Home again Home again

I am home now. I got home about a week ago. I am busy trying to get life back to normal. Below are some of the posts that I wrote while I was still in Nepal but not able to post them. I will write some more hopefully in the next little bit of the last couple weeks of my trip. Thanks for all of your support!!! Enjoy!!

Amanda

PS the Picture is blurry for some reason but if you click on it is will show a bigger picture that is not blurry!

Kalimati Banda

Kalimati Banda
Today there was a banda only in the Kalimati area. It was in response to the death of a college student woman. She was raped murdered then cut into 8 pieces and shoved into a bag. It took the police 17 days to find her body. It was found on the outskirts of Kathmandu yesterday morning.
Yesterday when we were walking to get ice cream we saw several people protesting and carrying signs. The signs were pictures of the girl that was kidnapped. Today the students in the area that knew her again held protests. The road was not accessible by car or motorcycles and there were police everywhere. When we were walking to the daycare we saw a huge group of people congregating in the middle of the road. About an hour after we arrived at the daycare one of the employees who is usually there around the same time we are got there. She told us that the group of people were all students and they were now throwing bricks and stones at one another to get attention from the government for the issue.
From what it sounded like from the woman that was telling me the story was that they we either not going to punish the man or they were not planning on giving him a punishment that fit the crime and the people were upset.
This was the first time since being here that had we been on the road we may have been in danger. I never felt at all threatened and there were tourist police everywhere as well to help us if we needed any. It was interesting to be so close to something like this. All of the area did not have work or school because of it so we did not have to go to the school so once we were done at the daycare and we knew that the streets were safe we headed home.

Going to the Hospital

Blue Cross Nursing Home
Today I got to experience going to the hospital (general practitioners office). I have been sick for 3 days now. On Sunday I came home from work and slept from 2-8 woke up for dinner and went back to sleep around 10. Monday I woke up and felt like I had the flu went to work anyway and was feeling extremely feverish the whole walk there. I walked into the day care and lay down on the floor stayed for 10-20 minutes till I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out anymore and walked back home. Once home I slept from 11 till 6 or 7 went upstairs for dinner realized that I was really sick and took my dinner of noodle soup back to bed with me. I fell asleep around 8 was up sick most of the night and slept all day today.
This afternoon Uma decided that I needed to go to the “hospital” because she was pretty sure that I had giardia. (Which I do). The hospitals here are so different that home though. The one that I visited was similar to a large doctors office plaza. When you walk in there is a receptionist on the left and a pharmacy on the right. Upstairs was where my appointment was there are offices with doctors names on them and signs with sliders on it to say whether the doctor is in or out. Outside the office there are benches to wait on and a room next to the doctor I was seeing was a “sample collection room” that smelled terrible and the bathroom had no toilet paper like so many places here.
Inside the doctor’s office there was a desk with two chairs on the left side and on the right an examination table. We talked for a while about my symptoms and then he “took my temperature” it was like he was taking my pulse (does this really work if so let me know because I was positive that I had a fever still but he said that it was normal). Then he checked my breathing. After that he asked if I had ever had my blood pressure tested. Which I thought was strange because I have it tested every single time that I go into the doctor for anything. His blood pressure thing was in a large metal box where the lid flipped up for the dial to see where the levels are and he did it twice before deciding that it was all normal.
He then wrote out three different prescriptions for killing the giardia which is a parasite that can be contracted from the water or food. It could have been so many different things that gave it to me and I am told that it has a pretty long incubation period so it could have been in the last several weeks. It come and goes apparently so I could be sick for a couple of days and then better for a while and then sick again even a month later so it was a good thing that I went to the doctor when it all started. I took my prescriptions down to the pharmacy all the pills are in bubble pack things and they just cut out the amount prescribed and give them to you. I am on a parasite killer something else and electrolytes. For all the prescriptions for 3 days worth it cost me 54 rupees. (I get 75 rupees to the dollar). When I got back I looked through my health information that I got before I left and giardia is in there but she did not highlight it as anything that I needed to worry about but the medications that they gave me are the ones recommended by them as well so hopefully it does not come back. It was an interesting experience going to the doctor here I think that it was almost worth being so sick for. Maybe and at least I did not have a boil like Kate(one of the other volunteers here) It looks like a bullet wound now that the puss has started to leak out of it. Oh the lovely diseases of Asia. Wish me luck and health for the next 2 ½ weeks no more illnesses or boils (piloos as they call them here)

Chitwan

Royal Chitwan National Park
Josh and I went to Chitwan for the weekend. We left Thursday morning at 6 o’clock and caught a taxi at the hotel that is just down the street from the house that we are staying at. It took us to a bus stop that is in the middle of the valley. Once we were on the bus there were people trying to get us to buy candy chips water and fruit for our trip. The bus drivers even let them on the bus to try and sell to us. There were also people there selling magazines and newspapers. One of the men selling newspapers started talking to me about where I was going and where I was from. When I told him that I was from America he kept telling me “Christ Christ Christ. I Christ. Are you Christ?” When I told him that yes I am Christian he got very excited and told me about his church he goes to. He said there are not very many Christian churches here. He then gave me a free newspaper and asked if I had any American money and I gave him. A quarter, nickel, and a penny. Then he gave me a 2 rupee coin and a 1 rupee coin. It was a great exchange for me.
Once we got going we had 5 hours to go. About 1 ½ into the bus ride we pulled over on the side of the road for a “pee stop” several of the local women got off and on the side of the bus squatted down pulled up their saris and peed right next to the bus. None of the women foreigners like me were brave enough to do so.
We had another stop at a bus stop like place that had a fruit and vegetable market and a restaurant. The scenery there was amazing it was right off the road in the mountains. It was very lush and green with homes way up on the sides of the mountains. It was so beautiful.
Along the way we dropped off the local people at their homes or near their homes. The bus ride ended in a field that was full of jeeps that were from the hotels in the park picking up the groups. We went with a package so everything was set up for us when we got there and our hotel had set a driver for us. When we got to the hotel we had welcome drinks and went over our itinerary. The cokes were kept in the freezer and were still a little slushy. It was the coldest drink that I had had since arriving. Then we were served lunch of veggie burgers coleslaw salad and French fries. It all tasted a little funny and I was so hot from the bus ride and the extreme change in temperature and humidity so I ate very little.
After taking a nap and cooling down a bit we had a bicycle ride. The bicycles here are all old. I was asking Josh were all the new things in Nepal were. Everything here seems so old. They had to repair them and pump the tires before we got going. All the roads were rocky or dirt roads so it was a very bumpy rough ride. We rode to a local village of the Tharu people where they have their own language and own processes. It was fun to see the remote village that still live similarly to the way that the Native Americans lived. There was a “museum” in the village that was a house that had an assortment of their tools.
After the village we went to the elephant breeding center where we saw lots of baby elephants. There was an elephant that was just 15 days old. As well as a set of twin babies that are 5 months old. We were told that Nepal hold the 2nd place record for twin elephants 2nd to Thailand. While there we got to spend time with one of the elephants that is 2 years old. Elephants mature very slowly similar to humans and was still small and very playful. We got to pet it and watch it eat. It was eating treats from its trainer that was long grass with rice and molasses wrapped inside. After we had finished with the elephants we headed back to our bikes that we had left a ways away from the breading center. To get to the center we had to cross a river on a makeshift bridge that was made out of sand bags, grass and some wood. I was surprised at how steady it was. The river was not deep at all if we had fallen in. Our tour guide showed us a plant on the side of the river that is called a touch me not. When you touch the plant it shrivels up and acts like it is dead. It was a crazy plant. We then headed back to the hotel. By the time we were headed back my bum was so very sore and we still had about a mile to ride to get back to the hotel. When we got there we were seated at a table right next to the river as the sun was setting and we were able to order food. We both ordered the pasta cabanara. It came with “garlic bread” which was crushed fresh garlic put in between two triangles of bread not cooked or warmed or anything. After dinner we went back to the room and crashed.
On the second day we met at 6:30 by the river for breakfast which was toast, eggs, and potatoes with vegetables in them. At 7 we started our canoe trip. The canoes are dug out logs and there is a man that stands at the back of the canoe with a stick that he digs into the mud at the bottom of the river to steer the canoe down the river (similar to a gondola). Along the shore we saw lots of birds. We canoed for about 20 minutes and then were dropped off on the edge of the jungle to start our jungle walk. At the very beginning we found tiger tracks right along the river banks in the fresh mud. We saw tiger tracks all along our walk but we did not see any tigers which was fine with me. We did see several deer, a tree full of monkeys, lots and lots of big bugs, and we heard several animals in the distance like the sloth bear. There were tons of new birds everywhere too. At one point during our walk we went to a resting tower that overlooked an open field of the jungle. We did not see anything except for native people working in the jungle collecting plants and such.
After the jungle walk we went back to the hotel and ordered our lunch. There is only once chef in most of the places that offer food so if you order several different dishes it can take a really long time to get all the food but if you order it a couple hours in advance you don’t have to worry about it. After ordering lunch we went back to our room and took a nap. It was so hot there. I am not used to any humidity and it was so humid and hot there it was hard for me to get the energy to do much of anything during the day. Around 4o’clock we had our elephant ride. We went down to this elephant yard place. We had to climb up onto this tower and sit in this basket on top of the elephants. There were four of us in the basket and it was very squishy. We had to sit in specific places and balance our weight a certain weight so that the basket would sit correctly on top of the elephant. I sat in the back on the right of the elephant. It was fun; my feet were resting on the backside of the elephant. It was a super bumpy ride. We also had to avoid being smacked in the face with tree branches as much as we could because we were so high up and I was facing the opposite direction that we were going, I got hit in the head with lots of branches. It was totally worth the trip though. We saw 7 rhinos (the rhinos here are different than anywhere else in the world because they only have one horn on their nose whereas all the rest have two). The first 2 that we saw were laying together in a muddy watering hole. It seemed just perfectly sized for them. Shortly after seeing those two we went into a clearing in the jungle and there were even more rhinos. In all we saw 7 rhinos. (The rest of this I am writing on July 13th). We saw several deer and birds. We got to cross the river on the elephants and they were splashing around and playing with each other. While we were on the elephants a guy on the elephant next to us that was pointing at me and talking to his family. He ended up talking to me for a while and then pointing and talking more. It was hilarious. When we were done on the elephants we went back to the hotel and ordered dinner. While dinner was being prepared we took a nap then hung out by the river. While we were eating dinner we met a couple from somewhere in Europe (I can’t remember where) they have been traveling for almost a year. There are so many people that we have met here that have been or are just starting really long journeys. That evening we went to the Tharu Culture Program. It was local people that do the stick dances for the tourists that come through. It was really fun to watch at the end of the program they have everyone come up on the stage and dance. It was fun I got up on the stage and danced with the people. On the way back to the hotel we stopped and got ice cream then went back to the room and went to sleep. The next morning we slept in, ate breakfast and got back on the bus. I slept for a good portion of the ride back. It was so hot and sweaty but very fun.

June 22 2009

June 22, 2009

Today was such a busy day. Uma’s niece is getting married this week and so she was having a Puja with her family and Nabina had to help get ready for that. I woke up at 7 and made the vegetables for the children’s breakfast. I also fed them breakfast. There was so much rice I didn’t know how much to give them. They ended up with plates filled with rice in the end. I am surprised how much the children eat. After the kids were ready for school we ate breakfast of Nepalese sweets. Me and Josh then headed to the day care where there were 19 children under the age of 2 or 3. They were pretty upset this morning and were all crying when we got there. I played with a baby that is 10 months old mostly today. Her name is Christina and she is so adorable. After she went down for a nap I helped put a few more children down for their naps and Josh, Shir, Emily and I went to lunch. We went to KCQ which has a large menu with lots of Continental items on it. I had chow mien (which is a new favorite of mine I eat it almost everywhere we go) butter naan and a cold 7-up. As we were walking to go get ice cream from the Sweet Cave (they have all kinds of Nepalese sweet and amazing ice cream for super cheap) we noticed that there were police stopping traffic for a Banda. All the shops were closed down and there were no cars on Kalimati (our main street that we walk on everywhere). As we turned the corner there was a large group of people carrying signs and they were shouting as they walked down the street. (We found out that a student from the area was killed, I think from a hostage situation, from the area and they were protesting her death). When we got to the Sweet Cave it was closed but there were several men outside the gate and we asked if they were closed and they said no and let us in.

At the school we taught 2 library classes with Danny (a volunteer here with a Jewish Group, I can never remember the name of it but it is based out of Israel). We taught grades 2 and 5 today. In grade 2 we read them a story and had them draw a picture of their favorite character from the book. In grade 5 we read them a story but we stopped with a few pages left in the book and had them talk in groups about how they think that the story should end. It was really fun. I had no idea was the story was about or what their answers were but Bishnu (a local who comes and helps us with classes) told us that their answers were way better than the actual ending of the book. After classes we had a meeting to discuss how we are going to teach the teachers at the school how to use the library to enhance creativity in the children. We will be holding a teachers training meeting hopefully on July 6^th if all goes as planned.

Danny invited Josh and I to go to an International Music Festival that was held at the French Culture Center in the area where we are living. It was so funny. It was several different Nepali groups going rap and hip hop. A lot of it was in English I don’t know if they knew what they were saying or not but it was really fun. There were several different people from the Jewish group all there (we have been saying for over a month now that we are going to get together outside of the school sometime). We had a really fun crowd of Israeli, Nepali and Americans out with us. We also met some other Americans that are here studying Buddhism. They also told me about activities that are going on in the country on the 4^th of July for Americans who will be here so we should be meeting up with them to celebrate. It was so much crazy fun dancing I am so tired now but I hope that I have many more days like this coming up.

We have been invited to Uma’s nieces wedding this week on Thursday and Friday. I have also been invited to go to the Jewish groups big Friday night dinner so it should be a fabulous week very very busy.

June 19 2009

June 19, 2009
Last night we went to Patan (an area that is about 15-25 minutes or so by cab). Like going from Murray to Draper. I ate brains, sheep liver, buff liver, sheep cheek, sheep esophagus, and buff stomach. I took pictures of everything. It was really fun. The restaurant that we ate at was kind of crazy though. It was off all the main roads in the house and we sat in a room that looked similar to a small living room. Kate and me went and looked at the kitchen which is suppose to be a huge compliment to the chef to look at their kitchens. All the different meats were sitting on the table and there were some fish and other dishes that we did not try out on the table as well. When we first got there Om ordered a ton of different dishes and the one boy who was cooking serving and taking orders helped us the whole time. Om told us that they were very excited that foreigners where eating at the restaurant because they normally only get local Newari people.
Today Josh and me joined Kate(the new volunteer that is here from Canada) on her culture week outing to the monkey temple. It was so much better this time. Last time we went it was so hot and it was a Saturday so there were so many local people there worshiping and we only saw 2 monkeys. Today there were tons of monkeys playing the in monkey swimming pool. There were also tons of baby monkeys there which I had not seen any of the other places that we have seen monkeys and I wonder if they were born in between when we were there last time and this time. It has been almost 6 weeks since we were there. It is crazy how quickly time is going by and at the same time so slowly. I feel like we have to much and so little going on all at the same time. There is no night life here really so where I am used to staying up late and getting up late. I go to bed early and get up fairly early.
Anyway all is safe and well here. There have been some political problems here that you may have seen on the news but they do not effect me at all. The most that it would ever affect me is the option to get cabs. When there are political problems here they have days called “Bantha” on these days all school and work is canceled for the whole city. Shops are not suppose to open. It is really strange on those days. There are no cars and motorcycles on the streets and almost all of the shops are closed. We were still able to walk to our work assignment which took about 1 hour and we also got lunch at a restaurant that had a police officer outside. I think that she was suppose to be keeping shops from being open but she informed us that we could still go in. Basically we have nothing to worry about when there are problems. The police officers are there to keep us safe. I hope all is well at home.
Amanda

June 16 2009

Our time at orphanage #2
For the last 10 days the school that we have been working at has been on a break. Because of this I asked Uma (our coordinator ) to set us up in a different orphanage for a week so that we would have work to do and get a small taste of different orphanages in the area. The orphanage that we have been working at has 24 children and 10 of them are 10 months to around 2 years old.
The first day that we were there we just played with the babies and helped to feed them. They eat what looks kind of like oatmeal and kind of like lentils it could be both I don’t know it smelled pretty good though. The workers there gave me a bowl that was completely full of the mush and a spoon and I fed which ever mouth was nearby that was not eating. It was kind of crazy because you have no ideas which kids have eaten enough and which have not because it was not monitored. All of them looked like they were well fed and cared for though. The diapers that they use here are just a cloth that is folded into a triangle and tied to the babies when they pee it soaks right though. I leave at the end of the day covered in snot, pee, and slobber. A lot of the time the children run around without anything on their bottom half at all. Most of the children are potty trained though and they each have a small training potty that they set up in the hallway outside the recreation room that they spend all day in. They would set up the children on the potties and leave them all sitting there for a long time just chilling in the hall sitting on the potty. It was kind of cute actually. One little boy who was one of the oldest of the children there is named Surje. He is a serious handful he is defiantly the biggest trouble maker but very fun and playful and super smart. He would sit on his potty and play with all the shoes that sit outside of the rec room and then he would throw them down the stairs. At the end of every day I was always looking for my shoes because they were never where I left them. I started taking them off right when I walked in the building so that I would have a better chance of them not escaping from me.
The 2nd 3rd and 4th days that we were there we helped a girl named Amy who is here from Canada with the organization volunteer abroad paint the rec room. The first day we just painted the ceiling white. The second day we did a second coat of paint on the ceiling then did a first coat of cookie monster blue paint on the wall. The room was originally a light minty green it was really gross looking. When we were done painting the walls blue we had to clean the paintbrushes the cleaner that the paint store gave Amy was some kind of petroleum that was put into old motor oil bottles. I did the cleaning and when I went to clean the paint and oil off of my hands I found that there was no soap anywhere to use so I walked home with bright blue hands. The area that the orphanage is not in a great place of town it is very poor and so there are not a lot of tourists in the area very often so when I walk the streets I get looked at a lot anyway because I look out of place but with blue hands I got even more looks than normal. A lot of people on motorcycles would drive past and look at me and then take a second look because my hands were so blue and have to quickly turn and swerve to avoid hitting one of the potholes that are everywhere on the road. It was so funny. When I got home Uma and Nabina were laughing so hard and we had to go the little store down the street to buy motor oil so that we could get the paint off. To buy it you have to bring your own bottle and they fill it up for you from a big tank of the stuff. We brought along an empty 1L water bottle. Nabina scrubbed my arms and hands until the stuff came most of the way off. (Almost a week later now my finger nails are still blue around the edges). On the 3rd day of painting we arrived a while before Amy so we got to play with the babies before we began to paint. They were so excited to see us when we arrived. The room looks so good now. It just needs some touch ups and someone else is going to be working on them. The room is so much brighter and happier looking. The 3 staff members really loved it they kept coming in and dancing around they were so happy with it.
The last 3 days we have been just going any playing with the children. On Sunday and Monday the older children that live there were also home because they had no school because it was a “holy day” (I don’t know why because their holy day is normally on Saturday and they go to school the other 6 days of the week. It was really fun to be able to experience another orphanage situation here in the Kathmandu valley. I really appreciate where we are and the opportunities that our children have. The children where we are, are so well behaved and smart. They know when to stop what they are doing and they understand what we are saying most of the time.

I think that there was probably more that I was going to write but I started writing this almost a week ago and never finished so if it seems incomplete and like it ends abruptly that is why. Let me know if you have any questions about anything. Miss you all.

Amanda

Crazy Weeks!!!

June 12, 2009

It has been a crazy past two weeks. I feel like we have not stopped at all. After going to Chitwan two more volunteers came and so we were busy traveling with them when we were not working. Last weekend Josh, Justin (volunteer from New Jersey) and I traveled to the last resort which is a small adventure resort about 15 km from the Tibet border and went bungy jumping. The location of the jump is off of a suspension bridge that is 160 meters over a raging river. I was the last person in my group to jump because of my weight so I was on the bridge for 2 hours watching people go and by the time it was my turn I was so ready to get off the bridge that I hopped right up and got ready. I was just fine until I stood on the platform and was really going to jump and I froze. I kept telling the guy that I didn’t think that I could do it and he kept encouraging me to just take one step further and one more. It took me a few minutes but I finally jumped. Josh took a video from the side I look totally freaked out. I am going to try and put it on Facebook I don’t know if I will be able to before I get home but if you want to see it just let me know it is pretty funny. After finally being released from hanging upside down you have to hike about 20-25 minutes back up the mountain. It was one of the hardest hikes that I have ever done. Partially because I had just jumped off a bridge but it was hard all by itself. The views were amazing though. Along the trail you had to walk though waterfalls and up steps made of rocks casually placed to assist climbing. They were not stable at all. At one point on the trail there were several children bathing in one of the waterfalls and women doing their wash. Right before returning to the resort there was a small village that I walked though and saw people cleaning and preparing fresh cut rice, and there were goats and chickens everywhere it was really neat to be able to see it. I kept wishing that I had my camera to take pictures but you are not allowed to jump with anything like that on you.

The school that we have been teaching at has a 10 day break, so we took Sunday to travel to Baktupur and Nagarkot with Vanessa (the other volunteer here from Singapore) . The Kathmandu valley was originally 3 different countries Kathmandu, Patan, and Baktupur. Each one is now just a different area of the valley but they each still have their individual Durbar Square. We had traveled to both Kathmandu and Patan several times because they are very close to where we are but Baktupur is about 45 minutes to 1 hour away from us depending on traffic so we had to make a special trip to go and visit it. Baktupur is famous for their “king of curds” which is yogurt curd it is kind of bitter and very lumpy. We tried it at two different place while we were there. The first place was at a restaurant where we paid 86 Rupees for a bowl and it was ok. The second place was a small hole in the wall locally owned place. We paid 15 rupees and it came in a small clay pot that we got to keep and it was way better tasting. It had ginger and cardamom spices in it. Baktapur had many pretty temples including the tallest in Nepal. Baktapur is also famous for its potters square where all kinds of pots and other clay goods are made. It is off season here right now so there was not too much going on but I did see one man sitting at the potters wheel.

As we were leaving a little girl started following us. She latched on to Josh and followed him saying. “Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi one rupee hi hi hi hi hi hi hi one rupee hi hi hi hi hi one rupee hi one rupee hi one rupee hi hi hi hi.” It was so funny because Josh kept saying hi to here and then getting frustrated that she was still there. She followed us for a good 20 minutes until we got into the taxi and drove off. She even started to chase after the taxi but stopped shortly. (We are encouraged not to give money or food to the street children because it makes their lives on the streets easier and discourages them from finding the programs that are set up to help them).

After leaving Baktapur we traveled another 45 minutes to 1 hour to Nagarkot which is a small mountain village that has amazing views and cooler weather. There is nothing to do there except to relax and take in the amazing views. We ate lunch at one of the 2 nice hotels in the village and relaxed in the cool weather and enjoyed the fresh air. From where we were on a clear day you can see the peaks of Mount Everest. It was not very clear the day we were there unfortunately. It was nice to go to the mountains though. So much of them remind me of the mountains of home.

This week we have been working at a different orphanage during the day while the children here are at school. This orphanage has babies and toddlers that we played with the first day. They are so cute and want to be held and played with all the time. The last three days that we have been there we have been helping a volunteer from a different organization paint the playroom. That has been really fun I got very blue doing so though.

I have also been helping cook meals for the kids everyday as well as for the adults here. It has been really fun. I should be able to cook very well when I get home. It is not hard at all. It is just remembering all the spices and having the right equipment. Tomorrow is Saturday and the one day that the kids are home. We are planning on making momos (kind of like a Chinese dumpling) I bought a momo pan yesterday and all of the children are so excited and keep reminding me that it is tomorrow hopefully everything turns out great.
I will post a separate post on Chitwan later I am not done writing it yet. Hope all is well with everyone.

Namaste

Amanda

Facebook Account for Pictures

I am having a hard time posting pictures on here but my facebook account is working so there are some pictures on there I have made everything public for while I am here. Go ahead and take a look.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=541310456&ref=profile

May 22, 2009

Last night we went to go the tailors with Uma to be fitted for some Nepali clothing. (this was the second night in a row we have gone but it was closed the night before). We went to the road just outside of the house and found a taxi to take us to the shopping mall where it is located. The road that we were on to begin with is a very narrow road. Before we got onto the main road we got in a jam with a large truck. We had to maneuver very slowly. Josh was sitting in the front seat of the car and was telling the taxi driver how much room he had between the wall and the side of the car. Both of the side mirrors were already folded in. At one point Josh told the taxi driver that he had tons of room and held up his fingers to show how much room was between the side of the car and the brick wall on the side it was about ½ in. That was about the same from the other side where the truck was and the distance the other side of the truck was from the brick wall on the other side of the road. It was hilarious they drive so close to people and other cars here.

When we got to the tailors it was closed again. Uma asked us if we would like to go to Themel which was our original plan for the evening. We told her that we would like that and she told us to get out of the taxi and get another one because she was going to go home. It was really funny. She dropped us off on a corner and said good-bye. When we were standing on the corner deciding what we wanted to do. She poked her head out the window and told us that we could also walk and to just go straight ahead it is not far maybe 20 25 minutes. (Everything here is “not far maybe 20, 25 minutes.”) It took us about an hour to walk there. We have come to expect it to take us a lot longer than we are told to get places. We walked through what was like a street bazaar with people all over the sidewalks selling tons of different things. One of the people was selling what looked like used underwear. One pile for men and one for women.
Once we finally got to Themel we just walked around. Themel is one of the more touristy areas . We went into a bookstore and looked around and picked up some more postcards. All over the streets there are people walking around trying to get you to buy bracelets and singing bowls and all kinds of things that I did not recognize. They will follow you around trying to convince you to buy things from them. We found an Italian restaurant on a roof over looking the street and ate some amazing food. I had goat cheese raviolis in a garlic white wine sauce and josh had gonococci that he said was the best he had ever eaten. It was all very inexpensive, we paid less than $4 for our meals.

Because it was dark when we finished eating and a long walk back we found a taxi to take us back home. It was the CRAZIEST taxi ride ever. Most of the taxi rides here are an adventure but this one was nuts. Our driver would go really fast and then slam on his brakes inches from hitting people, cars, motorcycles, and rickshaws. He honked almost the entire time we were in the car. He was swerving around people on the narrow streets into the other lanes to get around cars. (Keep in mind that there are brick walls on both sides most of the time lots of corners and winding streets and no street lights). We were sliding all around and jerking back and forth in our streets. And there are no seatbelts in cars here, I don’t know why. I look every time we get in one. We decided that we were not likely going any faster than 20 or 30 miles per hour at the most but it seemed pretty fast when it is dark and crazy like that. We decided that it was like a ride at an amusement park. We were laughing the whole ride home and we were making the taxi driver laugh at us too.

You...Baby...Come?

We just got in from school and we went to say hello to the children. The first thing Sangmu did when she saw me was poke my belly and ask “you…baby…come?” That is the second time I have been asked since we have been here, last time was the day that the baby birds were born. The same question was asked then they made a baby coming out motion and a whoosh noise. It was really funny. I guess that I am not using my best posture oh well.

Today I taught my first English class at the school. We were learning about where things are in a room, for example front, back, middle, in-between, to the right of, to the left of, outside, inside. I also taught the lesson on climate. It was about the monsoon weather in Nepal and how it makes Nepal a good climate for growing food. It difficult to teach when I don’t understand what they are yelling at me. The class was insane. I had to try and describe what a walnut, millet, barley, and tobacco was. The Headmistress of the school sat in for the class and wanted me to draw examples of them. Overall she said that I did a fantastic job teaching and see liked the lesson a lot. I was kind of hoping that she would think that I did a bad job so that we would not have to teach any more.

There is a separate volunteer group at the school that is a Jewish program and they work with the students teaching dancing, drama, singing, and are doing projects to better the school grounds. We are trying to start working with them so that we do not have to teach any more English. We are ending up just doing the teachers jobs for them and they do so much better because they understand everything that the students are saying. They do a fabulous job most of the time. Some of the sentences that they and the book come up with are hilarious. In class today for homework they had to answer the question “The boy had the cobbler …… his hair (cut, to cut, cutting). She is very cruel she….her children to polish them (made, make, to make). We sit in class some of the time and just try to resist the urge to laugh at the teacher and the book.

We are doing really well here and adapting to everything. Today as we were walking home from school which takes about 25 minutes, about how we are not afraid of the busses taxis, and motorcycles that are coming full speed right at us. We just kind of step out of the way and expect them to swerve away from us. It does not faze me at all anymore. We walk to school in the morning go home for lunch and back to school after lunch and occasionally we will walk somewhere in the evening so we are doing tons of walking and getting used to the traffic. The traffic as well as the dogs that are sleeping anywhere they want to, the trash on the streets, fruit people everywhere, meat stands with whole chickens, bowls of chicken feet, and goat heads. We still have not figured out what the goat heads are for they kind of look like shrunken heads if you know please tell me.

I did my laundry for the first time here 2 days ago. It really makes me appreciate my washer and drier ,and now that I am wearing my clothes, my fabric softener. I did it with a bar of soap and lots of water and then hung them on the roof to dry. I did my laundry in the afternoon after class so the sun was starting to set by the time I had finished so in the morning when I went to go and get my towel it was still sopping wet. I had to dry off after the shower with wash clothes.
Anyway all is going great. Can’t wait to share more experiences. Let me know if you have any questions..Miss you all

Namaste

Amanda

Kathmandu

When I was planning for this trip to Nepal tried so hard not to have any expectations for what I would experience here so that I would not be disappointed or freaked out. Being here I have realized that I did have many expectations and none of them have been even remotely correct. I was expecting a peaceful country with some people moseying along. Lots of Yoga and Meditation. A clean country with poor but clean looking people. SOOO WRONG. This is the loudest place that I have ever been. Everywhere you go there are tons of cars and motorcycles. The roads here are super narrow so people and cars have to share the space. There are so many traffic jams here with cars and motorcycles going both directions in the wrong lanes. To let people walking know they are coming they honks so there is so much honking and some of them are ear-splitting loud. Yesterday on our way to the monkey temple in a taxi we ended up on a road that was just wide enough for our very tiny taxi to drive on and parts of the way he had to fold his mirrors in so that they would not hit the walls on the side and we had to have Rabindra (our language tutor) guide us through the road. It was hilarious. So far we have not seen any accidents or major problems caused by the traffic so it is just an adventure to be driving in the car. Josh found out that to drive here we would not need to have anything except for our drivers licenses from home. The idea of driving here seems so crazy to me. There is litter everywhere on the streets and some terrible smells come from it. There are so many people everywhere you go anytime of the day. But mostly when school starts and ends. There are meat markets along the road that we have to walk on to get anywhere. On the tables there will be whole chickens or buckets full of chicken heads and feet. There are some tables with whole goat heads (we still have not figured out what they do with them but they are disgusting to look at). The temples here are amazing though and they are kept fairly clean considering that there are so many people there all the time and there are street dogs and tons of monkeys there all the time that are allowed to do whatever they want to and nobody ever stops them. Today we saw one of the protests walking down Kalimati when we were coming out of the school for our lunch break. There were so many people and they were carrying flags. Some of them here chanting something about the government but that is all I got from it. Uma our host here in Nepal was telling us that the protests are not anything that we need to worry about because most of the people that are involved in the protest are from towns outside of Kathmandu. The people that are organizing the protest will find people that want to be paid to go to Kathmandu for a couple day and walk the protest for a couple hundred rupees. So the people involved generally do not care about the issue at all and are not violent they just wanted to get into the city to see family and make a little money in the mean time.

Nepal Day 7

Me and Josh have now been in Nepal for 1 week. Today is Sunday here in Nepal. We started our teaching assignment today. The children that live in the orphanage that we are staying at attend a private school so they are gone all day there. Because of this we have an assignment to teach at a public school where the teachers are not as good because they are not paid well enough. Today we just observed some 7, 8, 9, and 10 class English lessons. Tomorrow I will be teaching class 7 and Josh will be teaching class 10. It is very fun to be able to work with this age group at the school after working with the Jr. High students from Hillcrest Jr High at the library every afternoon. It is fun to see how similar they act here to the students in Utah. The children that we are working with, in the orphanage range from 5 to 10 they are so cute. Everyday they come home from school at around 3:30 they change into their after school clothes and wash up outside. One of the girls Sarmilla always takes the longest to do anything she dawdles and is in her own world the entire time. Pangum loves to clean up after school she takes forever and will slick back her hair several times and make sure that it looks perfect and and puts clips in it. Nitisha who is 5 and the youngest loves to laugh she is so super giggley and is always so happy to be around. She is constantly singing and dancing around and talks about a mile a minute. Sujan was sick the first couple of days that we have been here so he was home with us. The first day I asked him if he wanted me to read him a book. When I started reading it to him he interrupted me and read the whole book to me. He is so sweet and always hollars SEESTER!!! To me to come and help him with is school work or to read books to the other children or finds stickers to share with the others. Rajesh is the oldest and always looks out for the other children. He is a great older brother to them. He loves to play basketball and we will dribble the ball and steal it from each other in the drive way. I think that he could play all afternoon. It is hard to do that here with 5 other children demanding attention all the time. He is pretty good at sharing the time though. We did get a chance to sit and play Uno together last night and talk just the 2 of us I think that he really enjoys time like that. Sangum is the shyest child here I have not spent a lot of time getting to know her yet but she is super sweet and looks out for her sisters she is the oldest of the girls. The more time that I spend with the children the less I feel sick for home. They are really making this experience fantastic.

Nepal Day 1

Nepal Day One

Last night we got into Nepal around 9:30pm and went through a health check for Swine Flu (Flu A, H1N1) as their sign said. From there we applied for our visas picked up our luggage and went through customs. Everything went very smoothly a man that knew English spotted us and went through the whole process with us. From there we went to find our ride. It was a man who knows Uma. He took us out to his car to load the luggage. Next to his car was a little boy who was around 7 or 8 who kept watching us and smiling I am thinking that he was trying to beg for money but did not say anything. The surroundings in the dark reminded me of some of the scenes in Slumdog Millionaire.

The roads here are very narrow and they drive on the left side of the road. Right now Kathmandu has power restrictions so there is only power 8-12 hours a day and at night time for the most part. Because of this there are no street lamps so the roads are very dark at night. To pass cars here you signal and honk to let the car in front of you know that you are about to pass them. It was a very noisy journey. Along the side of the road you have to stop every so often to have the car searched by police. As I lay in bed writing this there I can hear lots of honking in the roads.

We arrived at the orphanage around 10:30 and were shown our room and we went straight to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night to rain pounding on the tin roof. It was so loud and kept me awake for a while. The beds here are very hard so are the pillows I was thinking about it this afternoon about how I would describe my pillow and it reminds me of cornmeal all packed together tightly. I think it is really cotton but it is very very hard. The whole sleeping situation is going to be very hard for me to get used to. Right now I have the blanket provided under me and the one I brought over me.

This morning I woke up to so many different noises. There is a parrot that hangs out outside of my window and likes to talk to the children and to the neighbors and it was trying to get their attention. It is a small green parrot. There were lots of other bird noises. One of these mornings I am going to write down all of the noises that I can hear. I also felt like I could hear monkeys but Uma said that they do not come here very often so it might have been a bird I have never heard before.

At 8 o’clock (I was already showered and dressed and had been awake for at least an hour, which is so not like me) we ate breakfast with Uma she prepared Josh and I eggs with onions and peppers in them and toast. It was a pretty good breakfast, Uma told us that the Nepali people do not take breakfast and eat lunch at 10 instead but she takes breakfast and will do so for us every day as well. The table that they eat at is very low to the ground and you sit on pillows cross legged. This was very hard for me and Josh we are both really sore from sitting like that all day. (Especially after sitting on planes for the last 2 days).
We started our language study today. We have a tutor who is going to be coming for 5 days to teach us basic Nepali. The language is very hard there are lots of sounds that are not in the English language that we are having to learn how to pronounce. We learned greetings, how to ask names, family, numbers, some verbs, and a few nouns. To ask “What is your name?” you say “Tappaai ko naam ke ho? And to answer I would say mero naam Amanda ho. We studied for around 3 hours. It was very tiring. But I think that I am catching on ok. I think that I will have an easier time pronouncing things from my language book now that I have learned a little bit.

After the language lesson we took lunch with Uma and Rabinda (our language teacher) we ate rice with a curry sauce and vegetables. There were potatoes and chili peppers and a vegetable that I had never seen that Uma called lady fingers. They may be similar to orka but I don’t know. It was very good though.
Afterward I sat and listened to Uma and Rabindra talk in Nepali. (Rabindra could not go because it was raining to hard and he had to walk to the bus). I think the jet lag caught up with me a little bit because I went to lay down for a short nap around 2 or 3 and did not wake up until almost 8. We watched a little bit of television with the children. A lot of it was in English and some of it was in Hindi. It was interesting how much I understood what was going on even though I could not understand the language that was being used. Afterward we ate dinner and visited.

Right now I am laying in bed writing this in a word document hoping that I can post in on the blog. We shall see. We did not get out of the house at all today because of the rain so I did not get a chance to get to internet access. Hopefully tomorrow will be better weather so that we will be able to and to see the city we can only see a little. I will also try to take some pictures tomorrow and show where we will be staying while we are here.
Dhanyabaad (Thank you)
Amanda

Nepal

I will get stuff on here soon I tried tonight but the word processor on here is not working for some reason. I am doing great though. I have pictures on Facebook check them out. Miss you all

Amanda