It is what it is.....................

It's been a month since my last blog and I have lots of excuses why I haven't written so I won't bore you with the excuses but share what we've been busy doing ......

The monsoons have started, a little early this year.  It's takien me almost 9 months to figure out the best time to take a warm shower and now I'll have to start again since we have little sun and therefore little hot water, oh well, it is what it is.

This will be a lake in our yard in a few minutes.

It does cool things down a bit however.  The temperature has been up in the 90's the last week and that is the temperature in the house.








I worked with a principal for ten years and his favorite thing to say was "it is what it is...." I also worked with an assistant principal who hated when he said that, she would always say " and what exactly does that mean?"  Sometimes I wondered myself what it meant, it seemed more like an excuse for not giving an answer. I've lived in Nepal now for 9 months, yes, we have really been gone for 9 months and I now understand the meaning of 'it is what it is.'  It means there really isn't a logical explanation, or it can't be explained, or don't worry about, you can't change it. That's how I'm feeling about a lot of things in Nepal. 
Yesterday we were out on our torn up street, they are putting the sewer pipes in and have the entrance to our street all dug up.  I looked in the hole they've dug.  I wish I had a picture of this but try to imagine in your mind, there are 48" diameter cement pipes in the hole, there are no caskets or anyway to connect the pipes together, so, to keep the leaking at a minimum between the cement pipes they lay bricks around the pipes and then pack them with dirt and then quickly bury the pipe which is only a few inches under ground.  Obviously no quality control, no code to be met,  I shake my head and think, it is what it is.     

As soon as the water specialist left in April we had only a week to make sure we were ready for our HBB project with doctors and nurses coming from the states.  Lots of last minute running around to do.   But we first had another  missionary to send off.  

Thursday, Upendra was on his way to New Delhi  he first flew to Manila to the MTC.

  Riding in the tuk tuk to celebrate Hari's birthday

Inside our lovely tuk tuk

It may not be luxurious but it is cheap transportation

On Friday we  took Hari to dinner for his Birthday.  I was sure he'd pick KFC but he wanted a Nepali dinner.







In getting ready for our HBB project we had ordered resuscitation bag and masks two months before and went down to pick them up.  No bag and masks, to make a long story short the owner was able to round up 40 for our training in Biratnagar but they wouldn't be here until after we flew out so he had to send them on the plane, they arrived just in time but we did not have any for our training in Kathmandu.  It is what it is......

On Saturday, it was church, still listening to conference and then had the youth over for a fireside and dinner.

We have firesides twice a month at our house.  They really enjoy sitting around and discussing gospel principles, they also really enjoy dinner and I really hope that the couple that replaces us will continue meeting with these youth. They have strong testimonies and will be the leaders in Nepal in the near future.




The training team from the states arrived on Sunday, April 28th. 

 We picked the 5 of them up from the airport and brought them to our house to shower, take a quick nap, since they had not slept in almost 2 days, ran a got a bite to eat for lunch and then headed back to the airport to catch a plane to Biratnagar for our first training of Helping Babies Breathe.

Running to get a bite to eat before we fly out to Biratnagar

Dr. Donna Townsend, Dr. Rob Clark and Nurse Extraordinaire Kiri Brown 

Adrienne Clark, administrative assistant, another Nurse Extraordinarire Liz Brown and Me.

The airport
 in Biratnagar, 

These poor guys were so tired and unfortunately the flight was only 45 minutes.  Not a lot of time to rest.

 

Getting ready for the training the next morning.  We had 30 babies to fill with water.

Our training team consisted of two doctors, two nurses, Dr. Clark's cute daughter who helped me with entering all the participants registration and test scores in the computer and six Nepali trainers who flew with us to Biratnagar.  

Our Nepali trainers who are excellent trainers and have become very good friends.

Nisha receiving her certificate at the end of the training.


The training in Biratnagar went very well, and over 50 people were trainined in HBB.  They now have to go back to their hospitals and train their staff.  We have to make sure that they do the training.  We have a monitor who calls each hospital for about six months and follows up and then reports back to us if they are training or not.

We were in Biratnagar for two days and then came back to Kathmandu to train at OM Hospital.  Again, over 50 more doctors and nurses were trained.  But we did have one day before training started in Kathmandu so the "girls" had to go shopping for kurtas, a must for women in Nepal.

So many colors to choose from

We had GC, who is a member of our branch speak at the opening ceremony at the OM hospital.  We were so proud of him as he spoke of Latter-Day Saint Charities and told everyone he was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Nepal.  We kind of held our breath, but he said "you can't say that but I can".  

GC, proud to be a member of the Church in Nepal.  

Training in OM Hospital, these are the neo-natalies that they use to train with and then we give each hospital enough to train their staff along with all the other training materials.

Training at OM Hospital

On Thursday evening we held another dinner reception with health and government officials.  As we planned for this reception it was somewhat like the reception we had in January when the HBB team was here from the states, however, this time we told Rakesh we would not serve and pay for alcohol for the guests.  He told us, but that is the culture here, we said but that is not our culture.  One way or another we will make our presence here in Nepal known, they will remember us for who and what we stand for.  The reception went very well and I did not hear any complaints about there being no alcohol.

Dr. Clark with health and government officials and NO ALCOHOL.  We are getting a little braver and bolder.

Dr. Clark, Rakesh, Dr. Hari, Dr. Rita and Dr. Townsend

On Friday, Elder Norman Chia arrived from Hong Kong, he is our Aisa Area Welfare Manager.  This is a new church job for him and so he is visiting the 
different countries he is over.  He arrived just in time to visit the last day of training at OM.

In the few short days he was here we had him running.  I'm sure he was glad to fly back to Hong Kong for a much needed rest.

Friday was the last day of training and we had a few hours to do some sightseeing before we had a surprise birthday party for Rakesh.  We went to the Monkey Temple.

After spending some time at the Monkey Temple and having no time to go home and freshen up for the Rakesh's birthday party we quickly headed over the Shangri-La for the big surprise.

He was pretty surprised, he told us he has never had a party like this one.

For a birthday gift the missionaries went in on a little vacation for his family to Riverside for a couple of nights stay, they could swim and ride horses and then go to Manakamana Temple and ride the gondola.  The last time we had gone there he said "I wish I could bring my family here someday"  

Now he can take them 

Rakesh, Sunila, Rajasee and Chirag 

Happy Birthday Rakesh

Rakesh just heard from BYU this last week, he has been invited to participate in the law and religion symposium in October.  This is his second time to be invited.  We've talked him into taking his wife with him this time, she has never left Nepal, but she is very excited.  Elder and Sister Treasure who are in Hong Kong on their mission will be going home in July and they will be hosting Rakesh and Sunila when they are finished with the conference at the Y for a week.  They plan on taking them to general conference and then to Island Park for a few days.  When Elder Gong was here in September, he told us that one day when the church is recognized in Nepal it will be because of Rakesh's efforts, we also hope that one day he will become a member of the Church.  He's told us he would really like his children to go to BYU.  Maybe it will happen.

The next day was Saturday and Church, we all attended and then had to quickly come home and get ready to leave to drive to Chitwan and then to Pokharah.  A long drive, but we did have a nice air conditioned van to travel in.

On our way we stopped at Manakamana Temple and took the gondola to the top and visited the city at the top of the mountain.  It is amazing to think that everything was carried to the top on long, steep, windy trails.

This was a holy day at the temple, we were not aware that there would be so many people at the top.

Rob and Adrienne Clark

Donna Dizon-Townsend

She got a picture sacrificing a chicken in the temple

Someone told us that their wife had gotten a very good job and so this was their way of saying thank you to the Hindu gods.

It was starting to get late in the afternoon and we still had another 2 hours to go before we arrived in Chitwan.  When we got in line to take the Gondola down it was about a four hour wait.  OHHHHHH.  Rakesh told me to wait in line and he was going to see if he could get us down faster or up into the front of the long line.  He went and explained that he had important dignitaries from the U.S. that needed to get down because they were traveling - a little embarrassing.  Anyway we were moved to the front of the line and on to the gondola.  We were then on our way to Chitwan.

We got to our hotel, everyone exhausted, too tired for dinner.  We all just went to bed.  The U.S. team had to get up very early the next morning, they were going to ride the elephants while Brother Chia wanted to see the sewing centers and the wheelchair warehouse.  FUN!   

 Brother Chia, Kent and Rakesh in front of the hotel in Chitwan.

 Rakesh said the best way to get over to the warehouse was in a ricshaw.
This was our first time in one.






Since we didn't go ride the elephants, I have no pictures of the fun time the other were having.

The wheelchair warehouse, so Nepali,  I'm not too sure Brother Chia was impressed but it is what it is.

 We then visited the 2 sewing centers.  Now Brother Chia was impressed.  The woman in the wheelchair runs this sewing center that LDS Charities helps support.  She has 21 women that she is training, teaching them to sew.  They will be able to sew for their families and maybe get jobs to help support their family.  She made me a lovely hand painted table cloth.  

 This is Usha, she also has a sewing center in Chitwan, both of these women are disabled but are doing very well and are now helping to support their families with very minimal help from LDS Charities.  Usha is actually attending a little group of members in Chitwan, not yet a branch but hopefully in the near future.




After the others were through with their elephant we loaded up and headed to Pokharah.  Another 6 hour ride.  This was just a side trip, a little shopping, an early morning hike and then we decided we would catch a plane back to Kathmandu and skip the long ride home.  And Brother Chia had only a few hours and he needed to meet with Rempps before he flew back to Hong Kong.

Early morning sunrise hike, unfortunately we could not see the mountains because of the clouds, still a good workout for the morning.

  

At the top of the mountain

Kent and I and Budda, our van driver at the top of the mountain

Brother Chia at the top of the mountain

Hiking down the mountain

After we got down  we went back to the hotel, showered, and Brother Chia, Rakesh and Kent and I got a plane and headed back to Kathmandu and the others stayed in Pokharah and rode on the steepest, tallest, longest zip line in the world.  I'll have to do that one day before we leave.  They flew home a couple of hours later.  We picked them up from the airport and went over to Pashupati, where the Hindus burn the bodies.  But first we stopped at READ Nepal Leprosy Clinic to say "hi".  We hadn't seen Raj for a few months.  He'd been in the hospital and had to have his other leg amputated.

 Hossan, Adrienne and Kent at READ Nepal

Raj Kumar Shah at READ Nepal

Body burning

Son of the deceased

The Holy Men at Pashupati

We then went to dinner, Donna had been wanting momos all week long and then went and picked up their kurtas.

The next morning the girls went on the early morning Everest flight and finally saw the mountains that we've been talking about all week.  Donna has her pilots license and thought it was an amazing experience.  They all thought it was amazing but she especially liked the plane especially when she got to go up into the cockpit.  While they were flying around Dr. Clark had some visits he wanted to make with Kent.  I waited for the girls to get back and to go out and finish up their shopping before they flew out at 3:00.

Whew!  They've gone and we're absolutely exhausted.  We love showing off Nepal but we didn't stop for 10 days.  And now we're getting ready for Tiff and Lauren's visit in a couple of weeks and we have another big project at the end of June.  We've got 2 wheelchair trainers coming from Salt Lake and have been working on translation, printing, acquiring a venue that doesn't interfere with wedding season, making sure our trainers have adequate accommodations for wheelchair users, which really is unheard of in Nepal.  Again, we tell them, it is what it is and hopefully everything will turn out.

Speaking of wedding season we were invited to a fun wedding last week.  We work with Sagum and the JAWS program and he invited us to his brother's wedding.  

The beautiful bride and the handsome groom.  The bride's party was last week, this is the groom's party.  You take gifts to the bride's party and flowers to the groom's party.

Sagum and his wife standing with his brother and the bride.  Sagum's wife is where we've been buying our kurta's lately.  She sometimes opens  her shop just for us.

Roasting the goat for the wedding

Before I came I was told I should bring a red dress to wear to weddings, which I did.  Carol has had a beautiful sari made to wear to weddings so last week I went a picked out sari material for the next wedding.  I wanted to make sure I had one with plenty of bling.  I was asked if I was going to wear it to Church when I got home, I don't think so......

Can't wait until it's done though... lots of bling.

So we've had a few days to rest a little, I've been crocheting blankets and afghans and Kent has a chicken project going.  He's decided to help Hari earn some extra money so he has bought chickens and built a coop.  In a few months we should be getting eggs and eating chicken soup.

My baby blankets and hats.....

Kent and Hari's chickens

Hari and Rukmina working in the coop

Last week Rukmina's sister and mother moved into Kathmandu just down the street.  Rukmina's mother hajour ama, comes to visit everyday.  She calls Kent and I babou and nani, which is what she calls her children.  She's very sweet and we love having her around.

Rukmina with her mother

Hajour ama and I

We have only nine more months left in Nepal, I've come to accept many things here that seem very different and strange from the life I left but I know it is what it is and we're happy being involved the Lord's work here in Nepal.  We love the people, we hope that one day their lives may become easier, that they may come to know that they have a Heavenly Father who knows and loves and is mindful of them but for now it really is what it is.