Nepal Day 16

 After a good nights sleep at the Riverside Springs Resort, we headed back to Kathmandu.  It was still as dirty as I remembered.  Above is on of the rivers as we were driving back to Thamel, the tourist district.

 This is what is found in the rivier....yuck!

 Now many of you may find these next two pictures really foul and I can admit that they smelled really foul.  I am not sure what they are doing with these water buffalo skins, but here are a buck of hides all stacked up on the back of a bike.

 On the bus we drive through the meat section.  For some reason the meet inside the shop looks like it is  on fire, but in reality it was the light that was shining from above on the meat.  I love when my meat is just hanging out in the dirty streets when I buy it.

 In order to demonstrate the dangers of visiting Nepal, Natalie is displaying her bruise.  I had multiple bruises as well....on my arms and legs.  We both gathered multiple splinters on this trip as well.

 Natalie and I took some time in the afternoon to visit the Monkey Temple, Swayambhunath.  All of the temples always have the prayer wheels.

 All of the temples start to run together.  They all have Buddha's eyes staring down at you.  It is a little creepy.

 Surrounding the temple, amongst the little stores were some men playing chess.

 Below are some of the ornamentation on the temple and surrounding shrines.

 I really loved the look of many of the shops that were selling souvenirs.

 As we were walking around the temple we saw a little monk who was playing with a toy.  He was so cute!

 There is a reason this temple is called the Monkey Temple. There are holy monkeys wandering free all around the temple.  They were just like the stray dogs that are found throughout the villages. It still made me a little leery to get too close.  I had no desire to we attacked my monkeys.

 The butter lights that were being lit in the Buddhist monastery surrounding the temple. 

 That evening we went to a restaurant to eat some more Nepali food and watch more dancing.  It was still the Dewali festival in Nepal.  Someone had created this artwork on the street out of beans and other seeds and grains.  It was very beautiful.

 At the restaurant we watched some more dancing.  The dancing they showed came from different regions throughout Nepal.

 We all sat on the floor at the tables to eat our meals.  It was a beautiful meal, but I will openly admit that I was tired of eating the same Nepali meal over and over.  The people in Nepal really do eat the same thing everyday....daal, rice. saag, and curry....over and over and over.  I was ready for something new.  They served us momos as well, but after eating several terrible momos, while searching for something that tasted as good as the first momo we at in Chitwan, I could not get myself to stomach them.

For Dewali, this particular day was Brother and Sisters Day.  On this particular day the girls give their brothers gifts of food.  The brothers give their sister nice presents.  Well, Staci, on of the expeditioners, could not resist giving her brother, Seth, a pigs head to eat.  He has a specific phrase before meals at home that had something to do with a pig.  It was so gross, but at the same time so cool.

This was the last time that we spend with SHe and Choice Humanitarian.  It was a great evening and a great closing to our expedition.  We went on this trip with a ton of amazing people.  I would totally recommend it to anyone.  I am so glad that I went. Thanks Natalie.

Nepal Day 15

 This was our last day in the Lamjung Region; therefore, it was also the last day in Duradanda.  It was once again the sabbath in Nepal, but the kids gathered at the school house for us.  The kids just ran down the stairs there.  All of us expeditioners were going down the stairs one step at a time.

 Every morning the students would gather outside the school and do some exercises.  We got to sit and watch them do their morning routine.  It felt like we were watching the military.  Then there was a presentation of some more tikkas and dancing.

 Above was a candle lit for the event.  The school master did a very long presentation in Nepali, which we could not understand.  Then the children did some more dancing for us.

 The little kids were extremely cute.

 Then the presentation of more garlands.  It would have been really bad if I was allergic to marigolds.

 Above is a girl in the high school uniform.

 Then we got in the bus to head out of the area.  These are some of my last pictures of the mountains in the area.

 Sibling expeditioners.

Fellow expeditioners Dana and Vicki showing us there Nepali dancing skills.

Once we got out of the Lamjung region, we went back to the Riverside Spring Resort.  I cannot tell you how nice it felt to take a shower and put on clean clothes.  Since it was the sabbath we had a sacrament meeting that was also a testimony meeting.  It was a great meeting.  It was followed by a presentation of the a video created by one of our SHe expeditioners.  Although, I was a little camera shy I can be seen if a person looks closely.  I have put on here two links to the video.  It was separated into two links when he posted it onto YouTube.  This will actually give you a better idea of what we did and with commentary from other participants.  Enjoy!

Nepal 1
Nepal 2

Nepal Day 14

Unfortunately, this day was not very picturesque, nor was it my best day. After sleeping for so many hours the night before, I woke up slightly refreshed. I was more awake, but all of my bones ached, my head hurt, and the muscles ached. I was not the only one with these symptoms. I felt as though I could go back to sleep at any minute. I walked down to the site to assist in the foundation again. As seen above, they only needed a few people to help. The work was all rebar (sp?) and there was only one tool to cut the wire. Therefore a group of us at on the hill waiting for our turn. As we sat there I began to feel worse and worse until I could needed to go back up to camp.
This is a picture of the college, which was right next to the toilets we were helping to build. The locals worked really quickly to get the toilet wall to go up fast.

I went back up to camp where I slept for the remainder of the day. As I slept, Natalie was outside sick as well. She almost vomited, but she took some medications to prevent the bad outcome. The SHe expeditioners were dropping like flies. Day 14 was filled with a whole lot more sleep.

Nepal Day 13

To tell you about day 13, I have stolen many pictures from others off facebook. The pictures may or may not have been taken on day 13, but they are helpful in telling you about the day. Above is photo of the typical morning. We would eat our breakfast outside on school desks. The Choice Humanitarian group made us our breakfast, which was always 1-2 hours later than scheduled. A few mornings I woke up early and bathed in a bucket bath, down in an area enclosed by tarps. The water was cold, but it was always nice to feel clean. The pictures with bandannas means no shower that day. Every morning and evening we would also get to hear the announcements. These were typically made by Reed, one of our fearless leaders, seen here with his led in the position of Captain Morgan (I have seen a few to many alcohol commercials). Natalie and I are very engaged in the announcements as we stir some amazing buffalo hot chocolate, which is one of the best parts of the day.
Then we all headed out to our different work areas. On this particular day it was back to them medical clinic. Although, I was asked to teach local rural health workers. Above are some of my other medical clinic workers teaching the health care workers. I was only able to teach them about abscesses before I was called back upstairs to see patients. There were to many people to be seen and not enough doctors.
Above you can see one of my fellow medical clinic workers teaching the local women about sanitation and hygiene. I feel like this is the area where the medical clinic made the most difference in the local villagers lives.
The day in the clinic finished early, so I was finally able to go and assist in the trenches. We were working on building to the toilets to the local college which was still in construction next to this site. Previously SHe expeditioners and local had dug the trenches. On this day we were filling the trenches in with rocks to build the foundation. I can't be seen in this picture because I am at the head of the line. I was a "Rockstar." I was able to pick up some very heavy rocks to place at the bottom of the foundation. We always needed help from the locals, because they could do everything better than we could. We just helped it happen a little faster.
Here you can see the rocks in the bottom of the trenches.

Next to the toilet area there were the men who were chipping away at the rocks for the college. They would be payed about $5 a day to do this for 8 hours. You can see the wall of the college stacked up behind the men.
We as Americans just don't spend enough of our life squatting. The people in Nepal squat like this almost all day. I would practically fall over squatting for a minute in the "squatty potty." Now I know that you are all visualizing me in the potty, but you should really start imagining yourself, thank you.

After working in the trenches in the afternoon, I was exhausted. I made it back to the schoolhouse and collapsed in my sleeping bag. I slept through dinner into the morning. A total of 14 hours of sleep.

Nepal Day 12

On the 11th day, we woke up and were escorted by the father of our family back to the area where we had watched the program the previous night. Natalie and I arrived about 20 minutes later than we were supposed to be there. Now we may think that Mormon Standard Time is late, well Nepali Time has knocked our beliefs of lateness was toppled. It was at least another 20 minutes before the second group of SHe expeditioners arrived. It was another 20 minutes until breakfast was started. During this time I got this beautiful photo of the view from the site.
These two little girls were bringing mats up to the area, for the breakfast. The girl on the right was the youngest girl in the Dura family, whom we stayed with overnight.
While waiting for breakfast, the expeditioners were entertaining everyone. I did not get ant picture of the entertainment, but it was amazing. There was one group of people creating a human pyramid, human helicopters, and other assorted tricks. I am sure that the villagers of Thuloswara thought we were acrobats.


After breakfast there was a presentation for the villagers from Choice Humanitarian describing how the trekking money from villager would be broken up. Then the dancers from the last dance we watched from the night before performed again. So that we would be able to leave more quickly, we had been instructed to get up with them and dance fairly quickly. Here are some amazing pictures of the dancing moves my fellow expeditioner displayed.



The villagers really seemed to have a good time with us.
Next, we had to hike up and out of the village. Once again it was a beautiful hike out of Thuloswara. This is a spring that we saw as we were initially hiking away from the village.
This is man who was just out for a walk with his goats. I love him with his umbrella.
As we were hiking to the next village that we visiting, someone got the bright idea to take a shortcut. Well, the shortcut was essentially hiking completely uphill to this home. I am not sure how much of a shortcut it was. I was a little slower than many of the others. There was a group of people who were waiting at the bottom of the hill for some of the expeditioners that were thought to be lagging. I decided to continue hiking upward. At one point I thought that I was lost, I stood still wondering if I should hike back down the very steep steps, or continue onward. About 5 minutes later I heard someone say that they saw me. I cannot tell you the relief I had when I heard him. This was the scene at the top of the hill. Once I got the home I found everyone relaxing and jumping off the wall surrounding the home. It was not long before the group headed off again.
There was a shrine along the way down the hill to the next village. There are bells everywhere in Nepal. I really think it bells would be an awesome addition to the U.S.
When we arrived to the village of Turlong, we could see the school that we were going to help paint. The blue roof building is the school in the village. I don't know if you can see, but the blue tarped area is where chairs were set up for us to sit. There are little ropes strung between the school and the tarp. The village had prepared for hours and hours for us to come. The ropes were jute wound around each other holding marigolds in between them. Amazing!
These are some of the homes in the village.


Construction had begun on the school about 1 year ago. We had to prep the school for painting. We began by sanding down all of the wood and the cement/rocks, for the coat of primer. Natalie worked hard on this project....obviously I was taking pictures. There was a limited amount of room, so I participated in painting primer on the wood. Other people white washed the interior walls. Below are some photos of SHe working hard.



Turlong villagers had also prepared a program for us to watch. So, of course it was a great time to take pictures of the villagers.



More dancing. These performances were less professionally done, but the were still fun to watch. These were performed by more of the younger girls. Gotta love the application of makeup as well.

It was only another 30 minute walk in the dark to get back to Duradanda. The best part it was all downhill. It was really nice to get back to the school house and sleep of the mats. I was exhausted.