Banepa

Banepa is about an hour east of Kathmandu, 5 minutes away from Dhulikel, and about 2 hours away from my village. It is small, but not quite a village. There are still tons of shops and a couple of busy streets, but otherwise it's smaller and quieter than Kathmandu.

I am staying in a hostel. It is a great setup. I have my own room with a little balcony. I read there when the lights go out because the natural evening light is bright. I just finished Divergent. A previous guest left it and I read it in a couple days. I didn't realize it was a trilogy at first, so when the book ended I was left wondering why the main conflict wasn't addressed. Otherwise, it was good. Basically another Hunger Games type of book.

There is a nice bathroom and they provide breakfast and dinner. Today I got lunch because I happened to be at the hostel. Another girl from Ireland arrived yesterday. We are the only 2 guests in the hostel. She's also 21 and following a psychologist around in a hospital about 15 minutes from town. Her dad's a diplomat, so she's lived all over. I told her my parents just moved to Blanchardstown, near the national aquatic center. She said it was pretty close to where her parents live! They're moving soon though. Her dad was recently appointed ambassador to Nigeria, so off they go. It has been nice to have a buddy. It's cool to tell her about to Nepal because she's never been before. I told her about load shedding, the food, what to do in Kathmandu, how cheap of a hotel she could find, and that it was mango season.

Upon arriving one of the girls who works for CDRA was kind of assigned to me. We walked all over Banepa. She showed me their old eye clinic, their new one, and a couple schools. We went to get momos and after ordering she asked if I drink. I was really surprised.
"Drink? Like...raksi??" I said. She nodded. "Oh yeah. A little. Do you?"
"Yeah. I really like beer."
Well that surprised me! From what I've experienced, Nepalis either drink a ton or don't drink at all. If they do drink, they're usually male, not girls my age.

So anyways, more about the NGO: CDRA-Nepal. Holy cow they have their fingers in a ton of pies. Ashok, the director actually just got back from travel in New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia. He gets his funds from Rotary clubs in different countries. They collect funds and distribute them to projects, come up with new ideas, and oversee existing projects.

They are building a new gigantic eye hospital. It is mostly funded by the Goodwill (so keep shopping at goodwill) and the Australian rotary club. A while back, a team of Australian engineers came over and wired the hospital. Currently, it is empty, but the walls are finished so you can kind of see what it will be like. Next to the hospital a training clinic is being built.

I have seen 3 schools - all for mentally and physically disabled kids. One is under construction and the other two are on break for the next 2 weeks. They are really nice though. One of them has a physical therapy clinic that is open once a week. Kids and the public can go for treatment. They have pretty good facilities. I'm going to try to go next Sunday

School for kids with mental disabilities.

School for the deaf

There is a program that funds small businesses for women. They have about 2500 participants. Ashok told me interest on savings is 9% and on loans it's 15%. Banking isn't something I completely understand so I have no idea if these interest rates are great or terrible.

I've seen propaganda of some of other projects: distribution of water filters, houses insulated with paper and plastic bottles, various trainings, medical awareness projects, and school renovations. They seem very keen on introducing me to all these projects, but they're still figuring out a schedule. It's ok though because I've been pretty busy and it's really cool to visit these projects, see that they're actually happening, and know that some problems are being addressed. Today, my adventure was at the eye hospital. I'll put that in a new post.