Chris and Kris in India 34

Hi all,

This month

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We have moved, a look at our new home.
Chickenopolis rebuild. 

A visit to Kumbhalgarh Fort.
Nepal

Why don’t we care? 

(With thanks to those who have commented on this subject on FB)

In the strong and ancient code that binds seafarers, coming to the aid of those in danger is perhaps the most fundamental imperative. Captains and their crews are obliged to respond to distress calls and mount rescue efforts, so long as they do not endanger themselves or their vessel.

This tradition has, to some extent, been converted into laws. Several countries with long seafaring traditions, including Australia, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States, may actually press criminal charges against captains who fail to render assistance.

Today, international maritime law codifies the obligation to render assistance in such instruments as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) and the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue (1979).
The Annex of the Search and Rescue Convention provides that "a situation of distress shall be notified not only to consular and diplomatic authorities but also to a competent international organ if the situation of distress pertains to refugees or displaced persons."

Last year, the UK government said it was no longer willing to support rescue missions in the Mediterranean designed to come to the help of migrants who find themselves in distress at sea.

This is in violation of internationally recognized minimum humanitarian standards.

Brussels: (Daily Star) “EU leaders gathering in Brussels on Thursday will consider launching a military operation against human traffickers in Libya, in a bold effort to halt the deadly flow of refugees trying to reach Europe by sea”. Deadly flow! Deadly to whom? To those that die trying, or the EU economy that does not recognise the rights of the individual, only the economic gain/loss involved for the state (sound familiar?).

If we truly cared this couldn't happen. The policy of the UK and Europe shames us all, let’s just turn away while children drown, since when do we do that? What if these had been cruise ships, rescue operations would be in full swing but because politically and economically these migrants don’t matter to Europe we will not send rescue ships, we will send warships to stop this.

As survivors laid bare the full horror of last weekend's catastrophic shipwreck near Libya, a draft statement for the summit seen by AFP committed leaders to "undertake systematic efforts to identify capture and destroy vessels before they are used by traffickers."

More than 20,000 men, women, and children are estimated to have lost their lives in the past two decades, while trying to cross the Mediterranean in search of a safe place to live. The majority of these people are refugees escaping violence, persecution, and hardship from countries like Libya and Syria. It is the duty of the international community and in particular the EU to minimize loss of life and do as much as possible to rescue as many people as possible.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is reportedly ready to offer the services of a Royal Navy warship which could seek to prevent migrant boats from leaving Libya. That’s a good idea isn’t it, never mind the refugees, just sink their boats. I foresee a small problem there, how do you know a boat is going to be used before the migrants board it?

EU governments have already agreed to double the resources available to a maritime border patrol (NOT rescue) mission.

"Today we know that the fact that there is no effective rescue operation in place has not reduced but rather increased the number of people who try to cross the Mediterranean," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said Thursday.

Sunday's disaster was the worst in a series of migrant shipwrecks that have claimed more than 1,750 lives this year -- 30 times higher than the same period in 2014 -- and nearly 5,000 since the start of last year.

On the 17th April in an article on Mediterranean migrants by Katie Hopkins (The Sun 17^th April), following the sinking of a migrant vessel on the 12th of April which saw 400 people drown. Katie claims she 'doesn't care if migrants die' Presenting these extreme views as normal is dangerous and only encourages further demonization of immigrants in our own country. Between 2001-2011 migrants contributed £25 billion to our economy, and only 1% of unemployed migrants were on benefits in 2011 compared with 4% of UK nationals. Immigrants are not detrimental to our society but essential. 

The majority of migrants who make this crossing are from war-torn Syria which they flee for their own safety, or Eritrea which they leave to avoid extreme oppression and human rights violations. These people, who can pay sums of £10,000 and sometimes more to make this desperate journey, were called cockroaches by Katie Hopkins. Inexplicably, she described them as 'feral humans'. 

In God’s name save those we can, how many lives will be lost before we, the people of Europe have the courage to act and raise a shout that will resound throughout the world.

Why is it so quiet………………Love thy neighbour as thy self, are these just empty words in todays ‘them and us, the haves and the have not’s’ society. Is this really who we have now become, uncaring, detached from any guilt for these deaths?

When so many are desperate should not we the rich nations of the world act  to stop this shame on all mankind?

Or have we become so callous that they (being poor) just don’t matter?

This from the Guardian
PLEASE read this link.  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/22/
Most migrants crossing Mediterranean will be sent back.
Exclusive: Confidential draft from summit reveals that only 5,000 migrants will be allowed to resettle in Europe with at least 150,000 likely to be repatriated. (Guardian)

Oh and by the way its a 'pilot scheme only'
The head of the EU border agency has said that saving migrants’ lives in the Mediterranean should not be the priority for the maritime patrols he is in charge of, despite the clamour for a more humane response from Europe following the deaths of an estimated 800 people at sea at the weekend.
By the time you read this the 'news' will have moved on to other things, please don't just let it fade away, people are dying, in the news or not. There is nothing the politicians would like more than for this to just 'go away'. Dont let it.

You sit now in front of the worlds most massive force for change: Your Pc and the internet. 

Go online and sign a petition to stop this, have YOUR voice heard, do something, e-mail your MP, announce in the churches of all the world the shame of this, show the politicians that THEY REPRESENT US, these are men women and children being left to drown, this is done in your name, by your governments, please don't just pass by, together we the people can change the world.
God Bless you all.

Our New Home.

Its a slightly smaller house, but with a much larger garden.and an underground tank that we plan a use for.

 
This is the view from the garden gate, We have a large lawn to the left with trees just out of view and a walled border with plants to the right of the drive. You can just see in the centre right border our Solar Safe water purification in action. It is great in that it gets sun all day and I (Kris) no longer have to climb all the stairs to the roof to get to it.

This is the view of our front door, along with our bikes and kitchen cupboards (tall black things by the chairs) which I may utilise in the studio. It is a great place to sit and have a drink with friends as it has shade during the day.

View of our new living room, still in need of personalisation, deciding where to hang paintings and pictures but it has the feel of our first home we had in Station Town, Co Durham. Nice and cozy.

View of our dining room and kitchen door taken from the living room. We plan to use curtains so we can have it as a separate room or open it up if we want more space. Again needs decorating and our paintings and ornaments to make it more us.

Another view of the dining room with doorway to upstairs and the downstairs guest room. We are thinking of putting in a door, it will make the air con more efficient.

Great our new kitchen and it has cupboards to store everything. Not many electrical sockets but Chris has already rewired for that. No longer is it cramped to cook, and now we have 2 work surfaces not just the one.

On this side we have the all important coffee machine, microwave, Magimix and toaster and still room to do food preparation. Its great, just need to organise the cupboards.

Well this is a peak into my (Kris) wonderful larder where I have a chest freezer out of sight to the left of the open door. Lots of space to store food we don't use on a daily basis. There is a small space under the stairs where we plan to keep garden tools. 

Yes you get a peak inside the larder. In front in yellow bag is all important chicken food and the newspaper next to it actually bananas that fell off our banana tree in high wind, they are wrapped in newspaper to aid ripening as advised by Indian friends.

This is the door to the downstairs bathroom (Asian Toilet) and guest hand wash basin.

To the left of the door is the guest bedroom and as you peak to the right you go into our dining room, the stairs are behind.

Side view of the house to the right and our garage on the right ready to rebuild when we cut down the largest papya tree I have ever seen, you can just glimpse it to the left of the fence on the right at the back of photo. Banana trees to the left of it. We have plans for this space.

We plan to turn the left side of lawn next to wall into our kitchen garden with the permission of our landlord who thinks its a great idea. We will start planting after monsoon.

View of our entrance to our new home, the garden has mature plants and trees and we plan to add to it and improve the soil. Bottom right is the cover to the underground water tank that is not in use......yet, we have a plan!

I love this view of the house from the end of the garden, it is a slightly smaller house, but the garden is larger so we have more outside space to do the things we want.

Above left a view of the mature trees and plants in our front garden and the bananas growing on the tree just before the wind knocked it down. Bananas were saved and the main tree had already produced baby offshoots so still more bananas in the future, yippee.


Chickenopolis rebuild. 





Above left is where we dug a trench to get rid of monsoon rain that would swamp the chickens and our first posts for chickenopolis are in place. Note the yellow planter in the background.
To the right the chickens in their temporary netted home whilst we built around them.


Not my most glamourous photo but you can see chickenopolis taking place around the chickens in their temporary home. It was hard work taking down the structure from the old house we had built it to last. Here is the rebuilt version, door put in a more convenient spot, easy access from the kitchen.



As you can see we have put the door in the end of chickenopolis next to the chicken coop.





Fortunately the chickens do not like the leaves on the tree in the centre of chickenopolis, we plan to keep it to give them added shade in the summer.




We have placed tree trunks inside for the chickens to sit on and play on they love them. It is hard to see but in front of the meshed chickenopolis we have used our stone chippings from my old herb garden as a path. 


We have created a nice area using the stone chippings where we can sit on an evening as the breeze is lovely and its very private. Our friends live just behind the wall and there are a few holes where we can chat through if we want.

This is a typical scene of the birds sitting on the logs and just doing what chickens do, which is eat, sleep play and hopefully give us food. They have a very happy life, All or scraps go to them, they love melon................

Yes this is George at about four kilograms weight he is a big bird who is in charge and he lets the new roosters know who is boss. We will have to separate them soon and build a further pen for the cocks to prevent fighting. 

George is very protective of his girls. We think he really is a beautiful bird, we may breed from him one of these days.

Tuesday 28th April and we got our first eggs (Anda)


Yes we got two one for each of us. We were told it would be a few more weeks before we got eggs but we have started.

Guess what is on the menu for tea tonight, these eggs are very expensive to buy in the market anything from Rs 12 to 20 per egg, normal white eggs are about Rs 5 each, although we buy ours in trays of 30. Everyone tells us how yummy they are we can't wait.

This is our very first Anda (egg) cooked for tea, we had one each and it was yummy, yummy and more yummy. Come on girls get laying more for us.


Visit to Kumbhalgarh Fort with Royal Enfield "One Ride", 

Every Royal Enfield Owner in India is invited by their local dealers to go for a ride on the same day. This one was organised by Voyage Motors, Udaipur and it was a great day out. About 200 Kms a mixture of mountain roads and sweeping corners through sections of good road.

This is one of the switchback roads we travelled on to get to Kumhalgarh Fort. It was exciting and a little scary. From the front seat it was well tricky but fun (Chris).

Chris says uphill switchbacks really tight, loose surfaces, really scary bends, loved it!

Some views from within the Fort and views of the landscape surrounding the area were spectacular. And it was a very long climb up to the top in the heat of the day but well worth it.

                                          

These steps were very very high and Chris allowed me to climb on his back as a step to get up the first one with the help above from oue of our friends. Well worth the effort.

What were they doing? This is a bridge over a dried out river bed, the white car was part of our group, came in handy to put in helmets, gloves etc when we went into fort.

This is me at the top getting my breath back, The view behind was beyond description.

Chris after climbing to the top of the Fort, some friends had suggested we just do the gentle temple tour as they thought the 2km climb would be too much for us. We had more energy than some of the younger members and neither of us will give in to age.

Chris sporting his summer beard, neatly barbered and so much cooler for the summer. 

This is us moving out of our old house with some of the packing completed. We got rid of lots of unwanted junk at the same time. The sweeper and our maid were very happy, recycled materials can be sold which is good news for them.

Packing up the paintings and ornaments in our dining room, getting ready for the packers to collect and transfer it to our new home one street away, behind where we were living.

Packers and movers in full operation, very good company and worked hard to protect all our belongings would give them a recommendation any time. A local buisness so costs were far less than we expected.

Packers had everything under control but were surprised we had done much of our own packing its not the Indian way apparently.

Those of a nervous or squeamish disposition look away now!

 

Chris's arm complete with 3 stitches after he tried to chop his arm off, no really he struck his arm with the chopper as he and our friend (neighbour) were chopping the head off one of our Cocks. It was a pure accident, luckily Chris had sharpened the blade just before using it so no jagged edges a nice if deep clean cut, to the bone. Immediate first aid by me (Brilliant first aid..Chris) and then our neighbour drove us to the local hospital to get stitches. Very efficient service at the hospital. Chris says the chicken ducked! Hee hee I say... (Kris).

Hail stones (can you believe its India?) that came down so quickly the lawn became white and they were large. The storm destroyed many many crops across the area, farmers who depend on selling their crops are now in real trouble. Three farmers have already committed suicide. Many borrow the money from lenders to live and repay when the crop sells. We both fear that the number will not stay at three as more and more farmers are realising most of a years income has gone. 

Some of the Hailstones were larger than these but it was amazing to see, but very cold when put down your blouse. Wonder who did that then eh Chris!

Chris took these pictures of the local wildlife at our new home both inside and out. Above a hawk eating breakfast in our lemon tree (a lizard) and below a 2'+ lizard that just wandered in.

It was much larger than it seems here it came in through an open door and Chris chased it back out. Some kind of local Lizard about 2ft in length quite scary and very agile and fast. Would not like it to bite me, very nasty I would imagine.

Our very first lemon from our new back garden lemon tree, smaller than in the UK but very nice we had it in water to add a tang, great tasting. Lots more are growing on the tree.

Finally.

In the Himalayas (Nepal) the death toll from the Major earthquake there has passed 4000, with many more injured. We live in an earthquake zone (low risk of major quake) but geographically not so far away from this one. Rescue through one small airfield and with most of the roads closed because of aftershocks is making it very slow going for aid workers. Many people are now homeless and it is COLD at night. Many have lost family, digging for survivors continues. We heard last night that a man had been found alive after 60 hrs, tapping can still be heard from the rubble.

We ask that you pray for them if you believe, or if you dont then give money, aid will be needed for months yet, of course you could do both.

This  region of India is desert land with 'oasis' of population centers, some major towns but mostly small communities that live with the same problems their grandparents did. As India develops into a world power as we believe it will then life for so many will change.

To be hit by two natural disasters so close together will cause real hardship here for the rural people.

It makes us realise just how much we have, and how much more we need to do to help the Indian people especially the rural community and those on a very low income.

It is predicted that the monsoon this year will be late and less than normal (don't ask me how the weather people can do this) so water again next summer will be a major issue.

We will continue building the NGO, doing what we can. Our lives are here now, this is our home, we may be foreigners but our hearts are Indian. 

We hope you enjoyed this months blog.

May God bless you all

Chris and Kris.