Author: kath@kathmcguire.co.uk
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Child Sponsorship in Australia
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It has been three years since I last visited Australia and 25 years since I last lived in Australia. A lot has changed. One of the changes is that this time there were a lot of ads on TV for child sponsorship schemes. Now these, in one form or another,…
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Effective Project Management
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When project management is done well the whole team looks good and the cynics think there is no point to project management – the team works perfectly well so there is no need. When project management is done badly the problems look insolvable and the cynics think there is no…
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The Kerala Literary Festival
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The Kerala Literary Festival (KLF) was on in Kozhikode while I was in Kerala. So we got an overnight bus from Trivandrum and had two days of KLF sessions and an overnight train back to Trivandrum. The festival is free and all the sessions are in big, open tents on…
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All Hands & Hearts in Nepal – Again
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I spent two weeks in February in Nepal on project with All Hands & Hearts. The program started in November so the build was quite far along already. It was really quite different only going for two weeks, seeing as though on my previous projects I did 4 weeks in…
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Across India by Train
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I’m not a fan of planes. They are very useful, especially for very long journeys, but I try to avoid them when time and finances allow. I was in Kerala in South India. I wanted to be in Nepal, which is across the northern Indian border. I could fly to…
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Travel Without Agency
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People think I’m brave and independent and have lots of initiative etc to be able to do the solo travelling that I do. And they’re a little bit right some of the time. However, what I think a lot of people don’t understand is just how much of my travel…
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Not All Border Posts Are Created Equal
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I learnt a very important lesson recently. And that is that not all border crossing points actually function as crossing points for everyone who might want to cross that border. The particular border crossing in this story is the border between India and Nepal between Jaynagar (in India) and Janakpur…
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The Challenges of Solo Travel May Not Be What You Think
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Traveling on one’s own is fantastic. And scary. And boring. And exciting. And amazing. And harder than travelling with others. And easier than travelling with others. Etc. I suspect that many people who haven’t done much (or any) solo travelling might think it’s hard because you get a bit lonely.…
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Being alive in a box
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There are several great lines in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. The one most relevant to this blog post is when Rosencrantz asks Guildenstern if he ever thinks of himself as actually being dead, in a box. “I mean, one thinks of it like being alive in…
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Generational Memory
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At the Kerala Literary Festival, there was an interesting session that included come comments about the bits of generational memory that are lost when children grow up in a culture that is different to that of their parents. While on project in Nepal I had an interesting conversation with another…
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Ants
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Apparently, there are about 20 quadrillion ants on the planet, which is about 2.5 million per human. It seems that all 2.5 million of mine have been coming to say hi to me. Quite a lot of them were in Sri Lanka. A number came with me to India. And…
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Memory Lane
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At time of writing, I’m in Kovalam in Kerala in South India. It has been 11 years since I was last here. That’s a very long time! Partly because I discovered Africa and spent some time going there when I could, and partly because Covid put a significant damper on…
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Wages vs the Cost of Living
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When I talk to teachers in Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Thailand, Rwanda, Uganda, I often get asked how much a teacher earns in the UK. This is a really difficult question to answer. I mean, it is easy, there is a published list of the salary bands for teachers in…
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What did LA need after the wildfires?
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The LA wildfires were devastating for the affected communities. People lost their lives. Homes were destroyed or damaged. Property and possessions were lost. People were displaced. Businesses were affected and closed. Schools were affected and closed. And, as is the case for many disasters, it brought out the very worst…
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Banned Books
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I was reading an article recently about banned books. And I love the meme that says as soon as someone bans a book, the best thing you can do is go and read it and find out what they don’t want you to see. There are also some great things…
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Financial Independence
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Something that women (as a group) have known for a long time, is that financial independence is exceedingly important. Without it, women are curtailed and dependent in ways that can have devastating consequences. Something that many women (as individuals) don’t seem to realise, is just how important that independence is.…
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Cultural Experiences in the USA
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I spent two months in Los Angeles on the All Hands & Hearts wildfire response project. And while I was there I got to enjoy weekends, evenings, breaks in LA. And I got to live with a bunch of lovely Americans (and some lovely non-Americans too). And since LA is…
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Adult Literacy – Rwanda
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September the 8th is International Literacy Day. It shouldn’t take much reflection to understand how important literacy (regardless of the language) is. Illiteracy can be an impediment to: communication (text messages, etc); civic participation (voting, etc); healthcare (understanding prescriptions, etc); accessing services (information posters, etc); travel (sign posts, departure boards,…
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Letting People Help You
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Helping people is a lovely thing. We all know this. We are taught to be considerate and to help others. And it feels really nice to be able to help someone. It’s nice to do small acts of service for others, give gifts, give advice, etc. It’s a way of…
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LA Traffic
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It would seem that town planners in LA are actively invested in pedestrians not existing. I’m not saying they actually want us all to die, just that we have absolutely no place outside of our homes or cars. Even within carparks at malls and plazas etc there are very few…
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All Hands & Hearts in Los Angeles
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The project with All Hands & Hearts (https://www.allhandsandhearts.org/programs/california-wildfire-relief/) in Los Angeles is supporting affected communities after the wildfires in January 2025. And while the fires made the news because some very rich and very famous people had their houses burned down in the Pacific Palisades area of LA, there were…
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Culture and Hadley Fraser
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When I decided to leave Nepal and head back to the UK this was a bit of change of plan. Initially, I had been thinking of going on to Sri Lanka or India immediately. But both of those visits will happen later in 2025 so June 2025 was an ideal…
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Guests and Hosts
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I’ve spent a lot of time staying with wonderful people and also had times where equally wonderful people have stayed with me. Being a good host or a good guest takes work. Of course, since either role is one half of connection between wonderful people, the work is well and…
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My Next Adventure
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I had a brief stint in the UK (2 months) which was truly wonderful, but I’m now off on my next adventure, which promises to be differently wonderful. I’m planning to spend a couple of months in Los Angeles on an All Hands and Hearts (https://www.allhandsandhearts.org/) disaster response program. We’re…
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Handover
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So here’s a flashback to being on project. Our handover day. The handover is a big deal. It is the day when we handover the new building to the school community. Complete with giant ceremonial key! It is a big day for the volunteers and staff, we’ve finished 5.5 months…
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A Tale of Three Bus Rides
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In September 2010 I was in Nepal as part of my grand overland adventure (I made it from Cambridge in the UK to the southern tip of India with no planes). Part of that journey involved getting a bus from Pokhara (where I had been trekking) to Lumbini (the birth…
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Autopilot vs Experiencing
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When you are at home (wherever that is) you can do a lot of things on autopilot. You don’t need to think about making a cup of tea. You can automatically fill the kettle, get the mug and the tea bag, find a spoon, get the milk from the fridge.…
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Homesickness
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To feel homesickness one must have a home. Surely. Or maybe not. I have met people with homes who have travelled and felt crippling homesickness when they were away. They felt a real sense of the distance between them and what they know, and more importantly in most cases, who…
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My Three Favourite Days in Kathmandu
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In total, I spent quite a few days in Kathmandu. About 6 when I first arrived. One for a visa run. Two for another visa run. Three at the end of my trip. When I was in Kathmandu, I stayed in Thamel which is a very interesting tourist area of…
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Water / Honey
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There was one morning in Pokhara when I went to a little local café for breakfast. It’s one I had been to before. Quite a local place, though the menus are in English. The staff were great but not particularly confident in English (nor should they be, we were in…
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Sesame as Photo Studio
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There’s a restaurant / café in Hetauda (called Sesame) that I spent a lot of time in. It is really lovely. The food is amazing. The blended iced mochas are out of this world. The staff are wonderful. The atmosphere is great. One of the other volunteers was impressed that…
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Prices increase with altitude
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While trekking, we stop at various tea houses / guest houses for tea, lunch, dinner, overnight stays. The tea houses have meals (dal bhat, pasta, chow mein, momos, etc). They also serve tea, coffee and bottled drinks (coke etc). And they serve snacks – packets of crisps, chocolate bars, etc.…
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Country Type
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When it comes to countries, it appears I have a type. While I love lots of amazing places, I am particularly fond of tiny countries that are very green and have lots of hills. For coastlines, I seem to be quite all-or-nothing – either landlocked or an island. Sri Lanka,…
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Back in the UK
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At time of writing, I’m back in the UK. And it is really lovely to be back. But I had so much fun and adventure in my last few weeks in Nepal that I got very far behind on blog posts. So I’m now going to post a slew that…
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Nepal – 10 Years After The Gorkha Earthquake
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On April 25th 2015 Nepal was hit by a devastating earthquake. This was followed by another several days later. The destruction was widespread. The rebuilding was considerable and is still going on. 10 years later, All Hands and Hearts is still here. We are working on the 30th school rebuild,…
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An Ultra Marathon
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One of our volunteers is quite mad. Well, that’s not actually true, it’s not just one of us, almost all of us are mad in some way. This particular volunteer, however, is mad in that he decided to run his first ultramarathon to raise money for this project. This, in…
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Sharing the Wealth
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International volunteers (and staff) descend on a tiny village in rural Nepal (Sattale, near Farparbari) and spend time in the nearest big city (Hetauda). We stay for 5 months. We spend our days on site and base. We spend our money close by. And we have money to spend. Even…
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The Invention of Headphones
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The person who invented headphones deserves a Nobel prize. The person who invented the speaker (with the exception of use in a dance class, obviously) deserves to be hung, drawn, quartered, tarred, feathered, run through, put in front of a firing squad, given concrete shoes and an inadequate swimming lesson,…
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The Importance It Deserves
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Throwing yourself out of your comfort zone and living in quite a different environment is amazing for all sorts of reasons, and can be challenging for all sorts of reasons. One challenge is how to be present in what you’re doing without dismissing things, missing things, getting overly attached /…
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Why use Volunteers
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If you want to build a school somewhere. Or distribute food and other aid, or teach kids, or provide medical care, or build wells, or teach literacy, or train a community, etc, etc, etc, then in most cases the best way to do it is to get money in from…
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Protests
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I was in a taxi in Kathmandu going from the jeep stop to the Immigration office to renew my visa. On the way, we got to a stretch of road where the lane coming in the other direction was closed to traffic. Our side was open but very congested and…
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Hair
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Two things inspired this post. One was a conversation with a volunteer recently where she asked me about my hair journey (she has this conversation quite often with different people). The second was this afternoon whilst walking through Thamel (a very touristy area in Kathmandu), a man pointed at me…
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That’s Not Their Culture!!
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This blog post could equally be called “That’s not my culture” and it will contain reflections on both. But culture is an interesting thing, partly because it is simple, complex, hard to define, and easy to spot all at once. It is also really, really hard to see one’s own…
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Conversations You Have Whilst Travelling
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Travelling and volunteering and just generally larking about across the world having fun is great! For all the obvious reasons. It is great because I get to meet amazing people. And that’s great because I get to have great conversations. I also get to have conversations whilst travelling that I…
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International Women’s Day
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Saturday the 8th of March is International Women’s Day. It would be really nice if such a day could pass unremarked because there was nothing remarkable to think or talk about regarding gender equality. Maybe some year. 2025 is not that year. There is such a lot that could be…
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Communication
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I am terribly bad at languages. I really am. I’ve tried (though mostly somewhat half-heartedly) to learn a few languages and never with very much success. Part of the problem is that I just don’t try to speak enough. And that sound you can hear is everyone who knows me,…
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Frogs in Hot Water
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Humans are amazingly adaptable. We’re pretty good at just getting used to something. Things that seemed inconceivable a while ago can very quickly become normal. This is even more true when the change is gradual. Enter the frog. You probably already know the story of the frog. If you put…
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Alcohol
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I have a love-hate relationship with alcohol. Actually, that’s not true. I have a hate-hate relationship with alcohol, I just happen to quite enjoy some pubs. And I very much like a number of people who drink sometimes. And there’s a mushroom chestnut pie that really needs a bottle of…
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Private and Professional Lives
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I’m having a great time at the moment being a volunteer in Nepal. And I’ve been a volunteer in other countries with other organisations before. I’ve also been staff on volunteer programmes too. I’ve done residential programmes of varying descriptions and lengths as well, as a participant and as staff.…
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Male Attention
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Attention all teenage and adult men: if you would like to get the attention of a woman then pulling her pigtails or throwing buckets of water over her will achieve that; if you would like to get her attention in the hopes that she will actually think positively of you…
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Animal Tourism
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The world is an amazing place. For such a lot of reasons. One of which is the incredible biodiversity that we humans are the tiniest part of. There are astonishing animals spread all over the world. And for those of us who come from a place that doesn’t contain a…
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Dance Classes
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I’ve managed to run a few dance classes on base. We’ve had some Cha Cha, Samba and Rumba. I’d love to do ballroom, but we don’t quite have the space to do it safely. There is a big open space we could use, but the ground is uneven and has…
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Mentorship Programme
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All Hands and Hearts is running a mentorship programme. They have done a few batches of this in the past and are doing another session this year. I saw the invitation for this and thought it sounded brilliant, in particular they are doing a track for late career changes. This…
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Six Week Slump
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The Six Week Slump is a concept I’m very familiar with. On volunteering projects it is common for volunteers working abroad to have a slump in about week 6. It may actually be week 5 or week 7 but in most cases it is pretty much week 6. At this…
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Daughter of an Engineer
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I am the daughter of an engineer. This didn’t particularly occur to me as anything special when I was growing up. Mostly I was just annoyed that my dad no longer worked for the chocolate factory (the one that made Cherry Ripes) on maintaining their machinery so we didn’t get…
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Indicators of Under Development
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Sometimes poverty is obvious. We see it in our countries, wherever we live. Sometimes poverty is abject and crushing. Children in dirty ragged clothes playing on a rubbish heap is obvious. A tarpaulin strung up between trees on the median strip of a highway with a family of 6 living…
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The Nature of Ritual
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I’m not a big fan of ritual. In fact, if asked directly about my opinion of ritual, I will almost certainly say I dislike it. However, I also know that life is more complicated than that. There is a lot of ritual that I dislike. Rituals I have participated in…
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A Concrete Pour
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A concrete pour is quite an event on an All Hands and Hearts site. I’ve done a couple in Mexico and a few here in Nepal too. They are more of a choreographed ballet than the usual work. They need lots of people doing different things and working reasonably quickly…
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Intelligence
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Despite the existence of IQ tests, IQ is really quite hard to define, nevermind measure, both in formal disciplines but also in general usage. I was having a chat with another volunteer about intelligence. This was sparked by him claiming that he wasn’t particularly intelligent and me fervently disagreeing. I…
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Finding Breakfast
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While I was staying in Hetauda I had the daily joy of trying to find breakfast. The good thing about living on base is that breakfast is just there and I can get up, walk downstairs, put the kettle on, make some porridge and tea and eat some fruit or…
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Don’t Save Me
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This is another generic blog post that was somewhat inspired by a few things that I’ve seen on this trip and on other trips, as well as some things I know happen in the world, even if I don’t have direct experience thereof. Basically, I’m interested in the concept of…
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Charisma
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We have two volunteers here who have charisma to burn – they are quite different from each other in the type of charisma they have, but they both have it in spades. Now, this isn’t going to be a blog post about these people specifically (though I have no doubt…
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Breaks in Hetauda
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I’ve been to Hetauda for an overnight stay several times since I came to project. And there have been different reasons for the different trips. Firstly, it’s worth mentioning that I’m not that desperate to leave base, so I’m not running to Hetauda in order to run away from life…
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Finding Joy
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I suppose it isn’t that surprising, but joy is a truly wonderful thing. You can probably guess this simply by virtue of the definition of joy. 😊 Finding joy is something I’ve tried hard to do over the past several years. But not just finding it, also, noticing it. Sometimes…
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Traffic Accidents
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On New Year’s Day in Hetauda I went for a walk at around 7am ish to try to find a coffee shop to have breakfast in. While I was walking I saw two motorbikes collide. All three people involved walked away from it so it wasn’t as serious as it…
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Toilets
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Everyone loves it when I talk to them about toilets!! Ok, this might be a slight exaggeration, but it does actually surprise me that more people are interested than I would have thought. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me – toilets are a very necessary fact of life; they are…
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People on Project
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We have a great bunch of people on project. We’re quite a varied bunch so far, and are likely to become even more varied as our numbers expand. The staff will stay the same throughout, and three of us volunteers are scheduled to be here for the whole project, but…
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Site
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Site is a 15 minute walk from base along the main road (more like 20 mins back home at the end of the day though – the road is flat, it’s just that after all day on site we move a lot slower than first thing in the morning!). It’s…
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Base
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Here are two pictures of base – my home for the next few months. The building to the right is the house which has bedrooms (bunk beds), some squat toilets and a couple of cold showers. In front of that is the covered meeting / dining area. The corrugated iron…
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Trip from Kathmandu to Hetauda
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Hetauda is a regional city just south of Kathmandu. The trip (via Bhimphedi) is about 77km (along a road that Google Maps thinks is closed). Google thinks it’ll take 3 hours to drive. I left Kathmandu at 7:50 and got into Hetauda at 12:30 but we’d stopped in Bhimphedi for…
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Kathmandu
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I spent about 4 days in Thamel in Kathmandu. Thamel is a neighbourhood popular with tourists. I stayed in a mixed dorm in a hostel and just hung around Thamel mostly. It took a day or two to work out how to cross roads. For the bigger ones, I still…
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I’m on Project
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I arrived on project on Monday. There are other blog posts coming soon about my time in Kathmandu, the journey here and some more specific info about base and site. Unsurprisingly, the more interesting (blogworthy) things I do, the less time I have to write the actual blog posts! There…
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The Gym and Dancing
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It turns out that there are some very good reasons to go to the gym and to dance, other than because when you do these things with the right people they can be great fun (I’m missing all my lovely dance partners and my gym buddies). Who knew exercise could…
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Terrific Traveller, Terrible Tourist
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From quite a number of years of travelling to lots of different places (I am a very lucky bunny), I have discovered several important things about myself: I make bad decisions when I’m tired and hungry; I get travel sick some of the time (unpredictably); I love buses (despite the…
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A Buddhist Art College
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When I was walking through Kathmandu listening to a self-guided audio tour I got interrupted by a young man (Maneesh) wanting to say hi. He assured me that he wasn’t a guide and didn’t want money, he was a student and wanted to speak English. We chatted for a bit.…
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Goodbyes
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I’ve been saying goodbye to a lot of people over the past couple of weeks. I am so very, very grateful for the incredible people in my life, and seeing many of them recently has been such a joy and a privilege. Saying goodbye is very bittersweet. It is lovely…
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Packed
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I’ve packed. 🙂 My carry on bag is about 5kg. My checked in bag is about 13.5kg. The bag I’m leaving in Cambridge is about 10kg. So this is all of my physical possessions. It feels both liberating and terrifying to have got to this stage. Mostly liberating. When I…
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Work
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Given I’m leaving the UK for such a long time, I’m also leaving my jobs. I have been working at the Natural History Museum and last Friday was my last day there. I’ve been there for 3 years and I’ve made some good friends in that time. And while I’m…
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Nepali
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Namaste! I’ve started to try to learn some Nepali. I’m finding it slow going (not surprising, I always find learning languages really difficult). But I’m hoping that getting a few characters and some words under my belt before I go will help me learn more once I’m there.
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Vaccinations
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And one of the essential, but not glamorous aspects of travel is taking care of my health. I’m a big fan of vaccines – I mean, no one likes a Hep B injection, but I have a feeling that Hep B itself is significantly worse! Anyway, no Hep B injection…
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Stuff
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When I leave the UK I’ll be taking as little as I can and leaving as little as possible in the UK. So that means sorting out all my stuff. And I’ve started by rearranging some of the drawers in my cupboard and labelling them for things I’m donating, things…
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First Post
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Every journey starts with a single step – or rather a visa application, passport check, bank account check, much second guessing of one’s decision, vaccinations, travel-related shopping spree, travel-related getting rid of stuff, several goodbye dinners, packing, panicking … and then a single step! Every blog starts with a single…