Updates

Sorry its been a while since we've posted anything we've been a little busy the last few weeks. Heres what we've been up to while you all thought we were lazing around in the hot June Nepal sun:

Work
We've both now started work Mark at Green Pastures Hospital (GP) and Jo at Western Regional Hospital (WRH).

Mark is helping out at GP with some development work that is going on there. GP has received funding from a Finnish donor to build a new out patient department, replace a lot of old equipment around the hospital and carry out repairs on the existing buildings. The superintendant at the hospital is really stretched so Mark is working with her to make sure everything happens on time. At the moment he is working on finilising the details of the new building.

Jo's first proper day at WRH was yesterday. She arrived at work to find that the head of the department had gone on leave for a month and the only other physio there is a recent graduate that started work at WRH the day the head physio went on leave. Things could be a bit bumpy for the next week or two as they both work out together how the hospital runs.


English Bible Study for Nepalis
Some of the youth (youth in Nepal means 16 to 30 year olds) at our church approached us about whether we might be interested in running an English bible study as a way to help them practise their English and us practise our Nepali. We met the other night and it was decided that we would run a weekly bible study on Sunday evenings. We're both looking forward to this opportunity to make new Nepali friends and practise our Nepali.

Monsoon
The monsoon has finally come, or so they say. So far we haven't had that much rain but it has been raining most evenings but the days were very hot and humid. However, there was a lot more rain the day before yesterday and the temperature dropped to a nice cool 27 degrees. Today it is overcast, drizzly and feels very cold - I went to get my jersey to realise it is still 26 degrees!!! Not having the sweat running down our backs constantly is a nice change from the last month.

Swimming
We have found a hotel with a swimming pool that is cheap so we have got into the habit of going there to spend a Saturday afternoon after church lazing around in the pool and cooling down. We took our Nepali friends last week. The kids just loved being in the pool and were really happy until we dragged them out after hours as they were getting cold!!

Summerpan enjoying the swimming with Dad behind

 Arapan is loving it!!

Return to Bhalam  We've been planning for the last few weeks to sneak out to Bhalam to visit our village stay family so last weekend we jumped on our bikes and braved the heat. It took us an hour to ride out there and by the time we got there we felt like we'd been swimming the sweat was running off us. When we got home Jo discovered that the dye in her top had run and she was varying shades of blue from neck to waist.

When we got there Madhu was busy in the rice field planting rice so we helped her for a few hours to finish the last couple of fields. Its quite nice standing in cold mud on a hot day it's quite soothing. Fortunately there didn't seem to be any leaches around.

While we were staying with the family their bissy was very pregnant we arrived last weekend to the site of a two week old calf curled up in the bissy shed next to mum. Very cute!!!

The bissy are always tied up and many hours is spent bringing food to them. Baby can't reach mother so as to give lots of milk to the family.

Rice crops
We have enjoyed watching the process of planting rice. In the village we helped plant the dhanko biu. This is planted by seed in one area of the farm while corn is still the prevelant crop. About a month later when it has grown a little, the corn is harvested, the fields fill with rain and the seedlings are planted out for the crop. If it is a good season with lots of rain 2 crops can be grown using this method.
Some people are now digging a hole in one part of the field, planting the rice and also putting fish in the field. The fish swim around and fatten in while sleeping in the hole. When harvest time comes the water is drained, fish are harvested and then so is the rice!!

Mark and Madhu planting rice

More rice paddies can be seen in the background

Jo helping out!!

This photo was taken in February

And this is the same spot two weeks ago!

 Mark has bought a Nepali drum and the landlord who lives downstairs has been teaching Mark how to play it. While it looks like he supports England he cheered hard for NZ and congratulated us on drawing with Italy!!!

Kayaking

Well, last Friday we finished full time language and decided to celebrate by having a short chutti (holiday). As avid white water kayakers we've both been eyeing up the rivers over here so we decided to take advantage of our time off and do some paddling (whitewater kayaking slang for those not familiar). With the monsoon on the way (well it was but then a typhoon in Pakistan pushed it back a few days) we decided to pick an easier river in case it arrived while we were on the river and we didn't want to be on a river with the rapids going from fun to pure survival. We chose the Seti river, two other people joined us in a raft, one from Canada and one from the UK, they were great people to hang out with.

We had four Nepali guides from Paddle Nepal (www.paddlenepal.com), two of who were in kayaks and two were in the raft. The guys were lovely and glad to speak Nepali to us. One kayaker in particular was very good at surfing a Blisstick Mac1 (good to see New Zealand built kayaks over here).

We set out on a bus to the get in - the rafters got a full safety briefing and we were told to get in a kayak and go. The river turned out to be very flat except for a few rapids all of which had a big hole hidden in it somewhere. We took turns getting stuck in them. The scenery was great and it was so nice to see a part of Nepal where there are so few people.

We camped on the side of the river. We were given tents to sleep in but it was too hot so we slept out under the stars which was great!!

The food was incredible. We pulled over on a beach after a few hours paddling on the first day, a barrel was bought ashore and the guides proceeded to make a coleslaw, produced meat, bread, fruit and biscuits. Dishes were all rinsed multiple times in a series of 5 buckets with iodised water. Dinner started with popcorn, moved to vegetable noodle soup that was made from scratch as Maggi hasn't made it to this country yet. This was proceeded by pasta, potato fries and a milk sauce. I hope our kayaking buddies in NZ are taking notes as this is what we expect now. The leftovers were made into a pasta and tuna salad with bread for lunch the next day after we had had a breakfast of porridge, pancakes and toast!!!

Sorry paddling buddies, as we were with a raft we couldn't stop and take video of us going down the big rapids!!
We went home on a local bus which we think the Nepalis paid $10NZD to get our gear and six people the 2.5hrs back to Pokhara and then we got delivered to the office, not the bus park like everyone else!! However, the penalty was a bumpy ride which got worse the closer we got to home, the opposite to NZ - start off on a bunpy gravel road and it gets better. Jo hit her head on the roof going over one bump - that drew blood and some very startled glances from the Nepalis - the roof was a good height for Nepalis but not expats!!!!

Jennie (Canada) and Paul (UK) at the end before they got on a bus and went to Chitwan where they saw rhinos, rode elephants and saw a python eat a baby deer!!!!

Mariams Birthday Party

One of the INF staff, a very lovely Christian lady had a birthday party. She has a wonderful husband named Nandaram. The party was at their house and started with a great feed and then then Nepali dancing started and it was the Nepalis role to teach the expats how to change a lightbuld  one hand) while turning the tap on and off (the other hand) which worked when we weren't laughing really hard!!! The photos speak for themselves.

Mark is eating and talking with Grishma, the pastor of our church.

The expats trying to do co-ordination games!!!

Trekking

Last weekend a group of 2 couples and 2 families went on a very easy trek. We walked for a few hours on the first day and reached our destination, Australia camp. The accomodation had a great big lawn to throw a frisbee around on as well as unlimited tea being made so we could play cards, chat and just be lazy!!

 
At the altitude of the camp there were leeches!!! They are incredible creatures. I thought they would be like a worm but no, they stand up, lunge forward and then arch their back and bring their tail to their head, stand up..... They are very crafty, they can get in your boots and take a feed without knowing they are on you - you can only tell from the blood and a slight itch afterwards. The kids thought they were great and spent a lot of time collecting them and trying to get them to eat each other. However, it was Mark who got the most bites - 5!!!

The next day we dropped away from the leeches quickly and proceeded to drop 1000m down stone steps and caught a bus back to Pokhara. For us it was easy but a great weekend away with the other expats.

Jo's random comments about village stay

*             I think Mark did a great job on writing up the village stay but I thought I would add a few random observations I thought were interesting.
The measure of sight in the village:
          You can see the small stones in the rice
          You can thread a needle
          You can spot headlice and catch it!!!!

*             The Nepalis always asked us our age and then were most surprised when they realised that Mark was younger than I was. That isn't done here so I asked a group of five ladies how much older their husbands were to them - 12, 10 and 8 years!!! In that case we are the same age!!!

*             Mark always calls me his sacraficial annode as when I am around he doesn't get bitten by mosquitos. Well, the village was glad to have us - they never got bitten and we were eaten alive - in fact we would be sitting in a circle and they would be all around us and there would be none around them. The Nepalis thought it was a great joke that white skinned people's blood was more tasty!!!