Strikes, Curfews and Demonstrations.....

No-one could have predicted the sudden upsurge in the political conflict that coincided with our training start date. For a period of 20 days, a strike or ‘bandh’ was imposed throughout Nepal in protest against King Gyanendra’s autocratic rule.

Many of our family, friends and supporters were concerned for our safety during this time but it was needless. Despite massive civil unrest in other parts of the country, life goes on much as normal in Nepal's tourist areas, where we are based. The total lack of road transport was a problem for us but luckily our students were willing to walk to lessons outside of the curfews. A 2-hr walk to get to school is not unusual in Nepal, but is of course a little more challenging when you are blind!

Sadly the road strike did prevent us from receiving our much needed anatomy training models. Too large to come by air, these models were supposed to arrive from India by road courier but could not; and as a result we were forced to improvise. Pictured is Rob with ‘George’ a skeleton we managed to purchase from a scientific traders in Pokhara. He is not, strictly speaking, exactly anatomically correct (being made in Nepal of course), but our students think he is great and he’s really helped their understanding at a basic level.