On Sunday I was taken by Sanju in a hired car to Chobhar where I will remain for the next six weeks. It is about a 25 minute drive through Kathmandu to the outskirts where this community is built on a hill, providing awesome views of the city as well as the surrounding mountains. In the afternoon, when the smog clears you can see beyond the mountains and view the snow capped Himalayas providing a silent buzz for people like me who rarely see real mountains on a day to day basis.



The Chobhar hill would be about one and a half times the size of the Piccaninny "mountain" in the southern Grampians, and is equally as steep.

It turns out that my homestay is with Sanju and his brother's family. Apart from Sanju, his niece who is in grade 1 is the only person who can speak limited English. They live in a four storey home. It's made of a brick base while the top two storeys are built from mud brick. The house reminds me of a cubby house. It has ladder like stairs connecting each floor made of cut wood. There is a squat toilet under the stairs which i barely fit into. It takes some organisation because there is no room to turn around, I cannot stand up straight and chances are there is no electricity in this windowless room so I need to take the head torch. My room is the only room where I can stand up straight, so I spend most of my inside time here.

The kitchen on the top floor is the biggest room in the house but is very simple. There is an oven built of clay, shelves carved into the walls to hold a small number of jars and floor mats forming and L shape where we sit to have out meals. There is no kitchen table which renders the place mats I bought as a gift completely useless and leaves me contemplating what to do with them.

Without a doubt, this home stay is nothing like I have had before.

Poverty is evident everywhere you go. When we arrived our hired car drew a cloud of dust from the dirt roads and had every woman in the village throwing buckets of water on the road to settle the dust so it would not dirty their freshly washed laundry. There is no tv or Internet here. Like most of Nepal, our meal times depend on when electricity is available. There are a small number of shops about which look like they have been set up by KIVA loans. UNICEF has put work into the school here. There is organized eye checks for older people and a Lions club is setting up a dental program. Apparently the eye checks allow surgery for removing cataracts which made me wonder if this was Fred Hollows work.

Food here is becoming difficult for me. Dahl bhaht is a meal consisting of rice flavoured by a curry with some spiced lentils and boiled vegetables. Nepali people eat this twice a day and eat it with their right hand. I prefer to use a spoon just so i can maintain the pace of the meal, although I have used my hand during a meal in Kathmandu. I find it much easier using my hands when I'm sitting at a table. Currently I get a 'rice knot' in my stomach when eating dharebatt. I hope the reduced size of the meals along with the short but steep walk to the scgool help me shed a few kilos over the next couple of weeks.

Last night Sanju took to me to the top of the stairs that lead down the hill to the school to see the Kathmandu valley at night. It was interesting watching a suburb have it's power switched off and have it redistributed to another area.

I went to the school which reflects the same quality as the town. Makeshift dark classrooms. Metal doors, shutters instead of glass windows, second hand text books and unsafe facilities generally. I need to watch my head when entering each classroom which makes the students laugh. It is funny because at 5'11" I am hardly considered tall at home. I return today to the school to observe the teaching of some English classes. It seems I will have Grades 6,7,8 and hopefully 9. Like at home, they are my favourite to teach. I'm expected to teach from the book as the student will sit national exams in three weeks. There is a break then and I hope to head to Chitwan for a change of scenery and see a part of subtropical Nepal. I have already heard that I am not allowed outside at night because wild tigers, elephants and rhinos roam the streets of Chitwan at night.

On Saturdays I will return to Kathmandu to do my laundry and checkout the Internet, do some sightseeing. I'm allowed to stay at the Quest office for free and will head into Thamel to have a change in diet and maybe send some postcards.

After not being sure how I would cope with Chobhar it seems to be growing on me. The food is my big struggle at the moment. Especially the all vegetable diet. Better pump some of those multivitamins and the iron pills or I will never shake this cold.



I hope all is well at home.

Rob.

On another note I have found out that I am the Senior Boys section head at Camp Sloane next summer which is the same section I was in in 2003 which was also exactly what I wanted.

 

Le plan directeur national présenté vendredi 3 janvier 2012 prévoit la construction d’un nouveau réseau de chemin de fer dès 2013.

Le plan directeur ferroviaire national du Cameroun a été adopté. Il prévoit sur la période allant de 2012 à 2020, la construction à court, moyen et long termes d’un réseau de transport performant selon les standards modernes avec un rail de 50 kg et un écartement de 1,435 millimètres, destiné à intensifier les échanges dans l’espace national, ainsi qu’avec les pays voisins. Le rapport final de l’étude ayant conduit à la préparation du plan directeur ferroviaire national du Cameroun a été présenté vendredi dernier à Yaoundé, sous la coordination du ministre en charge de l’Economie, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi. La réalisation de cette nouvelle infrastructure dont le coût total est estimé à 14 976,50 milliards de F, se fera selon trois principaux axes.

Desservir les zones industrielles
C’est grâce au chemin de fer que le fer produit à Mbalam et l’alumine produite à Edéa pourront être acheminés au port de Kribi (actuellement en construction), pour être exportés. Dans le court terme, la réalisation du nouveau plan directeur ferroviaire national prévoit la construction des tronçons Edéa-Port de Kribi (136 km) et Mbalam- Port de Kribi (602,6km). Selon Guy Daniel Abouna Zoa, directeur des infrastructures et de l’appui au développement local et régional au Minepat, il s’agit de relier les principaux ports aux zones minières du pays, pour faire émerger l’industrie camerounaise. L’exécution du projet à court terme prévoit également la construction des tronçons Douala-Limbe (73,5 km) et Ngaoundéré-Douala (907,5 km). Les études de faisabilité sur ces tronçons devraient être bouclées cette année.

Interconnecter les villes
Jusqu’ici, le rail camerounais ne dessert que quelques villes du pays. Le Transcam I (Douala-Yaoundé) long de 264 km et le Transcam II (Yaoundé–Belabo et Belabo-Ngaoundéré) long de 620 km. Selon le nouveau schéma, plusieurs autres villes seront desservies. Il s’agit dans le court terme de Limbe via le tronçon (Douala-Limbe). A moyen terme, ce sont les villes de Koussseri, Kumba, Wum, Gamboula, Foumban, Bafoussam, Mora, Ngoyla, Jakiri et Mintom qui accueilleront ce nouveau mode de transport.

Au-delà des frontières
Le nouveau tracé propose des interconnexions avec les pays voisins du Cameroun, à l’instar du Tchad, la RCA, la RDC, le Congo, le Gabon, la Guinée équatoriale, le Nigeria et plus loin l’Angola. L’objectif étant de capter un trafic en augmentation. Durant les échanges, les participants ont d’ailleurs émis le vœu de voir un chemin de fer sur l’axe Ouesso-Sangmelima. Pour financer ce projet, plusieurs schémas classiques ont été présentés, notamment le partenariat public privé, le Built Operate Transfert (BOT) et dans une certaine mesure, l’emprunt obligataire. Il est prévu un tour de table avec les investisseurs publics et privés en vue du financement et de la mise en œuvre des phases prioritaires du plan.

Le tracé du futur chemin de fer

 

	Section	Longueur (en km)	Coût de construction (en milliards de F)
Court terme	Edéa-Lolabe	136	468,71
	Mbalam-Lolabe	602,6	3 109,39
	Douala-Limbe	73,5	340,97
	Ngaoundéré-Douala	907,5	4 545,19
Sous total			8 464,26
Moyen terme	Douala-Wum	351,8	2 722,64
	Mbanga-Kumba	21,3	92, 53
	Ngaoundéré-Kousseri	683,7	2 267,78
	Bertoua-Gamboula	182,9	396,12
	Mora Nigeria Border	35,7	176,40
	Bafoussam-Foumban	69,3	203,45
	Bamenda-Jakiri	75,4	337,84
	Mintom-Ngoyla	119,6	315,49
Subtotal			6 512, 25
Total			14 976,50

http://www.cameroononline.org

 

Cameroon state radio says that Mount Cameroon, a volcano in the country’s southwest region, sent ashes and flames into the air in a brief explosion.

Cameroon Radio Television reported Monday that a violent explosion Friday lasted a couple of seconds and lightly injured two among the porters and guides on the mountain.

Mountain guide Peter Buma Linonge told state radio there were explosions, then flames burst into the air followed by ash.
Joseph Mokake, a resident of Buea, the town situated at the foot of the mountain, told The Associated Press there were tremors on Tuesday and Wednesday. He said he moved to a nearby town for safety. Residents say explosions and tremors serve as a precursor to a possible eruption.

Measuring just over 13,420 feet (4,090 meters) high, Mount Cameroon is an active volcano and the highest peak in West Africa.

For those who care: Watch for 20 seconds, share

with others and Eliminate Polluted Water!

Those of us who care to eliminate polluted water consumption in the world can watch this video message for 20 seconds and share with others - The JOYFUL NOISE Choir's ABC Message for the world not just for you or me.

 

We're reaching to become #1 in hits of 44 messages. Once there, the CEOs of Time Warner and Warner Entertainment who released JOYFUL NOISE 1/13/12 will know that choruses of the world like JOYFUL NOISE can work with ABC4All to eliminate polluted water via MATCHED/DOUBLED donations/orders FOREVER for technology that will SAVE LIVES. Watch here: http://youtu.be/MWYntqLZ1c4

Thanks for helping us build the "Viral Loop of the Century" for 12/12/12: http://121212.abc4all.net

Learn more about SAVING LIVES: http://sl.abc4all.net

7-Minute Video Documentary offers the Full Universal Message for a Better World:
http://youtu.be/VvwMDXD39_s?hd=1

Thank you!

Namaste!

The flight was long and exhausting as a result of my cold but I did see Mount Everest from the plane. It is not very often that you get to see the highest mountain in the world and even though it was a long way away, it was clear enough to see it's summit on the northern horizon. That lifted the spirits a bit.

Two days in and I am definitely in the acclimatisation phase of the Nepal leg. I arrived on Thursday at 1 pm and was picked up by Debar from Quest Volunteering, the agency I have gone through. We made our way through the chaotic streets of Kathmandu. The traffic here is like that of Hanoi without the major arterial roads or highways. Simply just crowded tiny lane ways with traffic going both ways on both side of the road. I am staying in Thamel during my training. It is the Khaosan Road of Kathmandu.

When I arrived Deban said he would pick me up at 10am and I would begin my training at the Quest office. Shortly after, I went to my room only to find there was no electricity. As a result of the Himalayan hydroelectric power plants freezing up during the winter the whole country is put on electricity rations. Suburbs switch on and off like clockwork and unless your building has a generator, you're powerless until you come back online. This is frustrating. At that point my raging sore throat was killing me and I had no voice so I went to bed at 2:30pm. I awoke at 10 when every light came on when the power returned and then took two night cold and flu tablets and woke again at 5am without the throat complaint but had the whole nasal congestion experience to contend with. Besides that i was raring to go.

I met Sanju Friday morning. He is from Quest and he took me to their office. I learned that there were only 6 volunteers here until i leave in May and I was only the second to arrive. All are from Europe and are doing the orphanage thing. I also learned that two of the Quest staff are from Chobar which is where I am to be posted. Both went to the school that I will be teaching at so they thought that I would be suited there. I think I'm being looked after.

That afternoon after some Nepali language sessions Sanju took me to the Monkey Palace and Durbar Square where I had the opportunity to see the Kumari goddess. The Kumari is a girl currently aged 7 who lives in a temple until she bleeds. Presumably that's when she gets her period but if she gets a scratch or cut before then she is replaced by a new Kumari. The Kumari lives the rest of her life in Nepal as a goddess and is allowed to leave the temple. It was a unique experience.

I finally found some WiFi that wasn't blacked out and checked my Facebook on Friday night.

Leaving for Chobar on Sunday and am undertaking some more language lessons tomorrow.

Namaste!

Rob.

Until Africans recognise the value of their history, their artefacts and other cultural heritage will continue to be plundered by others
THE news that Yale University has agreed to return thousands of artefacts that one of its researchers took from Peru in 1911 reminded me of a party that I attended recently — one that I had to leave prematurely.
An African friend had invited me to the event, at an acquaintance’s home. The host, a wealthy American, proudly displayed his collection of paintings and sculptures.

As he showed us around, there was one object that appeared to be African, but I wasn’t sure; on occasion, I have identified art as African only to learn that it was, in fact, Native American.

 

The piece was an animal skin stretched and decorated with coloured beads, and framed behind glass. The beads were the same kind that my people, the Maasai, use, but the dominant colour was blue, not our preferred red.

“Where is that from?” I asked, pointing at the piece on the wall.

“That is from Zimbabwe,” our host replied. “It’s a wedding skirt that was worn in a Ndebele royal wedding in 1931.”

For an African away from home, finding even the most insignificant African object on display can make you happy. When I see Kenyan or Ethiopian coffee for sale in New York or Paris, for example, it makes me proud that there are Americans and Europeans who consider a product from my homeland valuable.

Learning that a wealthy American had found a traditional African skirt worthy of a place in his home triggered the same feeling. But our host’s next remark erased it instantly.

He boasted that he had acquired the skirt illegally through a friend who had “paid” a Zimbabwean government official to smuggle it out of the country. My friend and I looked at each other, trying hard not to show our disapproval.

“I’m so disgusted,” my friend said a moment later. “Let’s leave before I get drunk and say something inappropriate to this guy.”

We left the party. On the way home, we ranted angrily about what we had witnessed.

But our contempt was driven more by the West’s role in supporting corruption in Africa than by the fate of the specific Zimbabwean artefact we had seen. It wasn’t until I heard that Yale had returned the Peruvian objects that I began to think about African artefacts as culturally and historically important.

Many African artefacts have, of course, ended up in Western museums or in the hands of private Western collectors.

The pieces are largely the loot that Europeans pillaged from Africa during the slave trade and the colonial period. Perhaps the most famous is the sculpture known as Bangwa Queen.

Valued at millions of dollars, it is the world’s most expensive piece of African art.

African art exhibitions usually include stories about each piece’s origins, which are often tied to an African kingdom. But information about an artefact’s journey to the West is often vague or nonexistent.

For example, The New York Times published an article last year about an African art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum. The Times reported that the Bangwa Queen has been owned by many famous collectors “since she left her Cameroonian royal shrine in the late 19th century”.

In fact, the Bangwa Queen “left” Cameroon with Gustav Conrau, a German colonial explorer who later gave the statue to a museum in his home country.

Considering the suspect tactics that colonial agents typically used to separate Africans from their possessions, it is unlikely that the Bangwa Queen left willingly. African artefacts on display in New York, London, Paris and elsewhere have similar stories.

Peru’s reclamation of its cultural heritage made me wish the same for Africa’s looted artefacts. But Peru is fundamentally different from any African country. Its demand reflected a reverence for its past. To Peruvians, the artefacts are a reminder of the great Inca civilisation that European conquerors destroyed.

Africans, on the other hand, tend to discount their past. To some extent, Africans appear to have internalised the condescending colonialist idea that Africa was primitive and needed to be civilised. We don’t treasure our historical artifacts, because they remind us of our rich civilisations’ supposed inferiority.

It is no wonder that an object as culturally important as a royal wedding skirt can be smuggled out of a country without anyone noticing. Until Africans recognise the value of their history, their cultures’ artistic output will continue to be up for grabs. Project Syndicate
Juliet Torome is a writer and documentary filmmaker

When the new year began I decided I should try to eat vegan at least for a month. I decided to do that mostly out of curiosity on how it'll effect me (I really like to try most people think its bad-that's how I discovered wonders of CS!), how hard it was in my country to get that kind of food, how the people around me will perceive it and also because I don't like what's happening to animals all around the world. When I was still in high school these things effected me so much, I could feel them suffer, but because it was too big of a burden for me I decided I should stuff those feelings along with others that made me cry and suffer with them in a place where I wouldn't be bothered with them. Of course in a while I put up my life on a right track, but I started feeling like I was numb, like I should let those feelings back. At first they were a really hard thing for me to deal with, but now I can control them. I know, I feel with people that are sufferening, but I try this energy to be focused and then channeled into helping in other ways and expressing these feelings through music. I really hope this helps anybody, I dont' know if it does-yet, but I hope it does. Well, but that's another topic to discuss, so now let's focus on my decision of being vegan. Here are the results:

 

Eating out: I've learned there are some restaurants where you can get really nice vegetarian foods and just a few with vegan foods. What I like about one restaurant is, that in a month I've been going there they expanded vegetarian foods. In most restaurants you have like one vegan dish and a few vegetarian ones, but you can get by.
What I missed is that if I go into smaller grocery shops you don't have many foods to choose from as well-mostly you can find foods with added milk, eggs and honey, the only few things you could choose from are: some fruits (like apples and bananas), bread, some crackers, different kinds of juices, other from that you can hardly get anything-it's like cheese, different kinds of yoghurts, sandwiches and snack all around you, but not for you.

Buying vegan foods: you can get bread everywhere, different kinds of flour and grains and nuts as well, that applies for fruit and vegetables as well, but getting soy milk, soy and other vegan products is a bit trickier-you can get them in big supermarkets and in specialized stores for that kind of food (i found 2 in our capital city), but the prices are still bit higher than they are for other foods.

Other people's opinion: I noticed that loads of people think that if you eat vegan you don't have much to choose from and they all think that eating vegan you don't get all the vitamins etc. that you get if you eat "normal". I learned that that's not true, I've also told them what I knew but some of them didn't want to listen to me at all (of course I didn't wont to bug them, its their opinion after all) and some even insisted that the way I'm eating is not healthy for me, that for sure it's ok if I'm only going to do it for a month to clean my body, but then I should eat normal. WHat is normal anyways?
THe most often discussion when you mention that you're eating vegan is-firstly we have to determine what that even means-was about how unnatural that was or about treating the animals. Most people agreed that the way people treat animals they kill for food isn't the right way and that many animals are really suffering.
Killing animals: I even discovered about cases around here where they don't treat animals the way they should be treated. We agreed that if the animals wouldn't get the aditives and be treated against their nature (pigs in Ihan don't get to sleep because they want them to think its always daytime, time to eat; chickens everywhere around here don't have even enough place to move so they can't stand on their own-and I can tell you this because we bought one chicken from a chicken farm to be "our pet" and when we got her she couldn't stand normal, she had too long "claws" and she wasn't able to jump on a stick for the longest time, she had really bad feathers and didn't look well, but since we got her she got better and now she's really healthy and looks really beautifull). I think every animal should be treated nice and be left to live freely and if a human being should kill to survive then it shouldn't kill with anger but should recommend that animal to higher powers and "kill her with respect". I know this sound awfull, but if one should kill he should do it because there couldn't be other choice for him to survive or at least if they grow their cattle for eating they should left them to live normal and when killed they should kill them with respect, if you know what I mean. And I'm not for killing, but this could be at least one step closer to not killing at all. Nobody deserves to die in horrible conditions and on force. That's just not right.

My family's reaction: At first my mother and brother didn't want to eat vegan and I didn't want to force them. I told them I'll eat vegan and they can eat whatever they want, but in the end we all got adjusted to eating vegan. And I'm really glad my father listened and now he's researching veganism and is all for it :)

How did I feel and how do I feel now: Putting my cold I got aside, ever since I started eating vegan I feel better. I set my mind with this goal and I achieved it. I have to say that the toughest wasn't the begining. Yes, it was though for me because I didn't know how many foods I could eat (I only thought of vegetables and fruit at the begining), but when I found out the variety of foods I could eat it wasn't that hard anymore. The thoughest time for me was the 3rd week of eating vegan, I had this thurst to eat honey, sweet things and cheese, but I got by. Now when I think of eating meat I feel sick, I really don't know why.
My digestive system at first had some problems with gas (hehe), but after that I felt so much better, no more that itching feeling on my skin, no more anxiety and that horrible feeling I'll have to go to the toillet for my diarrhea. Yes, now I'm free from it!
Since I want to know on what my body reacted that badly I'll slowly add foods on my menu to see what it is. I suspect milk and milk products.

WHat now: I'll keep my basic diet vegan, but when needed I'll also eat honey and use eggs for the desserts I'll make. This decision is because we have bees and chicken at home and we treat them real nice and I don't see a problem why I shouldn't use these products. From time to time I'll probably eat some cheese (but really rarely) but I decided I won't use milk and exclude as much milk products as I can from my diet. I also decided I'm not going to eat meat since I don't have any cravings for it anymore. So basically my diet is going to be vegetarian/vegan.

I'm really glad I tried this out it made me see some things more clearly as I saw them before.
At first it was though for my family because we weren't used on cooking whithout milk products and eggs, but now that they've seen how many great recipes one can make even with "just" vegan products it's much easier :)

Oh, and one thing ... Normal sausage costs you like and 1€ for 4 of them but for vegan sausages you have to pay for the same amount of them 5€! I won't be eating sausages, so I'm not complaining, but it's not fair! ;)

 

To all of you who don't know it or can't decide-try and you'll see if it suits you!

 

 

Amirul Alam Shiplu (February 1),

 Fake Certificates Blog (February 1),

 infoBdNext (February 1),

casadocaminho (February 1), 

Adama Diop (February 2),

 Joel (February 2),

 Chisomaga Anyanwu

 (February 2), 

gukamaa (February 2),

 Benhildah Chihota-Masuka

 (February 2),

 Aime (February 2),

 adrianna smith (February 3)

, Himakshi Piplani (February 3),

 Odil (February 3),

 mm (February 3),

Luisse (February 3),

 Adae

ze Njoku (February 3)

, Prashant (February 3),

 Semakaleng (February 3),

 Abigail Ngulube (February 3),

 meddahi(February 4), 

alisa (February 4),

 Plamena Doycheva (February 4),

 Edknowledge Mandikwaza (February 5), 

G.M.Ghanjera (February 5),

 linda williams (February 5), 

alfonso (February 5),

 Petra Opelova (February 6),

 Kerri Scheer (February 6), 

Arslan Jumaniyazov (February 6)

, Ajay kumar(February 6),

 Pablo Accuosto (February 6),

 Zainul Abedin (February 6), 

YAMIN BHAMANI (February 6),

 mada (February 6), 

Ekaterina (February 6),

Nigel Ayow (February 7),

 Ajay Kumar Uprety (February 7),

 Harun (February 8), 

nguyen thi ngoc bich (February 8),

 firman kamil (February 8)