Play For Nepal..

Back in 2012 we lived in Nepal for a few months while we waiting for our visas to be renewed for India. We had these grand ideas for how we would spend all of our time there but as often the way, life had other plans. My Little Feather was badly ill and so we spent more than a month in Kathmandu (more than twice as long as we had planned) in order to stay near by to some decent medical care and whilst that was a super trying and difficult time, the real upshot was the extra time we got to spend working with a local NGO. They were working with women and children who'd been rescued out off Sex Trafficking through providing homes, job training and schooling and as Wild Flower's degree was in International Aid & Development she was able to lend a hand in some amazing ways. The relationships we built with the women and children (heart crushingly many as young as 4) and particularly the Nepali family running the NGO were really beautiful and continue along in our family and I still proudly display their Gurkha blade they gifted to us when we left in the lounge room of my home.

 

For us here in Pai, most of the people in our community have either traveled to or spent a period of time living in Nepal and as so many of us have friends and family there it's been hitting quite close to home with all the horrible news and footage coming out of Nepal of their recent earthquakes.

It was in that climate of shock and sadness that we all decided we wanted to do something to support and brothers and sisters in Nepal and raise some cash and prayers. The Caveman had been previously tinkering away with an idea of hosting a variety night at our community space and getting performers in from all over Pai and when the news of the earthquakes reached our ears and the idea of turning it into a fundraiser was broached, well, the two seemed destined to be.

 
As with what feels like most of my life these past few years, the straight forward and simple path to running the night seemed to allude us all. We'd been thinking about it for a while and it finally felt like the right time to install the sound system in the Salah (the main gazebo/building) and so spend most of the afternoon getting it and the lights wired for the evening. It was midway through this process that a giant storm cell hit Chiang Mai and off went the lights, wifi and most importantly - fans! The storm had knocked out the power to the whole of Pai but unlike Banaras where power cuts could literally last days, here the longest we'd experienced was only 2 hours and so with more than double that before the beginning of the night we had very little concern.

But alas, as the time to begin came and went and we were still without power we raided our Candle stock piles and lit the place with every candle we could get our hands on. And.It.Was.Beautiful! For half the night I walked around wondering whether I even wanted the power to come back on as the ambiance was so sweet but with it also came the somber reminder of those in Nepal who are still without power and the substantially harder problems they face because of it.

But roughly half way through the night the lights did indeed come back on all throughout Pai and from every direction could be heard the unified shouts of "Woo Hoo!!" During the interval we set up the mics and did a quick sound check before Shoonksworth took to the stage to performed a gorgeous piece with her Tampura and prayed for Nepal.

Then Wild Flower, Dizzy, myself and the true star of the show - Little Feather - joined Shoonksworth on stage for a Bhajan. For me this was undoubtedly the highlight of not just the night, but the year!! I got to play with some precious friends, my wife (for probably only the 2nd time ever! So proud!!) and for the first time with my daughter (so so sooooooooo proud!!). I found myself just looking back and forward between them the entire song and the sight of Little Feather strumming along on her Ukulele and singing at the top of her lungs filled up my heart beyond capacity! I'm one lucky man!!

 
The only other notable moment was about half way through our song when the storm hit Pai and the gale force winds began blowing the rain sideways into our Salah and onto us and the sound system. Sometimes you just can't win hey! But with the sweet sound of my daughter's little voice in my ear I was in too happy a place to have minded.

 
At the close of the night after witnessing amazing juggling acts, guitarists, story tellers, jaw-harpists, tampurists, fire dancers and even a poet who offered an ode to his balls - yes you read that right - we counted up people's donations and ended up raising 11,469 baht to go to Abari who build natural housing structures to provide relief to communities and victims of disasters. Which when you think about it, from only 52 or so 'budget' travelers, +11k is a pretty fantastic figure!

So a huge thanks to everyone who came to be a part of the 'Play For Nepal' night at Shekina Garden! Whether you donated, performed, or just came to lend your support we want extend a heart felt thank you!!

And if you're reading this and haven't already, maybe now is a good time to consider opening up your hearts and even more so your wallets to support the relief effort in Nepal! Cause in the right hands even just a small amount can go a very long way to changing someone's life! 

Rough Days & Silver Linens..

I'll be honest. Today was a pretty shitty day.

The electricity supply from the city yesterday was hopeless and we ended up having about a 6.5 hour power outage in the afternoon. This is pretty common for Varanasi and you do your best to get used to it and get on with life even though it's in the mid-high 30's (that's Celsius) with 75-100% humidity. We've been fortunate enough to have an inverter which means that when the city power is on it charges up our battery and then when the city shuts the power off, we have enough charge to run small items like fans and lights, whilst big ticket items like fridges and A/C's have to just sit and wait. But there is one sound which strikes fear into my heart like no other sound can. The high pitch squeal of the inverter running dry. When I hear this sound, it's the starting pistol signalling that my life is about to get infinitely more difficult. 

Often no power means no water, and not knowing how long you’ll be without power and water is a major headache. About 3 weeks ago a big transformer in our suburb blew up and we didn’t hear about this till it was too late. We ended up having to move into a hotel in a different part of town until the power could be restored 3 days later. A week prior to that our Landlord’s stabilizer which powers the water pump blew up and we were without water for 3 days. In the last 12 months, the Bundar (monkeys) which terrorise our part of the world chewed through the main power cable to our house on 3 different occasions and each time it took 24+ hours to repair. A squealing inverter signals that these wonderful things are happening.

Wild Flower and I heard it last night at about 10pm. The kids had been asleep since 7:30 but once the fan are off it's generally only about 10minutes in this sort of heat and humidity before they'll wake up in a pool of their own sweat and not go back to sleep for sometime. And sadly that's pretty much what happened. We're fortunate enough to have our Ashram just up the path from our house and the inverter there still had a decent amount of charge and so we packed up our stuff (and two very sweaty little kids) and relocated in search of a functioning fan. 

It was not until a couple of hours later that both kids finally fell asleep and lets just say the rest of the night was hard. Lots of waking up from the heat, lots of weird noises outside, lots of little people tears. 

The next morning we were all up before 6am and thankfully found that the city power was back on and charging the inverter in the Ashram. Excitedly we moved back home but were dismayed to to discover that there was no power coming to our house.. cue more little people tears.

The electricity cable to our house comes via a Kali Temple (you remember Kali, she’s the goddess in Indian Jones & the Temple Of Doom, yeah, that one!) that's on the property, then via another house, then finally to ours. None of these had power and as has happened other times in the past, yesterday something blew up in the Kali Temple yet they didn't feel compelled to do anything about fixing it.

I went and spoke with the Landlords who said they had already contacted an Electrician and that he was on his way but left that conversation not feeling convinced. Lets just say that 8 text messages, 5 phone calls, 4 increasingly aggravating visits to the landlords and 11 hours later, the Electrician arrived. Taking a total of 3 minutes he pulled out 3 fuses, cut one piece of wire then twisted it back together again, stuck the same 3 fuses back in where they came from and cha-ching, we once again had power!

We did our best to keep the kids happy throughout the day (which in this heat was hard work) and are praising God right now that the A/C in our bedroom is working as we all slip into bed, but all in all it was a pretty lousy day. I'm dreading the next time we'll have an extended stretch without power (which will happen soon enough), and I'm dreading the sleepless nights with crying kids which accompanies it, and I'm dreading the ridiculously long day trying to get our power lines repaired, so you might be wondering where the Silver Lining is in this story? And it's these.

In amongst the pain of today we were able to witness this amazing procession of gorgeous coloured Saris after gorgeous coloured Saris blowing about in the breeze from the Sari dying building that borders our property. Sure it doesn't quite make up for the accompanying sleep deprivation and heat exhaustion, but it certainly broke up an otherwise terribly lousy day with splashes of beauty and glimpses of something transcendent, and for this, I am truly grateful.