1 August 2011                                                               Partly Cloudy, hot and humid

We put final touches on the  Agreement again and took it back to SWC. Mr. Basnet took time right there to go over with it us. Again, there are changes. Last time they told us to insert a Table of Contents.  Today he said we didn’t need it and to take it out. Whoa! This is a little frustrating to say the least. We had thought after we got done there, we would stop and look at some art work there by the Raddison, but decided we had better come straight home and make the changes while they were fresh in our minds. We hope to be able to take it in again tomorrow. We really need to get this done.

I did send an email to Sanjana at READ Nepal. She must not have gotten the email I sent earlier, but she is happy that we will teach a group of twenty women there. We are going to try and get together later this week to discuss details. I’m quite excited about teaching – the women speak very limited English and they will be there because they want to learn. It will be a little different, in a good way, from KTC.  Of course, we will have to get it approved through Hong Kong.

31 July 2011                                                                           Partly Sunny, nice

Gene worked on the Agreement, making a couple of new tables. I helped him as we redid the Table of Contents and then I had to change around all the certificates and the pre-consensus forms. I dreaded doing it but it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. While Gene continued work on it, I crocheted for a while, some on a leper bandage and some on some hot pads.

This afternoon we had a missionary meeting with Elder and Sister Deppong. It went really well. We talked at length about the ‘graduation’ ceremony at KTC. They will meet with Mr. Giri tomorrow and get some answers to some questions we have. We do want the students to be involved in the planning as well as on the program. We only have four weeks left there. We talked about a lot of things and felt good about what’s happening. Debbie is feeling good about the possibility of getting the “Helping Babies Breath´ initiative going here in Nepal. She has the support of Dr. Clark in the USA and other major partners here in this country. That would really be a good thing and the need is so great here in Nepal.

Tonight Laxmi said she wanted to cook dinner for us. She made chicken fried rice, some samosa’s, and we topped it off with rice pudding. It was all so tasty. I had her tell me how to make the samosa’s and watched as she did the fried rice. Hopefully, I will be able to make them too. I think the kids would like them.

Samosa's - I little time consuming, but so good.

                  

Tasty fried rice - I think I can make it too!

 

It's been a nice today today but monsoon season is far from over. We have had over 16 inches of rain this month. It's been wetter than normal - but it hasn't seemed to bad. The walkways and alleys are quite muddy, but we can handle that.

30 July 2011                                                                          Partly Cloudy, quite nice

Gene talked in Church today. Thursday night Pres. Bishnu said one of the speakers wasn’t going to be there on Saturday and would Gene talk. The topic was Eternal Life. And then, Saturday came and they were short a couple of the other speakers. They just didn’t show up. Pres. Bishnu talked for a few minutes about Family History and then . Gene talked. He did a good job and it’s interesting when you do that with an interpreter.

I had thought I would go with the Relief Society to see GC and Pratima’s baby but that didn’t work out. We were supposed to have Branch Council meeting and then the sisters were going to go. They didn’t want to wait – and they were first going to Bhat Bhateni’s to buy some things for the baby. I don’t know if they don’t know or understand not shopping on the Sabbath. Anyway, Debbie and I didn’t think we should do that. Deppong's have already visited and didn’t really feel the need to go. I wasn’t going to go without Debbie, so it ended up being no Branch Council (no one except us missionaries and the counselors in the Presidency were there.) We came home and spend a quiet Sabbath afternoon.

29 July 2011                                                                  Rain in the night and on and off all day

We got up just after six. It was just a little cooler and I put on a turtleneck. It wasn’t long and Gene had gone back upstairs to put on a long sleeve t-shirt. After sitting at the computers for a bit, I make us a cup of hot chocolate. When we were in Bhat Bhateni’s yesterday, I saw some Swiss Miss and bought it. It is fortified with calcium – which we need.

Gene worked on his talk and I answered some emails. We were surprised when Skype was ringing and it said Alison calling. Really it was my sister Lenore and she was at at Alison’s house. What a fun surprise. She said they had been out picking raspberries and had also had a delicious raspberry shake. Oh, that does sound good. Next year! We had a good visit. She is going to pick the rest of the berries in the morning.(It got dark on them) and then she brought stuff so she will make a couple batches of jam. Tomorrow night is her high school class reunion so she will go to that and then stay at our house again, before returning home. She said they would call again in the morning – sure hope so.

We spent the day working on the Agreement. Gene worked on the laptop and I scanned in about eighteen certificates. They have to be scanned in as jpeg files, which seems a little weird to me, but that’s all our scanner will do, so I guess it’s better than not being able to do it. It took me quite a while to figure it all out, the text wrapping and all, getting the certificates in the right order in the document. I finally got it done….that feels good. Gene was able to get most of the tables done. Only one challenge, some of his figures are not matching up. That’s driving him crazy. He will work on it again. He said he’s been looking at too many numbers today.

Tonight I made some chicken pot pie. Oh, it looks and tasted good. And another good thing about it, there’s enough for leftovers. I planned it that way, as it’s the Sabbath tomorrow. And then it sounds like Relief Society sisters who want to, are going to go see GC and Pratima’s new baby girl. I plan on going. And who knows – I might even ride the bus.

28 July 2011                                                                         Rain in the night, mostly cloudy

We went to take the Chanute papers into SWC today. They will call us when they are ready to sign. And wouldn’t you know it, - the project is 80% complete and we are just getting around to signing the papers. I guess that’s the way things work here in Nepal.

While there we talked to the fellow in room 310 about the Two Year Agreement. We thought we would probably get it back again and so why am I surprised? There are yet again some changes to make. They are mostly minor – things not quite in the order they want them in and we do need to make a couple more tables. Hopefully we can get this in again the first of next week.

We did walk to Tushita Restaurant and had some chow mien. After we ordered we were sitting there talking and all the sudden there was this loud fluttering noise and I ducked. We were sitting near a corner and by a large window. The window was open and it was a pretty scene outside with lots of flowering bushes. Well, there was a window on the other wall and a big pigeon had flown in the window, hit the light above our table and out the window right by where we were sitting. It was a little comical really. And it happened not once, but twice. The food was okay. I don’t know if we will be in a but hurry to go back there but the price was right. It was about $4 for both of us. We came home and worked on the Agreement till Gene had to go to PEC meeting. 

The window was wide open - the pigeon flew right out that opening!

   I turned on a movie ‘Ella Enchanted’ and started to watch it. I heard someone knock at the gate. Laxmi had gone and had locked the big gate so we wouldn’t need to listen for her. Goofy started barking like crazy. I went out and had the impression not to open the gate. I looked through the crack by the lock. There was a man there and I wasn’t about to open the gate especially since I can’t understand Nepali.  I think he was begging for money. I waved him off and walked back into the house. Goofy kept barking. I went upstairs and could see the man still at the gate. The neighbor across the street came out onto his balcony and motioned there was someone at the gate. I asked him to tell him to go away. He did and soon the fellow left. Goofy continued to bark for a few minutes and I was just a bit nervous. I’ve never been nervous before. I’m not usually here by myself. We do have a high wall around us and I think we are pretty safe, but it was a little unnerving tonight. (I should say we have visited a little bit with the neighbor across the way. He does speak a little English and likes to talk to us. I was glad he came out. This morning Laxmi told us that he used to be a police officer – that helped comfort me just a little bit.)She said I definitely did the right thing.

27 July 2011                                                                     Rain in the night and rain this morning

We reviewed our material for English this morning. Then, Gene said we really should do something about the English ‘graduation’ program coming up on August 24^th. We talked and decided to take a bit of time in class today. We decided to have the students pick a committee and a Chair and Co-Chair and let the committee plan the program.

We got to school and had our opening exercises and then talked about ‘graduation’. Gene talked to them a bit about nominating people and ‘voting’. They were excited about it. Then we asked if they would give us some names of people they would like to see serve on the committee. We were asking for six or seven names. That many hands went up. We had those students come up and write the names on the board. I guess I have to say I was a little surprised – these were the students who are the ‘leaders’ in the class. They came to the front and wrote their own names on the board. Since there were six names we decided to keep all six for the committee.

That wasn’t quite what we had in mind, but it was okay. Then we passed a paper out to everyone and had them write two names on the paper. We counted the votes and took the top ones as the  chairman and co-chairman. Jeffery was the top vote getter and Hannah and Shelley tied so we kept two co- chairmen.

When class was about over, Gene took the committee in the other room and explained to them what we had in mind and what we wanted them to do. We hope they will involve lots of the students. We will have to run all this past Mr. Giri and get his approval.

While Gene was talking to the committee, I taught the rest of the students a song we would like sung – it’s to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat and talks about speaking English. They are going to need to practice it every class period. They were having a hard time staying in unison.

I finished one pot pad today and started another one. I also started a leper bandage yesterday. I can’t ask others to make some and not do one myself. I know I need to start it – they take a long time.

26 July 2011                                                                                       Few Showers

We both got in a little exercise this morning, then looked over our material for English. Class today was a bit interesting. It seems like a lot of them just want to visit with each other. I had whistled numerous times to try and get them to quiet down. We had asked them to do an exercise in their books. Jeffery had come to the front and before he was to do his thing, he said he wanted to say something. He told the students that some of them were there to learn and when the others are talking it makes it difficult for the others. Hooray Jeffery! I talked a little about college in the USA and that you wouldn’t be allowed to sit and visit while the professor was giving a lecture. I think these kids know a lot of what we are teaching, but then there are times, when I don’t think they know it as well as they should…

We came home, had a sandwich and then I went Visiting Teaching with Laxmi. It was sprinkling as we left. The streets were wet and muddy. Part of the monsoon experience, I guess. We went to Kamala’s. She wants to go to the temple in November with the branch. She did tell me that she does have a husband. He has two wives and is somewhere in India. She hasn’t seen him for four years. She has been given permission to go and get her endowments…now it’s just a matter of saving some money. She is only working as a housekeeper three days a week. Her home was very humble. My heart goes out to her.

Then we went to see Apsara. I don’t really know her very well. I’ve seen her at church and she always looks so sad. It seems that she prefers to sit by herself and doesn’t interact with people. She doesn’t speak much English. In fact, visiting teaching is interesting as I’m mostly there in a support role as it’s mostly in Nepali. While we were there, she seemed pretty happy and friendly with Laxmi. Now that I’ve been in her home, I will purposely go out of my way to visit with her each week. When I got home, I told Gene I wouldn’t ever complain about going Visiting Teaching again. He said he didn’t think I had ever complained anyway. It’s all part of the adventure we are having.