Rafting Goodbye

You will see that many of my recent blogs are all filled with goodbyes, which are always hard times, one of the hardest being when I left my Mum and sister at Heathrow, crazily over 4 months ago. But this weekend was a fun packed one with a sad goodbye.

After the family and Old Inn farewell, we joined Joli, Tim and 11 of the computer class children we were taking rafting. It had been our wish that some of the kids could go rafting for many months prior to this weekend, pretty much since Angela started her volunteering, and thanks to some perseverance, especially from Angela a much valuable quality she has (Thank You!), things happened and we got our wish for our final weekend.

The jeep ride there was an interesting start to our voyage, not filling us with the most optimism in the world. Just prior to our departure the kids had been supplied some simple breakfast by the amazing Old Inn staff, whom as always were very helpful. The only issue was that we had to descend about 700m around winding roads, so you know what's coming now, food and washing machine like stomachs, not a great combination!

So our journey entailed dealing with many children on the verge of saying hello to their breakfast again. But thankfully we had a stop on the way and some of the kids did the necessary actions and after a gargle of water, the journey continued.

2 hours passed and we finally arrived at our destination, the ‘Trisuli Centre”, the home of Himalayan Encounters rafting, and another place where GVI volunteers are placed, and the lovely chaps who were stationed their, were British gentleman, going by the aliases of Liam and Peter. Both of them are doing a great job their helping the community and especially the children, the Young Leaders Club in particular.

The first thing to do was to get our gear of the trucks and have some well earnt lunch, especially for those whose bellies were a little on the empty side. It was a tasty one too, very western, fried potatoes, baked beans, tuna, salad, salami, crisps and bread. And all the kids scoffed it down pretty quickly, volunteers too!

So now things were going a lot smoother, the kids were happy, until we had to find adequate clothing for them. Because all of these kids families aren't well off, they don't have that many clothes and we were hoping the HE team were supplying wet suits. The dilemma was that they only had tops/jackets, but no trousers. Luckily, one of the Trisuli volunteers was there for the rescue, Thank You Liam! He lent all the girls football shorts, but at first you can imagine these girls, who as part of their culture do not show bare legs, were a bit mortified. But Angela and Joli doing the great big sister/mother thing, sorted them out and they were ready to rock and roll. And you can see in the picture above, the moment we were all ready to hit the water, ores and all! So down to the river we ventured, and on the rafts we went.

The HE team was very professional and had supplied 3 rafts, 2 rafts had big ores so that the children weren't in control of the boat (that was the guides job), otherwise this could have been a more dangerous affair. Then in the third boat was Angela, Joli, a couple of the Old Inn staff who accompanied us, 2 of the boys and me. Oh yes, our wonderful guide Dill as well and of course there was Tim (sorry) who was accompanying the rafts in a kayak. He's well experienced from his home country.

At this time of the year the water wasn't very fast and is at its lowest, but when we did reach the areas where there were rapids, it was great fun, our guide would make sure we would go through the places he called“Washing machines", you know what that meant. Luckily though, nobody was flung out of the raft, well at least in the rapids.

It was during the still water when people went into the river, most often, not through there own choice, Dill’s a great rafting guide :-) We also participated in water fights with the other rafts, using our ores as buckets, and to some of the girls it wasn't a delightful experience, that water was damn COLD! Though again, I have to praise the professionalism of the guides, they really looked after the children and during restful periods allowed them to row and they sung songs too, all in all it was a very successful outing!

After 3 hours we were met by a jeep and our clothes and towels were there for us to change, ready to return to the Trisuli centre back up stream, where we were met with warm cups of tea and biscuits. After that, we made our way down riverside to the beach area and the tents our sleeping abode. We spent a good hour or so around the camp fire talking and singing songs before returning to the centre for dinner and straight after back to the river for more songs and dancing.

The kids were having a lot of fun, especially Dinesh who one day is going to really woo the ladies, you can see the picture of him above with the guitar, a right little rock star. He's only thirteen but already has that humour and charm that will win and break hearts in years to come.

After much needed sleep, we woke to a fresh cold morning and headed straight around the campfire that had been re-ignited by one of our guides. Then when all members had arisen, we made our way to the centre for breakfast, which again was very western, but devoured by all.

So that time had arrived, after a quick visit to the big Fig tree and the local kids sports ground, which is sponsored by HE, we were ready for the Bandipur kids and Joli and Tim to return, two passengers less.

One picture above shows all the GVI volunteers together and the other taken not long after, shows the guys pulling away in the jeep. I think it was more emotional for Angela than me, mainly because I shall be returning to Bandipur next week, and I will be seeing them all over again, which will be strange, but nice. Though for Angela it was a definite goodbye at least until the next time, hey Angela!?

Finally, not long after we said our goodbyes to the kids we hopped on a bus and made our way too Kathmandu!