1 March 2012

We taught English today and it was enjoyable - again.... Gene said if we want to cover the book we need to move right along. I feel like we should cover the material and if we don’t get through the book, that’s okay too. Some of the women really do well, but others struggle quite a bit. We have a good mix in the class. Laxmi is going with us and it’s good we can to have her along. I think she enjoys it as well.

 

We came home and Sajana and Maya came to see us. They said they had sad news. I had felt like it had something to do with their schooling and it did. They are two of the students who have received IRDF funds from the church and they are going to cosmetology school. They said the last couple of months there have been quite a few problems and now they have found out, the school is not being honest with them and that the certificates they are giving out are fake, they are not accredited. There are about a dozen or so students that have really been kicking up a stink and have even gone to the police. Sajana and Maya are among that group. Finally, the school has agreed to refund some of their money. They want us to go down to the school with them and talk to them, see how they plan to issue the refunds.

Sign on the wall at the Distribution this week.

We talked to Elder Kelly in Hong Kong and he suggested if they would issue the checks either to the students or to us, have them do so. Then immediately go to the bank, cash the check and hold on to the money. If Sajana and Maya decide to find another school, they could use the money as part of the tuition. I’m hopeful they will look for another school. This has really upset them and they’ve been under stress and said they have both had a headache for a while. I told them not to worry about it – we will work it out. We plan on going with them to the school tomorrow. I told Gene he should take his copy of the ‘Power of Attorney’ letter, just so they know we are legit.

This afternoon, Debbie called and asked if we had seen the article in the paper about the church baptizing Gandhi by proxy. She’s a bit nervous about that, especially here in this part of the world where Hindu’s are in the very large majority. She thinks there could be repercussions even here in Nepal. And here we are going to India. Everyone is telling us to be so careful and not to trust anyone. I did send an email to Sister Jackson asking about wearing our tags and perhaps dressing down a little bit. We will wait and hear what she says.

29 February 2012

We get a bonus day today as its leap year. What a day! It’s been a bit frustrating but in the end all is well. Gene called the Indian Embassy to see if our visa clearance had come through. Not yet. I asked him whose passport number he used and he said his. We decided I should call with my number. When I told the man answering I was checking on a medical visa, he said it wasn’t here yet and asked when we applied. I told him almost two weeks ago. He said we would need to come down and request they resubmit it. It was almost 11:00 am and they close at 12:00 pm.

We hurried and went down there. We talked to a different man at the window and he acted like he didn't know what we were talking about and we felt we were going to start from scratch. He talked to another guy and they said to wait. We did – for 20 minutes, half hour. Then the gentleman we had talked to from the consultants office came in the gate. He came over to us and said he didn’t think he would see us again and thought perhaps we had changed our minds. We told him no visa yet and that we had airline tickets for Sunday. He looked at our file again and to make a long story short, we felt that we witnessed a small miracle as he wrote the order clearing us to get our visas. (without the security clearance from San Francisco) It will be two entries within a three month period. That’s fine with us. We are happy about it. We submitted our papers at the visa counter, paid our rupees 8,900 NRS each and they told us to come back this afternoon. We did go back and it didn’t take long to pick up our passports with the new visa for India in them. .Hooray! Hooray!

We came home and sent Pres. Jackson an email telling him we were good to go. He replied that Sister Jackson would pick us up and take us to the hotel and that she would also make sure we got to the doctor. I sure will be glad to find out what is going on with my ear. It’s been going on for almost five months.

One of the signs around Lumbini....

 This afternoon, I’ve finished preparing for English. Gene was busy. He heard back from Hong Kong on the Five Village Project. Gene had talked to Elder Treasure a couple of weeks ago and suggested they reject the proposal. That was the word we received today. Latter Day Saint Charities is not going to give more funds to that project. So today Gene wrote Tej Dhakal at SDRC, a letter informing him of such. We sent it to Hong Kong first for their input. We will see. . . I wonder if we will hear back from Tej and the Five Village People.

28 February 2012

I sleep good last night – there’s no place like home, even when home is in Kathmandu. We got up and talked to Ali a minute. She told us that Ellie was playing with Hannah, slipped on the step going up a slide and split her chin open. Alison took her in to InstaCcare and they put six stitches in her chin. Their lucky this is the first of those kinds of trips she’s had to make. I had thought by now, she would have ended up in emergency room with Scottie.

A couple of days ago we got an email from Hong Kong saying our replacements had been called. I can hardly believe it's time. Because of the way Humanitarian Missionaries are called, we will be home a few weeks early. We haven't received an exact date yet. We did get their email address and sent them an email. of course they wanted to Skype with us and we were able to Skype with them this morning. They are Elder and Sister Rempp from Nevada. They seem like very nice people. They had a lot of questions about what to bring, clothes, food, and the usual kinds of questions we had. He is retired Army artillery and now works as an accountant. Sister Rempp is a stay at home wife and mother. I like that. I think they will be great here. They are excited and we hope we can help prepare them for their time in Nepal.

We did go over to Nina and Hager’s and have lunch with Deppong’s. We talked about taking Laxmi and Rukmina with us when we go back to Lumbini for a wheel chair distribution. I think that would be a good idea. They would help run the waiting area and be an extra set of ears for us. We never know what people are saying and we feel that’s important. We  (LDSC) would pay their transportation, lodging and food. Debbie will check the prices on transportation and we will go from there.

27 February 2012

I slept decent for being in a strange very hard bed. We were up and ready to go get some breakfast at 7:00 am. When we walked into the restaurant it didn’t look like it was open. Soon a fellow came and said they were open so we sat down. About the only choice for us Americans was an omelet. So we ordered omelets, which is really just a stirred up egg. Then you had to order toast. If you wanted jam and butter that was extra. We did order the jam and butter. It’s nothing like breakfast at Angie’s in Logan. A couple of us ordered orange juice and a couple ordered mango juice. When it came it all looked the same, sure enough we all got mango juice. We laughed about that.

We got another laugh when we were about through; there was still uneaten toast on our table. The waiter came over, but the lid on the butter, picked up the jam and took it to another table for another customer. I said, ‘did you see that?’ We all laughed again. You would have had to be there, but it really was pretty funny.

The next order of business was to find a venue to hold the wheel chair training when the Brown’s come the end of March. Rakesh had looked for one last night but said there was some slope in the floor. We didn’t think that would work, but went to see it. Had he not told us that, I wouldn’t have known. The place will work just fine. It’s good to have that done.

Buddha statue in Lumbini, Nepal

 Then we were able to drive to Lumbini. It’s the birthplace of Lord Buddha. Lumbini is the traditional birthplace of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, who was born in the 7th or 6th century BC. There are many beautiful monasteries there. We took or first ride in a rickshaw and that just looked like a lot of work for the driver. When we got to the Maya Devi Temple, we had to take our shoes off before going in.  According to Buddha scholars, It is the exact site of the birthplace of the Lord Buddha. In 1992 excavations revealed a succession of ruins on the site dating back at least 2200 years. We were able to see some of these ruins and it was quite interesting. There were a lot of monks chanting and of course, lots of prayer flags everywhere. 

Ready for our first rickshaw ride - hard work for the driver

Some Buddhist Monks

A building housing the actual birthplace of Buddha

We spent a couple of hours there. As we were leaving we did see our first Cobra snake. A man had him in a basket and we got a couple of pictures and of course, he wants to be paid a little bit. There were beggars all over the place. Many of them were disabled and had deformed limbs. It is pretty sad to see all this.

a man with a cobra snake

don't get too close!

 Knowing we would be back, we decided we’d better head for home. We did stop in Chitwan to  distribute some wheel chairs, The big program was canceled because the ‘chief guest’ couldn’t come and that was quite nice. The people receiving the chairs were there waiting for us. We shook hands, and tried to talk to them for a little bit before actually heading back to Kathmandu. Actually,we could do without the program and would be very happy just giving out the wheelchairs.

Wheelchair recipients in Chitwan

Such a blessing to many people.....

On the way home, Rakesh had been on the phone and told us there had been a bomb blast in Kathmandu. Some radical group detonated a bomb at the Nepali Oil Company headquarters down by the Signa Dubar area. We are familiar with that area as it’s down by the place we have to go to get our visa’s. Rakesh said that three people were killed and about seven others injured. I just don’t understand why people would do that. Innocent people are killed and hurt and for what? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

We really wanted to make it back before dark. We really don’t like being on that mountain road in the dark. In fact we talked about making it a policy, to not drive that road at night. If we can’t be home, stay over and return the next day. I think that would be good. Today we didn’t quite make it and it was dark coming up the mountain. In fact it was about 8:15 by the time we got home. It’s about an hour ride from the top of the mountain, through the city to our home. It was good to get here and will be good to sleep in our own bed. It has been a fun trip.

26 February 2012

We left Kathmandu about 6:20 am. The vehicle was again a smaller Jeep type vehicle. So again, Sister Deppong and I sat in the back as there wasn’t much leg room back there. It was not the most comfortable ride. I did take a Dramamine pill so got along great. After a bit, Sister Deppong pulled out her knitting and I thought I would never be able to do that on the kinds of roads we were on. After a little bit, she put it away and soon after, leaned up and asked Ollie to roll down his window. She was getting car sick. Not a fun thing, especially here. We did stop for a little break and I gave here a Dramamine tablet. I know they should be taken before you go, but we figured this was better than nothing. It took a while, but she got feeling better.

It took us about 5 ½ hours. This area is quite different from Kathmandu. Its flatland and lots of agriculture here. We saw lots of wheat growing and mustard plants. We saw lots of wagons being pulled by big bulls, they looked like Brahma bulls yoked together. It reminded me a lot of the ox carts in pioneer times. The wagons they were pulling were filled with heavy bags of something, grain, I suppose all kinds of stuff.

Water buffalo pulling a wagon

It was quite a common site there.

We arrived at the village outside Lumbini. This was where the distribution was held. We made a stop at the hotel then on to the distribution. On the way there we saw an elephant – all decked out -  coming down the road. It was followed by women dressed in red and green. Our first thought was perhaps it was part of a wedding (women wear reds and greens for weddings) but then there were other people and at the end of the group was a bunch of school children. I was a little too slow getting my camera out, thus no picture, I’m sorry to say. It was fun to see it.

We arrived at the venue for the distribution. There were a lot of people already there. Many who were receiving wheel chairs were already seated in their chairs. We went around greeting people with “Namaste”. Very few spoke any English but they are always happy to shake our hand and smile. We do the same.

She kept kissing my cheeks - so happy to get a wheelchair.

Some of the entertainment at the Distribution.

so sad - probably the result of walking thru fire when a toddler.

The program was again late in starting because we had to wait for the ‘chief guest.’ They did present us women with a colorful scarf and the men with Nepali hats. There was a midget couple who did three Nepali dance numbers and that was entertaining. There were a lot of Nepali speakers. Then they had some wheel chair training. We wish they would do the training before the ceremony as that was an awfully long time for them to wait.

About 5:30 we returned to the hotel. Rakesh said it was the only place in town for us to eat – and we were all hungry so we went to their restaurant. I ordered vegetable chow mien and Gene had spaghetti. It was okay. We returned to our room, which was also ‘okay’. The beds in Nepal are still HARD. By 7:30 I told Gene I couldn’t stay awake and didn’t have much trouble going to sleep.

 

25 February 2012

It’s been a pretty quiet Sabbath day. I talked with Bro. Patch for a minute before church and he asked me how much time we had left. I did tell him what was going on with us. We will say good bye to them the end of May as their family will be leaving. Gretel and the kids are going to Utah but before that they are all going to vacation in the Netherlands for a few weeks. They have been great to us. I’m sure we will miss a lot of the people here.

We came home and I fixed some spaghetti. I also cooked some zucchini, onions, tomato with a bit of basil and oregano. It tasted great. Then I made some apple bran muffins to take with us tomorrow. I tried to have a little nap as I woke up early this morning, but didn’t have much luck so I read for a little bit.

We had hot showers this afternoon as it was a nice warm sunny day. I think we are into spring as the temperature today was about 72-74. I’m liking it.

We’ve packed our bag and I’ve made peanut butter sandwiches to take. Rakesh will pick us up about 6:00 in the morning and we are off to Lumbini. Lumbini is close to the India border. We are excited to see this part of Nepal.