Jan 31

This is my last blog post until I get back from the village. I am really excited for the trek. It will just be a United Planet worker and I going on the trip. We leave in the morning (on Monday) and will reach Sermathang on Friday. I hear we have around 4 hours to trek each day and stop at villages along the way. There is one village that is higher than the rest along the way what I possibly might get altitude sickness at. However, my guide is trained in what to do and they don't suspect it will be a problem.

My new home is supposed to have solar energy so that warm showers are available! I am looking forward to that. And it is a no-kill zone so very little meat is being eaten. Both of those things are going to be good for me I think. I have been getting sick a lot recently just because I am stressed with the new change coming up I think. I am going to be out of pollution and in a very natural area shortly and expect to feel better with the more fresh food and fresh air. The exercise should be great as well!

I am planning on being back on March 17th. However, all plans are fluid in Nepal so it is difficult to say exactly. I am getting back early to do some vacationing before I leave so that is why I am coming back so much earlier than March 22 when my plane leaves.

So, I will miss blogging and am sorry that I am unable to keep it up. I will miss the contact with everyone but am looking forward to the adventure. Thank you all for your comments and I will talk with you all in a month and a half!

Happy Birthday Lisa! I love you and miss you!

Jan 29 part 2

I leave for Sermathang on Monday! That is about three days sooner than I was expecting so I hope I am ready. The kids love "quiz day" which is just the teacher coming up with random questions and giving points to the team who can answer first. Therefore, I got the school a 'trivial pursuit for kids' game (thanks Max!!) so the students can play and learn when they have leisure time (which they do several periods each day). It is cool because it is questions about the Asian culture rather than American culture like ours are. We will play with that on Sunday, my last day in the school :(

I haven't written in a while because I have been so busy having fun! Last Friday I hung out with the female teachers during lunch and they did my eyebrows. They use string that basically rolls the hairs up in the string and then rips them out. I am aparently a huge wimp because my eyes wouldn't stop watering and I bled a little. They got a good laugh and I love the new shape of my eyebrows! They are so sweet and I am sad I am just gettting to know them now that I am leaving.

Saturday I went to a picnic with the family and loved it. I met a lot of people who will be up in Sermathang since my family is originally from there. It was a fun day and I got to walk around the National Botanical Gardens. Most of the plants were common plants that we have in our gardens at home. Lots of christmas cactus and spider plants! It was fun to see what they eat at picnics (sandwiches, potatoes and beaten rice) rather than hamburgers and hotdogs.

Monday I went to Baktapur (sp?) at another Samata school and met some people from California and Australia who were giving scholarships for some of the girls to go to college. That is a huge deal because these kids who are in Samata schools (like the one I am in) are from famillies that can't afford education and pay Rs 100 per month (around $1.50). It was great to see the girls smile when they found out they had been chosen for the scholarships. It was also Uttams birthday so we had rice pudding. Well, that meant that I was sick all the next day and just slept and drank water. I woke up find the following day and have been trying to post since. I will post at least once more before I leave if the internet lets me. I doubt I have internet contact in Sermathang but I return to Kathmandu on March 17. Then I am doing some tourist travel before I leave for home on March 22.

Jan 29

This is the third time I am trying to post. The electricity goes out just when I am about done every time and I lose everything. So I am going to do this in sections so I can at least get something posted. First, to answer some questions:

1) We did make all that Kaphse in the little fryer. It took literally all day and we were all tired by the end of the day. My host mom and Nowang, her daughter, took turns cooking it while the others made the mix and pressed it and cut it.

2) I have been food shopping because it is just along the road. There are meat markets, fruit markets and vegetable markets along the main road that you just have to walk up to and choose your food. The meat markets are hard to get used to becaust the cut meat just sits there with flies on it util someone decides to buy it. I haven't eaten very much meat here....

3) Clothes to bring: most people wear jeans and a zip-up jacket. I am happy with what I brought - two zip-up jackets, a hoodie sweatshirt and a coat to go over a variety of sweaters and T-shirts. Two pairs of jeans have worked out nicely. Don't bring anything with any white on it, especially socks (you have to wash by hand and it isn't worth it). I wear tennis shoes although the girls wear little heels with socks and the guys wear dress shoes. I am happy in tennis shoes. However, March is the rainy season and I hear that means a lot of rain. So I guess be thoughtful about that.

4) I did get my dress and I love it! It is fancy and practical. I haven't worn it to school yet because i wasn't feeling well recently and I just lounged around in my sweats for a day and a half. Anyway, I am excited to show you all!

Finally Some Pictures

Here I am after being blessed for the new year in the family's prayer room. This happens before we eat food and drink beer for the rest of the day. I was sick this day so just I was mostly in charge of taking pictures and enjoying the experience.



Here is the making of Kaphse (I am not sure on the spelling) which is the special treat during the New Year. We are still eating it and I am still very much enjoying it!






Here are the finalists for a talent show that I went to early on. All the children involved are from orphanages, some of them were from the orphanage that United Planet volunteers often work at. They were so cute and amazing at dancing, singing and giving speeches.


This is at the temple of Shiva that is the other location we went to while on the city tour.









This is one of the more well known Buddhist temples that the locals call "monkey temple" because there are a lot of monkeys that hang around it. This was during the city tour that United Planet sent us on during the first full day in Kathmandu.

Jan 20

Today was another festival day but not for the family that I am staying with. So there was no school again and I stayed home to read and wash clothes again and shop for a new dress. I decided that I needed something to wear for festivals even though I don't really stand out with jeans and a sweater. Anyway, the dress that my family wears is a little different...I would compare it to the geisha dress without the huge sash around the waste and a little more free flowing. It has beautiful fabric and wraps around the body and is very conservative. I got one so that I will have something to wear in the village if there is a time to wear it. I am so tall here that I had to have it specially made which was alright because then I got to choose the fabric I wanted for the dress and the blouse that goes underneath. It is beautiful deep blue dress with a cream colored blouse.

I have a quick recipe for you all to try if you want. It isn't anything special and I don't know how well it will turn out from me just watching and guessing. They don'tmeasure anything so I just had to kind of guess what the quantities were. Anyway, it is something to play with. I had it for lunch yesterday along with seasoned spicy potatoes.

1 Tbs cumin
2 cloves sliced garlic
1 tsp salt
1 sliced carrot
2-3 c sliced cabbage (theirs is different so would try either spinach or bok choy...)
3+ c day-old rice

cook the veggies with the seasonings in oil until slightly tender and then add the rice until warm. It is one of my favorites. Cumin (if they told me the right spice) is something we use a lot here!

Have a great day and I will try to post again soon!

Jan 19th

I did get my clothes all washed and dried the other day. It took forever and a half so I think I am going to use a local laundry service before I leave for the village. I had washed all my nice sweaters and jeans and it took two days for it all to dry hanging in the sun. Therefore, I was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt on the new year festival day. Oh well, I stand out enough here that I doubt anyone really noticed. Plus, nobody every says anything about what you wear because people simply wear what they have available to them. The female teachers at school wear the type of clothes you would probably traditionally think of when you think of Nepal or Inida. It is the bright, baggy pants and the shirts that are more like knee-length dresses with slits from the bottom to the hips. The key is all the colors are bright...I am not sure how to explain it so when I post pictures I will try to show one of those. A lot of people do wear jeans, though. I look out of place simply because my clothes are a little cleaner and I am fairly tall here...and I look quit different in general. As I said before, though, people look at me because I stand out not because they have anything against me or are being mean. The children on the streets often run up to me to say "hello" and are very proud that they just spoke English.

Yesterday the Nepali Prime Minister came to the school. It, of coarse, was a big deal including armed guards and snipers on rooftops. I got to play reporter as I happened to have my camera that day. I was taking pictures of the students' engineering projects and so was happy that my camera came in such good use today. The event was in the newspaper. I was dissapointed I was not in the background of the picture they used, but one of the reporters did notice me and wanted to talk to me before I left the school about my experiences. I dont know if that would go anywhere, but it would be cool. The students were very excited that the Prime Minister came to see them! A few of them even got interviewed by reporters and they looked happy beyond words and very proud of their school. There was a little show for the Prime Minister that the young children put on and then he, along with two other imortant people who had come, each gave a small inspirational speech. They had come to this school because it has been in the paper so often over the last week or two. He wanted to come and get good publicity while showing his support for the school.

Anyway, needless to say the project was delayed again today so the students are going to start that today rather than yesterday. I am learning some new Nepali words and also learned to make tea yesterday. I like it a lot and hope I can replicate it when I get back to The States. The tea is almost half milk (which they buy in plastic bags!).

Jan 17th

I called Steven today to wish him HAPPY BIRTHDAY because it is still Jan 16th back home. Yesterday (Nepal's Jan 16th) was the first day of the new year. I think it is year 2157 or something like that. I wrote it down in my journal but can't remember now that I am sitting at a computer in an internet cafe. It is much later than 2010, that is for sure. The celebration traditionally goes 15 days but my family will celebrate for about the first five. Each day they have dinner at a different house. Yesterday they went around and said prayers at each house and drank beer or tea and today the dinner at each family member's house starts. We went to four houses yesterday so by the end of the day there was a lot more celebrating as a lot more beer had been consumed. I took lots of pictures but didn't drink any beer.

Another celebration was on Jan 15th for a different culture. They were celebrating the new year as the year of the tiger. It is difficult to keep track of this new culture because there are so many different cutures here in Nepal that I am not learning about just one, but about many.

I took the day off of school today because I am not feeling well. I have just a normal cold but it has made me more tired than any cold back home. I have been doing a lot of sleeping the last two days. The food is still fantastic. When I am sick I get more noodles rather than more potatoes and rice. The quick noodles that I get are very similar to ramin back home but they put vegetables in it, which is nice.

I realized I haven't said much about how we eat here. There is not a dining room table like there are in most homes back in The States. In my house here there are three couches along each wall in the room. The fourth "wall" to the dining room is a curtain that separates the kitchen area from the dining area. Two of the couches are just a few inches off the floor while the third (the one I sit at most often) is probably just an inch shorter than most chairs back home. The tables are a foot wide and go the length of the couches and are at the level of my knees when sitting on the high couch. You have to really lean over to eat at the table! So the family pretty much sits in a circle at their own spot on the table. The food is dished for everyone so we don't get much of a say in how much we consume. My favorite food so far are the oranges (like tangerines back home) and the cabbage (that is put in almost every meal). The soups are fantastic and do a good job of keeping me warm. It will be colder in the village so I need to get used to being a little cold. I have been told they drink a lot more roksi (rice wine) to "keep the bones warm."

Sorry if I haven't been answering everyones questions. I read the comments and then post again and sometimes forget all that was asked. It takes a long time to go from page to page here so usually don't want to spend the time to look things back up. Feel free to ask the questions again if you want to know!!!!! Well I am going to go home and rest some more. It is not fun being sick! Have a great weekend everyone!