The magical Kathmandu

Post and photo by Steph Payne - GapBreak Nepal, 2009

Anyway, thought I’d really open the door and invite you in for Nepali tea (complete with salt and sugar). The village we’re living in is called Dadagon (aka Dandagoan aka Dagaduon), it sleeps on the side of a mountain peeping into the valley watching mountains roll by and give birth to mountains.

The house I’m living with is a beautiful mud brick lung of air infused with spice and muck. I share a bed with Courtney (who is magical) and at night we leave our door open so we can look out, past the veranda, past a few heads of corn to the glittering web of Kathmandu. We’ve become devotees to watching clouds and Kathmandu
Throughout Nepal so far I’ve observed in the web of everything the constant image of opposites in conflict and simultaneously, opposites embracing. While I live in the clouds with beautiful people and sparkling paths weaving through fields of corn, where supposedly the tiger lives and the hens dominate; it’s only a walk down the mountain and I’m in sensory overload of heat, piles of rubbish, tropical trees with dogs and cows panting underneath, saris and tikkas, women washing by the road, men relaxing with their Nirvana shirts and toothpicks hanging from lips in an almost religious gesture to Marlon Brando.

Food and fun, an evening with the host-family

Written by Steph Payne - GapBreak Nepal, 2009

The family is brilliant, they truly are. They’re all ridiculously beautiful and healthy, with low hesitant words of English and quick white smiles.

I’m loving lunch and dinner which is just sitting together on our mats and grabbing finger loads of dahl baht. Breakfast is a glass of tea, lunch (at 8.30am) is a bucket load of dahl baht and then dahl baht for dinner. I can’t get enough of it, it is meto chha! Once Prem felt sorry for us and cooked rice pudding for us with chunks of coconut and cinnamon and cardommon, I almost cried for my dahl baht. At night Courtney and I play cards with Elina and Pratima (who usually dominate us), last night we had the whole family in our room. Prem was listening to Courtney’s iPod and Courtney, Elina, Pratima, Rita and I playing a finger crushing game of snap. It was lovely, after Pratima helped us to bed pulling our mosquito net out and string it up. Our bed is amazing, Nepalese sleep on a wooden bed with a mat of bamboo and a thick, heavy quilt. We have a beautiful old dark wood bed pushed up against the mud walls painted blue, made from local sand which glitters silver and a beautiful painted mosquito net gathering us into the lap of sleep.

A trek up the mountain

Written by Steph Payne - GapBreak 09, Nepal

After school I time myself hitting up the mountain, eye on the minute hand, eye on the road, eye on forests and all around me it morphs. Nepal is one of the richest places in terms of diversity – diversity of culture, religions, beliefs, attitudes – but definitely a place of biodiversity. Every 500 metres up a mountain there is a climate change and a new family of creatures and plants.

We walk through pine forests, glades of moss and birch and then we hit the more tropics trees. We’ve so far spotted deer and one mammoth of a boar, I’m keeping an eye out for the tigers, monkeys and leopard cats – will report back when I’ve got them spotted. By the way I’m getting gun at mountain climbing, with a bit more grunt I’ve turned an hour walk home to a 35 minute climb – ooh yeah. Sorry for the boasting my friends, I’m a vain imp. Thing is I end up collapsing at home shining sweat and having my bizarre conflict with the bucket shower (we don’t get on too well). About two days ago I climbed the mountain in 39 minutes and was congratulating myself when Prem and Rita climbed in with bags of feed on their backs (roughly 50kg each), I got put in my place that day.

Peru Update from our In-Country Agent

Written by Brugh, our In-Country Agent in Peru
Photos provided by Brugh

I had my weekly meeting with the group this morning and they all continue to be doing well. The only problem they seem to be encountering at the moment is controlling some of the kids. I've given them some tips towards this end and have also made sure that they receive more assistance from the teachers when appropriate.

Apart from that, all the classes are going very well. I am constantly receiving questions from the group about this and that and it is fantastic to see them really engaged in the work they are doing.

We also decided this week what their construction project is going to be. They will be building a comedor at the school. A comedor is essentially a dining hall with a kitchen where the kids at the school can eat and have nutritious meals prepared for them. However, the building will be used by the entire community for many other different functions as well.

On a lighter note, there is an international soccer match in Cuzco tonight - it's Cuzco versus a club from Uruguay. Most (if not all) of the group are going, and they're all pretty excited about it.

Lastly, since the photos were such a hit last time, I've attached some
more from my visit this morning.

The Ghanaian Way

Written by Matthew McAuliffe - Volunteer Challenge, Ghana 2009
Photos provided by Matthew

My first day in Accra commences at about 6am, being woken by the very loud music playing right outside my window, not to mention the array of car horns, people singing and crowing roosters. The city of Accra (and the entire country of Ghana) never sleeps in, not even on a Sunday. After climbing out of bed I take a cold shower with a bucket, which I soon learn will be the daily ritual of my six weeks here.

I am immediately taken by the view from the sitting area at the front of our hotel. On one corner is a little store no bigger than a very small backyard shed, selling bread, sweets and phone recharge vouchers. Immediately across the road from that is a football pitch without a skerrick of grass to be seen full of young men in the midst of game. It is Sunday morning in Ghana and the street is fairly busy with the locals in their Sunday best heading to their various Churches and I spend the next few hours just sitting at a table at the front of our hotel just taking in the view in front me. While the scene may not be able to be described as breathtaking in the sense of a beautiful waterfall or a pristine beach, the view contains so much intricacy and detail it is hard not to be captivated by it. From the amazingly dressed people strolling past, the goats running through the football game or the men, women and children selling everything from toothpaste to fresh bread on their heads, it is truly a fascinating sight.

One of the first things you notice when taking a walk through Accra is the smell. The sewer and drainage systems here are quite primitive. Basically there is a sort of trench about a foot, sometimes up to a metre, deep that runs along side the roads. This system of trenches serves as the pipeline for sewage and any other waste put into it. While this description may sound particularly underwhelming, one doesn’t get a feeling that Accra as a city is so filthy that you cannot interact with it. In fact, Accra presents itself with a certain messy and unorganised charm due mostly to its people.

Part of this charm is the extreme happiness that most Ghanaians exude. If they choose not to call out to you, as most do, they will just break into laughter. I am not yet sure if they are laughing at, or with us white people but nevertheless their chuckles are contagious. In fact, most greetings involve a shaking of hands and then half a minute of just laughing at each other. Another aspect to this charm is the Ghanaians relaxed nature. If you are coming to Ghana with expectations of western service I would suggest you don’t come. “In five minutes” is a line that seems to have no meaning whatsoever but is fed to you whenever you ask how long something will take. We waited over 2 hours for our dinner on the first night when there was nobody else at the hotel. I have no idea why food, or any other request takes so long wherever you go but it just seems to be the Ghanaian way... “in five minutes”.

The following day our orientation begins with our introduction to Tina, our ‘big black mama’ as she describes herself. She heads the volunteer organisation here and in many senses is our big black mama. She is big, black and takes responsibility for our every need. I should note that Ghanaian culture is very different to western culture in the way that you can talk about people. In Ghana there is no racial innuendo in making the statement such as ‘that man is a black man and that man is a white man’ or maybe ‘you are so black and I am so white’. It is purely descriptive. When you walk through the streets of Ghana, particularly the villages, everybody shouts “Obruni, Obruni” which means white man or man from the horizon. The calling is by no means disrespectful, rather it’s just that everyone wants to talk to you. Imagine shouting “black man black man” every time you saw a black man walking through the streets of Sydney. I guess in many ways it has to do with the rarity of obruni’s. There are so few white people you are very very noticeable. A lot of Ghanaians in the less frequented villages have only ever seen a handful of white people in their lifetimes.

The activities during our first week in the capital consist of an intro to the do’s and do not’s of Ghanaian culture such as one must only ever eat or pass a gift with their right hand, or that being of larger weight is considered attractive here. You can even buy medicine to assist you to gain weight! After our morning of information taking we spend the afternoon at Labardi beach relaxing and enjoying the 30 degree winter’s day.

The rest of the week’s activities consist of being taken on a city tour of Accra and Accra’s main market (which is an amazing experience), visiting a unbelievably strange coffin maker (think beer bottle and aeroplane coffins), trying our hands at some Ghanaian cooking, dancing and drumming and receiving further information concerning our host families and volunteer placements. After a week of getting to know the other volunteers (and exchanging contact details so that we can meet up on weekends to travel the country) we head our separate ways to all corners of the country to our respective host families and volunteer placements. Tomorrow, for me, Agona Swedru!!

Updates about the GapBreakers in Peru

Written by Brugh, our In-Country Agent in Peru
Photos provided by Brugh
I went to the school today and had my weekly meeting with the volunteers. All of them are going well and settling into their new homes. So far they have been teaching classes in art, English, PE and hygiene. Next week they will begin computer classes as well. All are managing the transport to and from the school well.

We were also very impressed with the amount of money they fundraised. Thank you to the volunteers and families as well, as this means we will be able to give them a substantial project to work on while they're here. Their experience here will therefore not only be all the more enriching, but they will also be able to make more of a significant contribution to the community as a result - a great outcome.

One of the most positive things I've noticed is that they are all the volunteers are making friends quickly and bonding well.

Travel stories from the Thar Desert and Jodhpur

Written by Emily Fischer - GapBreak India, 2009

After a long train journey and relaxing in Jodhpur, the Thar desert was next on our list. We were lucky to be able to stay with this awesome tribal family who were so generous to us. They cooked us amazing meals and made our beds up. The tribesmen performed a Rajasthani folk dance for us, which we later joined in with and had a large amount of fun.

We woke up at 5 in the morning for our camel rides. I’d already bagsed the biggest camel and I obviously hadn’t realized that camels in the Indian desert are a lot bigger than camels in Noosa. Luckily my behemoth camel wasn’t very fast so I didn’t fall off .

After being fed this massive amazing Indian breakfast we left the hut and went back to Jodhpur to see a memorial and the fort. They were really good, the fort was the best one though…it looks over the whole city and almost the entire city is blue. The tour guide said that painting the houses blue makes them cooler in summer. I don’t believe him.

After a nice trip away, we are now back in the volunteer house, which has started to fill up. We are having a large amount of fun and everyone is getting along really well.