A slow crawl to a sudden death

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gerry
on May 24, 2009
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We had the VSO conference last week, which I have to admit I found a bit difficult to take overly seriously, and I have an exit interview in a couple of days and then I am released into the wild of the “real world”. So that’s it a VSO volunteer no more.

After counting down for almost a year its hard to explain how abrupt and shocking the end is when it comes. Its easy to get focused on going ‘home’, back to this magical place where you fit in and things make sense. What I didn’t appreciate is how close I’ve become to the friends I’ve made here (mainly expats). You share so many experiences here that other people simply won’t understand. But when I leave these friends it is for good. If and when I come back to Nepal they will have left too.

Knowing Failure

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gerry
on May 24, 2009
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It occurred to me a few weeks ago that I have never experienced failure quite as comprehensively as I have here in Nepal. At the time I was sitting in a UNESCO workshop for the launch of a new EMIS (a computer system to record enrollment info etc) for non-formal education in Nepal. I guess that was the trigger, that I had volunteered to work for free (or close to it) on EMIS in Nepal and here I was after two years, underutilised and having accomplished little or nothing, but instead of making use of me (and others too) a team had been flown in at great cost from the other side of the world.

The possibility was mentioned of working on the project as a paid in-country position. For a fleeting moment it didn’t seem like such a bad idea, maybe finally I would be able to work. But then I realised I would not be able to swallow the bitterness of sitting at the same desk doing the same job, but having people suddenly willing to work with me because I now have a UN salary. I said no.

Coming back to the “Real World”

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gerry
on February 18, 2009
in Nepal and Tech
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I guess you could say I’m counting down the days now.

And yes to bring you this fantasic feature on the right I mucked up the rest of the blog layout…

Everest

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gerry
on November 9, 2008
in Nepal
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The Nepali festive season has just passed again, which is a good time to get out and explore a bit of the country. This year I went on a trek to Gokyo valley and Everest base camp and it was great to be out of Kathmandu and in the mountains.

Its hard to explain the affect of having less oxygen. We spent most of our time above 4,000m where you have about 70% oxygen and quite a few days above 5,000m where you have less than 50%. Climbing up to some of the viewing points you really need to take two breaths for every step. When you see the route they take up the side of Everest and other even more difficult climbing peaks its hard to imagine how they do it. The Everest base camp is already at about 5,300m.

Strange things are available during the entire trek that you wouldn’t expect. You can get apple pie (or something resembling it) for the entire trek. And can buy a bottle of Australian wine at Gorak Shep the highest point of 5,200m just by Everest base camp. It would have to be flown in from Kathmandu (after Australia) and then carried by foot for three days. Needless to say it was expensive.

I intended just to eat Dhal Baat, the standard Nepali dish, on the basis that it is what the locals eat, would come quickly and you get top ups for free. But generally it was slow and tasteless and I was told once that there were no top ups available. After a few attempts I gave up and lived on a diet of pizza, burgers and potatoes, it came quicker, tasted better and in some cases was cheaper.

Generally it was a great time, one downside was that our guides, who came from just outside Kathmandu
valley really didn’t have much of interest to tell us about the area.
We were supposed to have a local guide that had experience on Everest
summit expeditions, but it just did not eventuate. Our guide was nice enough but often less than helpful and was
geographically embarrassed (lost) twice. As well as paying for his ’services’ it also meant we paid tourist price for the privelege of his company. This is my second bad experience with a guide in
Nepal. I won’t be doing it again.

I don’t usually travel in groups and although it was nice to be able to share the experience, the group was what lead to having a guide in the first place and of course meant that I couldn’t always do
what I wanted. I couldn’t help looking at the other people travelling alone and wishing I had been organised enough to do it myself. I think I will be sticking to travelling alone or with one or two others in the future.

It was surprisingly hard coming back to Kathmandu. Somehow in my mind I was expecting to fly back in to Sydney or something. It took a few days to get to grips with Kathmandu again. On the positive side there is only 7 months left in my placement now and I just realised last week that in about a year I will finally be back home in Australia :)

XO development machines

Published
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gerry
on September 25, 2008
in Development, Nepal and Tech
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One application of my new ‘Development Speak’ skill was to request some XO development machines from the One Laptop Per Child project. They agreed, apparently I have two on the way here. I hope I can walk the development talk.

Development speak

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gerry
on September 25, 2008
in Development
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It seems I have developed a new skill, ‘Development Speak’. I’ve had to write a number of proposals lately and found I can pump out pages full of ‘capacity building’, ‘community mobilisation’, ’stakeholder inclusion’ and ‘ownership’ with the best of them.

Actually I managed to avoid the more overused terms. You will not find ‘capacity’ and ‘building’ in the same sentence and I believe ‘workshop’ was only mentioned once. You would also find that I had managed to stretch a simple request ‘There is useful work for me to do in Dhading would I be able to work there please?’ into 5 pages.

I guess I should be pleased but all things considered I would quite happily trade this skill for some concrete and constructive work.

Dhading secondment

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gerry
on September 25, 2008
in Nepal
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Although I had some success with the ICT Bootcamp training it was clear that giving computers to staff alone was not going to make any great inroads into improving education. Talking with the district chief it was clear she was highly motivated and comitted to bringing ICT acess to remote schools and to improving the stystem of management. It was also clear that these objectives would be very hard to achieve without some support to develop and manage the necessary information systems.

I had been discussing with colleagues if we should be prividing this kind of support anyway. Over time the DoE has been developing more and more software that is required to run at district offices, but typically little or no support is given for the management and support of these systems. Luckily a number of things fell into place and I was given approval to privode the necessary support to achieve a mixture of central and district objectives.

Recently I was trying to explain to a VSO colleague why I liked Dhading Besi so much when it suddenly occured to me that it is how I had imagined Kathmandu before I came. A small one street town lying on the side of a valley filled with terraced fields dropping steeply down to a river below. So it looks like ultimately I may get a taste of the life I had expected to have here.

ICT bootcamp

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gerry
on September 25, 2008
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Recently I was asked to provide some ICT training for Dhading district, a few hours drive from Kathmandu valley. It was a pretty big ask as around 30 staff had been given laptops, but many had little or no previous experience with computers. I wasn’t sure how I would be able to manage 30 people with a brand new toy let alone run some training. Luckily Janet, another VSO volunteer from Nederlands, who actually has some teaching experience was able to help me which didn’t do any harm.

A plan had been developing in the back of my mind to run the training Army Bootcamp (basic training) style. There were three reasons for this: 1) It would help to manage such a large group, 2) Many computer activities can be taught as a list of steps similar to military drill, 3) we could create a sense of competition and fun by splitting the trainees into competing groups.

It worked surprisingly well and the competitive role-play and competetive aspect of the training appealed to the Nepali love for games. Janet kept me in check and stopped me from pursuing the more callous aspects of a real Army Bootcamp. Instead we developed merit/demerit system that worked well to motivate the participantans and to keep their attention. They especially liked the fact that Janet and I could only get demerits.

I did reserve the right to invoke a “Tree Go” if necessary during the training. After 3 days of hard work and little sleep I did send one of the participants up and down the stairs after he decided to play some music in the middle of Excel training.

Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits

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gerry
on July 13, 2008
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I’ve mentioned before that I have been surprised by the wide ranging attitudes and motivations of people working in international devlepment. I’d somewhat naively thought that the main motivation would be charitable, but have often found that for many it is the way of life and sometimes the money that goes with overseas postings.

I recently learnt a truism that the people that work in international development are either Missionaries, Mercenaries or Misfits. This is surprisingly accurate in describing almost if not everyone I have met so far here in Nepal working in the development sector, including yours truly. Looking at the environment I find myself working in in this succinct way rings very true and too some extent makes it easier to accept, its like it makes more sense.

Speaking of truisms I was discussing a similar topic with the country director a few months ago and when I said that I thought that although the VSO vols had sometimes quite different motivations they were all nice people. She responded with another truism, ‘not all VSO volunteers are nice, but they are all interesting’.

Philosophy of bungee

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gerry
on July 13, 2008
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I was in a bit of a dilemma with the idea of going bungee jumping. We have frequent discussions here about what motivates volunteers and development workers and I’ve used bungee jumping a number of times as an ideological example of what I would NOT like to do here as a volunteer, ‘if I go bungee jumping here in Nepal I better have a ticket home booked for the next week, because there will be no a reason to be here anymore’.

Well I’m still here and I’ve neatly wrapped up and put aside another piece of ideology which brought me here in the first place. There is not much left.