Pokhara, Nepal, 30th November  2024

Dear All

Our last week in Nepal has arrived and we are back in Kathmandu for Alex’s final three days of work with UMN, a sister organisation to INF. Our goodbyes in Pokhara were as poignant as ever, both old and new friends hard to leave, but we have a sense of things having been completed well for now and it being definitely time to head home.

During these months in Nepal, we have been reminded just how much in transition this wonderful land is, for better and for worse. The ‘brain drain’ we mentioned before, young people seeking better lives overseas along with other migrant workers, adds up to 2 million Nepalis overseas, and the money they send home accounts for over 26% of the economy, more than international development and foreign investment combined! But it carries a cost. We recently spent a night in a village just a day’s walk from Pokhara. It was Tihar festival time, and families werecoming back together. In the home where we stayed, all the second and third generation now live overseas andin fact we met two of the daughters who had come home from York in the UK where they are now working as nurses. Looking forward it’s clear that as the elderly parents decline, and their neighbours too, this village will die, the next generation seeing their future outside of Nepal.

Leaving this week has meant our last journey on the Chinese made road from Pokhara to Kathmandu. When it’s finally finished, complete with a tunnel and new bridges, transport for people, food and other goods will be transformed, just as is happening with new roads all over the country. However, all these roads are inevitably bringing noise and tarmac to previously green places, the forested hillsides and tranquil villages of rural Nepal. And there’s also nervous speculation that these Chinese roads, and Pokhara’s new Chinese built international airport, might one day enable China to ease its way through Nepal to the Indian border.

There’s no doubt that other aspects of Nepal’s beauty are impacted by this ‘rush’ of development. For example, a growing urban wealthy class means more private vehicles, more congestion, more pollution. Rural depopulation changes farming practices, including increased stubble burning. All this not only exacerbates environmental problems, but as a result impacts tourism, one of Nepal’s economic staples for decades. In this they are also somewhat at the mercy of north India and Pakistan fromwhere much of the smog we have experienced drifts into Nepal, obscuring the mountain views and polluting the air.

So do we see any hope for Nepal?

In Pokhara we met up with a Nepali friend now living in Canada, with his wife and kids, all Nepalis and all with Canadian citizenship. While he was back in Nepal this month, he tookadvantage of the government’s new scheme to allow dual nationality for Nepalis with overseas passports. Whereas they would previously have had to surrender their Nepali citizenship to become citizens of another country, they’re now able to return to Nepal and settle here again,without losing their ‘foreign’ passport. A smart scheme aimed at reversing some of the brain drain, a sign of hope for Nepal. We have met a number of Christian expats here with business visas, setting up IT companies,export companies, a plastic recycling business, all providing meaningful, successful work opportunities for the disillusioned young, and the possibility of careers worth staying for in Nepal. There are also similar businesses employing previously trafficked women, giving work and hope where all hope had gone. These ventures we see as hope for Nepal. We have worked with Nepali doctors, nurses, community development specialists, and many others who have chosen to stay and work in their country and for their people; this is counter￾cultural at this time and provides hope for Nepal. There is tremendous hope also in the growing indigenous Nepali church, increasingly active in serving the poor and the marginalised. In his gospel, John records Jesus saying “I have come that they may have life, and life in all its fullness”. Thechurch and Nepali led organisations like INF and UMN have taken those words as their mandate, working among people with disabilities, children, women, and the outcast. And through other organisations too, working in mental health and anti-trafficking, hope is growing in places where there was previously despair.

So, if you’re someone who prays, please remember Nepal, INF and UMN, and all those working to grow hope here, and to bring fullness of life for all in Christ’s name. Thank you for all your interest, encouragement and prayer during our time here. We have relied on it and are so grateful. The current plan is for us to return again next autumn for two months and for Alex to add in an additional two to three week visit in March 2025.

With our love

Claire and Alex

Pokhara, Nepal, 15th October 2024

Dear all

We have been here in Nepal two weeks now so it's time for us to be in touch. As is often the case with travel and new experiences, it feels to us much longer but things are going really well, the inevitable ‘ouches’ not withstanding, and we feel settled and grateful to be back!

Our arrival into Kathmandu was smooth despite all the recent floods, evidence of which was all around us. We are in awe of the Nepali people who face endless natural disasters, more than enough to break the soul of any country, with incredible resilience and acceptance; no wonder a fatalistic outlook is embedded in their language. So just a week after the city had been under water, we were able to drive to our guesthouse and contemplate the road to Pokhara the next day.

The Kathmandu to Pokhara road is a tough one even in the dry season. We took a different route out of the valley to avoid a major landslide bottleneck and actually enjoyed this prettier more off-road route, the road being too small for all the big trucks and buses. But we were soon back on the main trunk route and slowly made our way past more land slides along the whole way with huge boulders that had been shed from the mountainside; no wonder our driver occasionally looked upwards as if to assure himself that more weren’t coming down . In the end we managed the trip in 12 hours, not bad all things considered, and we were simply grateful to be safe and to have arrived.

Pokhara was less of a surprise to us than in May and the air is now clearer and brighter with spectacular mountain views every morning so these are all things we are really enjoying.

Our accommodation has been more of a challenge. It’s more rustic and less private than we had anticipated, so it’s been interesting to experience the ‘cold turkey’ (as Alex called it) of coming off our dependence on comforts and the luxury of private space. We are living in a flat that is essentially the upstairs rooms of a house, lived in downstairs by our landlord. We have a shared entrance, a communal stairway to a communal landing and a shared kitchen downstairs. Upstairs there are numerous bedrooms with beds and a bathroom. One room has a two ring gas cooker and a fridge; we use this as our ‘kitchen’ and tend to use the bathroom to wash-up in to avoid going up and down the stairs. The largest brightest bedroom we use as a lounge/dining area , draping covers over the three beds and adding a few wicker chairs. It’s all perfectly fine from a practical point of view, the biggest challenge being not ever knowing when our landlord is next going to appear outside our bedroom! Private space is less sought after in a land where homes are generally small and shared and where it's assumed you'd be lonely if you are on your own! It’s perhaps not easy for him either; he worries a lot about security after a recent break in, and is keen to ensure we lock up sufficiently as we come and go. So we are all adjusting but he is kind and welcoming and we are finding our way. And a real positive is we have shared Wi-Fi, and a fabulous hot shower, heated in pipes that criss cross over the roof, so that is a daily joy!

Alex started work the Friday after we arrived on the Wednesday and has since facilitated several days of workshops with the leadership team, which seem to have been helpful.

But as I write, we are enjoying the fun of being on trek, high up in the Himalayas , with our daughter and son in law, who arrived in Pokhara on Monday for a short stay, coinciding with Dossain, a big national holiday in Nepal. We are walking the Mardi Himal trek. It’s wonderful to be back in rural Nepal, enjoying the sounds and sights of this mountainous world; mule trains, monkeys, buffalo and yaks, rhododendron forests, endless tea shops and lodges and porters and trekkers with stories of what we have yet to come! Being Dossain we stopped yesterday to watch a high altitude volleyball championship reach its semi final, a competition between nearby lodge camps, the trophy a tethered sheep looking less than happy but unaware of the part it was to play in last nights celebrations!

So we are grateful for this precious family time, a chance for Ellie and Tom to visit the land and place where she was born and to be together in this high altitude adventure. It’s also proving an amazing language re learning opportunity for us as well which is good so early on in our time here. Our guides/porters are patient teachers as well as loving a game of cards at the end of each day with us too.

Alex is working in Kathmandu next week with INF's sister organisation, UMN, so we all return there on Tuesday (that road again!), Ellie and Tom fly off on Friday and we return to Pokhara on Saturday. Thereafter I will be starting my work and Alex will pick up his INF work again too. But more of that in our next email…

Thanks for all your prayers so far. We feel dependent on them!

Sending much love

Claire and Alex

You can also download Claire & Alex's November (2nd) letter from this page