We are now settled in our temporary flat and I am getting adjusted to life here. We have worked out which lights run on the invertor system so when the electricity is off , which is most of the time it seems, we still have one light that works in each room and some plugs for recharging things like phones and laptops.
It is getting warmer every day and we had a brief thunder storm a couple of days ago which meant that the next morning I could see a glimpse of the mountains from our flat roof, a real treat.
I also felt my first earth tremor when sitting down working at my desk, it felt like the ground was moving as if I was on board ship-just a little after shock
Now we have bought iodine solution I am able to sterilise the fruit so we have been enjoying grapes and papaya from the fruit sellers barrows. The water here is so contaminated that one can only eat cooked fruit and vegetables, anything eaten raw must be peeled or soaked in iodine solution. I filter and then boil all the water we drink or brush our teeth in.
My language is coming back so I am finding it easy to bargain for taxi fares and buy groceries but I am looking forward to starting my refresher language class next week.
Every day is very busy at the moment, I have to travel right across the city by taxi to a hotel where my 5 day course on basic project management is being held. It is run by a British trainer from Mango, an organisation which provides training all over the world. The participants are mainly Nepali with some from other Asian countries too. I am learning all about budgets , cashflow and spreadsheets and it is surprisingly interesting. I know it will be invaluable when I start my project work.
We have been made very welcome by the UMN team and have already been out to dinner and to tea with different colleagues. So, if I was writing a report on the first week I would say"a promising start!"
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