Rocky Road to Ramechhap - Chapter 2
We arrived in the town of Manthali at 4 pm. We were immediately taken to the courtyard, a dusty affair, that is behind the TSS hospital. Much fuss was made over our arrival, we were sat down on new plastic chairs, (the same we get back home for $8 at Wal-Mart.) A bench was placed in front of us, and then all the glitterati of the community were paraded in front of us, introduced and they all sat down, and watched us eat noodle soup and tea.
There was no chance to go to a bathroom, change into formal attire, or anything. I personally would have liked to have a rest. That would have to wait. I'm being a tad facetious but we were treated like royalty. They are very happy to have anyone from Canada because a lot of what they are doing is dependent upon Canadian money.
I will take an aside and explain TSS. TSS stands for Tamakoshi Sewa Samiti (Nepali), or Tamakoshi Service Society in English. It is an NGO operating in the Ramechhap district, to help the local population with a number of projects. It is named after one of the major rivers, the Tamakoshi. They have three main aims. They have a cooperative, which we would call a credit union. The main one is in Manthali, but there are 60 "branches" in the villages around the area. They also support a hospital which they built in the 1980s. It has 15 beds, two full time doctors and about eight nurses. The other area of support is the installation of water systems in the villages that do not have water immediately available. This is what we are supporting with the money you helped us raise.
After formalities ended we were taken up the trail to the TSS guest house. It was very comfortable; we even had an "ensuite" with shower. Sorry, no hot water. And then dinner of dahl baht and chicken curry. We heard our dinner a little earlier having its neck wrung. Dahl baht is the staple diet of the Nepalese. It's basically rice and lentils, with vegetables like potato, cauliflower, etc. usually eaten with the right hand, but we were given utensils. To the Nepalese, rice is important and is eaten twice a day. It's very filling.
There were only men at the dinner and Lib. Sorry but we have to go, the computer here in Bangkok is running out.
Love and cheers.
Dave .
Stay tuned for Chapter Three.