Demi Tour of the World

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

Individuals, organizations, companies : Sponsor a child or sponsor a school it’s cheap and enlighten your and the children’s future.

Last week miss Tsultrim ask me to take photos of the new musical instruments bought with funds especially for this purpose from Graines d’Avenir (seeds’ future, french association). 2 ungyen and da.nyen, a drum set, an electronic keyboard…
The music teacher came to see me, ‘It was the only school where I taught whith no instrument. I teach in 6 schools.’
What he wass not saying: schools are not really fond of solidarity while coming to let their material. Futhermore many child, wall, teacher, material depend on outside money  which inevitable as a school is not a business and need famillies and governement’s help.
The music teacher also forgot to tell is fees are high if compared with other teachers. In in his clothes and behaviour we can see he focuses on the West. Would he plan to go abroad?

If the music muses are now satisfied, the building is still to sell. The tensions are still high. These days Miss T., who never read newspaper, read carefully the articles about the kidneys black market. She says that may be one of the doctors involved in the traffic is part of the practionners’ group which is interesting in the building… may be but “the doctor’s name starting by a ‘B’ ” he’s still not printed/wanted.

Four children from the school need a sponsor. So I had to take them in photo to send in Japan. Finding a sponsor can sometimes last for years said the headmasters.

However, Miss T. stressed that the more needful would be a fund to pay part of the rent… and the bills. Only 5300 NRs (1 nepalese roupie = 63 dollars) are needed per month for the rent but the landlord request to pay the water bill per room, where a room is an average size (so some represent two!) and not all of them give access to water and anyway not the same amount. This way the average water bill is around 250 Rs per room and there are 40 rooms (=10.000 Nrs!) It’s said that’s the price to pay to get water all the time while Boudha lacks water.
With a fund, at first the children would get fruits and vegetable for lunch to change a bit their daily dhal bat, if enough is given every month, the school could also raise the teachers’s salary. In Nepal most won’t even think of becoming a teacher just because of it. For not helping, all basic prices have increased with the lack of them: fuel, oil, gaz, transports…

12 Wednesday. I bought 2 ducklings. It was massive maoists meeting day with buses over-filled of people shouting Lal Salam. No damage to report.

the 19 was democracy day. Some schools closed but for us it was a good opportunity to show the children how to vote. For the purpose we used a sweet box coming from London via Izzy’s luggage. We explained the role of an elected representant, the meaning of voting boots and also different ways to vote, included with hands up. For real the nepalese elections should occur on the 10 April.
 To help me I had two representants of a democratic country (not yet the case for Nepal): Noemie (smiling) and Lucie (standing up).
It was a special pleasure to see the children also smiling while voting.

The previous day I made the same children work their imagination by writing a dialog between each of them and Gandhiji who’s coming back 60 years after having been assassinated. Hard, hard ! not to help they had technical problem as you can see on the photo!
Nonetheless that they live in Nepal which is not their country made them produce interesting questions… sometimes. To see them, wait a bit, they’ll have to type it on their own and start to fill their new blog : http://school-in-nepal.blog.com
In class V, Sonam is a boy of perfection in all topics, math, english, sport or music and he loves drawing. He drew a very weak Gnadhi with a big head exhausted by carrying a weight of 100g. But after I told him Gandhi walk lot more miles than lot of people could, he gave more strength to Gandhi. Beware, the new Gandhi comes to kick your ass! This young tibetan boy loves reading and has already got ideas of his own. On the question does God exist, no will be his answer without any hesitation… but wouldn’t have thought that Buddha thought alike!