15 August 2011                                                            Partly Sunny, nice day

We went to the SWC this morning. GC was getting the copies of the Final Agreement printed. We met him at the gate and took them inside SWC. The lady we met there was nice and spoke pretty good English. She wrote a letter while we were there to go with each copy of the Evaluation. Now she said the Evaluation is finished. We wondered if we would have to deliver them to the Ministries, but she said that she would take care of it. Hooray! I think this time, we can really say we are done.

We talked to Mr. Basnet, who helped up with the New Agreement. He checked and said that it was also ready to go to the Ministries. They had never said anything about getting copies made, so we asked him if we should have copies of it printed. He went to check on it and came back and said it was ready to go – that we could go ahead and have 13 copies made and bring them back tomorrow. We hope we can pull that off. When we got out of the building, Gene called GC and ask if we could email him the Agreement as soon as we got home and if he thought they could be ready tomorrow. He said that would work and he would try and have them ready.

 

Rakesh called this afternoon and wondered if we had talked to the folks at SWC yet. He was glad to hear our report. He talked to Dr. Lama yesterday and they were ready to get this going on the fast track. Once it gets to the ministries, Rakesh can hopefully move it forward. We sure hope so. Deppongs visa is hanging in the balance and time is running out.

The way they pick up garbage here in Kathmandu -

 14 August 2011                                                                   Partly Sunny, Nice Day

We walked over to Deppong’s about 8:30 AM. It was a beautiful morning for a walk – the weather was just the right temperature. We had our every other week missionary meeting. It’s a good thing to do. We talked about the temple trip. Gene and I have pretty much committed to go. We also talked about KTC and graduation. Now we can say next week is our last week. We also talked about the New Two Year Agreement and the challenges we are having with visa’s. Hopefully, things will work out okay.

We also walked home.  The phone rang and it was about noon. It was Christopher Patch. Last night while we were over there, we talked about going to the Boudha Stupa. They called and asked if we would like to go. So we went. It was pretty interesting. The Stupa is a place where you can really see Buddhist culture. Brother Patch said this is about as close as we can get to Tibet. It's pretty  interesting. There are lots and lots of prayer wheels. Each one has a different prayer on and people walk around the Stupa spinning the wheels. They believe that those individual prayers are then sent to the Gods. You see many flags hanging from the Stupa also. Each flag has a different prayer and when the wind blows, it also sends the prayers to their Gods. Interesting! The Stupa dates back a long ways, the first one dating back to 600 A.D. It was destroyed and was rebuilt in the 1600’s. There were lots of little shops and restaurants around the perimeter.  It’s probably the most sacred Buddha site in Nepal. It was fun being with the Patch family and we had a great afternoon.

Boudhanath Stupa - a World Heritage Site

Christopher and Gretel Patch and family - here for two years

Built in 600 AD and rebuilt in abt 1600 AD

Kids always want to have their picture taken...

Large bags with spice for sale

 13 August 2011                                                              Sunshine morning, cloudy afternoon

We went to our church meetings this morning. It’s always good to see the members here. Brother Kim shook hands with me and asked how we were doing. I told him fine and he asked again if I was well. He said I was looking thin. I told him ‘thanks’ and said I had lost a little weight, and wouldn't mind losing a little more. Nepal is a good place to go on a diet. He said they were having trouble with the food too and were sick a lot. Since our last bout and since we have sworn off salads, we  have been doing pretty good.

This afternoon we came home and had an egg sandwich and this evening we went over to Patch’s for dinner. What a nice family. She had fixed taco soup, some fresh fruit, tortillas, chips and dip. And home made ice cream and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. We had a nice visit with them and got to know their kids a bit. They even sent us home with a couple of extra large bottles of Jiff Peanut Butter. We tried to decline, but they said they had brought a ton of food storage stuff with them. We appreciate it so much. It was a fun evening.

12 August 2011                                                                     Mostly cloudy, humid

We had heard there would be a bandh or strike today. As we woke up we could hear traffic. Gene went up on the road and said traffic seemed quite normal. As the morning progressed, traffic still seemed okay so we got ready and went to the Social Welfare Council. We stopped at the bank on the way to withdraw some money, but as is life in Nepal, the ATM was out of order.

We walked over to the SWC and saw the lady in room 212. She had the final copy of the Final Evaluation – all bound – and told us to take it and have 12 copies made to be sent to the different ministries. We told her we could do that and she said if we could to bring it back on Monday at 12:00. We called GC,member of our Branch) he will have the copies made and we can get it back to SWC.

This little dwelling is right on Ring Road - the major road here.

I made cookies this afternoon and did some crocheting on the leper bandage. I also finished outlining the Relief Society lesson for tomorrow. I found some information in a Primary manual and I’m feeling better about the lesson. Things need to be pretty basic here.

11 August 2011                                                                    Lots of rain today

"Faith is not about everything turning out OK; Faith is about being OK no matter how things turn out."

I saw this quote on an email and I like it and today it has a lot of meaning for me.

Today it’s been more office stuff. I worked on ChaS putting READ Nepal in. Gene needs to work on some of the figures. It’s ending up that instead of one class of twenty women, we will be teaching two classes, back to back of 15 women each. I am excited. The classes will be on Monday and Thursday and go for about six months. We do need to submit it to Hong Kong for approval. We hope to begin classes on September 5.

We walked over to Bhat Bhateni’s and I bought a hair dryer. I haven’t had one the whole time we’ve been here. I brought one, but when I plugged it in, I think it must have got fried, anyway, it doesn’t work. It will be nice to have one. I think it must be the humidity – my hair is really quite curly. Maybe I will let it grow just a little bit.

Late afternoon we went to the church and had a meeting with Pres Jackson. He was in town to talk with the folks who are planning on going to the temple in November. We hadn’t thought we would go, but after sitting in the meeting tonight, I think we both feel that we need to go. It would sure be a support and a strength to the branch members here. Elder and Sister Deppong are also going.

We have had a lot of rain today. This afternoon it was really coming down and again while we were in the church, it rained like crazy. With all the rain, we still have occasional power outages. I guess it’s just a reminder that power outages are a way of life here in Nepal.

I was shocked to read in the paper this morning that suicide has emerged as the single leading cause of death among women in Nepal aged 15-49, outranking other causes such as accidents and disease, this according to a government study. The study said mental health problems, relationships, marriage and family issues were factors in suicides, as was youth, since 21 percent of the suicides were committed by young women aged 18 years and under. "Most families will never report suicide cases as they are afraid of being entangled in police cases."

Another quote for today…..
"I would rather live my life as if there is a God, and die to find out there isn't, Than to live my life as if there isn't, and die to find out there is."

10 August 2011                                                                      Partly cloudy, nice

We reviewed English for today. Sure hope it goes better than it did yesterday. We are counting down the days. After today, just two more days to teach and then graduation. We are looking forward to teaching the women at READ Nepal. There won’t be so many in a class and they will be there because they want to learn English.

After school, we stopped by Sister Patch’s home. They really have a nice place, complete with air conditioning and heat in the winter. We visited about some of the people in the branch, telling her what we knew about people and what callings they had. She has just been put in as Primary President and doesn’t really know people, having only been here a few weeks. She said she appreciated our visit and that it was a big help.

We are having a little trouble with our inverter. The power has gone off a couple of times and we have lost the internet connection and our little light in the office. Gene looked at it this morning, but apparently we didn’t get it fixed. The power went off tonight and again, no internet. We might have to call an electrician.

9 July 2011

School was another matter today. The students were higher than a kite. They were all talking and I couldn’t really go on with the lesson. Gene came over to me and said, ‘let’s just walk out’, so we did. We returned in a couple of minutes. They were pretty quiet. We told them we had made a decision and asked if they knew what that word meant. They didn’t so we tried to explain it. They we told them we weren’t there to ‘babysit’ and wasn’t going to. If they didn’t want to learn, to please go out, go back to their room or whatever. Of course, no one did. I think that is a culture thing. Most of the rest of the time was okay, but I do look forward to being finished there. I think READ Nepal will be a lot better.

 Shyam (our taxi driver who always takes us to school and brings us back home)picked us up at school and took us to his canteen for a drink and a sandwich. It was a Sprite and a sandwich made from grated carrot and grated cabbage, mixed with a little mayo. I looked at it and wondered about eating it because of the fresh cabbage – but knew we had too – and just prayed we wouldn’t get sick. That was very nice of Shyam to do.

We did talk to him about our teaching at READ Nepal and wondered if he might be interested in taking us. We know he lives a long way away and it might not be worth his time – but he told us not to worry, if he couldn’t’ take us, he has a friend who lives in this area and he could take us. We would like to work something out. He is a great guy. We will definitely call him when the kids are here and use both his cabs for a couple of days.

It was after three when we got home. The rest of the day was quite leisurely. I did some more crocheting. I have almost completed a set of pot pads. I need to get going on the leper bandage. I need to finish it before the kids come.