Kids, kids, kids

I've been unable to post anything for a while because in addition to the electricity supply being erratic, the internet has decided to start playing up as well. One minute you're connected and the next minute you're not!

We spent Saturday and Sunday up at the top house playing with the kids, which was great. Saturday is the only day that they have off school (no such thing as a 'weekend' in Nepal), so they should have been back to their exam schedule on Sunday. However, the ex-Prime Minister died on Saturday so there was a national holiday on Sunday for the funeral. Amazingly, enough electricity was found to enable it to stay on all day – so the funeral could be televised!

Alison's made some good friends, particularly with some of the younger girls who live up in the top house. Anu and her sister Anita are lovely, gentle girls – Anu has taken to sitting beside me and getting a cuddle whenever she can – heartbreaking when she looks up at you and tells you she doesn't have a Mum. Ramilla and Shushmita are cheeky monkeys – full of wicked charm and nonsense. Ramilla in particular has a really dry sense of humour – beyond her years – and loves nothing more than a good laugh. They spent most of Saturday and Sunday playing skipping games and games with stones where you throw one in the air and have to pick others up at the same time (needless to say, I'm hopeless at it!). Alison was shattered by the time we got back to the Volunteer House from all the skipping and running round.

Outside of being able to spend time with the kids on Saturdays, we're struggling a little with the volunteering side of things, though, to be honest. There is a group of girls that aren't ready for school yet (various ages – some very recently rescued Kamlari) and we've been trying to help out with their home learning because it seems that this is where there's most need at the moment. They meet in a small room down in Anita's house and it's absolute bedlam. There's lots of talking and shouting, and running around, and it's impossible to know what they're actually supposed to be learning from their jotters. Also because their English isn't good yet, it's difficult to try to talk to them and help out that way. Education here is strange in that the kids are taught everything by rote and repetition – so you can have a child who can spell fairly complicated words for you, but has no understanding of what the words mean. It makes it really difficult to feel that you're doing anything constructive, and understandably Alison finds it hard going. Right now I'm not sure what we're going to do till the school holidays (a week and a half away) when it will be easier to spend time with all the kids and play and chat with them. I know that any time with the kids is valuable in helping them learn that adults can be trusted and not all adults beat kids or are bad to them (which is what a lot of these children have experienced so far), but I feel frustrated not being able to be more actively or obviously helpful.

Aside from the kids, the main topic of conversation lately has been food! While what we get here is good, there's a limit to how much your taste buds can deal with rice, lentil dahl and vegetables – we now dream daily of bacon sandwiches and cheese toasties! We were in Thamel yesterday to change money and do some shopping and found an Italian restaurant that made pizza that actually tastes like pizza – you couldn't have found two happier people – until we went into the supermarket across the road and found marmalade (from Dundee!), crisps and proper chocolate. We've both lost a little bit of weight (and our appetites have definitely shrunk) but I can see us pigging out big time when we get home – oops.