Donations welcome for Nepal

My first step today has been going to the main hospital in Kathmandu and register to the volunteer's desk set up just outside and that seems very active; many young nepali are showing up and mainly in the daytime not much efficient help is possible..I will try later in the evening as it seems a little more of a needed time.
I managed to donate blood though, even if I come from Bangladesh and even if it was 2pm and I had had a good breakfast, and even if we were using beach chairs to lie on and there was no medical tape, but I guess every little help is good right now..
I am committing part of my budget planned for this trip to actually buy food and help here personally as the international aids are not reaching sometimes the people that really need and around the city of Kathmandu many villages are complaining and lacking support..
I am providing my paypal account or, if you are in Italy, my postepay number to anyone interested in chipping in and supporting my cause.
My flight back to Europe is on the 8th of may and every donation arriving after that date will not reach as directly as I would otherwise before that!!
Just send me your email address in a comment just below the post or if you have my gmail email account drop me a line and I will give you the details.
Feel free to share it with your friends..
I am not gonna post picture of destructions and suffering, but I will try to get some shots of the smiles and dances of the young kids unaware of what happened to them and their lives, or just of the sun over the Himalaya....

updates from here

Sun and rain alternate themselves over Kathmandu, while locals have been waiting till noon today as it was the 72nd hour from the big heartquake as the seismologists recommend and the media accentuates and people are scared, they are afraid of any little aftershock that till last night kept happening...
The capital is slowly waking up from the nightmare, but it's not easy and it's justifiable, also because for some there is nothing left to restart from, some shops are slowly re-opening and very few tourists are seen around, it's easy for them supported by their government to jump on free flights back home and leave the darkness, the destroyed, the weak behind and show the pictures back home.....
I am not planning to do that, but I am struggling (maybe for my faults) to understand how to practically do something to help, also because some locals seem to be expecting resources to arrive and cash for the rebuilding and everyone is expecting to be told what to do.....initiative and efficiency are clashing at the moment and it's not helping those that really need it, that at least around the area I find myself seem not to struggle as much!!
I am, most likely, not realising and feeling the real truth behind all this as I have lost my "wow factor" some time ago and nothing surprises me or shocks me anymore, but I am here and I feel it's right to support the country somehow, even if I dunno how...and even if the fear of spreading diseases are already being gossiped...
I am quite relaxed so far as I am in good hotel and treating myself with some fresh fruit and some very basic street food that is very sparsely available...

safe (so far) in Kathmandu..

A ghostly city welcomed me, no power, no people as they are all gathering in open spaces under the rain, or at the airport ready to be sent home...
My flight on landing was sent back to Dhaka as Karhmandu was just getting struck again from the aftershocks....so we were put on the national rescue plane that Bangladesh was sending to recover their nationals...extra fuel on before taking off, the captain said, as we might have to wait on air before landing, we ended up staying two hours above the city and then one in the queue to leave the aircraft after the descend..
Some dotted lights in the darkness, and a grey cloud that rurned heavy rain welcomed us in a shocked country, easy formalities and out in the bivouc that scared local and concerned tourists had created outside the building..
I am ok, I am gonna stay here for 12 days and the family vacation is officially postponed to next month...

short (real) stories from Bangladesh...

- The driver had just asked the young coworker (that amongst his duties has hanging out of the door and shout at people to inform where the bus is going!... and help passengers jump on the moving vehicle!!) to check the front tyres cause he heard a noise.

Nothing.. the careless boy gets back on and the driver carries on pushing on his gas pedal with the usual strenght till the third gear (luckily), then a huge blast and the bus that goes little skidding till the he manages to brake it on the side of the road few metres away from some big trees that here work as guard rail and the rice fields just a metre or so below the level of the pavement...

I was sitting just in the front seat just actually above the tyre that exploded and I was the closest to tree if only he had managed to reach the fourth gear!!... little panic in the back of the bus, but in two minutes they all squeezed in another, crowded, bus coming from behind, after having fought to collect the 40 taka (50 eurocent) fare back ..

Only the driver was left and he just looked after me getting me on the next bus coming, that was actually empty and little better quality than the previous two..

I was on my way to a small village closer to the border with the West Bengal province of India and 150 kilometres away from Kolkata, where a huge banyan tree attracts young and older people for pictures...

a couple chilling on one of the roots of the banyan tree...

for the police records...

- "Do you have internet?" I asked the restaurant owner, yes, he smiles and he shows me the five lines of signal reception on his smartphone, the 3G connection is the very big thing here now as well as phones (everybody has got one or more than one!!) and routers providing wifi to share are nearly impossible to find...I struggled with it in the last few days, I managed to find a good one for few hours in a very dark restaurant/bar where young couple meet far from people's (or their parents) eyes and gossip, a very strange dodgy looking place, in a five storey building basement, playing romantic Bangla songs on the large flat screen tv with western and chinese menu...

I get very surprised looks and sneering when (usually it's the third question after "what is your name" and "what is your country") I reply "not married/alone/single!!" to the "are you married?"!!! "Yes it's possible" I say to convince them!!... and they smile!!!

Bangladesh is a muslim country and it feels so indeed, mainly from the few women seen around the streets, no as many calls of prayers coming out of mosques, no many men walking around holding hands...

As I am writing this post there is a little earthquake and we all walk down in the parking level of the 6-7 floors building (my couchsurfing host home) I find myself in, and that's where I have seen as many women altogether as never so far..we are back up after 3 minutes!!!

a little bit the contrary of what I have just written..

- It's elections days in Dhaka (and Chittagong) and my new Bangla friend told me that the city needs two mayors, one for the northern part and one for the southern; there are 70 councils and one woman and one man per council running for the two spots!!

The city is full of A3 papers in black and white with political campaigns messages, I can only understand the picture and the symbol that each candidate has, from the national fish (hilsa) to the kite, from the telescope to the chicken cage!!... as in Sri Lanka, if you remember, to help the illiterate to understand who to vote...

Now my question is, in our countries (so called developed!!) we don't have symbols, for candidates, as we sell ourselves as literate and educated , but how it's possible that politics is still bullshit??!!!
How is possible that we still allow someone just sly and possibly slimy to sell us words like democracy, like rights and economy without real meaning it, why do we still allow these mostly liers being to use the word corruption when they are lobbists themselves..
Let's make politics moneyfree and powerfree and let's see what happens...

vote for the "spinning top" candidate...

- It's a cloudy and rainy and little thunderstom and earthquakes here and there day in Dhaka; tomorrow is my flight and I have decided not to go to the day trip to a small old village nearby as planned, I believe I can survive without it...maybe I will go to market or maybe I will just do nothing and enjoy the fresh air that the rain is taking with...
In the balcony outside of my room a man made pigeon house as I have seen many so far in Bangladesh; some people keep them as outdoor pets or for recreational purpose only and uncaged, others instead (caging them) have them (cooked...) in different spices...

pigeon town....

Banglanised...

The first consideration of this post is a quote that I came across some time ago and that said: Don’t fear death, but life not lived!!

…the other day in the middle of the old town in Dhaka, just when the sky was getting dark, sitting on a scruffy and uncomfortable rickshaw lead by a slim middle aged dark man, stuck in an insane and indescribable traffic where pedestrians were reaching faster their destinations than any other wheeled vehicle around, with thousands of eyes on me, and with hundreds of smiles and head shakes towards me and with not enough oxygen in the air for everyone there, just there in one of the most crowded places I have found myself in, I caught myself thinking that!!

Everyone is scared to die, but how mean would be to do it with little to tell!!...(I just noticed that the death theme is around lately….)

The point is actually not death but life!!! Try to leave your comfort zone, step slowly out of your soft mental cottonwool, give yourself a chance to go out there and get dirty, you cannot imagine how rewarding that can be, in that precise moment I would have done anything to have next to me my parents, or even just my ex, maybe my sister, the people I love, to share that moment that it was simply priceless, breathless!!

Bangladesh is truly embracing me in a warm and genuine hug, “are you traveling alone?” I get asked between 10 and 15 times per day, but I am never alone, I can’t manage to walk more than ten minutes without getting someone stopping to question or welcome me... I have been given business cards and phone numbers from strangers that are willing to make my traveling easier than it already is…

The country is more than unbeaten as destination itself, I haven’t seen any other traveler and it looks like the locals have not either, since very long time..

“Your culture is different from us” Amin, the waiter in a restaurant, told me pointing at me wearing shorts and curious of the bracelets around my ankles!! … “Your country is rich!” Nidaul repeats more than once while he forbids me to pay for my own breakfast, “You are our guest!” Zaman and Khokon remind me paying for my lunch or the traditional tea, with generous sugar and condensed milk, available on any side of the road!

I haven’t been offered though, a fork or spoon so far in any diner, so I am enjoying eating with hands as the old african times and I love it!!

The traffic lights don’t work or exist as they have no sense as everyone breaks every rule, even new ones that they make up themselves right there, so at crossroads you might find a couple of gentlemen in uniform with long and threatening wooden sticks controlling the (dis)order! Or to say, the traffic in Dhaka is sick, illegal, forget Bangkok that in comparison is an enjoyable sunday morning drive in the countryside!!!

Yes, I am struggling little to understand how much my price for everything/anything gets pumped, and when to haggle and when not cause, even then, they are super cheap!!

Everyone in some ways wants a little extra share from the "wealthy" visitor, even the mosquitoes at night are taking advantage…

Yes, I am struggling as well with all the selfies and pictures I get asked to take with random people and with the lack of real “me” time or even space, as I find myself surrounded by twenty or thirty nosy people “checking me out!”…

Yes, I am struggling quite a lot sadly to understand how unfair the world is, how exaggerated and wasteful our lifestyle is compared to nearly any someone here!!