More pictures!

Little Sushila

That arch is the entryway to their school.

This is their kitchen. Where almost all of our food is cooked. It is so simple and so effective. Chanel said, "Its funny, we have all of these fancy kitchen tools and I haven't found one thing that they do, that we do better."

The view on the walk to school.

The man in the front is Manish. This is also on our walk to school.

And this swaggerific little man is Sugam. The youngest of the bunch. You should see his strut.

I got a shot of Chanel doing the fieldwork!

Brother Hamish was helping the kids organize the wood pile.

Manish, again. He was Spiderman this day.

Mausam, Sushila, and Manip (Manish's younger brother).

This is Bijay.

Sushila and Momata

The bridge we jumped off of. The story of that ridiculous day will be posted soon.

The other day, we all helped to repaint the main house and kitchen area. At this point, we were painting with cement. They use it because it is cheaper than paint as a base coat.

Being as much of ourselves as we could muster up on a public bridge.

The gorge that we jumped into. We were very close (less than 5 mintues) away from the Tibetan border here. So immensely beautiful.

This is me, helping to pick the insects out of the rice before they cook it.

This is the project coordinator here, Sagar, and Momata. Momata is wearing some of the clothing items we brought to the orphanage. She looked so precious.

This was one part of the temple we visited on the first day of Dasain festival. The post for which will also be posted soon.

October 4

7:13 AM

Last night was not as good of sleep as the night before. It gets so cold here at night! I got up twice to put on more clothes and still thought once or twice about crawling into bed with Chanel for some warmth. Here, there are no heaters. What we have is what we have. And now, my cough is back! Woo! Not surprising, I guess. I was sick before we left. The plane's dry air. The city's smog. And now the kids. Even some of the sisters were sick. One yesterday couldn't get out of bed, poor darling. Everyday one or two of the kids have been staying home from school and going to "hospital". Really a doctor in Lubhu.

Most of the younger ones all have coughs and mucus running down their noses. It seems the older children's immune systems are a bit more developed. Hamish said it all started after the monsoon season stopped. Right before we got here. Apparently, change in climate brings about a lot of sickness here. So, I'm fitting right in :)

Yesterday was a nice day. We woke up and had tea, which appears will be my morning ritual. I really like their tea. I also dump a little of my instant coffee into it. Very good. "Mitcho chha". Tasty. 

During tea we sit on the roof/balcony and enjoy the view, question if we're really here and write, as I am doing now. After 7:30, we go up to the orphanage to help the kids with their morning reading, then it is breakfast (Dhal baat). And then the kids get dressed into their uniforms, gel their cute little heads, and we're off to school. It's a beautiful walk. One I am happy to take every morning. (The kids are usually a little more rambunctious in the afternoons.) Yesterday, there was a dead crow on the ground outside of school. You wouldn't believe the chaos that ensued.

After we brought them to school, we came back "home" and wrote some more. Sat on the roof, talked, made some plans for our free time here and I did some water coloring.

We then returned to our rooms. I read a bit of my book. Sister Sushila made us noodles for lunch, sort of like Ramen with curry, onions, and garlic.  Very good, but it made me very sleepy.

At 3:15, Chanel and I walked to school to pick up the kids. They were quite distracted. Little Sushila gave us any flower she came across on the walk home. We returned and as I walked down onto the porch area, Chanel was directing me her way. She said, "You are going to be very happy!" For afternoon snack, the kids had POPCORN!! It did make me very, very happy. I loved it so much. Sister Sushila made it outside on the wood fire, adding only a touch of salt.

We then helped with homework until about 6:30 PM. Dinner. Dhal baat. With the most bitter of all side vegetables known to man. We couldn't figure out what it was. So bad I thought dear god, what have I just ingested and will it injure me? We all made the walk of shame for that one.

The walk of shame is reserved for those who do not finish the food they were given. The walk is half way to the gate of the property to drop the remaining food into a blue bucket on the ground. All would rather leave the table overfilled than be seen making the walk of shame, I think.

And the kids don't help you much there at all. They eat SO much food. All of them and at every meal. I look at what I have and know that I will be more than full and they have three to four times what I have. Plus, they take seconds of the same amount. If I have a mound of rice for my dhal (lentil soupish liquid) that is the size of, or lets say the equivalent volume, of a baseball or a peach, they are eating a small cantaloupe at each serving. And they are so tiny! Most of the toddler-sized clothes we left behind probably could have worked for these kids! So petite. Even the oldest, Saroj, is a foot or two shorter than I at 16 years old.

After dinner, which our group Sargamatha cleaned up after, Mother (host mother) told us to go to bed, to rest but we went up to the orphanage to check if any of the kids needed homework help. After an hour or so, the project coordinator, Sagar, came up to the study room with some henna. All the volunteer girls (us two and Miriam) got henna on the palm of our left hands.

After that we came back to the main house, stayed on the roof for a few, and then went to sleep.

I forgot to say, after snack time we did field work! Legitimate field work. Mother spread seeds in a field earlier in the day, then us and all the older orphans went with tools and dug up, reaped, I'm not sure what to call it, that field all up and down and all over.

Each day holds such new experiences. There hasn't been a mundane moment yet. You may think being secluded, in a small village, in rural Nepal, you would very quickly grow bored. But it is so pleasant. So beautiful. The boring is not. It is relaxing. Maybe we've finally found ourselves on "Nepal time" as they say here.

October 3

6:22 AM

Yesterday we saw Lubhu. Hamish (one of our fellow volunteers) made the walk with us. He showed us the town and the internet cafe. He also showed us the Lubhu Supermarket (very swanky 'round these parts) where we bought snacks and chocolate. On the walk back, we stopped at one of the street stores for some drinks. We again stopped at the Lankuri Phedi Cafe, just the way down from the orphanage, for spring rolls and fried buff (buffalo) momos. Momos are a traditional food here in Nepal and are much like dumplings or pot stickers. We returned to the orphanage for watering the fields/plants. Kids and homework. I'm getting more comfortable already. Dinner. More kids and homework. Sleep. First really excellent night's sleep. And I feel fantastic.

Right now, at 7:11 AM, I hear:

• Pigeons cooing on the tin roof
• Their feet scratching on the tin roof
• The chickens crowing on the rooftop "next door"
• Distant yelling from two different directions. One direction is accompanied by occasional honking
• Someone in the village hitting some kind of metal, perhaps hammering a pipe
• Distant music (Nepalese and very faint)
• The opening of a screen door here in the main building, its creaking
• A breakfast bell just went off somewhere in the village
• Every few minutes I'll hear someone on the grounds talking

I smell:

• Burning plastic and wood
• The sweetness of my tea that Chanel made (I also added a piece of chocolate and some instant coffee)
• The smell of curry is starting to break through
• Chanel a few minutes ago pointed out that her fingers were stained yellow from the food. I looked down to see that mine were too. They eat with their hands here in Nepal. And it is always Dhal Baat or some kind of rice, which is fun to watch and we discovered last night (after a rigorous hand wash and sanitizing process) quite fun to do!

I am really fond right now of pigeons cooing. It's calm, relatively quiet, and peaceful. Along the lines of listening to someone else's heartbeat.
 
Also, the kids gel their hair before they go to school. Adorable. They have one set of clothes that they wear outside of school. After breakfast, they change into their school uniforms (a violet or red-striped long sleeved button up, with a navy tie, and depending on the gender and age, pants or a skirt, white socks, and nice black shoes. So cute!

Pictures!

This silly little box of a computer we brought with us is not terribly strategic when it comes to uploading photos. So, please be patient as I figure it out. 

The view from the plane

These are in Kalanki, a smaller part of larger Kathmandu valley. This is the view from the hostel we first stayed at upon arriving in Nepal.

Pictures from the side of the road as we starting heading out of the city..

And this..this is our daily view. The view from our balcony.

Painted images from past volunteers on the balcony walls

The view along the walk to the kids' school

This is the cafe which we are spending more and more time at. Something to eat other than Daal Bhat!

Walking to Lubhu one day

Stray cows getting their eatin' on

The view from our normal seats at the cafe!

This is what we look out on every afternoon :)

The white building to the left is the  main house, the one Chanel and I stay in. The house more elevated to the right is the orphan house.

The entrance