There's no denying it, these bloggers are bound to make you jealous. Whether it's their guts, their energy or their tan you admire, overseas volunteers have got plenty to share with you about their remarkable work in fascinating countries. Read on to find out what you could be missing.

All | Jonathan | James | Emily | Dana | Selina | Lucy

Friday Oct 20, 2006

Sorry I haven't been around!!!

University has been busy at the moment, as well as work. I am now happily employed by the Kingston University Sustainability team, I am the Enviromental and Ethical officer for our students union, newly elected on the environmental council for NUS, attending Campaign Against Climate Change meetings, setting up a People and Planet society, writing for the university newspaper (when I get time) and also involving myself as an environmental mentor working with an NGO (under the Positive Environment Kingston pilot scheme)... So as you can imagine, I've been busy and also deprived of the internet in our flat. Aww poopy!

So I went to a volunteer party last night and got the chance to meet some of the Youthnet team, all of who are very nice people and I remembered then that I still have questions to reply to that were asked yonks ago. So here I am, answering the questions asked to me as best I can in a computer lab with people chatting and loud personal stereos... I hate loud personal stereos, a great thing about Nepal is that they don't have them!

 

Did you have doubts before you started, what were you thinking?

My friend told me two weeks before we were going to leave that he'd like me to come to Nepal. I said that I love children, but had no experience and he said that experience doesn't matter, that what matters is being caring. I think the reason why I saw logic in what he was saying and that I agreed to go was that at the time I had drank a bottle of wine to myself and was wasted at a barbeque... Hey, I'm a student!

And so I woke the next day, logged on to messenger and said "oh [insert rather offensive word here], I just agreed to go to Nepal with you didn't I". I was scared, I don't mind admitting that, I have never travelled and I was doing so with people I didn't really know. Planes frighten me and as an environmentalist, I am not fond of them, I also have a hatred for pharmacutical drugs and as a vegetarian there was also the issue of our Malaria tablets having gelatine in... Ew!

I doubted my experience with children, my competence for working in a team, I doubted my ability to take off in an aeroplane without freaking out. I was frightened about getting mugged or raped abroad, or arrested for doing something wrong or if a friend got injured and the hospitals were primative. I was worried about hygene both as a woman and somebody who doesn't want to get deli-belly, that they might not have good meat-free food and that a cobra might attack me.

Most of all what scared me was growing up and seeing things that I could always pretend to be knowledgable about, simply because I read about the situation in a text book. I think that growing up is something that frightens most people more than we'll admit to because we associate adulthood with having our freedom taken away. I was scared that mentally I would mature beyond the point of being able to turn a blind eye to injustice in the world, that I would realise that things have to be done and no longer be able to leave it to somebody else, or claim that anything we do won't help before I go back to sipping my Dr Pepper and playing my Playstation. I think what I am getting at is hard to put in to words, but I hope it is easy to understand. Maybe ignorance is freedom, maybe freedom is knowledge... But stepping outside ignorance is frightening.

At the same time I was excited, finally I would do something that I had always said I would do but always put off because of fear of the unknown and the worries I have mentioned above. I was looking forwards to meeting exotic people, staying in Freak Street where Hendrix and Lenon have allegedly stayed and of course working with children, learning about the culture, politics and issues of a new country and doing what I can to help. To put exactly how I felt down in words is impossible... I wrote to my friends and my family to tell them how much I love them and to my mother to tell her what to do if the worse happens. When you've never travelled you don't know what to expect... Even the more experienced travellers in the group had never been anywhere like Nepal.

But what's an adventure without conquering fears eh?

 

Did you ever worry about who/what you would meet or encounter while you were there?

Ohh yeah! I sat up for ages on the internet reading about venomous snakes and spiders in Nepal. I'm not afraid of snakes or spiders by the idea of waking up with a cobra curled around your flipflops, or a venomous spider dangling over your nose is scary. I was worried because a member of our group is gay and homosexuality is illegal in Nepal and the political tensions involving the Maoists was worrying.

The Maoists belive in the communist teachings of Mao Tse-Tung who was a political leader of the Communist Party of China, which as an ideology is very authoritarian, does not favour democracy and has an appauling human rights record comparable (in my opinion) on some levels to the atrocities of what the Nazi's did in World War two. I've heard they have concentration camps too. Anyway, in Nepal the Maoists are a political party who have used terrorist tactics to get what they want. They claim to want to liberate people from the caste system and give people equal rights they have allegedly abused people's human rights and used child soldiers to attempt to get what they want.

Then of course, how will Nepali people react to Westerners? Will they be racist? Try to steal from us? Resent us for our money?

How did these feelings match or contrast with reality?

Well we never met any cobras, although I did see a mongoose run across a wall off the balcony of the circus girl's refuge! Maybe then that mongoose was our saviour, snacking on all the mean ol' cobras to protect us volunteers.

Whilst we were in Nepal there was a ceasefire with the Maoists and in the Himalayan Times (there were both English and Nepali editions) it said that the UN were disarming them. Of course, how reliable newspapers are in any country, even one as liberal and democratic as our own is questionable. We met a volunteer who had worked with rehabilitating child soldiers and she told us that the Maoists had been going to villages and forcing people to fill a quota of how many children they wanted for their army. Apparently it was remarkably difficult to reintegrate a child back in to society after they had been a soldier. Nepali society is not as accepting in many ways as our own, it has no welfare state and maybe all of the help given to people such as ex-child soldiers, people with disabilities, circus girls and people with the HIV virus comes from NGO's.

As Westerners, something like this can be upsetting and the prospect of being attacked, held hostage or mugged by Maoists is worrying and very real. Certain areas in Nepal appear to be more concentrated, or maybe they are constituencies, I am not sure... But a Nepali friend we made told us that if Maoists hijack our bus, give them everything we own. Fortunately, we never met any Maoists. There were a few protests in Kathmandu, but we didn't experience any violence.

Nepali people are friendly, but on entering a country that still has a Caste system we have to be aware that we will see things that may upset us. The Caste system is ethnic, so the people of lower castes appear to have certain features, for example maybe they have a mongolian appearance. The people of higher castes are very beautiful, with elegant features and an almost Indian appearance, although their skin is fairer. Thus sometimes you will see people in certain situations and they all seem to look the same (not to be racist or anything, but they do) and this means that whilst we would dine with our friends from higher castes who could afford an American education there were a lot of people on the streets. Some were on the streets because in Nepali culture, that is their place. Then there are children who's parents have become alcoholics, other children who's parents have remarried and thrown their kids out (reconstituted families are undesirable in Nepal) and children who are on drugs.

Because of the amount of people living on the streets and the perception in the country of white people and their wealth, we encountered a lot of beggers. It is something that a lot of people from an affluent country such as the UK would find hard to handle; Children approaching you begging for money to eat. However, we found out from a Nepali friend that some of these children will use the money for drugs, some children work for adults who use their begging as a means to make money, some have homes and want sweets or luxiaries. It is understandable that somebody in such poverty would want something off Westerners, it's not like their families can claim Child Support of they can sleep overnight in a Saint Mungo's hostel. At first I found this a bit upsetting and at times frightening. I wondered whether I would be mugged by these people on the streets, yet we never recieved any threats even from the poorest of people.

The people in the shops always wanted to make a buck off us Westerners and they didn't leave us alone. Some would follow us and it became annoying, yet understandable. We knew they were ripping us off, we knew it wasn't done in malice and that it was just a part of their business. It is still puzzling however, how charming it can be when you're ripped off by some of these people. You can be left with a grin on your face having talked to a friendly shopkeeper who has charged you twice what he would charge a Nepali for some fabrics... Yet to us, the money is just pennies.

We never experienced any racism were were aware of (although people could have been muttering "chalky" at us in their own language whilst we walked past them diwn the street) and in Heteuda we became celebrities, the children running to see us and talk to us in what little English they know. The adults would come and talk to us about the history of their country, again in broken English but the effort was inspiring. How many people in the UK actually take time to explain the history of their own country to a foreigner? For free???

And finally (hope I haven't bored you yet), something we didn't consider was the amount of drugs going around, mainly marijuana. People would come up to us in the streets and offer to sell it to us, one of our hotel managers even offered to give it to us! We would walk past cafes with people sitting there smoking up like Hendrix probably did in the same cafe in the seventies. We never expected it!

But of course we were tourists, we were consumers and novelties. The experience we had as a group with Nepali people was very positive, but we do not know how they would treat us if we lived there. We are white Westerners, we are not part of the 'Untouchable' caste, we do not own a flat in Kathmandu and go out drinking with the lads. Also, as a woman... If I were not a Westerner I wonder how I may be treated differently. In the evenings women are rarely seen outside and we never saw any Nepali women in the bars. I can only speak from the experience of a Westerner in an alien land and in a way this sadens me... For Nepali culture is beautiful and fascinating and we can only scrape the surface of it as wealthy white travellers.

(And thankyou very much Dana, for your kind comment)

Posted by Selina ( 1:38 PM )
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Thursday Aug 17, 2006

Back in the UK

(Firstly I appologise for not posting a great deal and I will do more entries on Nepal. It actually surprised me how  hard it is to get to an internet connection if you're outside a city centre or tourist area. The internet is crazy slow and keeps on cutting out, it often wouldn't allow me to log in to do-it.org... And on those times that it did, it logged me out and I lost work. Crazy Nepali internet damnit!!!)

The Nine o'clock News is always full of the bad things that people have done to others. Whether it's a murder, a bomb on a plane, a city being blown to pieces where hospitals and schools topple like playing cards and families cry at the top of their lungs for the loss of their loved ones amongst rubble and gunfire. Sometimes it seems as if the media forgets the virtues of human nature. Tears sell papers, despair presents itself as a bank cheque and fear is the icing on what often appears to be a big fat nihilistic cake. Yet the news is something you can switch off, you can put a paper down after breakfast, finish your coffee and go out in to the world of Converse shoes, Pop Idol and big red London buses.

Things are different however, when you step off an aeroplane with a rucksack over your shoulders and a belly full of tasteless airline food (or at least the vegetarian option isn't too hot). You find yourself ripped away from the comfort of double glazing and smoky pubs and public transport that doesn't appear to be falling apart. You're in a different world; you can't change the channel, no matter how many street children beg you for money to eat, no matter how many sad stories you hear. You are forced to look for the good things in the terrible events happening around you; otherwise you might just go crazy. 

            "It changed my life", it was incredible. And I can't speak for everybody else in our group –after all, we don't share the same brain-, but being unable to flick over to Jerry Springer or Only Fools and Horses did me a world of good, not because I ever enjoy hearing bad news but because there is no better way to recognise a good person than to see how they put the effort in to being a candle for somebody who at the time is experiencing a period of darkness. So many individuals go through ordeals in their life that you and I sat in our comfortable computer chairs behind a glowing screen cannot imagine.

It's something you have to try not to dwell on and sometimes it can be hard not to lie awake at night wondering how the world can be so cruel to these beautiful children  and how somebody will sell out every moral fibre in human existence to exploit these innocent and vulnerable individuals to make money. None of us know the background stories of the ring masters from whom the children were rescued. Perhaps they have hungry families to feed, maybe they lie awake at night haunted by the cries of the little people whose childhood they have stolen. It's not something any of us will know; we can only be happy that knights in shining armour such as the rescue workers are willing to go on such dangerous missions and that wonderful organisations such as the Esther Benjamin Trust and the Nepal Child Welfare Foundation exist to try and rehabilitate these children and that they have incredible individuals working both to build a future for circus children and also to bring these ringmasters to justice for their barbarity

When you meet people like those I've mentioned above it changes you. The ordeals of others put your own worries in to perspective. The warmth and affection of the girls in Hetauda who seem to have so little by our own Western standards can teach you more than a million self-help books. How somebody can go through hell, yet still retain a degree of faith in human nature. Maybe the world doesn't revolve around the sun, maybe it revolves around hope and friendship and family and on building new beginnings. That sounds a bit cheesy doesn't it? If so, I apologise.

 I could write a million things about what we experienced in Nepal. Sitting on the floor and eating rice with our hands, Danni's beautiful open-air concert in Durbar Square, the elephants who's bristly thick skin made them appear a bit like giant long-nosed pigs, Paul's little fan club who he carried about, one on each arm... The football club, playing games with the little ones in Kathmandu, being fooled in to believing we have lice by the girls in Hetauda. Nepal was an experience none of us will ever forget and being back home in grey England is something that we will all take time to adjust to.

Posted by Selina ( 10:34 AM )
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Friday Jul 28, 2006

Still in the land of the living

It has been a while since I have had both the time and the patience to venture into the world of the Nepali internet cafe with its snail paced connection and dodgy computers. Yet today I have found the good fortune of stu,bling in to a -wait for it- broadband internet cafe in Pokhara! That means it takes only ten minutes for an Email to send, not fifteen!

Pokhara is a tourist-esque city that is located somewhere up in the mountains with a scenic lake and round-faced Tibetans who follow you down the streets trying to sell you their bracelets and necklaces, many of which are made of yak bone or dark wood or old-looking metal objects which you can find in those New Age incense-scented shops in England. It is hard to believe that only a few days ago we were in Hetauda, again a city but one where we only witnessed around two other white people outside our group.
 
In Hetauda you share the streets with goats, chickens, stray dogs, rickshaws, several species of fly that insist on landing on you and bicycles. In Pokhara the streets are illuminated by shop signs and bars and resteraunts with names like "the Santana Cafe" or "the Moondance" making it feel far less adventurous and less genuine than the more primitive town we had previously been staying in.

So about the refuge, I am aware that I previously hadn't written much about the place where our group had been volunteering all those weeks and where we met some incredible people. The refuge is run both by the Esther benjamins Trust and the Nepal Child Welfare Foundation and focusses on rescuing girls from the circus and trying the best they can to educate and prepare the girls to go back in to society and live a normal life. What you are about to read is upsetting.  

When the new girls arrived we saw a collection of faces from different castes and backgrounds and some who I think may have been from India. They were children who had been rescued by some of the most noble and brave men we have ever met (who used to work in the circuses themselves), from conditions that would be considered appauling, even if it were animals kept in their place instead. Yet funnily enough, whilst it is unacceptable to keep a wild animal in an Indian circus families are tricked in to having their children trafficked in to bonded labour with false contracts, designed to deceive some of the most uneducated and vulnerable families in the country.

What follows is a life where the child is beaten in to performing circus tricks, many of which are dangerous and I was informed that some of the children are converted to Christianity so that the ringleaders can take advantage of them further, telling them how God will protect them during their stunts according to another lady who was working there. On top of the severe beatings many of the girls have experienced sexual violence and psychological abuse... Just to make a buck for a greedy ringmaster and his agents.
 
What would startle anybody on meeting these amazing young ladies however is how accomodating and loving they are, despite the cruelty inflicted on them which I always tried not to think about when working with them and on those nights where you lie awake with your mind working like a CD on repeat. Yet they are some of the friendliest and sweetest people I have ever encountered and they delighted in giving both myself and Danni Nepali hairstyles (I was told I look just like a Nepali bride!), painting our nails and our palms with henna so that we might find ourselves a good husband. Despite the language barrier we somehow managed to maintain a good relationship with them and leaving them sadenned us greatly.

Volunteering overseas is harder than I ever thought it would be and whilst you can read several Amnesty International publications on certain topics, or watch Bob Geldoff on television talking about poverty there is no real kick in the jaw than experiencing things with your very own eyes. To me at least I know where I stand now, I know that I want to dedicate my life to human rights and that this is probably the making of me... But at the same time when you see rickshaws driving past or men walking with children you know that there's a possibility that those children could be going to a place where they will be hurt badly. You ask yourself overr and over "what can I do to make things right?" after all how many of these traffickers are convicted and serve a full sentence? The world is a very cruel and unfair place, the papers tell us this every day. Travelling and volunteering in Nepal has made me realise this more than ever. At the same time nobody can inspire you like people who have seen hardship. And the fact that people like those we have met both in Hetauda and Kathmandu exist makes saving the human race worth a shot. 
 
On a lighter note Pokhara is a very welcoming place too, although it is becoming apparent now that a Nepali's penchant for friendliness here seems to flow strongest when he or she is trying to sell you something. It is strange not being the strange white celebrities we appeared to be in Hetauda, but then it is really nice to be able to kick back and relax for a couple of days before an eight hour journey on a rickety bus back to Kathmandu.    Sooooooo... See ya later!

Posted by Selina ( 2:22 PM )
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Tuesday Jul 11, 2006

In the refuge

I am currently sat on the floor of the refuge, feeling myself falling in love with Nepal. And for the very reasons that I thought would put me off. We share our walls with ants and lizards, the toilets are holes in the ground that you squat over and they don't use toilet paper... Cue your left hand and a bucket of water, charming (they do have western toilets but where's the fun in that?)! hence you eat with your right hand, sat on the floor and hunched over a plate of rice, potatos and curry.

But most of all I am in love with the simplicity of how people live, it is touching.

The young ladies in the refuge are absolutely brilliant, very sweet and appreciative of even the littlest things. Everybody is doing well, I am so happy to have such brilliant friends. This place is amazing and after hearing stories about Maoist uprisings, the persecution of Tibetan refugees and children on the streets it really restores one's faith in the goodness of humankind.

My talented friend and I are currently about to plan what sort of class we can do for the girls who were rescued from Indian circuses. because some of them have been there since they were as young as six they have never had the chance to learn to read and write and certainly not to speak English. They like to draw and the older girls are learning to sew to give them a chance for a career when they are ready to leave. We are working with a Nepali student who is studying in America. She is inspiring.

Ohh yeah and I got attacked by a monkey, but that story is for another day.

Posted by Selina ( 4:05 PM )
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Sunday Jul 09, 2006

Kathmandu's internet cafe sucks!

The last post I wrote seemed to be swallowed up by the prehistoric internet cafe of Nepal. Windows '63... Or whatever version these computers use seems awkward and the internet slow, something which irritates a spoilt Westerner such as myself. And I am sure I just heard a rat squeek!

And so enouh of the complaining. It is hard not to feel guilty doing so in a city where children rummage through rubbish to quench their aching hunger, where women sleep among rats and a clean drink of water is hard to find if you do not have the financial means to do so. In fact the poverty here makes me very sad and I don't mind admitting this to all the people who will come across this blog. It is something I have not yet adjusted to and I have to keep on reminding myself that I have to keep positive. If anything this experience is teaching me more than a thousand books I can read on the subject and makes me more determined to help.

Anyway, I need to go again.

Posted by Selina ( 7:08 AM )
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Thursday Jul 06, 2006

We're here!!

As a first time traveller I never really grasped the concept of 'jet-lag', yet right now I am sat in an internet cafe sharing a desk and a slow connection with several small insects and a sticky climate. Kathmandu is beautiful.

I really would like to write more, but my brain is currently re-charing after hours being stuck on aeroplanes, so painfully bored I forced myself  to watch Friends on the flight with some hope of entertainment and to quench that horrible nagging feeling you get when you know you have to wait to be somewhere and all your mates are either too whacked out to irritate or listening to their music quite happily.

Anyway, I shall writer some more as soon as I can because I have never been anywhere, or had an opportunity so worth telling people about!

So yeah... Namaste and I shall update this as soon as I am awake.

And dom says hi".

Posted by Selina ( 2:14 PM )
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Wednesday Jul 05, 2006

Off to Nepal

I'd like to continue by writing about some of my recent experiences which have shaped where I am today.

I had the good fortune to bump in to an amazing young gentleman called Dominic Stevenson around two months ago who has been setting up a charity and who has played a big influence on where I am today. The charity is called 6S and is going to be set up to send students and people who cannot afford to travel around the world to volunteer, I ended up a very happy fundraiser for a brilliant project. Through Dominic I have met some incredible and compassionate individuals who I am delighted to be working with in Nepal (big hugs and kisses to you all!!!), where I was informed I am to be going a week ago having drunk a bottle of wine and eaten my way through a few badly cooked veggie burgers. Something like that is like a punch in the gut, not so much in a negative way but a big shock. Instead of stepping out of your comfort zone you are jumping on top of your comfort zone head first with eight skin heads, kicking the living daylights out of it, dowsing it with petrol, setting it alight and then spit roasting a boar over it. Frightening yes, but wow... Nepal! I cannot wait!!!  

I've never travelled, it was something I always put off doing because of silly little fears which are irrelevent to this piece, but which kept my feet firmly in the United Kingdom, not to mention money issues. Still, I couldn't ask for more brilliant people to be travelling with and I am looking forward to the culture shock, mosquito nets and markets with dyes so pure in colour they could have been plucked straight from a rainbow.   I hope that this introduction gives you all some idea about who I am and what I do. I best appologise in advance for any bad spelling, typo's or inconsistancies in my writing, I am slightly dyspraxic... But working on it! Hope you enjoy what you read.  

Love Selina xx

Posted by Selina ( 12:16 PM )
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Friday Jun 30, 2006

Let me tell you about myself

I never know what to write when trying to paint a picture of who I am, to outline my personality or talk about what I have done to get me where I am today. Ironic isn't it, that the only person you live with constantly, twenty-four-seven is the very person who becomes most difficult for you to analyse. The person you look at in a mirror every morning, the only person you have ever experienced every bout of laughter and every tear with, every crush and every arguement with friends and family. But then maybe that is what life is for, self-discovery.  

 I shall start by telling people what I do. I'm a human rights and politics student studying in Kingston University who turns twenty three this December. Some people have hinted on me being ancient and compared to most fellow students I have encountered in my time down south, I am a few years older and I would not take back any actions and descisions that hindered me in getting to university at the age of eighteen. This is because I had some amazing experiences in my home town of Wrexham. I took opportunity to volunteer with young people who have disabilities for example and have also involved myself with one off volunteering days helping the elderly around Christmas time. I have also been politically active, both with working alongside Cafod to help people from North Wales get to Gleneagles for the G8 and with peace campaigning both in Aberystwyth and London.  

And so I came to university at the ripe age of twenty one, having never really travelled the world or experienced London and had the good fortune of being put in to halls with two Americans and a young man who was originally from Ghana, but who had lived in Holland for a lot of his life and a friend who is studying architecture who comes from Gloucester (I have no idea how the heck to spell where he comes from!) and already I had fallen in love with the student way of living. Cheap beer at the union bars and the fantastic opportunity to meet people from all walks of life! The first two months flew by in a flurry of beer bottles, takeaways and stumbling across the dancefloor like John Wayne in wet cement and it was only by chance that I actually walked past the student union offices one day to meet somebody fantastic who changed mine and undoubtedly other people's lives with her support (love ya Lynette!). I wanted something more out of university. Endless nights drinking were starting to hurt both my liver and my wallet.     

Through the volunteer co-ordinator I found myself involved in appropriate adult training, which means that if a young or vulnerable individual is taken in to custody, we go in and make sure that their rights are looked after. I also am currenty involved with another pilot project acting as a mentor and working with a local chairty to help them run more sustainably. Both projects are fascinating and I have learnt so much from them, they are the sort of experiences that change your way of thinking and way of living completely. I have also been invovled with both environmental and peace activism in my time down south and loving every minute of it. I am soon to be Kingston University's Environmental and Ethical Officer too. I love it down here, there's so much to do, I feel completely blessed.

Posted by Selina ( 12:42 PM )
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