Snowfed Waters
We read Snowfed Waters last month for a bookclub discussion based in Kathmandu. My group and I agree it should be recommended for those intending to visit Nepal. Sonia is a perfect caricature of expatriate volunteers who venture out to live in foreign cultures well outside of their comfort zone. When a natural disaster struck the community and the local family she had learned to love, she gets over her self-absorption and phobias to help them survive. The humour with which the author describes the cultural difference is admirable.
Betty Attfield
A Glimpse of Eternal Snows
This book was also a wonderful travelogue of Nepal. The family did some inspiring treks with all very young children in tow. You realise that nothing is impossible. It was funny and enlightening to read her descriptions of the different Nepalese people, their caste structure and different racial tensions. She describes their simple but very impoverished lives with compassion. Their bleak medical system and very strange approach to western medicine mixed with local healing customs was both amusing and sad. Wilson-Howarth was totally shocked and frustrated by the lack of interest in preventative medicine locally. In turn, the Nepalese were often shocked at how the British family lived. They often wandered in and out of their home to check them out. The concept of privacy and ownership were very wavy. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It took the reader on both a spiritual and physical armchair journey.
jenny hogan's blog
How to Shit Around the World
Very funny but also rather useful.. some things I wish I knew before I travelled to Pakistan for the first time. And some things I now wish I didn’t know.