Himalayan java

Lunch in preparation

Barbara and Judy outside the orphanage

The staff lunch room

The kitchen

The dining room

Rahul, bites or scabies?

The washing room

Poor Nepal

Monday 29th April
Another day in the 30s and no breeze.  I am still full of a cold, sniffing, bunged up, sneezing -a joy to be with.  The Montessori expert left her teddy bear pictures with us in the clinic for safe keeping, as she has been very busy putting up more wall displays while 2 fifteen year old girls try to control 6 or 7 toddlers. We noticed a little face we hadn't seen before and were told that he had been brought in over the weekend by the police.  He had been found wandering round the Monkey Temple on his own. They said they had put a photo and an announcement in the paper and on TV but no one had come forward yet to claim him.  It's not beyond the realms of possibility that his parents left him deliberately or don't have access to newspapers and TV.
I spent most of the day, putting together a book that the staff could use to log each child's progress, in terms of daily, minor ailments, accidents, school issues, special needs.  We have found records from 2064 (it's now 2070 in Nepal) covered in dust under a cupboard in the clinic, which is really only a box room.  They are mostly doctors' notes which no one, even the Nepalis, can read.  But there is no record of the children's height, weight, immunisations, allergies etc.  They seem to squirrel away drugs which have been prescribed for one child and then use it for another child.  Rahul in the picture above has either bites or possibly scabies but we caught the didi rubbing anti fungal cream on his face today.  So Barbara needs to give her lessons in hygiene and first aid but it's so difficult with their limited English.
But, speaking of hygiene, there has been a breakthrough!  After I made such a performance of cleaning the toilets in the girls' block, going round inhaling theatrically and saying "ramro, derhai ramro" (good, very good), all the toilets had been cleaned and are not in the least pongy.  Visually ,they still look appalling but you're not going to get complete renovation in an old building.
Our walk back to the hotel today was made sadder by the number of beggars.  A small boy with deformed, rudimentary little legs, shuffling along in the dust on his bottom, a young man with terrible facial and neck burns and the usual pathetic looking people just sitting on the pavement with their hands out.  Nepal is indeed a very poor country.  The administrator at the orphanage, Bijaya, is in considerable pain with a distended abdomen and has been told that she has a 10cm gallstone but she doesn't know when she will be able to afford surgery.
Anyway, the coffee was good at Himalayan Java, photo above, and our local drinks shop has restocked its gin, as we seem to have drunk it dry at the weekend.
A few more photos of the orphanage.