Day 6 in Nepal - More Elephants, The Village Cooperative, and Serving the Patients of Anandaban.

I feel like I have arrived back at home today, after 3 nights away I am back at Anandaban Hospital. This place is so beautiful, not just the scenery, but the people also.. everyone is so warm and they make you feel as if you are amongst family. Such a beautiful place.

Today started off with my one last moment of tourism in Chitwan. As we didn’t have to leave till 9:30am, I woke up early and headed off to see my new favourite animals, Elephants, at the Elephant Breading Centre. Here I met some very cute baby elephants, who curiously ran over to see the tourists, but then got shy and hid whenever the tourists came too close! 

I was quite glad to finish the touristy part of the trip and head over to the village of Bhandara where there is a cooperative self-help group set up by the Leprosy Mission. These groups are started when Leprosy patients want to start an enterprise after they leave the hospital and head back into their communities. This cooperative was given 20,000rupees after they gave a solid proposal about how they would use the funding, now they are a group of 25 people (mainly women), who purchase cattle to create revenue within the cooperative. Each member pays 120rupees a month to feed into the fund, they have now paid back their loan and have about 15,000rupees in the bank. This group now wants to learn how to make products that they can sell at the market, such as soap.

The visit was amazing, when we entered the village the women bought us flowers, more flowers, and even more flowers! They then invited us to sit on the porch of the meeting house while we asked them for their stories, the people were so lovely and hospitable, they even gave us breakfast at the end of our visit. I felt so honoured to be with these entrepreneurial people, and I feel inspired by seeing the women push beyond the stereotypes they can be given as they become successful business women. 

I then hopped on a plane and for the 15minute flight back to Kathmandu, and then waited for about 2 hours as the driver picking us up got stuck in the terrible traffic that can be found in Kathmandu… I think the road congestion is bad in the UK, but it really doesn’t compare!

Upon arrival at the lovely Anandaban hospital I ventured up the 365 steps (a harsh wake up to my legs after the past few days in the flat area) and met up with the rest of the Young Adult group who I left behind when I flew out to Butwal. I caught them just as they were heading off to serve dinner to the patients. This was a great opportunity for the team to serve the patients of the hospital in a very practical way.