Radio talk

Last week my car was on national television and this week I am interviewed for a local radio station – the things one doesn´t do to promote MS Nepal.
It all started with a call from Herman, a guy from a local radio station asking me if I am interested in participating in a radio programme on women´s participation in the Constituency Assembly Election. Thinking this is just a random idea I said that it sounds like an interested programme. The next things I was told was to be in the studio for recording 20 min. later. So I had no choice than to jump on the motorbike and drive the 15 km. to the studio.

Despite limited vocabulary in Nepali I believe I did manage to say one or two things about women´s participation in democracy that did make a bit of sense. At least my colleague, Ishwori, who was with me and luckily did most of the talking, was just as excited about my performance as Herman. So who knows, maybe this wasn´t the last time I will be speaking my mind on Nepali radio.

Water and water and water and…..

Finally, the rainy season came and with that lots of water. As you have probably seen on TV South Asia is severely affected and the Southern part of Nepal has also seen serious flooding. In Banke district, in which I live, 42,000 people (of a population of 150,000) are affected. Also the paddy fields have been emptied after the flooding most likely resulting in a shortage of food in the spring.

I got an extremely bad start to the flooding. On the first day of the flooding I managed to drive my car into a ditch that I simply couldn´t see due to the 40 cm. of water on the road. It turned out to be quiet a show with UN car and a tractor trying to get my car out. In the end it took a crane from the Department of Roads to save my car from drowning.

Nepalgunj was completely flooded for 5 days with very limited mobility unless walking in 4 feet high dirty, polluted water seemed appealing. We went for 8 days without electricity and clean water and I certainly came to realize just how dependant I have become on my mobile, laptop, refrigerator and taps with water coming out of….