London to Freetown

Life in Nepal: a list

So I return to my list of the basics of life in Nepal.  I have left the crazy tourist trap of Thamel in Kathmandu.  A seven hour micro bus ride has landed me in pokhara from where I continue.

Wildlife: I need to first return to wildlife and make a confession or two.  Yesterday in my rented room in the holyland guest house pokhara I stood on a very large cockroach.  I then ensured the cockroach was dead by beating it with my shoe.  Luckily there were no budhists around to watch my display of hatred toward the crunchy cockroach.    

Two weeks ago ambling down the street I came upon a very cute looking goat and three men.  One of the men carried a machete.   Before I knew it the goat was being placated pre sacrifice.  The goat had its head chopped off.  There was a lot of blood. Apparently  meat does not grow in packaging in supermarkets: I know  this will be a shock to other city dwellers like myself.  This has made me think about things.  I think I cried when I watched chicken run, I definitely cried at watership down and bambi and yet here I was, I could have saved the cute goat but I didn’t.  Indeed I even ate goat in a village the next day.  My provisional conclusion is that the movies I watched are pretty stupid, how can I care about a goat and what people eat in Nepal when there is so much else wrong in the world.  The sacrifice was fast, the goat didn’t have time to cry or get distressed and it fed a family welcoming a loved one home.

Weather: monsoon season has started.  I am either hot or wet.  On the plus side the monsoon makes the super polluted Kathmandu air more bearable.  On the down side there is a lot more nasty stuff floating around in the water that your food might be washed in: watch out bellies.

Food.  Back in Pokhara I have returned to the scene of eggogate where I suffered the worst bout of food poisoning in history.  I felt like I had to return to the restaurant to face my demons head on, and because off season there was  no  where else  open for me to write my blog and drink a coke, obviously I’d never eat here again.    

Approximately three weeks ago, myself and a friend had attended at food poisoning restaurant for some breakfast.  We both selected an egg option which seemed ok at the time.  Sadly four hours later still sitting in the same restaurant, but joined by an ex- major with some Gurkha research  info, the unfortunate symptons began.   I recall excusing myself from the major at least two times to acquaint myself better and better with the hole in the ground, ‘fragrant’ smelling bathroom.  The major must have thought I was uninterested in his gurkha information and in the end I had to confess to feeling just a little unwell and making my way back to my room.  This I succeeded in doing but by now in a little more pain I thought perhaps a doctor might be an idea.   I still had my London head on- doctors don’t make house visits as the hotel staff informed me, ‘they are too busy at the hospital’.  I was taken to Fewa emergency room Pokhara.   At this point the pain renders me less than choosy but upon arrival at the ER room I am not  convinced that it is an actual ER room.  The small building is mostly  chaotic and very dirty.  The antiquated trolley didn’t look like it would stay upright if I sat on it.  But it did.  A number of different men then took turns prodding my stomach- I deduced they must be doctors, though there was no white coat.  An iv was inserted and injections followed.  I’ve no idea what and no one explained.  Still I felt slightly better and was anyway distracted by the number of seriously ill people around me.  A very elderly woman with endless family members  saying goodbye.  An unconscious young man carried in, a dented motorbike helmet following.  I worried at the lack of modern medical equipment I’m used to seeing.  

There were a limited number of nurses at the hospital.  As my accompanying guest house owner informed me its up to the family to care for their loved ones in hospital, to bring them food, to collect the medicines prescribed.  And so Nirmal who had brought me to the ER had to stay in the hospital with me overnight, sleep on a bench, collect water for me to drink and call the Dr when the IV kept on blocking.  I am touched by the way people, family members care for each other here. 

This makes the hospital, lacking in equipment, and maybe staff, somehow look more inviting.  I am discharged the next day, fully recovered, I think the Drs and staff are amazing.  Waiting outside for a taxi home I am approached by one of the ubiquitous street children and asked for money for food.  There is no free hospital treatment in Nepal, for those alone in society they don’t get brought to the hospital at all.   A street child hurt or injured will most times be left.   

Anyway  anyway . Lunch time, where’s that waiter, I feel like an omelette.

Devi Gurung is a  60 year  old, widow .  She suffers from paralysis on the left side of her body, probably caused by a stroke.  Devi’s future looked bright when she had married Narbahadur Gurung.  He was in the British Army in the 6^th Gurkha Rifles.  But  he wasn’t in the army long enough to receive a penion, he was made redundant after nine years service on the 1st May 1970. This was a bitter blow for him and his family. 

But 12 years ago Narbahadur contracted TB.  Retired from the British Army he could not afford to buy the medicines he needed.  He went to India to work and to save the money for the medicine.  That is where he died alone in 1995.  This is what upsets Devi the most, her husband dying alone, working in a poorly paid job in India.  She feels the UK government should not abandon the medical needs of their ex-serviceman in Nepal, perhaps if they hadn’t she would still have her husband today.

Devi can’t work, she is completely dependent on the charity the Gurkha welfare trust .  They provide her with a welfare pension of £26.03 a month.  This is enough  for food each month.   

Chaturman Rai lives in a small village on the outskirts of Kathmandu.  His three roomed shack lies next to his livestock, his livelihood, on the banks of a rubbish infested river.   He lives there with his wife, son and daughter.    Chaturman is originally from the eastern part of Nepal but it was impossible for him to eek out a living there.  He swapped village life for the banks of Kathmandu ten years ago.  Chaturman still has a lot of family in his village in the east but the five- six day journey is prohibitively expensive for him. 

Chaturman’s day begins at three am when he starts clearing out the livestock, the  pigs, that he owns.  He doesn’t have far to travel to work, the pig pens lay directly next to the three roomed cramped shack he resides in.  The work is hard, tiring and with little financial reward at the end but it is enough for him to survive on.

Chaturman’s life is a far cry from his previous life in the Birtish Army.  Charturman served in the british army for nine years and 192 days and then, like so many, he was made redundant.  Chaturman served in Malaya and Borneo.  He thought he had a job for life when he signed up and was devastated when he was told he was being made redundant.  He received a parting ex gratia payment of a few hundred pounds: enough to buy some livestock. 

Because Chaturman served in the British Army for less than ten years he receives no pension at all.  He has asked the charity the Gurkha Welfare Trust for a charitable pension of £26.03 a month, his living conditions are unarguably impoverished, but he was told he needs to be 65 for that assistance.   

Chaturman is one of many made redundant in the 60’s and 70s.  They gave their all, their peak working years to take part in and win campaigns for the British Government : they were too easily dispensed with when their services were no longer required.  Chaturman feels;  he, his service and contribution has been forgotten by the country he served.

AWO Lamjung, 21^st- 25^th May 2007

Field trek to see welfare pensioners with the charity the Gurkha Welfare Association and their  mobile Doctor, Dr. Deoman Limbu

Lamjung is currently difficult to access, there is a road block protest going on: calling on the government to build a bridge in the area.

The Gurkha welfare office in Lamjung  gives out 220 welfare pensions(£26.03 per month from the charity the  Gurkha Welfare Trust).  This amount is based on calculating enough to buy basic food stuffs for a month, although the increasing cost of living in the inaccessible hills means it is not quite enough even for that).  Most of the recipients of this charity are world war two veterans, although increasingly those made redundant from the British Army in the 1960s are qualifying for the handout because of their dire needs.

Captain Kishal Gurung , the Area Welfare Officer explains that these men were told to go with the galla walla (recruiter) and did not question where they were going or why, they just went to their unknown destiny.   Very few knew for who they were fighting or why.

Man  Bahadur Gurung served from 1941- 1947. He was recruited when he was 27 years old.  He served in Cairo, Egypt, Cyprus and Haifa.  He didn’t know what he was fighting for. He did learn he was fighting the Germans’ but he  didn’t know why.  During guard duties one night he was injured by a bomb.  It left shrapnel permanently embedded in his leg.  Now 95, the scars from his WWII experience still remain visible.  

He complains that they were  not given enough rations,  boiled rice in the morning : badly cooked and two slices of bread in the evening (most of his salary went on subsidising the miniscule rations) His pay,  16 rupees a month, ten of which went t on supplementing the rations provided. At the end of the war he was given a lump sum payment of 200 rupees, he was asked to stay on but the pay wasn’t good enough.

Being in the war was tough, no sleep, constant incoming fire, carrying too much weight on the meagre rations. It was a case of killed or be killed.  He received a medal for his war time efforts but it was left to the British colonel to reward him with 5 rupees out of his own pocket for that.

Man has received the welfare pension for the past 15 years, he also receives an additional 500 rupees a month (approx £4.00) for his war injury.  Unable to walk now, his on a driver in the village carries him once a quarter to the gurkha welfare office to collect his welfare pension.

Dil Bahadur Ghae

Dil settled in Lamjung relatively recently with his third wife. They have seven children, all living in the one roomed rented ‘hut like’ property.   Dil is originally from Gorkha, that was where he was recruited from at the age of 18 in 1963 to serve with the British Army. The galla walla came and said the army were recruiting, he went from his village, no questions asked. He was one of eleven to go from his village.  From there he fought in Malaysia, served in Hong Kong and Brunei. He preferred fighting in the jungle in Malaya for months on end, although it was tough it was not as hard as the burning oil polluted air of Brunei.

 In 1969, like so many, he was told his service was no longer required and he was made redundant.  Now, 23 years old Dil was devastated to lose his job, a job he had given his everything to and a job he thought would be permanent. He faced a very uncertain future..

With a small lump sum payment, enough to build a small property, Dil returned to Gorkha and married.  He found odd jobs  as a labourer.  It was hard to readjust to life back in the village in Nepal: a far cry from the years spent in the British Army, travelling different parts of the world.  He struggled on but then his wife and their new son both died.  He doesn’t know why: there were no hospitals to take them to, no one to even record the cause of death.

Feeling the property was plagued by bad luck and advised to by a lama he moved, losing the one thing he did have to show for his years of service in the British Army.  He married again and this time was blessed with two daughters but tragically his wife died.  On the advice of a lama he moved completely from his birthplace of Gorkha and settled in Lamjung.

This is where he lives now with his third wife and their  five children, his two daughters from his second marriage,  also live there.  One of the daughters is very lucky, she qualified for an educational grant from the Gurkha Welfare Trust and so for now she has the scarce gift of learning.  She would like to be a teacher one day. 

Dil has received the welfare pension of £26.03 a month for thirteen years now.  It is a mark of how poor he is to qualify for a charitable handout provided only to those most desperate in this impoverished and harsh terrain.

The one roomed hut costs him 800 rupees a month to rent and there is the livestock: he has five goats, they cost 5’000 rupees each and three pigs at 7’000 each.  It is only during very special festivals that he , his wife and seven children get to enjoy the taste of meet. 

The rented room is tiny and dark. It lies below another person’s room.  How nine people are able to eat, sleep, live in the space is incomprehensible to my western eye.  But that is this British Serviceman’s life.

22/5/07 Tarkughat , Harrabot village: road side clinic.

Whilst waiting for transportation to the next part of our medical trek  with the gurkha welfare office in Lamjung, the Dr is approached by a welfare pensioner, C Kumari Chetri a 76 year old widow of a world war two veteran.  Her husband passed away two years ago.  The Dr sees her on the roadside and gives her a basic check up.  This invites a large audience from the village but Kumari doesn’t seemed perturbed by the lack of privacy: although there is little other option: Dr Limbu is the only health care, the only doctor available to her.

She complains of a bad knee, shortness of breath and a cough.  The Dr is able to prescribe anti-biotics for a chest infection, ointment for the arthritic knee and anti-acids for gastriotitus on the road side.  His assistant hands over sufficient medicine until she can next attend the area welfare office where she will have a three hour walk  to collect her welfare pension in a month.

Kolki

Is our final destination of the day, many people had been waiting since early in the morning to have the opportunity to see the Dr, providing the only healthcare in the hills.  Sadly because of the terrain and torrential rain we arrive late and word reaches the village before hand that people will have to come back to see the Dr tomorrow.  Some have journeyed for hours to see the Dr. but as the Dr explains, ‘this is Nepal’.  People accept this happens.

When we do eventually arrive at the village at 5pm , one patient who has been waiting since 10am has remained.  Sergeant Dhote Gurung fought in world war two from 1940 and then served in the British Army until 1958.  Now 85 years old he is still able to recall vividly his service for the crown.

 ‘ I served all over, although I had no idea where I was going when I was recruited and left Nepal, Egypt, Iran and Italy.  At times it was really frightening for me. One of the hardest aspects was the lack of proper rations: rice and bread was all we had.  I felt permanently hungry but would have to be ready to fight.  We were given whisky before a battle, this alone would fuel our charge’

He is very grateful to see the Dr in the village.  He has a problem with the use of his legs and couldn’t easily make it to the teaching hospital in Pokhara, about a days journey over, as we discovered, very tough terrain.

23/5/07 Tasyo Village

We walk up to visit Amrajan Gurung of the 6^th Gurkha Rifles.  Amrajan joined the British Army aged 19  on the 26^th October 1948.  He is unable to walk now.  His daughter in law makes the long trek to collect his pension for him at Lamjung area welfare office, every quarter. She is young fit and healthy and the journey only takes her from 10am until 5pm.  But once a year he must go in person or lose the pension altogether.  He pays porters  1’500 NPRs to carry him down in a basket on their backs when he has to make this long, painful  and uncomfortable journey.

Amrajan recalls his day fighting the Malaya insurgency.  He was a gun runner at the time, carrying the ammunition.  Once the commander got them lost in the jungle, this was a terrifying five days without any rations left. Luckily he and his comrades were found.  Jungle warfare was tough, often going for days in mud up to your thighs.  The jungle around Lamjung provided a better training for the gurkha soldier.

Amrajan now suffers from very bad asthma, each breath sounds like a battle.  He, like many of his forefathers believed that the higher up you live, the healthier and cleaner the air.   But the Dr advises him that the ‘property’ he lives in is making his asthma worse.  There is no  chimney for the fire that serves as the kitchen in the room: the stifling smoke permeates, the endless dust is choking and the high altitude all combine to make his asthma worse.  He has a son who lives closer to the main town and he will think of asking him if he can go and live there.

The Dr. also sees Amrajans unmarried fifty year old daughter.  Not many women are unmarried in Nepal and if they are there is, to put it mildly, a certain stigma: woman are described exclusively on their marital status.  She has sores on her feet for which the Dr prescribes and provides medicine, free of charge.

 The Dr also sees one of Amrajan’s grandchildren, aged five years old. He has a matted open wound on his head. It is lucky the mobile Dr came he can advise the family of what to do and provide ointment.  If left the wound could have turned septic and ultimately caused blood poisoning.  The lack of medical facilities in the hills is  particularly stark at this point.

23/5/07 Taltu Dada Village

Sam Sher Gurung an 82 year old world war two veteran.  He now receives the charitable welfare pension from the Gurkha welfare trust of £26.03 pence per month.  He greets us outside a shed containing some livestock, goats and a pig.  The shed smells of livestock and is open on three sides to the elements.  This is where Samsher  lives, with the livestock.  He has lived there for the past four years.  The most terrifying time for him was when a tiger came during the night a few years back. He heard it attacking the goat and terrified waited until the tiger left.  None of these experiences were quite as scary as fighting in a country he didn’t know for a country that didn’t know him and for a reason he didn’t know.  But still life is very hard for Samsher.  The rest of his family live in a one roomed property but with eight of them in there, there is simply no room for him.  Sam Sher is suffering from low blood pressure and is very grateful for the free medicines the Dr from the Gurkha welfare Office provides.

Rebekah Wilson 29/5/07 ©

Tirtha Raj Gurung enlisted in the Brigade of Gurkhas British Army on the 22^nd October 1976  and was retired  on the  10^th August 1993 after sixteen years and two  hundred and ninety two days of service.  His exemplary service took him to  the UK, Hong Kong and South Korea.

 Recently with his closest family  residing in the UK; his niece, nephew, brother and  his son, who himself  serves in the British Army,  Tirtha  decided to apply for indefinite leave to remain , to go and live for a while in the country he had served and to be closer to his immediate family.

It is not cheap to apply for Indefinite leave to remain, 72,500 NR (about five hundred and eighty pounds: over six and half times the average monthly gurkha pension) and there is no refund on that substantial figure.  Tirtha spent many months and most of his savings putting together his application for Indefinite leave to remain in the UK.  

As Tirtha was discharged from the British Army before the 1^st July 1997  the home office have a discretion to grant indefinite leave to remain where there are strong reasons as to why settlement in the UK is appropriate, these include demonstrating strong family ties such as a child living in the UK, as in Tirtha’s case.

 On the 18^th May 2007 Tirtha received  the home office response to his application,

‘ I have carefully considered your application….. however I am not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that your application meets the requirements.. This is because…

You have not produced any satisfactory evidence that you have any close family such as…children in the UK as opposed to Nepal.’

Apart from his long and loyal service to the British Army (surely demonstrative of ties to the UK) the one thing that Tirtha could show beyond a reasonable doubt was that his own son was living in the UK and indeed intends to settle there at the end of his service. 

Tirtha saved for months for his application to enter the country he served so long for.  He expected his application to be at least considered on the basis of the information submitted. 

The recently publicised refusal of Tul Bulhadur Pun VC’s application for indefinite leave to remain only underlines a worrying trend of seemingly Ill considered refusals to these loyal soldiers.  One can only surmise what is going wrong with the Home Office attachment here in Nepal, perhaps it’s the heat in Kathmandu, maybe they are too overworked  : whatever the reason their ill considered rejections of applications are causing serious hardship and injustice to these loyal soldiers.    

Namaste London: notes from Nepal

Feeling invinceable

So its been just over four weeks since I landed in Nepal for a ten day stay.  I have met with lots of gurkha ex –servicemen, travelling extensively; from gorkha, Kathmandu, pokhara, chitwan, sangje and Lamjung and overcome some minor hurdles in doing so;

Food poisoning- a 24 hour stint in the ER but where was dr Carter

Daily daal bhat- great food but feeling a bit riced out

Motor bike crash- that will teach me for trying to show off.  Only damage was to my pride

Travelling balcony style top of a bus, like a roller coaster but without the safety harness

Ill fitting shoes- my toe nail is falling off- yuck

Jungle leeches- they suck your blood: nice.

What else can Nepal throw at me? Feeling invinceable.

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