Day 1&2
The journey started with an overnight flight from London Heathrow. Wallet taken just before boarding so a bit of stress and hassle to send me on my way. Landed and greeted by country office colleagues with that welcome VSO sign, and a fresh flower garland and 'Namaste'.

Early the next day I went to the office to meet colleagues and be briefed on our health, education and livelihoods work. Learnt about the political uncertainty which affects economic growth, some of the inequalities, particularly for women, and about some successes in the growth of literacy and lowered rmortality rate. You always learn something that unexpectedly takes you aback too, so I didn't know that there is enough (so far untapped) hydropower in Nepal to serve 3% of the world's electricity needs.

Then a road trip to Lamjung, a mountain district around 240 km west of Kathmandu. It's mainly a good road, but busy, being the only access. It winds around the base of the hills and sometimes you're accompanied by a river. Passing roadside homes and stalls, people working and carrying, children walking from school. The terraces are a constant feature, with 64% of the people dependent on subsistence farming. Stopped at a roadside stall to buy and eat big cucumbers dipped in a spicy salt paste, then onwards til dark and Lamgunj.

Day 3
Today was a long and full day and all about our work through younger volunteers who are paired with local 'Counterparts' the International Citizen Service (ICS) programme. We'd had an impromptu meeting the night before as we arrived in town and saw them waiting for a not too frequent bus. Today we saw lots of aspects of the programme. Firstly we visited host homes and met host 'parents' who talked of how they enjoyed having their new family. The type of accommodation and location varies but all the volunteers and Counterparts I met had settled in to different family lives as well as their work placements. 2 of the projects we visited were based in schools. There's some adapting of the programme as you go along and so an unplanned stop at a school we would also visit later but the Principal had asked if we would stop by to join the assembly. The children gathered and sang and listened, then we were called up to be welcomed and give a few words. It was the first of a series of welcomes ceremonies that day, with red powder being put on our foreheads, and a silk scarf around our necks. Standing in the dirt yard, in the morning sun, looking up at the hills, was certainly different to my own school days.

The first activity we saw was with a group of young children and was a 'no cost/low cost' one, and the volunteers had acquired scraps of waste cloths from a local tailor, and plastic bottles, and had given the task of making mobiles and pen holders to the children. But as one volunteer said, 'the children's creativity far outweighed ours and they've made dolls, dolls in a bed, and collages of sheep!'.
The next school was another notable one in the area. As part of the teachings on health and sanitation, the volunteers had decided the activity on this subject would be to clean the toilet with the students. It's a communal toilet and has no door and not enough water, and was in a pretty awful state. The girl students talked of how difficult it was for them to use with the lack of privacy, particularly when they were menstruating, and is one of the factors in lower school attendance for girls. As we left there was discussion around improvements and even a toilet door, which would make a simple but significant difference.

Many of the ICS projects are based in the community and in the afternoon we visited one of them and met with a Mothers Group, one of the local groups volunteers work with in the area. The project was a cowshed and at the home of a 'superwoman' who had been married at 14, and as well as looking after her family, grew and sold some local produce, and had all sorts of activities and plans on the go. The cowshed was a tin roof which covered the waste from the nearby buffalo and so stopped the nitrates being washed away so as to provide good manure for the vegetable growing. The volunteers explained how they'd researched and planned the construction, then carried the tin in rolls up the hill, and built the shed.
By this time the other women from the Mother's Group had gathered and an animated discussion took place about which training they wanted from the volunteers, who organise it through a local facilitator. The recent experience with making and using brickettes for fuel had been mixed, but there was a lot of interest in collecting and using, and selling local herbs. Making and selling incense sticks was another option being discussed by the women as they worked out how to develop their own securer livelihoods.

Day 4
Today is a travel day, heading from the mountains to the city of Pokhara, centre of the Western development region. Along the road we pass through communities and see life's business: huge basket loads of plants being carried by older women secured by straps across their foreheads; a child having his hair shampooed by his mum at the local well; the chopping and preparation of food. The colourful packed local buses and the passenger-carrying motorbikes are our company as we wind our way between the hills.

Day 5
Last night we met 2 UK volunteers and today we visited 2 of the 6 schools they are working in. They are both based in the hills. The volunteers are working with the school teachers and senior management to share ideas and best practice. There are few resources so with a couple of small VSO grants there are a few wipe boards, books, and language jigsaws. Local people who no longer live and work in the area, have donated computers. But perhaps the longest lasting contribution is around showing new ways of teaching, from rote learning to supplementing this with more interaction and students learning together. And 'capacity building' and so 19 other schools will use 1 of these schools as a model school and come to pick up ideas and new ways for their own schools, and there the cascade begins. Teachers and pupils make so much effort to get an education: short-term contracts, long journeys, a money sacrifice which can mean going hungry. Now too, the community and parents are involved in the schools, with teachers and children, so a development journey together.
Just before we left I was asked to officially open the English Lab and was amazed and humbled to uncover a plaque to mark the occasion.

A winding road back to the regional city, on a road which is only partially paved. It's the daily commute for 1 volunteer on the local bus and can take anything up to 2 hours each way. Then a meeting with the District Education Officer, responsible for 1200 schools in his area. Ideally he'd like more volunteers, to help them change their schools for themselves.

I was left reflecting on our volunteers, and how they live what we talk about - living in the community, eating the same food, travelling on the local buses, sharing their skills, and together lives are developed.

Day 6
An early flight from Pokara for meetings with the British Ambassador and local NGO's. It wasn't a clear day but I did get to see a couple of snow-covered Himalyan peaks.
VSO volunteers work with local partners. The first one I met today is focused on 'healthy, happy, educated children'. The other was working on land and agrarian reform, particularly the huge disparity women face in rights and ownership.
I've picked up a gastro problem so a quick visit to the clinic today. Medicine is surely a right, and I know I felt it a privilege today, it's something so many are deprived of.
At the end of the day I did an interview for a programme called 'Inspirations' which is featured on the national TV in Nepal. I talked about our work at VSO and our work in Nepal. I was also asked who had inspired me over the years which is a challenging question. I think it is the ordinary people I have met who, day by day, with no one seemingly watching, just living good and honest lives.
Day 7
My last day in Nepal and a day of meetings, with British and Nepalian Government officials. It's good to discuss our common aims in fighting poverty, particularly in education, healthcare, securer livelihoods, and participation in decision-making, particularly for women. There are some volunteers based in or within reach of, Kathmandu, so I was able to meet them too to talk about the work they are doing and their life living in the community in Nepal. My very last meeting was with Sankalpa, an alliance of women's organisations, working together for women's representation. They were telling me how useful they found Margaret Hodge's recent placement and I'll be talking about that with her when I get back to London.
As the day ended the Country Office team held a farewell afternoon tea for me and presented me with a pashmina. I treated myself to a Banana Lassi. I've done without food for a couple of days given my gastro situation, a combination of that, travelling and meeting stakeholders, and sanitation in parts of Nepal, was all salutary. And I enjoyed that Lassi!
I reflected on how I'd seen those faces less than a week ago, stranger's faces, but now, having worked together, lived in a 4-wheel drive for 4 days with a couple of them, how everyone now feels familiar. The Nepali people have so much to contend with - one of the poorest countries in the world, hugely diverse ethnically and geographically, and subject to most of the environmental problems it's possible to have. But they are so warm and friendly, peaceful and gracious. You can see why many of the volunteers and others I met are so attached.

But time for me to leave. Delhi in the morning where all the VSO Asia Country Directors are meeting.