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