Weather

We tend to forget about some of the basic things in life but lots of people have been asking us about the weather lately so here it is.

It has been freezing - thick fog for a whole week with no sun the temperature has been down to about 5deg morning and night but worst of all there has been no hot showers as there was no sun for the solar hot water. Fortunately over the last couple of days it has cleared and has been nice and warm during the day and cool at night which we really like. The mountains have been elusive but just today they came out really clear and beautiful.

Marks parents are coming this weekend which we are really excited about. We hope the warm days and the mountains are here to stay.

Cycling

Mark and I have been making the most of the cooler weather and getting out most Sundays going exploring on our bikes. Even on the' tarsealed' roads we would like our mountain bikes from home!

A little Gurung village we stumbled across one day

Marks handle bars broke of up the top of a hill
it was a long walk home...

Roast lamb!!!!

Everyone comes to Pokhara for language training but many move on to other projects in other areas.
The Filmers have been here for 4 months and as a farewell before they moved to Surkhet they constructed a bbq, found a (small) lamb and cooked it up. It was great to eat roast lamb although it wasn't quite as good as the lamb served up on mum and dad's farm in Pongaroa.

Curly - the lamb

 The Filmers youngest girl,
Jasmine - she is 8 months old, crawling
 and really keen on walking
with Jyoti - a language teacher

 Mark with the language teachers

 Grandad Paul with the missionary kids

The bbq... An oil drum that has been
adapted to burn coal and wood.

The INF Kaski picnic

Every year the social highlight for the staff of INF is the picnic. It is kinda like the Christmas do for work in NZ. It was a whole day affair. The first people arrived at 5.30am to start preparing the food! Those of us who are a bit more lazy arrived about 10am for the start of the program.

There was entertainment all day in the form of games and various members of staff doing dances, singing songs etc. As usual in nepali culture - there was a time of dancing in which the expats all had to get involved.

On our arrival was the first meal of the day - goat livers, tongue and heart (as I saw it written in english yesterday - gizzards!) with rice and vegetables. Fortunately there were some stray dogs around as I found out that I still don't like gizzards! Two hours later was the second meal - panner curry, rice and salads.
Another two hours later was the main meal of panner curry, goat curry with dahl bhaat - then we had to cycle home!

The first game we played was there was two teams - each person in each team was given a number from 1 to 15. When their number was called up they crawled up behind a curtain - on the count of 3 the curtain was dropped and the quickest person to say the other persons name won. Here, Marlene was paired with someone she hadn't met and she is asking the nepali person what her name is!

Mark knew but wasn't as quick as Dahn

All the managers had a crutches race...
Here's Paul the superintendant of Green Pastures
hospital learning how to use them...

 they are lined up.....

 and they're off.......

The doctors win, the admin managers all pull out....

and Dr Paul finally reaches the end!

This is a common site in Nepal and one I am not sure that I will ever get used to - men holding hands with each other and walking along. Women do it as well but men and women aren't allowed to do it.

The physios trying to match the names of cars
with their logos...

 The bosses also trying to do the same thing...

 And the finance dept....

 And again - it was food time.

Probably my highlight of the day was the fashion parade. There were two teams of 15 (and Jo had to join in) and they had to put on a lungi (similar to a sarong), scarf and bag and walk the cat walk but also race at the same time. Bronwyn - that is Pushpa!

Mark forgot to get a photo of
me strutting my stuff..

And then there was more dancing and
I made sure that I had a photo of him!!

We had a really good day - had lots of fun with all the nepali staff and everyone laughed a lot!

Boxing Day

On boxing day the expat team celebrated Christmas. It was suggested that we all dress up in saris as it will be the last big occansion for many in the team who are leaving in the next few weeks.

Here are a few photos: