8 August 2011                                                                     Partly cloudy, nice day

I woke up early, did some reading and got up about 6:00 am. Gene was still sound asleep. I did some preparation for my Relief Society Lesson on Saturday. Before long Brent called on Skype, then we talked to Alison for a few minutes. They both gave us good reports of their time in Island Park.

We taught English today and it went pretty well. We are trying to teach them an English song to sing at their ‘graduation’ ceremony. It’s a bit of a challenge to get them to sing in unison. Sometimes I feel like they think it’s a race to the finish.

It's interesting to ride anwhere in the city. You always see such interesting things. How about the fresh meat and vegetables, side by side. Maybe this is one stop shopping..

The meat and vegetables just don't compare to Lee's

I do have to say.....it's fresh! I think it must be goat.

 Rakesh dropped by. He had visited with the folks at the Social Welfare Council, asking them about the Two Year Agreement. Happy Day. There were four INGO's who were supposed to be ahead of us, but he got them to 'fast track' ours and it will be on it's way to the Ministries. Remember eleven ministries have to approve it, so we are cautiously optmistic - knowing we will probably still need to make a few changes

7 August 2011                                                         a lot of rain in the night, mostly cloudy

We prepared the lessons for English this week. It’s a longer lesson and seemed easier to prepare. Also it should be pretty fun. We are talking about different occupations and also get into some homonyms. There will be some role play and some pantomime as well. We think it will be a good week.

Rakesh picked up the Deppongs and then picked us up. We went to the Cyber Center. Another batch of students have started classes. They are also recruiting volunteers to read books and they will record them and make them available to the blind. That will be a good thing. After that Rakesh dropped us off in Thamel. We had lunch at Fire and Ice, a pizza place and then looked through a few shops. Deppongs had ordered some jewelry and we looked at art work. We did find one we liked and perhaps will get it. We always have to think about those things.  We did buy ten knit hats for the grandkids.. I think they will like them.

Blind and handicapped women learning to knit.

learning to sew on newspaper

 6 August 2011                                                                                                    Partly Cloudy

Today is the Sabbath again. Church was good. Maya and her counselors were released from the Primary presidency and Sister Patch was sustained. She is the American mom here with her husband and family. He works for the Embassy. I was a little surprised. They just interviewed and called her this morning and sustained her without counselors. She doesn’t know the sisters and they didn’t give her a list. I did send her a Relief Society birthday list. Hope that helps. That would be quite overwhelming. But, I remember the quote, ‘Whom the Lord calls, he qualifies.” She will do a great job and it will be a great opportunity for some Nepali women to receive some excellent leadership training.

As I sat in church, I looked around and thought I must be the only woman here without sandals or flip flops. I think the Nepali’s wear them all year long. In Relief Society Jessica gave the lesson on First Aid. The Young Women were combined with us. She did a good job – the only thing is, she thought she had to cover everything and we went about 20 minutes over. And still most of it is in Nepali, but she did translate quite a bit so we knew what was going on.

I fixed spaghetti and bread sticks for dinner and it tasted pretty good. I did tell Gene that by the time we go home, he will be sick of spaghetti. It’s not like at home where you can get most all kinds of produce all year long. Now it’s hard to get carrots and the cabbage is quite dried out. You just have to go with what’s in season. I am going to miss those things as I use a lot of, especially carrots.

 

5 August 2011                                                                 Rain all night, cloudy day

We meet with Sanjana and Pratima from READ Nepal (libraries). They and we are excited about our teaching English there. We will start about the 5^th of September and the classes will last approx six months, depending on the women. (We will have to submit it to Hong Kong for approval). We will teach on Monday and Wednesday for an hour and a half each day. She will talk to the women and get a commitment and also see what would work best for them as far as time frame goes. She was thinking that 7:00 - 8 :30 am might work well. Ugh! That’s just a bit early for me – and beside that – in the winter it would still be dark. We will do what works best for them.

This afternoon, I went shopping with Sister Deppong, Rukmina and Laxmi. Debbie called Syam and he took us in his taxi. It’s so nice when we do that because he takes us where we need to go and waits for us till the next stop. We went looking for gifts for the English class. I’m happy with what we got. We found small necklaces with matching earrings for the girls and a small wooden hand carved box with a bracelet inside for the guys. They will be nice gifts. We also went to lunch and it was just fun to get out and have a bit of girl time. Gene stayed home and I guess just enjoyed his day – without me here to hassle him. (Just kidding)

The women all get their hands and arms painted with a henna mixture

She looked like a homeless lady - I'm sure there are a lot of them

 It is raining again. Most of the day was okay but since supper it has rained quite a bit. Tonight we talked to Lenore for over an hour. It was a pretty good connection and just fun to talk with her. Oh, the wonders of technology. We love being able to stay in contact with our family – and it’s so fun to see them as we talk to them.

4 August 2011                                                                    cloudy, warm

We talked to the kids in Island Park. Sounds like they are having a good time. I’m finding myself just a little homesick today – a little part of me wishes I was with them, playing games, floating on the river, eating lots of good food and enjoying the family. We are hoping we will be able to get a camping trip in next summer.

Today Gene cleaned out more files. He’s gotten rid of a bunch of old stuff. He’s a lot better organizer than I am. I have crocheted and spent time on the computer. We had thought were supposed to clean the church but Laxmi said someone else was doing it. I tried to call Kamola, she was scheduled to help us, but her phone was turned off. About 10:30 she came to our house and wondered about the church. I invited her in and we visited for a bit. During the conversation and she saw my crocheting, (I'm doing a leper bandage) Laxmi told us that Sister Borland had crocheted her a nativity set. She went and got it and there are a dozen or so little figures. That would have taken a while to do. Sister Borland gave it to Laxmi for Christmas. Laxmi said she made quite a few of the sets. That tells me she had quite a bit of down time too. That’s one thing I want to be sure and share with the next set of missionaries – be sure to bring something to do. I wish I would have thought about that more and brought some stuff.

 3 August 2011                                                                                                    Hot and Muggy

Mom’s birthday today – there are days when I truly miss her.

We walked over to Bhat Bhateni’s this morning and picked up a few things. On the way back, I was wishing someone was taking a picture of us walking on the wet shoulder of the road (it had been raining again). There was a broken down bus they were working on and also three cows meandering along the road. Such is life here in Nepal.

Today Gene has gone through a bunch of the files in the file cabinet. He’s consolidated some and just got rid of a bunch of stuff that was old and we just don’t need any more. I have tried to organize files and folders on the computer. It’s an ongoing job for both of us.

I went to a Relief Society / Young Women sponsored Mother Daughter night. The dress was saree’s. There were quite a few with saree’s on, but quite a few without. They had a nice program with one  mother and one young women speaking. Then they gave everyone who wanted to, an opportunity to  share a few thoughts of their mothers. I did get up and express my gratitude and love for my mom, especially since today is her birthday. I appreciate all she did for me and love her so much. I look forward to seeing her again.

Aren't they beautiful?

Some beautiful Relief Society sisters in their saree's

2 August 2011                                                                      Mostly cloudy

Quote for the day: "Your present circumstances do not determine where you can go;
they merely determine where you start." - Nido Qubein

Allene called this morning and we chatted for a few minutes. She has almost got two leper bandages done. Wow! She’s good.

This morning we made the other changes to the agreement and emailed them to Hong Kong. About noon we took it back down to SWC. And guess what? Mr Basnet, the man we’ve been working with, said ‘okay’ and he kept it. We could hardly believe it. Happy day. Now he said it would go to Dr. Lama’s office and if they had changes or comments, he would call us. We expect there will be additional changes and don’t know how long it will take to actually sign the thing.

Now, we are feeling a little lost. When we get it signed we can get some projects started, but till them, especially Gene, won’t be under the pressure he has been. But things are good.

We finally turned on the TV today. All we could find were Nepali stations. I did talk to Debbie and she said there were three movie channels, one being HBO. Discovery and National Geographic and a few other English channels. We might have to resort to watching a little bit. Winter could be long and cold. Of course all this depends on whether or not we have power. It’s going to be interesting. Of course, we didn't find anything and haven't turned it back on.