Day 84-88

Still not feeling well. Clover is not great either, suffering from a persistent bad cough and had to miss a day of school. Back to the clinic for the second time in two weeks and into the safe hands of expat Scottish doctor, Robin, the nicest and least smug man in Kathmandu. Finally somebody I can explain my complicated medical history to without resorting to elaborate mime. He is here with his wife to do goodwill humanitarian work for the people of Nepal, gain credible professional experience and...er.. obviously adopt a little brown baby. Still, he was nice enough and sent Lungy away with some giant antibiotics. I returned to work the next day and promptly threw up all over the orphans. Well actually all over the floor but it was still unpleasant. I apologised profusely to the cleaner through the medium of hand gesture as I was escorted out the building and back onto the scooter before being returned to bed. A reaction to antibiotics or a new virus? Who knows.

Had a lovely dinner with Water Expert Keith on Tuesday night and my delightful daughters entertained him and most of the staff with their Nepali dance routine. I am very keen to learn but can't locate a class that will teach little fat Scottish people to make an arse of some Bollywood moves. I'll find a private teacher, I thought. No sooner had this thought gone through my mind than a nice friendly woman appeared at our table, introducing herself as a local Nepali dance teacher and informing us that both girls were actually extremely talented. Seizing this lucky and fateful opportunity I asked her if she would teach me and politely, she said yes. Result! I will start classes next week and am pleased to have a hobby other than white wine. Obviously I will go twice full of enthusiasm, miss a week due to unforseen circumstances and then never go back, like all my other hobbies. Water Expert Keith is going back to Sydney tomorrow for a few weeks so we are friendless again but he kindly donated the contents of his fridge to us, that way that parents do before they go on holiday. We left with some half-drunk mango juice, opened butter and a pound of Yaks cheese. He's a great guy and we're going to see lots of him when he gets back. His glamorous French-Australian daughter and granddaughter are joining him too so there will even be some young(er) people chucked into our little social mix.

The girls continue to love school and are sure working hard; the standard of education is negligble - what they call 'rote learning'. Walk past any classroom and all you can hear is endless chanting of what the teacher just said - and most of what the teacher just said is neither great nor accurate. It can vary from 'Mohan is a fat boy' to 'Aids is a gay disease' to 'Lazy fat people snack between meals' and anything in between. The subjects (these ones were 'moral and health') are straight out of the 1950's and I make a point of every night going through what they 'learned' at school and correcting it again. Clover has more friends than she can manage and it is like a mosh pit at a gig when she arrives in the playground. Fern hangs back a bit but is finding her way. She gets a little homesick now and misses her 'real' friends. She continues to obsess over Buddhism and our employer Bec has arranged for her to interview a real life Lama (with one L, stupid people, one L).

I have been doing some therapeutic work with the saddest little 9 year old girl in the world and at night I spend my time googling how to bypass the adoption laws and bring her home to Scotland. I have forgotten all that I know or believe about the pitfalls of intercountry adoption. My professionalism is out the window and I am overly attached, confused, self-motivated and blinkered. She is physically and emotionally abused at home, lives in desperate poverty and constant hunger (I did a home visit that will haunt me forever) and has what I can only see as a hopeless life ahead of her - marriage, prostitution or domestic labour by about aged 12. She has a beautiful smile which she flashes mainly at me, sending me spiralling into a miserable orbit of despair and longing. On a positive note, I didn't realise I knew how to do therapeutic work with children and am thrilled at my new skill set, using imaginative play, dolls and art to connect with her and bypass the language barrier. I also attended a girls group (entry criteria - young domestic worker, abused or rescued child labourer, orphan etc) where they bonded over sexual health, quizzes, songs and dances. A group of 20 girls aged between 8 and 16, discussing periods and then singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm. A group full of light and energy and enthusiasm - all with a real genuine thrill that there is a world out there and they can have a tiny bit of education of their own. It just wouldn't work in Scotland.

My sister brightened my week by sending OK and Grazia but I actually just felt a bit irritated and disconnected by the stories, the gossip, the make up and the fashion. Is this really what people care about? Maybe I am learning something after all. Having said that, I did like what Emma Watson had done to her hair.