Demi Tour of the World

Good news : Jacky, from his bed, wants to give five days food to the children.

kilos of rice, patatoes, tomatoes, onions, brinjals (local aubergine ), sugar, flour. In quantities to last five days following Kamal’s experience - Kamal manages with his wife one of Umbrella’s houses.

When I arriived with the taxi full of food, children welcomed the driver and I very warmly, and, village’s reflex, started to carry the bags. Of course I carried the heaviest.
While didi started to cook I finish to shave the remaining head - the didi did want to keep her hair. She also thought the food could last from 7 to 9 days (another reflex), so I had to insist it had to last five days, the children need more !
Around themselves, children see a lot of change and they hope it will go on, starting by a new place to live with clean water… Of course as soon as the funds will be here….

Bad news: Good for food, but still more problems: following a shortage of gaz, people tend to use more kerosene to cook. therefore there is also difficulties to get Kerosene. Didi managed to get two litres this day. One litre = 1 day… if no fuel, it will be cold meal basis on Chulo, beaten rice

To put an end to all this, please let us know your desire to sponsore a kids or to give a donation. Money will pass by Umbrella foundation.
Every little helps

Reminder:  These naked littles body (minus two) are all to be sponsored (30 dollars per child and per month, it can seem a lot, but it covers all the care and education, furthermore four salaries can share - one family, one office, one pub… For example, among the SOLHimal’s volunteers, a couple, earing the minimum wages is sponsoring two children in Umbrella.

The optician’s visit has been alright. No problem, three children need glasses that will be given by SOLHimal via Umbrella.
The day before, we took the children for a public “bath” where the neighbours wash themselves and their linen. That’s 15 minutes walk and two minutes from Thamel. Without being asked anything, children got all undresses in a flash!
There the people showed their curiosity, even some showed their concern. One of them took a photo with his mobile, promising to sent it to the medias because, he says, ‘they need to show reality’.

Jacky, Umbrella’s country president, was sick. No way to contact him. August 11th, I was in the office when Gyan, at last, popped up. From him, I hoped a report about the families and the schools in the Rasuwa district, instead he asked me what I’ve decided for the children’s sake, because an article will be published the next day… a way of pressure, but as long as there is no money, our emergency can’t be solved !

Talking news, here a good one… but negative: where the children are coming from, there is starvation due to the closed chinese border. Chinese markets are much more accessible than Kathmandu for all the people living in the mountains (Humla, Dolpo, Langtang). So those people lack rice and vegetables.
Why closing a border and starving people? because Tibet, for the Chinese politic point of view, needs to be invisible, no one should be able to witness what happens there.
Therefore, if we already knew Chinese governement able to kill, here the IOC and its supporters are guilty of the same crimes!. There is sport and there is economic interests and nationalism…

Which impact for the children? That reduces their chance to go back to their village and family.
Wednesday, I went back to the children’s to get them again to the public bath - if I don’t go nobody else will do the job -  Choesang, 4, jumped in my arms. That’s it, I’m their brother, their dhai.
The next I started the lice eradication. I used my clipper to its exhaustion. Boys were happy to get the same haircut than mine, but three girls emptied all the tears of their body while Choesang were overjoyed to be the first.

Anneli should have come to pay the school exams fees (just another tax!!!!) but she didn’t come.
Gyan didn’t give me any report because he wanted Tenzin (who dislikes the article :”Children in illegal orphanage”)… to do the job… Do we live in an upside down world? anyway such a situation shows the real limits of the Nepali Government.

Following Chinese own words, Olympics are not involved with politic and one should mind its own business. through this video you can easily imagine how China’s dictatorship impulse such violent behavings from Nepali Police which I quote :”If no medias we would beat those Tibetans to death”. Not surprising really. Some cops look under 18, and those youngster are undisciplined, they even had a row with journalist on this very same day ( 14th August 2008)

It started with Anneli, a sweddish girl, who sent me an email:
“I help in an orphanage of Tibetan kids, they have nearly nothing. Can you help?”
I called her immediately asking to visit the place. Anneli was dubious upon the director’s speech whose name is Tenzin, who doesn’t like NGOs and is unable to show any official paper.

5 p.m. on my visit, there were no adult around. I’ve seen 41 kids living in two rooms, the girl and the boy room, which is bedroom, dining room and homework room.
The “director” arrived half an hour later. He told me his name was only Tenzin, that he was Tibetan but could not give more details! Only one page of his accountant book was used (something he showed on Anneli’s request) but half the page written in english was repeated in Nepali! Very vague and nor really in a warm relationship with the children he said he needs help…

Reality: On my second visit a week later I came a reprensetative of the Nepali governement and helper for Umbrella foundation (www.umbrellanepal.org and SolHimal Organization ( www.solhimal.org) Tenzin was away in the village, the very one he took the children from. As so we learnt that all children have parents who live in the same area of Reshuwa district (70 Km north of Kathmandu towards Langtang) and that all familly give money to Tenzin, from 500 to 2500 rupees a month in the hope of a better future via their confidence over Tenzin (maybe a man from their village). In the same time the guy looks for tourist in Thamel as a guide and try to persuade them to sponsor children or to help directly the so-called orphanage.
But the kids sleep at three per beds and no tap water is avalaible. On this night three were sleeping on the floor. The school fees are not paid and all kids are sick, skin disease and worms, a red one known to be very dangerous (discovered this last thursday, 31 july, because of this one of them has a swollen stomach. Even more, at the same time, 6 children disapeared from this place and no none knows where they are yet…

Seeing this nightmare Gayn Bahadur Lama, the ministry man, notified the need to close the place but… mi

… Governement can’t give any money, though can help otherwise.
First of all  I requested a check-up for all children. As  a result we found out that 4 children has scabies (including 1, the youngest, with a swollen belly due to an invasion of red worms, 1 a wart under her foot, 1 with black teeth, 2 with fungus, 4 with white lips corners. Plus various skin problems.
Mainly, all this is due to a lack of hygiene to their place. All’s dirty, from their clothes to the linen, to bed bugs under matrasses and lice in their head.
And about the other basics : education : Tenzin has not enough money for all the fees…
                                              food : … otherwise he couldn’t buy any. Still it is only rice, and some rare and diluted vegetables
 
So thats us, Anneli and I, who are taking action against lice : shaving,  bedbugs : insecticide, bath : need to come every two days

About the emergency and the long term ?

I met with Laura, a brazilian lawyer who helps another orphanage contacted a foundation, if the foundation agrees to take the kids under good condition, they’ll have enough money for everything. It would be done… but it will be known in a month and a half. That’s not quick enough.

Or, we open any house under Umbrella organization. Three days to find a house, 3 others days to get it ready, 7th day : the children are in… but the latter had no money for more children to rescue. So I said I can give 5000 euros for the set-up.
 Still, we’ll need to find partners/sponsors : 50 euros per month per kids (or 600 euros per year per kid ) as a long term commitment. That will cover all the costs for the kid, from the home care, to education and medical care. Tha’s following the experience of Umbrella and SolHimal. To whom the donations will be sent as Umbrella will monitor the house.

Policy in exile, local policy and Community in waiting for its country freedom

As leader of all Tibetans, when the Dalai Lama celebrates his birthday, that’s on a festival day, his people sing his name and cry their disappeared and tortured souls. Under a burning blue sky it sent symbols. The holly Tibetan man is moved with ceremony and set above the even most important guests. Talking of the latter, he’s a representative of the government but he is not a representative of the government’s policy.

I note because the guy shake hands with a Tibetan group that just been arrested at the border with TAR, furthermore, nearly all the Tibetans in front of him have been arrested by Nepali police, even further the government doesn’t provide anymore refugee cards to the new-comer nor it grants Tibetan born in Nepal of a Nepali nationality –which is unlawful. Nevertheless, as The important man of the Government for the refugee topic he’s a guest who declared Tibetans brethren of Nepal.

What’s worrying is that new measures rejecting a bit more Tibetans took place before the assembly election where Maoists were the winners. Maoist who may be said nothing about the question – that’s already not really reassuring- but as the new power they already criticized journalists and an official photo happened to be photoshopped…

As the Tibetans demonstrates their attachment to their native land, this guest can indeed underlined his love for their host because patriotism is a very important data of Asian Identity as well as one’s ethnicity.

Such facts help the Nepali double-faced talk, especially if you know that the Nepali people of Humla, Dolpo, Mustang etc. are of Tibetan culture and their dialects is nearer from Tibetan than Nepali.

Of course this contradicted situation is in part the result of a very active Chinese lobby at the same time as Beijing

scolds the West not to intervene in its policy over TAR or Death Penalty. Do what I say, not I do…

To frame this, no better than the Dharamsala/Beijing talks which would have never happened without pressure from the West but where the Chinese side decided to hold the negotiations until the end of the Olympics, such an hypocrite way to avoid its promise to accept journalists in TAR during the International Event that it reveal the passivity of the Occidental Nations. That’s because photos and article from nowadays Chinese policy in Tar would go against the beautiful picture of clean Olympics.

In Kathmandu, the Dalai Lama’s birthday took place at the Srongtsen Bhrikuti Academy. Unavoidable was the Tibetan hymn, or the balloons holding the Tibetan flag in the sky with some pigeons and doves (same family), plus the communal rice meal and… sufferance.
While they heard the speech ladies started to cry. Later on they asked a photo with them and I. With the children’s translation we learnt that the lady on my side had her leg broken by a Chineses soldier.
It’s just like the doves, some of them stayed on top of the tents, not because they longed for their cage but in direct consequence of the overpopulation of the cage, those birds had their wing or leg badly injured. That’s what could be called broken symbols.

Sir James, whose wife works for the UN charity wing, noted.

After ceremony all teachers and volunteers headed for the restaurant.

Teachers on one side, on another the volunteers and the end of the long table the two headmasters, a settings which describes a certain hierarchy as well as the volunteers seen as guests – and parenthesis.

To be here since several month now I can specify that the teachers don’t mix much nor with the volunteers, nor the direction, two populations that make them uncomfortable.

As I go on with this, the lack of solidarity between schools reemerged this day.

But understand, It is not so much a non-willing that to protect its network. As Tibetan schools have no government help, they need not only kids’ sponsors but also sponsors for themselves. Those NGOs usually focus on one school. Up to the school to get a rich enough NGO to help with the building of the school, with the sport ground, the computer, internet etc.

In Other words this egoistic Tibetan behaviour is in reaction of a social structure in disarray, in Tibet, in Nepal

and internationally. As though the cruelty of China amplify the Tibetan patriotism while being a refugee, following UNHCR or a split Asia, just curse Tibetans (as well as all refugees in the world), an eternal curse. And there is also the whole world who sees Tibet only as a Shangrila, far from reality.

Somehow the Tibetan community try to say no like did the children by avoid superposing themselves with sufferance, but for the grown up the curse is already in progress.
China chews Tibetans on their soil that the all-powerful unique communist party sees as another piece of Africa. On this territory there is a mean of isolation by pauperism, to frame it, it is just like taking out original shoots and seeding GM instead. Imperialism goes on. And outside this territory the Tibetan refugees are trapped in a parallel world, without official country or I.D., trapped between a western vortex and the rejection of Asia.

Exile is a heart far from its stolen body…
As trapped the government in exile is in peril, a boat ashore. Via Second World War we know that such governments are re-conquest mechanisms, but in this case, neither is war nor any efficiency of UNO. While the whole world, 50 years ago just gave Tibet to China - That was an imperialistic share of the world which is still active today - Tibetan people should reinvents Tibet outside its boundaries, creates little Tibets and push the people to reactivate non-alignment and work to change UN for a real peace structure and not a controlled machine for a still unbalanced world.

21st June, longest day of the year…

… So I woke up at 6a.m.. On its own, Saturday is Nepal’s week-end, so it is a washing and cleaning day for all families, mine included. But first I needed to get the water from downstairs as the tap answer my calls… of necessity.
Maybe the time sounds early but the kids from the HCS hostel woke up between 4 and 5 and developed the habit to ring at my door around 8 with the excitement provided by the idea of a walk on top of the fresh hills.
This Saturday they right at the door at 8 sharp. They went to play with the kittens while I knocked at Lisa’s door to wake her up. She’s a franco-brit, 22, whose master’s about the identity of exiled Tibetans in Dharamsala.
(e)Lisa(beth) is in Nepal to renew her Indian visa and we met two days ago on a protest where she benevolently took some photos, between solidarity and CPE protests’ nostalgia. 8.30 we were gone. We passed by 5 monasteries, have seen peasants working hard in their paddy field, a leech met with Pema Diki’s ankle, a hint of salt and it was gone (she was the one who reminded me to take some salt!). At Kopan there were nice flowers in the beautiful and peaceful Buddhist garden and we met with… Tsering and his sister arrived from Pokhara.
On our way back we ate green apricot (ripe it was), big chips and pokaras with the ubiquitous chilly.

On the way to Buddhanath we said bye-bye to the kids and went for lunch. After that we met Kelsang at the back of a motorbike heading to the consulate. He told us that everybody was already hiding in the streets around.
This day the protest answered to the Olympic shame approaching Lhasa. To go to the Chinese consulate we had to walk because it was banda. Banda is Nepali word which mean ‘closed’ and also define a strike (more like a block-us). Last Friday it was because a maoist MP locked a parliament colleague in the toilets. This Saturday (and for seven days) it is because the students demand 50% off their bus ticket as the companies announced a hike in the prices (the last in long list of announcement).

After half an hour walk, with Lisa we reached the side walls of the consulate of the badly behaved and authoritarian state. Tibetans were already shouting slogans and being sent to the police pickups and small trucks which limited capacity allowed the protesters to organize themselves in small groups and to make the standing up last.
It was a very hot day. We’ve seen red faced police men, not cool police women, laughing cops. The sun and their only day off suppressed drove them mad. There one slammed in a group, here one slapped a Tibetan face. Even one young police guy punched a Tibetan girl. I shouted at him and he looked furiously at me. On the ground they use the UN passivity, happily there are always some journalists. But last Thursday Miss T said, “a child’s father has been badly beaten”. In front of two UN staff the Nepali police put a young girl in their truck. She was obviously under 18 and even for Nepal it is unlawful… the UN staff told me afterwards. Meanwhile Tibetans don’t play a game, they put all their heart each time. Each time at least two women faint. This day a young adult had an epilepsy crisis. Last Saturday Police arrested 600, this Saturday they arrested nearly 700 following Miss P. statement. On the day, from the jail she sent me a SMS saying “I’m at zoo. We are animals at the police station zoo.”

Once Police swept all Tibetans from the consulate’s street, we headed towards Durbar Square eating a chilly cucumber on the way. At the Royal Place he had tea behind one of the temple, between a willing-to-be-photographed saddhu (against hundred of Rupees) and the village madman.
There we met Peshal, 22 too, student at Alliance Francaise, “which organized Fete de la Musique” he said. Among few things he told us that he’s got nearly no more friend in Nepal, two remains but one’s just received his American visa while the other applied for an Australian student visa. So, Peshal wants to migrate to France.

On his fete de la musique program it was written “scene rock, Durbar Marg, 2p.m. to 9pm.”. To get an idea have look to the photos and videos

At night, around 7.30!!! I headed back home. Lisa found a young guy and a bike. Actually I was still willing to walk a bit more. I stopped for diner in a Nepali restaurant and had Chulo-alu (flat rice and spiced potatoes = 15 NRs).
Not far from Bouddha Gate I passed by a bunch of dancing and singing taxi drivers. The overjoyed guys ignored the 21st was international music celebration, to set loudly their music from one of the taxi was motivated by the earnings of the day, bandas are auspicious for them.
I reached the stupa at 8.30. there were still few monks on the kora and the security guards pushed away the last beggar, a completely broken body, as well as the street kids in their dirty and old clothes. They were scared but I asked them to stay with me. Together we shared of chocolate biscuit I bought with the remaining 10 rupees in my pockets. Then they set themselves under a a tin roof for the night. Lisa was waiting in the dark of the stair case. End of a very long day.Subara tri.

Saturday 2 May was a peculiar day for the school. Since the School New Year a kid had broken his arm and others needed the emergency kit.

What do to do in such cases? We call the monks for them to bless the site. We program offerings and prayers for the whole day.

The monks came the previous day to set the altar on which sits sculptures made of butter and tsampa. They represent different Buddhist symbols as well as yak heads. The altar is organized in a way to look beautiful, that’s one of the recommendations from Padmasambhava.

In the kitchen, it is very busy. A dozen of monks need to be fed for three meals, the lunch, the three o’clock brunch and the diner at 5. All teachers had also to come for lunch and to help for this puja day.



Those last days my couch has been asked for by couchsurfing members. The same day as the puja a Brazilian couple arrived from China where they visited Beijing, Xian and Chengdu. As soon as they arrived they went to discover the surroundings. They’re on a 11 months around the world travel. In China, they told me, there is other information than the one filtered and censored by the government and the blogs are unavailable. Aline asked me how, being alone, I do to stay in such a crazy city. She’d never seen such a place before. But from my own experience, the Corsican cows, the squeezed human mass of London’s tube, the Romanian atmosphere, in their own way prepared me to adapt to Kathmandu. We could also add the Thai and Hindu restaurant of Great Britain which trained my mouth to accept the dragon – samurais spicy fight. Chilis are everywhere here from breakfast to diner, from the soup up to the sweets…

Last week I hosted two Greek girls. Two teachers, one from Ithaca et the other one working for a French NGO, Solidarite, in Khartoum. The latter found the amount of dust in valley sufficiently small to be ignored compared to her adopted city on the border of the desert. This girl looks lost in her own world, landed on a moon from another galaxy. In a popular Tibetan restaurant we were served by a young kid and so I make them noticed. “To young to work, isn’t she?” But Anna had her point of view where it is good for a ten years old to work! It was 7 pm, the girl served and cleaned the pans while her relative had her bottom stick to her stool, her hands busy at nothing.



Still same Saturday as the puja, I had to meet Chokyap, a Tibetan teacher who desires to settle in France or Germany. Three years in the Education of Nepal are enough for him. He made me visit his school, HIMS, a private Indian one which is very expensive. That’s what everybody says, including Chokyap, nonetheless it provides scholarship for Tibetan orphans. Usually schools help their management with foreign funds buit, when we arrived in front of the swimming pool and I asked with which money they build it, Chokyap answered the school fees where sufficient. Black point, the use of this swimming pool is strictly restricted to HIMS’s students. Of course! Why should we share! It was same selfish speech at Srongtsen School where they have a nice football pitch with grass and secured.



Two days later I had a talk with Aava, the 21 years old niece of Miss B., who helps with accountancy, the topic she studies.

To stay in front of her is a delicious torture. It is with soft innocence that she tells me I am too skinny while she shows her pride of her fleshy tanned cheeks as well as her waist at the same time as she pinches my own cheeks and says I’m cute… Torture…

Her big dark eyes swallow me, her tiny lips charms with their twinkle. Her body language up to the tips of her fingers inspires dances from the Indian subcontinent. Today, I’m sure of this detail. She talks about her friend’s wedding which happened the previous week-end. Her sari, her make up, her smile, her good temper attracted the looks towards her young beauty. She talks about it as it was her first bal. She danced up to the end of the last tune and never she had been back home so late before: 8:30

_ 8:30 am? did I ask

She didn’t understand immediately the question

_ Yes, never I went home so late, ever

_ 8:30 am?

_ 8.30 pm! Papa is very strict !

And so, some phatasms could become reality…

In Kathmandu, 1^st June saw Tibetan actions peacefully resumed. The break was in solidarity for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. A very sad event which gives Chinese government to show its kind heart to the world media, motivated by the bad pictures of Tibet and helped by the contrasting very poor management of the cyclone Nargis’s terrible disaster by the Junta.But while the military power in Burma organized a shameful authoritarian referendum, in Lhasa Chinese authorities set mock trials of 5 minutes* and repressed the protests of the Sichuan victims who dared to link the bad building structure with corruption.
Sweep the Maoist nature under the carpet and it’ll erupt by the toilets (Sichuan proverb emigrated from Mongolia via Xinjiang and Tibet).

 In Kathmandu the action was about children drawing their feelings towards the Tibet struggle. With the two Ms Chime we went with 8 children to Samtenling Gompa to honour the invitation of the Tibetan Youth Comity.
For children, to show its own feeling is not easy task, so most of them drew the violence their parents told them and that they imagine. They don’t all know the meaning of the five coloured circles but some of them know the tortures techniques used in Tibet!
However some used the way of the symbol, many with the flags but Lhakila from our school chose by her to go for a monster eating a crane while herself looks in despair at the scene. The class IV pupils attracted with this the journalists, their cameras and their interviews.

  5 days later, at the exhibition opening, I met the mock torch bearer of the protest I told you about. He had a very small voice. Why? The protest of the previous day of course! Within these 5 days several protests occurred, including a praying march from Buddhanath to Swoyambunath by prostrating on the Ring Road. They achieved it in one day and one night. **

 
* cf Woeser and Jamyang Norbu blogs and  the article of Naomi Klein

** Details on Phayul.com

“France lies in the west of the continent of Europe. It is bordered by Ocean from three sides. Paris is the capital of France. Mt Blanc, the tallest peak all over Europe also lies in France. The height of it summit is 4807 meters.

“Very few people here are engaged in agriculture. Many people are involved in industry and business. French people take their gomes as places for rest. They decorate the inside of the house very well. French people like poems, dramas, pictures and sculptures very much. Main cities of France are Paris, Versailles, Leo and Marseis. World famous tower Eiffel Tower lies in Paris. Despite the fact that Nepal – France relation is very old, formal relationship was established on April 20, 1949 A.D. (2006 B.S.). Before this, around the year 1907 B.S. Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana had visited France. This matter is mentioned in history.

“France has rendered economic and technical help for the development of Nepal. Rural development and small hydroelectricity projects have been running with the cooperation of France. Likewise, Nepali students are studying in France.”

If you feel like it you can correct the mistake. In it I help you Mt Blanc is not the highest peak of Europe…

Some examples of what the Free Radicals did to help in Nepal:

1. To volunteer in a school (Manasarovar Ac.) and a small local library (Reading Room) (still on)
2. Donation of 160 condoms to Saarathi, Nepalese organization for the prevention of HIV and drugs
3. Helping Saarathi in the setting up of their blog. http://saarathinepal.blogspot.com/
4. Buying 20 badminton rackets, 2 balls, cocks and net. Value 5050 Nrs (50 euros or a teacher salary in a public school) for Manasarovar Academy (primary school)
5. Introducing the school to Li and her organisation Lotus Himalaya who’s now giving monthly donation to give more balanced lunch to the children. Otherwise it woud be lentils and rice everyday.
6. Creation of poster promoting freedom of speech and democracy

We’ve got much more idea, but for that we would need more help. Program to teach children and the community how to understand advertisement, buiding a fair guest-house traditionally build, tradition Newari style to set a monthly help for a school, program “keep your nature and your river clean” for the kids and the community…

what the