

Kopila also sponsors an annual fall weeklong trek into project areas in Nepal, for people interested in exploring Nepal and helping its people. Ask Claire for details (claire.willey@gmail.com).   

Kopila Nepal is in Lakeside, the district near the beautiful Phewa Lake, where all the tourist hotels, restaurants, and paragliders are. So in the afternoon we did a little walking and shopping and stopped to eat at a café called The Busy Bee (with a sign saying they were rated #1 by the “Lonly Planet”), and watched the boaters on the lake. Today we plan to go back and have a boat ride ourselves.

Sajal left yesterday for Kathmandu for a meeting between government officials and Li-Bird. Li-Bird was founded by his father Bhuwon to promote biodiversity and food sustainability in Nepal. They use strategies developed collaboratively with local farmers. You can think of it as one of many international anti-Monsanto movements—they are the 99.99 percent! As Sajal says, American seed companies (patenting their seeds) say that American farmers are feeding the world, but they forget that the vast majority (80 percent) of Nepal’s people are farmers themselves. It’s similar for many other countries, as long as cash crops don’t take over all the land.

Pokhara stovetop enchiladas and salad

Girls' night

Last night Claire, Rajya, and I took a break from D.B.T. and made enchiladas, starting with our own homemade flour tortillas and enchilada sauce, and stuffed with beans, onions, potatoes, and home grown mustard greens, and accompanied by a salad of homegrown lettuce. We thought the power was supposed to come on at 8:00 so we could bake them in the oven, but someone (we won't say who) had read the schedule wrong and at 8:00 we were still in the dark. So we “baked” them on the stovetop, covered by skillet lids.