It is hard to know where to begin. Our Nepal trip can't be accurately expressed in words because of the many feelings I felt through out our trip. My biggest take home message was people on the other side of the world aren't so different from us. They may wash their clothes and gather their food differently from us amongst many other things but when you put into perspective the plan our Heavenly Father intends for us our purpose is the same. It was humbling to serve another culture and feel your heart expand even more for a culture that doesn't even share the same language. I treasure the flood of memories that I shared with Daryl in our experience.
A little background on how the trip came about. Daryl works for Vivint. Every year employees and even friends of employees have the opportunity to go on a humanitarian trip that Vivint organizes. To go you can donate sales or pay the asked sum to go. All we had to do was show up the day our plane departed. The airfare, bus travel, lodging, food, and service was all organized through the accompanied humanitarian group that joined with Vivint. Choice Humanitarian was who Vivint partnered with for this years Nepal trip. Nepal wasn't the only country visited this fall through Vivint, there were two other separate countries as well. Vivint had four weeks of different one week excursions for Nepal. We were the first group to go. There was about 60 people in our group.
When our plane arrived in Katmandu, Nepal it was midnight there and we waited in a very inefficient line to get our passports stamped. Coming from Qatar just four hours earlier I was quickly realizing things were going to get different. We got our bags which was exciting since they started at our tiny little Pasco airport. We headed outside at the aiport and it is dark as night, which is expected at midnight but I mean maybe one small street light and that was the only light. There might have not have been a street light it could of just been headlights to cars that gave us some sight but that mixed with army men with machine guns woke me up fast! Choice humanitarian was outside with a sign and did a head count of our group and organized us in cars to get to our assigned hotels for the first night. I was expecting the capitol to be a little more lit up since it was in fact the capitol of Nepal but it was a ghost town. All the streets were empty and all the stores/houses were boarded up. I was beginning to get nervous. Midnight does not accurately depict the lively streets of Katmandu by day but this was my first initial thought on Katmandu. We got to our hotel called The Katmandu Resort. The name sounded nice but I was still in a little shock and I soon found out "resort" wasn't an accurate tittle. That night I slept in my sleeping back with the blankets pulled off the bed just to make myself feel better. Our hotel room had two twin beds so Daryl and I were more like bunk mates:) The next morning things started to look brighter. The town came alive and breakfast was good. Katmandu is filled with mountain gear stores like North Face. I am sure most are knock offs but they look real and for a $14 north face jackets how can you go wrong! After looking at just a couple stores around our hotel we got on a bus that was taking us 7 hours into the mountains to the village where we would be spending the week. After being in the very dusty capitol for just 8 hours I was nervous to what a "village" in Nepal could really be like...
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| Made it to Nepal--headed in our van to the "Katmandu Resort" after midnight |
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| Daryl thought this was a little excessive but hey someone said they saw a tick and I like my sleeping bag |
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| Rise and shine in Katmandu--about to get on a 7 hour bus ride to the village where we will be staying the week |
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| This was shortly before our bus ride--I figured I better use the ladies room. Welcome to the country of Squatty Potties! Squatty Potties is exactly that. You Squat. There is no seat:) At least it is in a stall with a locked door. This became a normal thing after a day or so... |
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| Half of our bus--there were three full "touring" type buses that brought our group to the village. Just seven hours away. |
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| View from the bus |
The bus ride went surprisingly fast. All of us took motion sickness medicine which was good since the road that took us to the village was the craziest bus experience. The bus had a driver and then next to him a guy who stuck his head out the window to peak around the corner to make sure a car wasn't coming at us. The road was very windy AND was on an edge of a cliff. We were in the mountains which were jungle-like and at the bottom of the cliff was a river we followed and rice fields on each side. The bus was either going full speed or braking hard. We all were entertained since it was our first official day in Nepal and were just taking in all the scenery and small villages we were driving through. We stopped halfway for a Squatty Potty break and ate lunch on the side of the road that was packed for us and watched monkeys by the river from a distance. We were getting closer to the village and my expectations of what it may be like was completely off. We drove on a dirt road for quite a few miles off the main road and I knew we were getting close. We were told the villagers were putting on a "Welcome Parade" for us when we got there as well as a performance/parade. When the bus stopped we saw what would appear as a main street on a dirt road lined with hundreds on hundreds of beautiful smiling face accompanied by a live band playing their local music. The children lined the street in their school uniforms and white smiles with flower necklaces they made by hand. We were verbally greeted with the greeting "namaste"by what seemed like each villager. They put the palms of their hands together and bow their head slightly as they say it. We of course did the same greeting back since we had no idea what english they did know which we found out later was actually quite a bit.
The parade led us to their "common area" where we sat in wood like bleachers and the children sat on the grass facing us. The school children were getting ready to dance and sing for us. At this moment across from me I stared at more than a hundred faces all staring back and tears filled my eyes. I didn't expect to see so MANY beautiful children. It was overwhelming. I immediately felt love for each one. I should add the village was in the most breathtaking view of jungle hillsides, rice fields, and rivers. There were even beautiful white birds that would fly across the skyline. It was incredible.
After the performance it was time to see our sleeping arrangements. They actually weren't bad! They had swept out their classrooms and but a foam mat on the concrete for us. The girls and boys of our group were separated in different rooms out of respect to the village. Also I have no idea how I would have changed if I wasn't in an all girl room. After settling in we ate dinner under a canopy that was just set up for our group to eat our meals. There were hired cooks who just cooked for our group buffet style for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
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| My room was second from the left and Daryl's room was first door on the right |
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| Inside of the girls room. There were more boys in our group and their rooms were packed--glad I was in a girls room:) |
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| Where we ate three meals a day. Good food but at the end of the week all I wanted was cold sour cream! Sounds weird but there aren't refrigerators oh and also no bread. Probably two things I should be missing out on. Shows why their culture is so healthy! |
Onto the service part of our trip. There were many projects to choose from. The boys dug trenches to build a retaining wall around the school base that would also add as a place for the villagers to watch the village play soccer or volleyball. There was sanding and painting of hundreds of school desks and benches. Sweeping out all the classrooms to prep for painting. All rooms were to be painted as well as the outside of the school. I never got "after" pictures once everything was done because we had to leave unexpectedly in the middle of the night because the road we needed to travel to get home was going to be closed due to a presidential protest. So we had to get out before they closed it.
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| Main part of the village school--the boys had to mix concrete by hand with shovels. No working concrete mixers in the area. They also had to crack rocks in half with a a sledge hammer to make a straight edge for the outside of the wall. |
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| digging trenches |
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| Nepali broom--we used this to sweep out the classrooms. Honestly all I wanted was a pressure washer and a shop vacuum. |
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| sanding benches and desks |
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| moving rock |
On our free time we explored the village, swam/bathed in our swimsuits in the river, walked the rice fields, ate local cuisine, and played with the village children. My friend Megan and I were lucky enough to teach an English class. Teaching the class helped me realize how well the village children speak english. In a formal setting their english is practically perfect. I think it is more challenging for them to use it outside the classroom but they did so well. Some of them have access to the internet so they are pretty up on pop-culture as well as the world around them. Majority of the kids wanted to go to college and travel the world.
Below is what we did in our free time while we were living in the village. Lots of pictures so Daryl and I can keep the memories. I will do a new blog entry for the last few days of our trip after we left the village. We were lucky enough to go on an elephant safari on an elephant!
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| Daryl saved this man from drowning in the river. He had lost all energy in the current and wasn't a strong swimmer. Daryl was the only guy in the right place at the right time. Daryl felt humbled it all turned out well for the both of them. |
