Matthew 6:21 For where your Treasure is there will your Heart be also.

I've always loved this scripture, those things that we put time and effort in are those things that become important to us in our lives, those things that we truly come to love.  This week this scripture has taken on a little bit of a different meaning to me. This week we have spent much time with Elder and Sister Treasure from Hong Kong.  They are area humanitarian specialist who have come to give us some training.  This is their 4th mission in the Asia area.  We learned many things from them this week and had a lot of fun while we were learning.

Friday, September 14th
We met at the Raddison hotel, yes that's the real Raddison and it is a lovely hotel, you feel like you have left Nepal and gone to another country. We met in the lobby with Treasures for about 3 hours talking about humanitarian efforts in Nepal.  When we do humanitarian projects they are broken down into 3 areas, Major Initiatives, projects that usually cost over $25,000, projects like water projects, wheelchairs, neonatal, etc., Area Initiatives, projects under $25,000, sight impaired, sewing centers, cyber centers, projects at READ Nepal (I'll explain this one later) and then there are small projects that are under $2,000, humanitarian kits, school kits, newborn kits.  Each of these projects require different church approval and sometimes take a while to get approved. We talked about the process of initiating these projects.

In the afternoon we all went with Rakeesh Hamal to look at the sewing centers the church has helped with and the cyber centers that LDSC has also helped with.  When we were in the MTC they told us about the importance of having a "Champion" in regards to our different projects.  Rakeesh has been the LDSC Champion for many many years.  He is an amazing man.  When we first got here and went to Pokarah for Helping Babies Breathe, he had made sure that we had good dependable vans (w/air) and very good drivers, he also called to alert us about a bandh (strike) that was going to take place the day we were supposed to leave and he suggested that we leave the night before so we could get out before the bandh started.  He watches out for the missionaries all of the time.  He is involved in almost everything in Nepal, government, humanitarian, sports, you name it Rakeesh has some influence.  He is taking care of our VISA's,    something that he doesn't need to do, he's just a wonderful man and everyone knows him.  A little side note, his older brother is the most famous movie star in Nepal, the Brad Pitt of Nepal, he almost rode home with us from Chitwan because of the monssons he couldn't get a flight, but the sun came out and he flew home.  But I'm sure we'll get a picture with him some time.

Sewing Center in Pokarah (most of these women are disabled) remember all these sewing machines are treadle machines

Elder and Sister Treasure, Rakeesh

Fiskars, these are not, these scissors are about 15" long

Kent watching these blind women knit, LDSC has funded this sewing program at one of Rakeesh's sewing centers, they have made beautiful sweaters, scarfs, etc.

 Later that evening we went to Foodland Restaurant with Rakeesh, three ministers of different government ministries, Rempps (the other humanitarian missionary couple) and the Treasures, we visited and talked about various projects that LDS Charities have worked on.  The minister from the Health Ministry talked about having the same couples for 5 years instead of changing every 18 - 23 months.  We laughed, but he was serious!  Elder Rempp asked him if he had grandchildren, he did not so Greg explained how difficult it was for us women to leave our grandchildren.  He didn't seem to get it! Dinner was interesting, for appetizers we had french fries, chicken momos (bones and all), fish sticks (they weren't very good either) dinner was rice (of course) dahl (of course) and a few other things I couldn't identify.  It was a nice evening and it was good for us to meet these gentlemen, especially since they will be hopefully approving our VISA's in the next few weeks.

Dinner at Foodland with Government ministry, Rakeesh, Rempps, Treasures and us

Saturday, September 15
Church today, next week I get to start teaching the English class before our church meetings begin

Sunday, September 16
Today, Rempps, Treasures and us met at the Radisson for a yummy breakfast.  They always want to know if we'd like coffee, we tell them "no" but we would love hot chocolate.  The first day of training at the Radisson one of the waiters went and made hot chocolate especially for us, it did not have enough sugar and Carol told him it wasn't quite sweet enough, he was so nice, every morning there after,  we didn't have to ask for hot chocolate, he just brought it to us and it was perfect.

Nepal has many many different festivals and this week is Teej, (Woman's Festival) Someone from one of the organizations had delivered a gift for Carol and I, Nepali, green and red glass bracelets and several glass binidis, these are the little red ornamental jewels they wear on their forehead, unlike the Tikka, the red powder dot that they wear on their foreheads, which is a Hindu blessing.  That was kind of a fun surprise.

Rempps, Treasures and Mendenhalls at breakfas

We then left to go and see Raj Kumar Shah, another amazing little man.  Raj has leprosy and has opened a clinic, READ Nepal where others with leprosy can come and be treated without having to pay.  In Nepal, as I'm sure with other third world countries, it is believed that a person with leprosy has committed a serious sin in a previous life and so just like in the bible they are cast out of their homes and families and very much shunned by society.  Raj met a Dutch doctor who treated him at a hospital and helped Raj to eventually become a pharmacist.  Raj is a Christian, also unusual for this country, his favorite story is of Job.  Raj believes in the welfare principal of being self sufficient.  Those who come to his clinic are asked to work to pay back for some of their care.  He also has a little sewing center that the church has helped him with, and we're also working on a little chicken project with him that we hope to have completed in the next month of so.  Some of the things that go on at this clinic besides the leprosy care are a little shoe shop where special shoes are made for those with leprosy, a garden, beehives, they make little briquettes out of sawdust and paper for cooking/heating in the small villages outside of Kahtmandu, he also has a place where those who have no where to go can stay.  Raj also has kidney failure and is on dialysis.  He goes to work and just hooks up an IV bag for dialysis.  He's married, his wife has leprosy in her hands, and has two children.  Next month he is taking us and the Rempps fishing, fun huh?

Greg Rempp, Hossen and Kent at READ Nepal

Leprosy on Hossen's foot and leg

Kent and Kanchi

Kanchi

The briquette makers, they also have leprosy

Goma, the nurse is wrapping with leprosy bandages.  Sister Treasure brought  bags of bandages that a Young Women's group made at Girls Camp in California.  These bandages take about 40 hours to make - one bandage.  If they don't have new bandages, they just wash out the old ones and reuse them, YUCK

Isn't she cute?  She stands about 4' has no teeth.  In Nepali she told Kent she was going to die before he could get her picture.

Raj and his son, notice Raj's hands

After visiting READ Nepal we walked over to the Pashupati Temple and Bagmati River.  A little history lesson, Pashupati is where the Hindus cremate their dead - the deceased  must be cremated within 24 hours.  The oldest son lights a stick that has been placed in the mouth of the person who has died.  If they have no son, they buy one for this occasion.  The males of the family must shave their whole bodies and they must wear white for one year as they are in mourning.  If a young wife loses her husband she can never marry again. It takes about 4 hours for they body to burn and then the ashes are then brushed into the Bagmati River, where the street children are allowed to dive in and find the jewels and gold of the deceased.  The family of the deceased must pay about $350.00 to have their loved ones cremated.  They must pay for the wood to burn, now if you have a lot of money in Nepal you are cremated up the river a little, sandlewood is used for fuel, (it doesn't have any odor) and you pay $800.00  They are not allowed to use any fuel like gas, petro, etc. Very interesting, there are also monkeys running everywhere.

    

Pashupati Temple is the one in the middle, it has huge beautiful silver doors.  Only Hindus can enter

Real live bodies burning, I guess not  live bodies

The orange stuff on the platform are marigold leis

After we spent the afternoon at READ Nepal and Pashupati we went back to the Raddison and had dinner at The Olive Garden and Outback Steakhouse combined.  Probably just knock-offs.  Anyway, I had a picture of Kent in front of the Olive Garden sign and another with him eating a nice rib eye steak, I can't find it.

The next two days we went to Chitwan.  We left Monday morning about 9:00 after having breakfast again at the Raddison, it is so nice to eat really good food!  Rakeesh wanted Treasures to see a couple of the sewing centers that the church has helped with.  We had a really nice air conditioned van, again Rakeesh makes sure that when we're traveling we are as safe as possible and I use the term "safe as possible" loosely, for when traveling to Chitwan the roads are extremely dangerous and it had been raining for 3 days with no end in sight.  The drive is supposed to be about 4-5 hours it took us 9.  There were several places where the mountain was washing away onto the road and it had to be cleared  to be passed.  This is the same road we took 3 weeks ago where all the trucks were breaking down.  Also a bus and van had side-swiped each other knocking powerlines onto the road and the bus went off the side into a ditch. We waited about 1.5 hours at this accident before we could move on.  Now us three ladies, of course, had to use a bathroom, Rakeesh even took care of this for us.  He went to one of the homes on the side of the road and asked if we could use their bathroom.  So the three of us, get out in the pouring rain, go into the backyard of one of the homes and they take us to a little shed.  You can imagine the rest yourselves.  We did feel much better.  We stayed in a pretty nice little hotel in Chitwan that night, I even got an American movie on the t.v., that  was first.  We had planned on taking an elephant ride the next morning, we got up and left by 5:45 to go and find the elephants.  It's still pouring rain, we get to the Chitwan reserve and it's just too wet for a one and a half elephant ride so we decided to skip it and do it the next time we're in Chitwan.  The Treasures have ridden on elephants before so it wasn't any big deal.  We went in a little cafe and had breakfast and decided to walk around a little before heading over to the sewing centers.

This is a little family fishing, there are crocodiles in this river

As we're walking we spy this wild elephant across the river, sorry we could only get a picture from the back

These dingos were following us around as we walked along the Narayani River

Yes, it's still pouring

These are the elephants we would have been riding.

We walked through the forest and had loads of fun in the muck.  Kent had to pull me out of this a couple of times.  Sister Treasure fell in it.

Don't even ask me why I'm smiling

YUCK!  Kent has a leech on his neck and it sucked on him pretty good!  There were 7 of us and 5 got leeches, not me or Carol

We went back to our hotel, quickly took showers and checked for more leeches and off to the Chitwan sewing centers.  

This is one of the sewing centers, Diane Treasure, Rakeesh, me, Carol and Usha.  Usha has a disability.  She was trained at one of the sewing centers in Kahtmandu and now she is in Chitwan training others with disabilities.

An interesting story about Usha.  Her in-laws have not been very kind to her, and her husband would always side with his mother.  A lot of it had to do with her disability.  Once she learned to sew and was bringing in some money for the family, her status in the family went way up and she was respected more by her in-laws and therefore her husband.  It's a Nepali thing, I think.

This pretty girl is sewing a stuffed animal.  Notice both the tikka and the bindi on her head.

This woman in the wheelchair also has her own sewing shop, I've forgotten her name.  She is also in an LDSC wheelchair.  A few years ago her father passed away, her brother who by tradition should have been the one to care for his mother said, "I'm out of here, you need to take care of mother."  They had no income, Usha trained her in one of the sewing centers and now she brings in the income to care for her mother and herself.  Her mother told us with tears in her eyes, how proud she is of her daughter.  They live together in the back of this little sewing center.

Time to head back to Kathmandu - another long and rainy ride.  It was a little less adventurous on the way back.  We got home after dark and just went to bed.

The next day was Wednesday, again we met with the Treasures for breakfast and some more instruction and training on how to enter projects into the church's CHaS system.  Later that night Rakeesh took us out for a Nepali Cultural dinner at Nepali Chulo where we all received tikkas as we walked in, ate dinner sitting on the floor and being entertained by traditional Nepali dancers.  It was really a fun place to go.

It's a good thing Treasure's are going back to Hong Kong tomorrow, I'm exhausted!  They were fun and were really encouraging and excited about the things that we're working on here in Kathmandu.

Friday, Elder Krishna Nepali from our branch left on his mission.  He is a very quite young man.  He is the only member of his family who is a member of the church.  We went to the airport to see him off.  He is going to the MTC in Manila and then to New Delhi for his mission.  His father came a long way to see him off and told Kent that he was very proud of his son and new that God would watch over him.  In the past the senior missionary couples have taken the young missionaries and got them ready to leave on their missions, buying them everything they needed from their own personal funds.  We have been told not to do that, the church has funds to pay for those who can't afford it and the branch has a mission fund to help them get ready.  It was a great opportunity for our branch to step up and help this young man which they did, we were so proud of them and what a great opportunity it was for them to serve and sacrifice.  Our Branch President told us that his father came up with 20,000 rupees, and gave it to President Bishnu, what a huge sacrifice for this father, that's a little over $200.00.  President Bishnu said "I have no idea how he did it".  I know he will be blessed for this tremendous sacrifice.  We just found out tonight, that Elder Nepali missed his flight, when missionaries leave they must have enough money with them to pay for a flight home (essentially it's emergency $$$)  he didn't have it and somehow, someone came up with the money and he flew out 2 hours later.  Whew!!!!

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Elder Nepali at the airport with his father.  What a testimony to me that our Heavenly Father loves us and knows each one of us

My Solution To Your Problem Will Always Be Wrong

If I learned anything in our 2 weeks at the MTC it was this - my solution to your problem will always be wrong.  Let me give 2 examples of this principle, the first was told to us during a field trip to welfare square, the other was from a book I've just finished reading.

The first story is about a young single mother in a run down area in Detroit, she was a recently baptized member of the church.  She'd quit coming and one of the bishopric members went to visit her.  She had 2 small toddlers and her house was in such disarray, the bishopric member sat down and talked with her.  He asked her what was her greatest desire.  She wanted to finish high school and become a lawyer.  He asked what the ward could do to help her accomplish this dream.  She said  "if someone could watch my children for 2 hours everyday so I could take classes to finish up my GED."  He told her that he'd send over the Relief Society President to talk with her.  The Relief Society President came and sat and talked with her about her goals. She left thinking this young woman needed much, much more than 2 hours of babysitting each day.  She organized an army of women who came in and cleaned and cleaned the house.  The young woman never returned to church.  She was ashamed and embarrassed.  Now this is a lesson for ME, because that is probably what I would have done.  I'm sometimes like a bull in a china shop, I have a tendency to think I know how to solve everyone's problems, without listening but most of all without  much input from the one whose problem it is.  I know all my children are all nodding their heads in agreement, but I think I'm starting to get it, finally.  

Here's an excerpt from a book I just finished reading  Little Princes by Connor Grennam.  This is a great book about child trafficking in Nepal not many years ago.  It gives a lot of information about the culture of Nepal, even today and is a fascinating story.  

Connor came to Nepal in 2004 to work for 3 weeks in an orphanage.  He never left, well sort of, he comes frequently back to the children's home he started in 2008.

"Even around the house, the children at Little Princes could entertain themselves far more efficiently than I ever could.  I made a mistake early on of buying them toy cars during one of my trips to Kathmandu-eighteen little cars, one for each of them.  They loved them so much they literally jumped for joy.  I felt like a Vanderbilt, presenting gifts to the less fortunate.  The longest-surviving car of the eighteen lasted just under twenty-four hours.  I found little tires and car doors scattered around the house and garden.  Nishal and Hriteek, the pair of six-year-olds, shared the last car between them, sliding the wheel-less chassis back and forth across the concrete front porch a few times before running out to play soccer with a ball they had made out of an old sock stuffed with newspaper.

Though they would never admit it, the kids had far more fun with the toys they made themselves.  One boy, usually Santosh, would take a plastic bottle from the trash discarded through out the village.  To this bottle he strapped two short pieces of wood, binding them with some old string.  He collected four plastic bottle caps and some rusty nails and pounded them into the wood with a flat rock.  And voila! he had built a toy car.  When it wobbled too much going down the hill, he discovered that he could stabilize it by filling the bottle with water.  Soon it was racing down shallow hills and crashing into trees.  Because he had constructed it, he was also able to fix it.  By the end of the day, all the children had built their own cars.

I never bought them anything after that.  Instead, I helped them search for old bottle or flip-flops they could use, or saved for them the toothpaste boxes.  Those boxes were so popular that we had to set an order in which each child would receive his discarded box.  They didn't really do anything with them except keep them, to have something to call their own.  The cars they made, or the bow and arrows they made out of bamboo, or the little Frisbees they made out of old flip-flop plastic-those things were all individual possessions.  They happily shared them with others in Little Princes, but at the end of the day the toy or the piece of prized rubbish would go into their individual cardboard containers that were large enough to hold their two sets of clothes and everything else they owned in the world."

My calling here is to help these people in Nepal search for the "old bottle, or the toothpaste box,"  to help them find solutions to their own problems if indeed they want solutions.  Have you noticed that the church does not have school bag projects or humanitarian kits or neonatal kits put together by members of the wards anymore.  That is because that was OUR solution to their problem.  Now those things are done in the individual countries, the church purchases products that are common to the area where they are needed, for two reasons,  money is going back into THEIR economy and members are helping THEIR own people, and the church is probably saving millions of humanitarian dollars by not having to ship those kits.  Brilliant!  I'm starting to get it.  These pictures are of problems that I've seen in the last couple of weeks, I would have a different solution, but they are figuring it out and making it work.

This is our street, it looks sort of like a war zone, they are widening the roads.  I read in the local newspaper a few days ago that now that they've got things torn up they may run out of money before they are able to rebuild.    My solution????????????

These are the water tanks that are on all of the houses, pumped from the ground up.  We have solar heating so sometimes we have hot water but most of the time NOT ????

  

The local grocery store - I do not however shop at this one.   I shop at Bompettini's (sp)  it's a cross between a Costco and Reams grocery store.











Human wheelbarrows?????

The local barbershop - Kent's about ready for a haircut, do you think he out to try this place out, only 60 rupees (about .75.   ????

This is one of the funniest signs I've seen, this is in our branch meetinghouse in the bathroom.   Nepali's have to be shown how to use our Western style toilets, last night Brother Rempp was telling us that before the members of the branch go to the temple, they have a class on how to use the toilets in the temple, THEY ARE NOT TO STAND ON THE SEATS.  Below is a brand new Nepali toilet in the plumbing store.  They can however stand up on this one.

Now you know cows are sacred in the Hindu religion.  They are all over and cars and people move over for them as they wander down the road.  My solution - steaks for dinner,  ha, ha.


The next pictures were taken when we were at the Helping Babies Breathe training.  We are at a hospital - unbelievable - my solution - tear it down and start from the ground up.

        Windows inside the hospital - yuck.  I really hope I never get sick enough to have to go to the hospital.

                                                Hospital walls

  The people are waiting at the hospital clinic - it is only open from 10:00 - 2:00.  Most of them walk miles to be seen, only to wait in line and then have it close before they can see a doctor.  Someone is there serving up watermelon to those waiting in line.

          This water buffalo is waiting in line at the hospital clinic.  There were about 4 of these big guys.

 This is our lovely home, but looks can be deceiving.  Because of the monsoon season, it really smells musty, the walls are all cement, we do not have air conditioning or heat.  In the winter we're told it's much warmer outside than inside.   But compared to most people here we are in heaven.  No more complaining from me.


Our week has been just getting ourselves organized.  We've had a plumber here for 2 days trying to get our toilets fixed.  It would take about 3 minutes to flush them, they are working better now.  The plumber brought about 2 tools, we had to go to the plumbing store to pick up supplies for him.  He made a washer out of tape and used a lot of duct tape to fix things.  I wonder how long all those repairs will last. But I know my solution to their problems will always be wrong and I'm getting to understand that here in Nepal.    

 This next week we are meeting with church leaders from Hong Kong and government officials, we're also going to ride the elephants in Chitwan, pictures to come in the next few weeks.                                      

Welcome To My World - Nepal - Top of the World

September 2069


Yes, in Nepal it really is the year 2069 and  no, we have not been warped through time.  Our calendar year is a Christianity based calendar, I asked Rukmina why 2069, she wasn't sure maybe it's Hindu or Buddha.  Anyway we're here!

We left on the 24th of August, flew to Paris, then to Bahrain and onto Kathmandu. It was over 21 hours in the air.    We arrived @ 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning but not without incident.  I don't have all my luggage, I panic, I need all my bags.  Kent goes and finds someone who speaks English or at least he thinks he speaks English, it just nothing like the English I'm familiar with.  We fill out a report and have faith that at some point it will show up!

These are the Himalayan Mountains peeking above the clouds from the airplane

Hari (our guard) and Rukmina (our didi, or housekeeper) are waiting with big smiles, marigold leis and khadas (a scarf like thing, that is presented to people frequently).  They were getting worried that maybe we had changed our minds after waiting outside the airport for over an hour.  We headed for home!  I have just been hit with the reality of Nepal, sort of like hitting a brick wall.  I can't even describe what the traffic is like.  There are no apparent laws or rules or common sense to driving here. There are policemen/women at intersections trying to direct traffic but I see no one paying any attention to them, in fact sometimes they are just standing around talking.

Notice that sometimes cars even drive on the sidewalks,
no place is really safe

 Pedestrians have no right of way, and are just walking targets for the hundreds of cars.  I am not kidding, crossing the street really is taking your life in your own hands.  The cars do not slow down when a person is crossing.  Sister Remmp had her umbrella on Saturday walking to church and a car was close enough to her to knock it out of her hand.  Scared her a little

We arrive at home, our home for the next 18 months.  It's a nice, big home, it's old and it's cement and comes with all the problems of an old cement home.  (We'll send pictures later).  We quickly take a cold shower, which may be the norm, and head over to  a school where HBB (Helping Babies Breathe) has started.

Hitson (son) Kent, Rukmina and me

Home Sweet Home

 HBB is a neonatal program that the church is involved in and we're trying to get the country of Nepal to adopt the program and eventually teach it on their own.  It is a resuscitation procedure for newborns that aren't breathing.  It's simply a bag and mask but the most important part of the training is doing it in the "golden minute".  The doctor and nurses that have come from Salt Lake are training some hospital staff to train their own doctors and nurses.  We get there in time for lunch, dahl baht (rice and lentils), saag (some kind of a green vegetable mush), and tarkaari maasu (hot spicy vegetable with chicken, all parts of the chicken, feet, beaks, etc.)  Yum   I ate a little, it's just all a little spicy hot for me.  We get home and fall into bed.  We have a nice king size bed and I didn't move a muscle, I think I was a little tired..

Dr. Clark and Nurse Sherry from SL

Dahl Bhat - look carefully you may find a chicken beak

Monday morning is pretty much the same, we leave the house about 7:30 and head over to the school for more training, again lunch, dahl baht, saag, tarkaari maasu, however, today I packed my purse with Fiber One bars.  At the end of the training there is a closing ceremony.  It's a pretty big deal, long and somewhat boring.  Everyone is recognized for and given a certificate, I understand that certificates are a big deal.  There are some important people there making speeches and we're all given  khadas, (I'm starting my collection).

Closing Ceremonies - our Branch President is on the right

These are nurses from one of the hospitals - notice their uniforms
All Nepali women I've seen are beautiful
They are receiving HBB equipment -bag and mask and mannequins

Tuesday morning we leave for Pokhara, again an early start.  It is about a 6 hour drive on bongo tingo (windy as in lots of switchback) roads, but we stopped along the way so it took us much longer.  Here are some of the sites on our way to Pokhara.

Dr. Clark saw this bridge and wanted to stop and cross it

A Nepali family coming across the Trisuli River

Kent got his first hamburger or at least that's what they called it - we're not sure what it  was
but the french fries are the best here!

Next we stopped to take a gondola up to the Manakanama temple.  A little city very high in the mountains was built by laborers who hiked the mountain, amazing.  They still hike the mountain to get supplies in, their main staple, of course, is rice.  We saw acres an acres of rice paddies.  Hindus go to the temple to make sacrifices.  We were able to walk around the temple and look inside but were not allowed in.

Looking down on the village in Mankanama and the rice paddies

This little black goat will ride up in his own little basket
up the gondola to be sacrificed in the temple

 




Me in front of the temple, where the little goat will be sacrificed.  Some of our party watched the poor thing being killed. Not me!

These were the holy men sitting next to the temple, we tried to get a picture of the one using his cell phone - weird

Walking the streets of Manakanama

Onward to Pokahara

Picture from our hotel - notice the beautiful lake, Himalyas in the far background
The call the smaller mountains, hills

We're back to training on Wednesday and Thursday, more of the same, we're in a hospital to train this time, pretty archaic, no glass in the windows, mold on the walls, we had to climb about 5 flights of stairs about a hundred times or so it seemed.  And take a guess what was served both days for lunch, right, dahl baht with all the other stuff, again I took Fiber One Bars. If anyone really comes over to see us, bring FIBER ONE BARS

In Pokahara I had to do a little shopping since I still had not gotten all of my of luggage.  It is monsoon in Nepal and we got caught in a drenching rain storm, one of many to come.   So by the time we all caught up with one another, we were all drenched.

Dr. Clark, and his darling wife Ann soaked

 After closing ceremonies again, we got a call from one of the guys we work with in Kathmandu and he told us that we should think about coming home because there was going to be a bandh in Pokahara the next day and there was a possibility we would not be able to leave.  A bandh is a strike which happens frequently in Nepal.  It basically shuts down shops, businesses, transportaion etc.  Sometimes but not usually they can be violent.  We understand when they take place we just stay home or take the back roads if we need to get.  Anyway so we loaded up the vans and headed for home.  Now the roads we take is pretty treacherous.  Trucks are breaking down all the time and so we did not want to travel at night so we stayed in a nice resort called Riverside.

Scary ride home from Pokhara
These trucks were broken down all over the canyon road
It was kind of like driving down Little Cottonwood Canyon only steeper
and with drivers that could care less about my safety

Riverside resort

This swimming pool at the resort is the most out of place thing I have seen in Nepal so far
There was not a soul at this resort except for our medical team and LDS charity missionaries.

Now just so you know, looks can be very deceiving, after eating a nice meal at this resort.  Kent sees a rat run across the floor and just mentions it to me.  When we get back to our little bungalow I check around to make sure their are no rats.  Our twin beds are on the floor stuffed with coconut fiber (ummm sound comfy) Kent gets to sleep and I scream, there is a cockroach in my bed.  Somehow I make it through the night, not much sleep but I did not see any more bugs or rats.

Home at last and ready to get in our own bed, look what I find on the ceiling in our bathroom, my grandsons will think this is cool!

LET THE FUN BEGIN