Nepal Day 11

After having an amazing breakfast cooked by the Choice Humanitarian cooks, we packed up our belongings to head out to another village, Thuloswara. After we packed up we met at a shrine in the village. This site is right next to one of the village shops. There they sold us a bunch of oranges at 1 rupee per orange (really like one penny). This is one of the women outside the shop who was eating an orange.

As previously stated we were helping the villages in the Lamjung Region build a new trekking route. As part of this route they are going to have one of the stops be where trekkers can stop in one of the local villages and have a "cultural experience." This experience involves seeing local dancing and staying in the villagers homes. We were going to do a trial run with some of the families. This is all that we knew when we headed out. My favorite part is how the local people state that the village is just a short, easy walk to get there. Now it was not terrible, but it was uphill to get there and took us about two hours to walk the trekking route.
All along the trekking trail were the rice paddies and millet fields. There were such beautiful views all along the way. Perhaps it took us a while because we had to take photos all along the way.
We walked past different groups of animals being herded by their owners. This group of water buffalo was a favorite of mine. The buffalo above looked ready to charge on of the SHe expeditioners. I was actually quite excited to be a potential witness to something like this....alas, it was not meant to be.

A view down the side of the trail. I love all the changes in color.
When we arrived at the village we were greeted by all of the school children in Thuloswara who were lined up. They were clapping as we all walked down the hill. Once we got down of the hill a little ways, then we had marigold garlands placed around our necks, as well as prayer shawls.
Here is Natalie demonstrating the prayer shawl and garland. This is my favorite picture of Natalie.
At this point we ran into about six of the local girls who had bowls like this, that had burning incense in them. At this point the girls lead us down...down...down the hill to the main part of the village.
There continued to be school children all along the way. They started to sing traditional folk songs for us, serenading us as we walked. They were playing drums at the same time...amazing experience.
This is a picture of one of the homes that we passed on our way walking down.
When we reached the school house, the rest of the villagers were anxiously awaiting us. This is a photo of some of the people peering over the edge of the wall getting a good look at the foreign visitors.
Here we were all waiting for our turn to walk up the stairs and get a bunch of rice pasted on our foreheads. This is the same thing as the red tikka on the forehead. It is a blessing.
Here are some of the school girls who are waiting for us to get our tikkas and find a place to sit. While we waited they attempted to give us drinks. They were not aware of the fact that the majority of us were LDS and did not drink. Therefore they had brought out "Dura wine." I think that this might be something like sake, I am not sure what else they would turn into alcohol other than rice. They also brought out Limon Tea. I have to admit that I tasted this, I am not sure if it met LDS standards, but others drank it. I sure hope that it was herbal. It had a lot of honey in it, which made it really sweet. They also made these amazing bowls out of leaves, on which they served us hard boiled eggs.
This is a local women who was participating in the festivities. The green necklaces are worn by the women during their celebrations. I learned that the nose ring that is worn by the women is part of the casting system in Nepal. The older women still follow the traditional customs, but the younger generation has not been following these same traditions. It is kind of sad, because these are what makes these people so beautiful, fascinating, and unique. I worry that the world will turn into a large mass of nothingness.
There are the local women who are enjoying the festivities.
Mats were set out on the ground for the local people to sit on. As the foreign guests we got to sit the plastic chairs. I will admit that I was really happy about this because my body is not used to sitting on the ground for long periods of time. This was just a cute little girl who was excitedly crawling across the mats.
As part of our greeting we were able to watch local dances. There two girls were some of the performers. They are just waiting there turn and watching the performances.
This was one of the girls who led us down the hill.
All of the girls placed there gifts unto a table. I am not certain the significance of all of this, but I do know it is part of being respectful and showing thanks to god. You see a lot of the same items in all of their worship.
A local man who is part of the band.


These three younger boys performed with the older men playing different instruments behind them. All of the performances in Thuloswara were amazingly professional. The dances were also beautiful. This was one of the coolest things that we had the privilege to participate in on this journey.
I loved the old men playing the drums.
During the performance, this cute little girl went running through. She really wanted to be all of it. She appeared to have downs syndrome, with some other genetic abnormalities. A genetic counselor and I were sitting next to each other trying to decide her diagnosis. Her family, or one of the other locals, pulled her out the performance.

Just some more beautiful dancing.



There are some of the school children. The boy with the tape on his face, was playing a drum while they were escorting us down the hill.
I love this woman's hat. Plus, that little girl in her arms is sssooo cute.

At the end of the performances they started pulling people us to dance with them. They did this until they had gotten all of us up to dance with them. Reed in the front, was the first participant. It was fun to watch him make a fool of himself.
After the performances we separated into groups of 2 or 4. We were all assigned to a home to stay in for the night. We stayed with the Dura family. They had a very small clean home. Outside they had two water buffalo, two cows, and chickens. Immediately upon arrival they took on chicken off to kill it for dinner. That was my first experience with really fresh chicken. Natalie and I wanted to watch, but they were not to excited about that part. We were able to participate in other parts of preparing dinner though. Below is a picture of Natalie sitting the buffalo milk for dinner. We both got to stir milk, stir the rice, and sit in the kitchen and watch the meal be prepared. The following three pictures are courtesy of Natalie.


Eating dinner was a little bit awkward. They served Natalie and I dinner and just sat and watched us eat. In Nepal the custom is to serve your guest first, then you eat later. In addition to the awkwardness of the situation they served us mounds of food before we could tell them to give us just a little. We had an entire plate with rice piled high. In different little bowls they served us fresh chicken marsala, saag (collard greens/spinich), daal (lentil soup), and radishes. Natalie and I had been instructed that it was rude not to finish our plates. After about 1/4th of the meal I though I was going to die. Natalie and I pounded through. After every item was finished they were anxiously awaiting to give us more food. We kept having to tell them, "No Thank You." Later when they were feeding one of the neighbor boys I was happy to see that they all eat that much food. These people work hard and burn off many more calories than Natalie and I do in a day.

This same neighbor boy was very interested in Natalie and me. He was about 17 years old. He even followed us into the bedroom and kept talking. I had opened up one of the pockets in my backpack to brush my teeth. Natalie was informing him about different items in my backpack. We was most interested when we pulled out our floss. He thought we were crazy as we cleaned between our teeth. The dentists of the trip were happy that we were educating.
This is the mother and the two girls who lived at home in the Dura family. They had other children who had left the village. We slept the night in the bed of the two girls. We slept really well.

Nepal Day 10

On this particular morning I woke up and heard sounds of people having way too much fun off in the distance. I slept in a little longer that I expected and when I was walking to my project I figured out what all of the noise was about. In the village was a Ferris wheel, set up for the Dewali festival that was currently happening. I was told that the wheel stays in place all year, but that the seats are taken off. You can see the boy up on the side of the wheel who uses his legs to make it go around. It was not only a big hit with all of the local, but the SHe expeditioners had a blast as well. I missed the early morning rounds, but people were on this wheel throughout the trip.
There were water buffalo roaming around everywhere we went. Yes, this photo was originally supposed to be of the woman, but my camera seemed to lie the other buffalo better. While up in the villages we had buffalo milk every morning for breakfast. We even got some type of hot chocolate powder to put in it. It was amazing! I could live off buffalo milk and I am not usually a milk fan.
After finishing the mornings festivities, we all went back to our activities of the previous day. By the end of the day I was exhausted. Working with the interpreters with every patient was difficult. The interpreters sometimes had a hard time figuring out what I was asking because they were not really professionals, but local individuals who spoke English and Nepali. I worked through lunch and was glassy eyed by 4 pm when I finished.

In the evening the local individuals liked to come to the school house and play music and dance. They found out that the Americans loved to dance after the first nights greeting.
The locals who were dancing were pulling us up to come and dance with them. This is Natalie showing us here amazing skills. I am below showing of my abilities as well. I hate to admit this but I was a favorite among the locals. They had never really seen a woman so tall, and with hips as wide as mine. They were all really excited when it was my opportunity to dance. A little embarrassing, but I was determined to participate in all the experiences.

Nepal Day 9

The ninth day we set up the medical clinic in a local building where construction was almost complete. We had to move all of the large pieces of concrete out of the way. The floor was still covered with dirt. This is not the best picture of me, but it give you an idea of how we were running the medical clinic. I was seeing patients with an interpreter. Prior to patients coming to see me in the clinic they had to go to a class about sanitation and hygiene. The people in Nepal actually had fairly decent healthcare in comparison to other third world countries. The majority of issues were mostly chronic pain issues. The people in the Lamjung region are really hard workers. They carry 100's of pounds long distances, spend hours bent over in the rice paddies, and walk up and down extremely steep terrain every day. It is no wonder these people have arthritis and other chronic pain issues.

While I was in the medical clinic other groups of people were working in a dental clinic. The dental clinic was teaching people in the area how to pull teeth, so that they could extract teeth after we left. Dental care was definitely an issue. The majority of older locals had only a couple of teeth. The first person the dental clinic saw got 11 teeth pulled out of the bottom row of teeth.

There was also another group of people who were doing construction. Down the hill from the school house there was a sit where the first college in the area was being build. Lucky us, we were building the toilets to go with the building. A large group of people were digging the trenches for the foundation. I was told that they were having difficulty for a part of the digging because it was filled with tons of rocks. The local people were working with them and it sounds like they had a great time working hard.

Another group worked with the local people on business prospects to help end poverty in the area. The biggest project was building a trekking route through the area. The business team was guiding the local people to put together a business plan and make sure that all bases are covered. This group is continuing to work with the people even though we are home. They were also helping some women bring in money to buy bees and a trainer to teach them how to get honey. Then with the honey they will be able to sell it and make an income. The business group was making miracles (Go Natalie!)

Lastly, there was the group of teachers. They spend everyday working with the teachers in the area on how to improve their teaching. How to get students engaged. Things that even the teachers in the U.S. have to struggle with daily. From my observation, the teachers in the area loved what they were being taught and were excited to come to these classes.
This is a view from inside the village looking out to the surrounding mountains.
Another view.

Nepal Day 8

This day happened to fall on Saturday, which is the sabbath in Nepal. The previous day when we went to the River Spring Resort we met up with the rest of the group from Singular Humanitarian Experience (SHe) and Choice Humanitarian. Since the majority of people on the expedition were LDS we had sacrament meeting prior to departing for the villages. We had a really good service. Then as a group of 40 people we gathered in two buses to head up to Dura Danda.

This photo was taken on the way up another big hill to get to the villages. Almost halfway up the hill one of the buses broke down. The original plan was for us to change to two different buses with a better ability to go up tretcherous terrain. So, we stopped in someone ones yard and ate some lunch. Then we walked up the hill to catch the next set of buses. The second set of buses were overloaded with people. Since they were full, I was given a ride in the 4Runner belonging to Choice Humanitarian. Even in the jeep the ride was really bumpy and close to the edge of the cliff.

We were in the Lamjung area and the views from up the hill included the Annapurna range from a different direction. Those mountains had a lot of snow on them, but we were nice at warm at 80 degrees.
When we arrived at the villages they met us with a celebration. As part of the celebration we were all given tiikas and marigold garland. This in not the greatest photos, since it is taken of my chest....a little awkward, but in the dark with a lot of people you don't know it is hard to get a picture of your garlands. The village people were so excited to have us there. They sang and played the drums up to the school house where we were sleeping.

The girls slept on the floor of two of the school rooms. They were actually quite comfortable because Choice Humanitarian provided us with mats and pillows in addition to the pads and pillows we had brought with us. Don't you worry they separated the males from all the females. They were placed in another school room in a building down the hill named the "Man Cave."

To get a better understanding about Choice Humanitarian I have added a link to an article in KSL that discusses the man who was leading our expedition. A friend of mine sent this to me in an email prior to leaving for Nepal.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=12874911