Sunday, May 1, 2011

Vegan in the city to vegan in Nepal!


In the not too distant future I'm heading off an an adventure to pursue my dream of volunteering at the grassroots level in a developing country. First steps Himalaya, is a wonderful organisation that's based in Nelson NZ/ Sindhupalchok District of rural Nepal. They are passionate about early childhood development and provide education programs for families and set up early childhood development projects across the Sindhupalchok region.

As a vegan one of my initial thoughts about going to live in this region was, what will I be able to eat?!! I was literally ecstatic when Fionna told me that Nepal is a vegans paradise! I can not wait to learn some new Nepali vegan recipes! I'm told some of the food we'll be eating includes rotis ( flat breads), black dal, channa masala ( chick peas) and Leela's famous spinach curry! So I'll be sure to try and get on here and add the recipies for these tasty dishes, so you can all enjoy them!

Furthermore FIonna told me that Nepali people follow a largely vegetarian diet and what they eat is largely dependent on what they can grow as well as the caste they belong to. For example many chettri families are not allowed to eat eggs but eat mutton! Rai families are amongst the few that eat pork. Day to day they eat dal- bat- tarkari- Dal, rice and vegetable curry. I'm going to love the change from living amongst a dominant meat eating culture in New Zealand to largely vegetarian Nepal!

If any of you are keen to help out this wonderful organisation they are always looking for people to sponsor fruit at their centres. For $25 a month you might like to pay for the fruit for all of the kids ( once a week) at one of their centres. They also run treks through Nepal and even have a 14 day great adventure program if you too want to help and enjoy fantastic vegan food at the same time!

Please check out their website and contact Fionna or Durga at
http://firststepshimalaya.org/

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