Child

It was a joy this week to join a three day course on the therapeuric use of play. It was  excellent – informative, practical and with lots of opportunity to practice on one another. We all quite easily accessed the child parts of ourselves as this picture suggests.I began to ‘get’ how ‘just playing’ can actually access fascinating symbolic subconscious meaning.

Some of you may remember the story of Jamila who worked quietly in the office office as an administrator. She admitted that she would love to learn to be a childrens’ counsellor but no one knew how to help her. There were no relevant courses  in Nepal. However, soon after that a psychotherapist and an occupational therapist arrived in Nepal who were skilled in play therapy. This is now the second course they have facilitated. Thanks to Jamila’s dream, counsellors, researchers and a clinical psychologist all learnt the basics this week and were able to try them out in Nepali.

Creating an accredited supervision course is still my big dream. I’ve been prematurely launched into writing a syllabus for a 16 week supervision module! My research supervisor would like me to teach his masters students. Possibly in January. This would be a wonderful opportunity, but rather sudden. I’m grateful to be able to email ‘help’ to a number of people…..

Annoyingly this cold still refuses to go properly. I’m wondering if it’s to do with the polluted air which is very bad at the moment and am experimenting with a nasal spray.

The festival of Tihar where houses are lit with candles and coloured lights was later than usual and almost blended into Christmas this year. We came home one evening through the candle lit streets to find traditional music and dancing in our garden and were delighted (well I was) to join in.

On Tuesday it’s the annual ECTC Christmas Quiet Day. The theme this year is the Trinity and the Nativity! The day will also include quiet reflection, team building, games, clay work, dance and eating nice food.

The following week I’ll be leaving Andy in Nepal and flying to UK to be with family. We both had different feelings about this December and have agreed (amicably) to separate for our first Christmas in 32 years! Meanwhile, the first Advent candle has been lit, the Nativity figures have been rescued back from the Play Therapy course and we’re listening to ‘A Winter’s Night’ by Sting recorded in Durham Cathedral. (This way I get to celebrate Chritmas twice).

Wherever you are this Christmas and however you celebrate, may you know peace and hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back out of the wardrobe

Using extracts from The chronicles of Narnia has been the best way to describe journeying between cultures. In 2013 we stepped through an English Wardrobe and found ourselves in Nepal.

After 10 years of adventures, challenges and joys we had to say goodbye to many many dear people and places. 

We spent a week on an island in Thailand before returning to UK. Koh Samet reminded me of ‘The Wood between the Worlds’ in The Magician’s Nephew – peaceful and dreamy. A place to relax and reflect before jumping into an enchanted pool that brings you to a different place. During that restful time, I found some acrylics and painted a picture of a magic painting which drew the children through the waves and onto The voyage of the Dawn Treader.’ Tik the owner of the lovely Viking Horizon guesthouse is going to hang it in one of the guestrooms …. so anything could happen!

And in Prince Caspian the children walk through a cleft in a rock and onto a station platform.

‘.. a little flat and dreary for a moment after all they had been through, but also, unexpectedly, nice in it’s own way…’ 

An unexpected surprise was the ‘Angel bombing’ that had been taking place in my parents’ village. Not only is the whole Church full of angels but the whole village has been discovering knitted angels in hedges, gates and garden walls. They have become extremely popular. This is the Church where I first heard about Nepal when I was seven.

In the happiness of reuniting with family and friends I don’t think it has sunk in that we will not be returning to Nepal. (Although I do notice I can’t finish writing this blog to my satisfaction. It’s the last one and I am struggling to let go of it!) We do know that we will never be the same again after this adventure. We will always have a blend of both cultures in our hearts. It may take the rest of our lives to discover what that means!

Stuff

We thought we were living simply here but we seem to have accumulated so much stuff. The good news is that a family from New Zealand will be taking over our flat and will buy all our furniture, kitchenware bedding etc. On 4^th December a nice company come and pack up the stuff we need to take to UK and transport it for us. On 11^th we travel with 2 suitcases to Heathrow via a week in Thailand….. And meanwhile there are people up in Jarjarkot who still don’t even have warm clothes, after the earthquake destroyed everything. Individuals here in Kathmandu are organizing clothes and blanket collections. ECTC will be going as a whole team (except me) from 3^rd – 16^th December to give psychological first aid. But at least I can support with some of the planning.

One of the guesthouses where we stayed on our recent (final) trek had this disturbing Nepali poster that said ‘Change and become the best.’  There’s a lake with a white duck, next to a duck-shaped paddle boat next to a red sports car. The implication being the car is the best.

This is KarChung a lovely lady who owned another guesthouse on our trek. She spoke Nepali nice and slowly so we could have a good conversation. She said that although she would like more job opportunities for her children and nearby healthcare, she basically said ‘You have the stuff but we have the joy.’ My Nepali friends speak longingly of their childhood in remote villages where they didn’t need much cash. They lived off the land and played in the jungle. I’m aware that we ‘supportive’ Westerners have come into Nepal and brought all kinds of stuff with us – Plastic, materialism, pollution, trafficking, fundamentalism individualism… All this reminds me of a phrase in one of Dervla Murphy’s travel books;

‘Perhaps I am no longer quite sure that India’s dire poverty is worse than the dire affluence through which we had been driving twelve hours earlier in London’

In one weeks time it will be my last day at ECTC. Recently we celebrated ECTC’s 14th birthday and Irmgard the founder passed over the ‘baton’ to our manager Persis.

Getting ready to leave anywhere or anyone significant makes me acutely aware of time and mortality. It’s like arriving on a beach on a summers day with the sea way off in the distance. Then the water gets nearer, then it starts lapping at our feet and we move  bags up into the sand dunes to keep them dry and realize it’s nearing the end of the day…

Haunting or hopeful?

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep’ Shakespeare.

 ‘Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day…’ The New Testament.

‘At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door…But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with he rumour that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in’ CS Lewis.

‘This is ours’

AS USUAL PLEASE IGNORE THE ADVERTS. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ME!

Frankly, I was terrified about presenting my research. I’m much more comfortable doing informal interactive teaching. Would I forget what to say? Would it be robust enough? There were 5 years of research to present, would people get bored?! Some months ago a friend presented her research in an arty venue with lots of interaction and other voices. She didn’t seem to mind me borrowing her style. So I used the same venue, prepared lots of creative slides, had group discussions, two actors spoke the voices of the 8 anonymous participants in my 2019 Focus Group Discussion (my main data). What excited me was the phrase ‘This is ours’   We contextualized and translated the supervision course together and the Nepal students own it and I hope will go on teaching it.

My two research supervisors – professor and assistant professor, were the Special Guests at the presentation. It transpired the course has now been accepted by the University – wonderful news.

In the same week as this, Andy and I had been to Pokhara to help with a retreat. It was actually very relaxing (apart from the 10  hour bumpy journey)  and a chance to say goodbye to Pokhara (we first stayed there in 2001) It was then my turn to be a Special Guest and speak at ECTC’s contributuin to World Mental Health day. Some of us wore our saris and the event built some really good connections with the local community. ‘This is ours’ our community and we can make a difference together’

Last week we were suddenly invited to a wedding reception in the Landlords garden! His son had got married in Australia and this ceremony was to welcome the bride into her in-laws’ home. She will now only ever be a visitor to her parents’ home. We all greeted them with confetti made of marigold petals, we danced, ate lots of food and watched as the bride stepped over the threshold – a big moment. The groom then has to bargain with his sister to be allowed in the house too. He has to pay her and there is lots of laughter. This was a family event and many were dressed in their ‘Magar’ tribal costumes. ‘This is ours!’    We loved it all and were made very welcome. This is the landlord and hsi wife.

The following day some of us completed the office roof garden so that it was ready for yesterday – ECTC Team-Care day. The last one I will coordinate. After a rather stressful start, it was a very special day for all of us – spiritual, playful, new learning, challenge, honesty and team building. Here our roof before and after.

And soon I will be letting go; this is their team, this is their garden….

 But finally a special picture of daughter Katie at Tawakwle station in SriLanka – the town where my mum was born 89 years ago. ‘This is part of our family story’ On Wednesday the 4 of us are going trekking together.

Last

The word ‘last’ has at least 2 meanings;

For the last time (adjective)

Will this last? (verb)

For example; Was the other day the last time we’ll get such quick access to medical help?

Andy came off his bike and dislocated his finger. We were at the hospital in about 10 minutes and in a short space of time he had an x-ray, saw a doctor, had an injection, had his finger correctly manipulated and bandaged. (He sent this photo just now from the line of bikers about to wade through a river, so he must be ok!)

Was this the last time I teach a supervision course? (psychology students at the university with a toilet sign in the background)

Will this be the last time I hold a Nepali baby?

This was the last meeting of our Fellowship Group.

Will the impact of these supervision courses last in the students’ lives?

Will these friendships last?

Will our counselling organisation’s sensory garden last and continue to be used?

Will the Counselling Supervision Collective (CSC) last?

Will any impact of my research last?

September

• Wednesday 27^th meet with the CSC team of 4 to do a last training of trainers session and hand over the supervision courses.
• Saturday 30^th our counselling centre’s General Assembly

October

• Create the counselling centre’s sensory garden on the roof with our manager Persis (pictured here in yellow buying some of the plants)

• 4th Leading last team building day on the roof using the sensory garden and lots more.
• 6 – 8^th Andy and I go to Pokhara for the last time to help with a retreat for an organisation.
• 10^th Mental Health Day (I give a short talk about self-care)
• 12^th I present my research.
• 23^rd – 30^th Last trek to Langtang with Andy Katie and David

November

• Ending with clients, supervisees and groups
• 24^th Last day at the counselling centre

December

• 11^th      Andy and I Fly from Kathmandu to Heathrow via an island in Thailand

Developing

 As I reflect on what I’ll miss about Nepal words like ’mess’ ‘chaos’ ‘unpredictable’ suddenly came up. Why would I miss those things?

Every day there’s traffic coming in all directions, perhaps a stream flowing where a road was yesterday, or a trench appearing outside our house, tangles of electric cables,

someone calling ‘fresh mangoes’ someone else with a smoking cart of cooking sweetcorn. A sudden free bus ride in the dark….

A neigbour here is amazed that her UK house is always easy to find, in the place she remembered it to be. Nothing has changed. But when she returns to Nepal it’s not so simple. She often has to look for her home amidst the tangle of new buildings! I don’t like mess, but I admit being in a developing country is often energizing.There’s always something happening, something more to learn. It makes me feel alive, perhaps childlike (especially when I need help to even cross the road or to speak). Many of my friends were brought up in remote villages. Their childhood memories are of telling the time by the kind of cockcrow, sleeping under the stars, natural remedies for illnesses (including grim stories about having tape worms pulled out of them).

Sharda has joined our walking group on Sundays. She knows the names of most birds and the uses of many plants. The tip of this one can be rubbed over the body. Her mother still uses it instead of soap when she washes (it smells of mint and lavender)

Another, a nasty spikey kind of nettle makes nutritious soup. Sharda would sneak out and gather it during lockdown to feed her family. If she doesn’t know what a palnt is called on our walk she just asks a passerby. Nepalis respond to everyone as if they already know them. No need for the British ‘excuse me’ or ‘thank you so much, goodbye..’ etc. Sharda set me the example of climbing a tree, so I followed.

Even in the midst of teaching others I’m constantly having to be a pupil. Especially when a course is all in Nepali and I’m totally dependent on the translator.

We celebrated last week that our counseling collective taught 20 people the supervision Foundation Course.

Despite all the movements and tangles and set backs….. developing.

Foreigner

What is it like to be a foreigner in Nepal? Privileged, complicated, vulnerable….

On Saturday we paid our first visit to the British Embassy. We stepped out of the usual battered taxi and dusty streets into a strange British oasis. Walking on green manicured lawns, drinking coronation cocktails and eating fish and chips as if we were spending the day at some National Trust property.

The sudden ‘Britishness’ of this ‘Big Coronation Garden party’ was quite overwhelming at times. But also fun.

A few weeks ago I travelled by jeep with Sita who used to be our home help. (That relationship is immediately complicated. I remember as a teenager being furious at my Grandmother for having had black servants in South Africa. ‘One day you will understand’ she said.)

Sita had been asking me to come and stay with her for a long time. We drove for four hours in a jeep with ten others. The journey was very bumpy and precarious but nobody complained even when we had to take a detour up a mountain because the normal road was closed. The following day I went back – five hours this time because the jeep broke down! Nobody complained then either and there were fourteen of us this time – 4 young children on laps. The baby woke up eventually, had some milk and then jiggled in time to the music being played! (contented children is something thing I love about Nepal).

    I made up my mind to have an attitude of curiosity and respect about everything in Hetauda. Ironically people were curious about me too because there are very few foreigners in this area. Sita’s home is in a rural area with friendly neighbours sitting outside watching the world go by (another thing I love). She introduced me to everyone and told them where I was from. At least 3 invited us in for tea (another thing).

Sita’s husband’s first wife has something wrong with her legs and has to shuffle across the floor. The family have decided to live near her to care for her (another thing) Just up the road live Sita’s daughter, son in law, his mother, 3 children, and a number of other relatives. I have no idea who they all were. One little girl bowed down so that I could bless her. The mother in law is a committed Buddhist and showed me her worship room. Sita is a committed Hindu. She currently gets up at 3.30am for prayers, then yoga. Her prayer room is very different from the spacious Buddhist one. It was crammed full of ornaments and images, statues, vessels and some kind of fire or candles burning… During the jeep journey she spent time praying with beads. She explained there were 100 and she aimed to pray 10 x 100 each day!!

After a meal with this lovely extended family the daughter, her 3 children and another lady took me for their usual evening walk. She explained that we would visit the Buddhist monastery first because the Guru went to bed early. I found this visit such a peaceful and welcoming experience. Three people were sitting at a table on a veranda – a monk, a wise looking lady in a sari and a jolly man who got us all chairs. I have no idea what this was about. They created an atmosphere of acceptance though. As if anything we wanted to share would be treated with interest and care. The monk then took us to the prayer space where the ladies could pray and the boys were free to charge around. The monk gently placed his hand on the youngest boy’s head as he was leaving. It made me think of Jesus. It also made me wish the Church had this kind of open house set up with wise people available to sit with.

The daughter said her mother-in-law tells her to stop going to the Hindu temple but she goes anyway! Having charged around the Hindu temple, rung the bells and found biscuits somewhere, the boys ran back calling out and expalining about me to the neighbours, ‘This is my grandmother’s friend from China.

I guess the vulnerability is about never quite knowing what’s going to happen next, never sure the food won’t upset my stomach, or the mosquitoes give me dengue fever, not always understanding the language and culture or how I am viewed or indeed what would happen if the jeep couldn’t be mended in the middle of nowhere.  However, it was mended and I am here to tell the tale.

Inside: Outside

What is a Nepali prison like? I am learning that the one nearby is overcrowded, has poor hygiene and poor quality food.

In addition, Kathmandu valley is hot and full of smog at the moment. This is a view from our roof.

 Some prison inmates are innocent, some asked to take the blame for others, many have traumatic stories and very sad situations. Three blocks house 1,400 men who sleep on mats on the floor. Of these around 300 receive medication for mental health issues. There is very little funding to give any counselling support for those who suffer in this way.  I suddenly have the role of supervising counsellors who suddenly have the role of counselling male prisoners. We’ve formed a supervision group we call Naya Dhoka (New Door) Working in this area is a steep learning curve for us. (fortunately I can consult a UK supervisor who has experience of working in prisons)

In contrast, this is an old door. 4,000 metres up in the Himalayas.

I had the privilege to go trekking here with a friend recently. The remote mountain areas were full of space and light and clean fresh air. It often felt as if we were characters from a story like The Lord of the Rings – Arriving at this monastery in the late afternoon sun where we were to spend the night.

We met people on the paths like this 89 year old lady and this young mum cooking for roadbuilders in the open air.  

An unforgettable Easter morning.

Trekking is always a huge challenge, cold and basic but amazing and definitely worth it.

 

Looming transitions

is the title of a book by Amy Young. Some of us are reading together as we prepare to leave Nepal this year.

If you’ve been following this blog for 9 years you’ll know we got into Nepal through a wardrobe.

• 

We have noticed many similarities with CS Lewis’ Narnia series – adventure, challenge, more responsibility and knowing one day we will be asked to return by ‘Aslan’ the king. In Prince Caspian Aslan tells the children;

‘You are too old … and you must begin to come close to your own world now’.

In the Kathmandu chorale this Spring we’ll be singing The Call. It’s already making us cry. It’s a piece from the film version of Prince Caspian and has the phrase;

‘Just because everything’s changing doesn’t mean it hasn’t been this way before..’

Donald Miller writes;

‘’All my life I have been changing…everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons. I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep[ dying when it is time for things to die’’.  

I’m curious to know how to keep my soul fertile. Any suggestions welcome.

It may seem a long time until December but it’s helpful to think about the balance between treasuring here and now and planning for the future. This is an uncomfortable but essential tension to live with.

Here are some of the things I’ve treasured in the last 2 months;

Journey

T.S Eliot says he wrote Journey of the Magi;   ‘….  one Sunday morning before lunch with the assistance of half a bottle of Booth’s gin.’

And here I am this Sunday morning with a mug of coffee one hundred years later. I often struggle to understand Eliot’s poems but find phrases of their ‘music’ never leave me. This poem is also significant as our daughter performs a version of Journey of the Magi on a tour every December with Springs Dance Company.   

As it’s about a journey and about a birth and a death it resonates with myself and Andy. I’m using phrases from the poem as headings.

‘A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:’

We had the news that Andy’s mum was very close to the end and made a dash to Kathmandu airport in the middle of the night. Sadly, by the time we’d reached Dubai airport she had gone. I didn’t care what the Dubai culture thought of me hugging Andy tightly in that public space. We wish we could have been back in time to say ‘goodbye.’

The very dead of winter…

The icy weather seemed fitting – the harshness of Margaret’s ending alongside the beauty of her life.

There were times we regretted the summer palaces on slopes…

We will always miss something of Nepali Christmases – The eastern dusty paths, the poinsettias – the passionate purity of worship without the tinsel-plastic-muzak in the shops. And indeed the simpler more down to earth funeral arrangements.

And the night-fire going out and the lack of shelters…and charging high prices….

And yet how much closer UK is these days to the situation when Jesus was born.

And three trees on the low sky…

These hint gently at something profound for me about three crosses, love and reconciliation, death and new life.

Were we led all this way for

Birth or death? There was a birth, certainly..

…I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different: This birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

Maybe like us this year, there is a dissonance for you about the phrase; ‘Happy Christmas.’

We nevertheless wish you celebration of life and a lamp to guide your way as we share this picture of Andy’s parents two Christmases ago.

Dawn

Headlines

First of all, apologies for all the adverts that appear in these blogs – they have nothing to do with me!

We had a beautiful 5 day break recently – walking, watching the sunrise, meeting interesting people. (see separate blog entitled ‘Monastery’)

Started a fascinating book about Centring Prayer and Inner Awakening by Cynthia Bourgeault.

My data come from observing Nepalis teaching the supervision modules, but we haven’t gone beyond the foundation course yet. Hoping we’ll finally teach Module 1 in November. 

Latest Foundation Course group

Andy and I are both  researchers now. Seriously geeky. I’m hoping to be granted one more extension enabling us to have a visa for this coming year.

It’s all so slow,  so little time left, hard to imagine anything being properly established. I so want to leave a legacy,  and see results. A friend helped me to see things differently recently. I have tried to capture my ‘epiphany’ in 2 poems ….

Dawn – and the Himalayas are

Great shadows of potential

Monochrome silence.

I love this time of day –

This hushed, expectant stillness

Sharp as a Spring bud before it flowers,

Great shadows of potential.

Clean and clear as a rising wave.

Then a hint of daybreak

Spilling, splashing light,

So that the mountain snow is almost

Crashing white

Into the sky!

This marigold – planted by others,

Watered, cherished over time

Is in bud now.

Others will see it unfold

And flower.

So many others before and after. 

‘It is not for you to rush or push

This delicate process

Or to see this living thing as

Your capacity-building project, goal, target,

legacy..

So do not pull apart these precious buds

Or force them into flower. 

Just be present and curious

And delight in this season

As you delight in the dawn’.