‘We need to wash the windows. You can’t even see the outside through these dusty windows.’ Petra, my Israeli colleague said in a firm voice. ‘Who knows when was the last time these windows were touched with water.’
I was standing outside an orphanage in the outskirts of Kathmandu. Petra and my Spanish colleague Diego were standing next to me. We were all looking at the windows of the orphanage. In a Western country, very few people would have let their windows to reach the state that the windows of the orphanage were in. They were grey, nearly black.
The oldest of the girls living in the orphanage were jumping around us, speaking in Nepali. They kept on looking at us, as if they were wondering what we were talking about.
‘But we need to be careful about what we do here’, I said. ‘We already cleaned the whole orphanage, changed their bedding, brought in new lights... We shouldn’t offend them. We are on the border of doing that. ‘
Petra looked at me anxiously. ‘I know, but I also feel that we need to do as much as we can while we are here. When we leave, no one is going to do anything. Only then when they get some volunteers or other people working here.’
‘Ok, let’s do it,’ Diego said. ‘We need to leave our mark here.’
We walked into the dark kitchen of the orphanage. The girls followed right behind us. Diego started to fill a pan with water. The care taker, Maya, looked at us with questioning eyes. She didn’t speak any English.
‘Can you please explain her that we are going to clean the windows,’ I asked the oldest of the girls with clear English. ‘Tell her that it will be nicer for you to get more light into the house’
Suntali, the oldest girl, faced Maya and started to speak quickly in Nepali. Maya looked amazed. She opened her mouth and then closed it again.
‘She says that that’s fine,’ Suntali said. ‘I think she is as amazed as us about how much you care and try to help us. Also, she’s never heard about anyone washing windows, so she is curious to see how you do it.’
Diego let out a small laugh. ‘Well, this will be a lesson for her then.’
We took the bowel of water to the kitchen windows and Petra found some old cloth for us to use to clean the window. Diego and I stood on the table and started to wipe the windows. Petra was holding the bowel of water.
Soon all the children of the orphanage and Maya were standing in line right behind us, watching in silence. There was no other sound in the kitchen except that of the cloths against the window and the water.
‘I feel like a celebrity’, Diego said. We all laughed.
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Here is a video on elephants being washed in Nepal, for your entertainment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OgmRrTc4EY
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