Point2Point

It was a few days before Chinese New Year, something which in Nepal was referred to as Tibetan New Year; Losar. Kathy had managed to spend a few days actually living in the Monastery, albeit with at least one afternoon at the Guest house. We'd promised to come and visit her at this place she describer as 'OK' but no water and terrible food meant she needed change if she was to stay and works there.

The Monastery itself was located behind the Monkey Temple on another hill. A 45 minute walk up the hill left both Anna, Stephi and myself breathless. It wasn't the altitude nor the pollution it was more to do with too much sitting around the guest house eating. I remembered my trek in the mountains and how fit I felt afterwards, how quickly it fades.

The monastery itself was painted a sunset yellow and gave its concrete walls a very clean look that was off set by ox blood red borders. A 20 ft blue haired statue of Buddha sat in the outer courtyard, while the inner courtyard was an open grassy space. At the north end was the entrance to the two story temple. What was notable was the mass of young 5-14 year old monks, whom we quickly dubbed as 'baby lama's.'

Cathy showed us around the small but well laid out monastery. There was an exterior open plan eating area to the west, and to the east the administration block. Dotted around both the exterior and interior courtyards were ox blood colored doors leading into the monks dorms. Kathy had her own room, one that surprised me in it cleanliness and utilities.

"There is no water," she proclaimed opening up the door to the small neat en suite. "And no hot taps. It's not good."

To be honest as much as the tall German made me laugh with her blunt comments, I couldn't help but be envious and think back to the various squaller's I had to deal with in nigeria. By gosh she even had a fan, and a well polished hardwood floor. Get over it Kathy.

She wasn't the only one complaining that day. We met a middle aged Swiss lady who had come up from her Eco village in south India to volunteer at the Monastery. She looked like an old style Eco warrior in her baggy Tye dye outfit and dread locked hair. She had an emancipated face that told me she her diet was poor. Indeed when we joined the monks for an offering of a Daal Bhat lunch she refused all but plain rice and some cauliflower. So did Kathy for that matter. I would normally have been fussy about mass produced monk food too, but it was actually quite good.

A discussion broke out that revealed several new facts to me about the girls and their volunteering. I knew they were paying to volunteer already. Something I had already voiced my opinion on. The fact of the matter is they were trying to make a difference in a few weeks, or even a matter of 6 months. With no experience of development.

I saw my own self doing the same thing as well in Nigeria. And with this I remembered the core training principles of VSO I undertook at the time. It was something that was seriously lacking in this independent or small NGO volunteering network. Kathy for example was fresh out of university, a graduate in Administration. She had only ever traveled in Europe before, and was now the sole English Language teacher for the young Baby Lama's. This was a girl with no prior teaching experience, nor English qualifications nor overseas experience.

She had paid an organization several hundreds of Euro to some and work at the monastery for 2 months. Taking over where previous volunteers had left off. However there was no set curriculum, and no records of previous work at all. I was aghast at this. How could anyone not set out a permanent curriculum? Classes were set out ad lib. And although I am sure Kathy researched and did her best to teach, her work would quickly be forgotten.

I explained to them that I would have preferred if Kathy would have spent her two months never seeing a monk and instead produced a set curriculum for future volunteers to follow. That to me would have been productive.

There were of course elements I was missing. And I saw the look of hurt on Kathy's face. She was young, this was her first taste of the outside world. Of poverty. Of teaching. Of living outside her element. The blame was not on Kathy's head, it was her organization. The one that was sending people out to the monastery for years. The one that readily took their money and then lost interest after they arrived.

Kathy's point of contact was a Nepalese man. I saw him at the guest house interacting with some of the other volunteers. He looked more like a messenger rather than development worker. And indeed a further relevaton by an upset Anna revealed this one day.

The NGO was run my an American lady in her early 30's. During one of Anna had summoned her to the guest house once to demand her money back for not providing a suitable placement for her studies. Their discussion was open to all in the dining area. The American lady had all the good intentions. Indeed several years ago she was a volunteer herself, then with the support of a large network of family and friends back home set about creating an NGO of good will in Nepal. She was out of her depth then. No prior business of development experience and a massive list of rounded up volunteers back home meant a recipe for disaster.

For all it's faults I quickly saw VSO in a better light. During my tenure with them I saw their faults stand out like a sore thumb. I was there experiencing their failures. And their successes. It was their experience that was the obvious difference in comparison to these Nepalese N Go's. Through failures VSO was at least learning and offered a good standard of training to their volunteers. The volunteers that were know my friends in Nepal had none of that. And all involved were suffering because of it.

We made light of the Swiss ladies Eco friendly determination of bathing all the baby lamas as her sole purpose. It was her one month goal, let them have at least one bath. OK, this in itself was somewhat of a good thing. After all they were seriously in need of a good scrubbing. Personally I would have tackled the well scented management first. But no the Swiss lady dove quite literally head first into bathing the children one day. She gave up in under an hour. The children had put up a fight at being plunged into an icy cold tub of water and fought back with a splashing festival. It was too much for the Swiss lady to handle, so she was packing it all in and going back to her Eco village. Though not before buying one Baby Lama a new coat, her contribution to sustainability.

This was something the others saw too, and it was good to see Stephi argue the same points I was making. The head monks had money, yet it did not filter down past their personal security guards at their private homes. Where was the life without material values there? It was something that became more apparent with Monique's story from living at her orphanage. She began dating a worker there, the head of the organization. A nice guy that I would personally not trust as much to believe every word he spoke. His partner in the orphanage was a celibate monk who it turned out was the father of all 14 little orphans Monique was looking after.

So the monks were not all that the movies and foreign media had portrayed them to be. They still put on a good show for their new years Losa festival.

Near 12 foot Tibetan temple horns blew a deeply resonant and haunting sound that rang out over the inner courtyard. Their sounds provoked images of old Asian war movies just before battle. Masked figures dressed in elaborate costumes danced out from the temple entrance as small baby lama's lined up around the courtyards border.

To say that the Tibetan costumes were different were very different from stereo typical Chinese festival costumers would be a lie. Sure there might be a significance in the red velvet pointed shoes, or in the combination of multicolored materials used to create such costumes. But at the end of the say to a bystander they looked pretty much the same. Either way they put on a good show.

Small dancing steps and slow motion turns heralded by deep base bursts from Temple horns and the low rhythmic chanting of the monks made it a spectacle not easily forgotten.

We had a privileged feeling at being invited. Whatever or individual feelings were about the monks lifestyle they did not ask anything of us. Though that might have changed as the rather potbellied and frail looking head Lama fired flaming arrows. He was aiming into a large kerosene soaked pile of straw as part of a banishing of evil spirits ceremony. Unfortunately the combination of too much kerosene and a sudden gust of wind sent several robe wearing monks running for pales of water.