This last week has not been an easy week. It was our first Christmas holiday away from home and we have all been terribly sick. There are alot of good things about this week also. We spent our first Christmas in a culture that is not focused on the material aspects of the holiday. Most people here took little notice of the holiday and the ones who did recognized it for what it was to be. There were no jolly fat people ringing bells on the corners or people fighting over the latest toy. We were able to teach our kids what this holiday is about. Neither of them were old enough to expect anything so we were able to make our own traditions.
There are a few things bad about being sick away from home. The first is there is nobody here to take care of your kids when you are too sick to take care of yourself. When we got sick it was all four of us at once. We apparently have a bug called Giardia, otherwise known as the Kathmandu shuffle. It is a horrible curse that strickens everyone who lives in Nepal, both locals and foreigners. It causes its victims to purge their insides at such an alarming rate that the victim is capable of doing little more than just lay there and pray that God would hasten their death and relieve their misery. Having this condition on top of trying to take care of two children with the same condition is almost more than I could stand, but we survived.
Throughout the ordeal all I could think about was taking a hot shower and how this would help me feel better. I can't remember the last time I had a hot shower and neither could Shawna. We decided that this year for Christmas all we really wanted was for Santa to give us the capability of taking a hot shower. The temperatures have dropped and it is freezing. Standing in a cold bucket when you can see your breath is the last thing I want to do. I want hot water and lots of it!
On Christmas morning Shawna and I decided that we would go to a hotel somewhere and take a hot shower. We found a little town on the edge of the Kathmandu valley called Nargakot that we have been wanting to visit so we hitched a ride out there, stayed in a hotel, and took a shower.
You are probably wondering how we go without taking many showers. How do they go to work when they stink? When we went through our training to come here we were told that we needed a heart for the people of Nepal and a poor sense of smell. This is very true. The problem is not with the people of Nepal, the problem is with us. Americans have this unwritten belief that cleanliness is next to Godliness and to not be very clean is just terrible. Needless to say, my worldview has changed. B.O. is not that bad. After a month it starts to even have a sweet smell. I have grown to kind of like it. It did not even take that much getting used to, however Shawna would tell you different. No, the real problem is going to come when I go back to the US. The first time I go to work and have not showered in a week or two will be when the problem starts.
Christmas in Nepal was one I will not forget and hope to repeat. Despite being sick we were able to enjoy ourselves with the simple pleasures in life. The views from Nagarkot were spectacular and we spent time together as a family. We told our kids stories about why we celebrate this holiday. Christmas in Nepal is something that every American family should celebrate.
Today Shawna and I traveled to a neighboring city called Bhaktapur. It is a beautiful city that is known for its spirituality. This city contains the oldest temples in Nepal. It is a Newari city and every place of worship in the city is a Hindu temple. The people are very friendly but many describe it as spiritually dark. The city has made it illegal to have any other form of worship inside the city limits. But in this darkness there is also a beautiful source of light.
We visited the city with a british woman who was born and raised there. Her parents were doctors that served there and she is very familiar with the city. We visited potters square where the residents made their living selling pottery. Everything is made by hand. The residents are very proud of their pottery, hand carved decorations, and woven clothes.
We enjoyed a traditional Newari lunch with a Newari family that worshiped like we do. They chose to live just outside the city in a small three room flat. Shortly after their daughter was born she became very sick. They tried every medicine man or spiritual guru in the city and nothing seemed to work. As a last resort someone suggested they try praying to that strange new God that worshiped outside the city. They came to the group of believers and asked them to pray to their God to see if their child would be healed. Nothing else had worked and this was a last resort. Well guess what happened? She was healed instantly.
We are told that this is not so uncommon among this group of believers. What a priveledge to see such a powerful reminder of the God who heals prividing light in a otherwise dark place.
We have had all three this week. Let me start with the good.
Kody and Luke seem to be loving our new life in Nepal. Kody has a best friend at school named Kento who is from Japan. This has made Kody love school and not want to leave in the afternoons when it is time to come home. He has also developed a friendship with the two boys who live next door to us. When Kody gets home they play outside until it gets dark. Life here is much like a community. You are practically married to your neighbors because you live so close and it is great when you have good neighbors, as we do.
Luke also has a close friend. She is a Nepali woman named Saanu. Saanu is a close friend of Shawna and she loves Luke. She often will take him onto the roof and give him a massage. No I am not kidding. The kid thinks he is the king. He is so spoiled.
Our taste buds are changing which is helping also. No, we havn't developed a taste for stuffed mutton lung, but we are not as bothered everytime we ride by the butcher shop and see them killing our dinner. We even make our own yogurt with buffalo milk that we set out all night. It tastes like sour cream at first, but you learn to like it and it is good for our stomach.
Language training good is. My guru pleasant is. My country America is. My health good isn't. My wife name Shawna is. You get the picture about how language training is going.
This weekend some friends and I went to a neighboring village and attempted to take some backwoods trails and find our way back. Needless to say we got lost. The only way to find our way back was to talk to people using the limited Nepali that we have. We met dozens of nice people, many of whom wanted us to spend the night with them. They would insist on giving us some tea for our journey before they would let us go and it turned into a great time. Most were fascinated in a digital camera that we brought that would allow us to show them the picture we just took. We ended up finding our way back and it turned into one of the best days of language training I have ever had.
Now for the bad................. The pollution in the valley is the worst it will be all year. Something about the cold makes the pollution get worse and there is a health warning out about breathing the air. Like we really have a choice in the matter. "Oh look Shawna we shouldn't breath this week, the air quality is too toxic."
The air has made both Shawna and I sick. We both have sore throats and she seems to be coming down with bronchitus. It just takes a little getting used to and we have not been here long enough. Our immune systems are at their limit and we are all getting sick now.
You can see the pollution in this picture I took looking down into the valley.
Then there is the cold. If you want to experience what it is like here in the winter you can turn your furnace off and go outside and take a shower by standing in a bucket by the faucet near your garage. Needless to say we have decided that we don't need as many showers as we thought we did.
The winter is also a time of water shortages. This provides another incentive to forget the shower. It hasn't rained once in the last six weeks since we have been here. Not even a little bit. Everyone tells me that it will be late April or May before it rains again and then it starts the monsoon. Its either all or nothing here. With the water shortage it is not uncommon to turn the faucet on and nothing come out. You remedy this by pumping water out of your well onto your roof so it can get some pressure. The problem is that we are running out. It is just a inconvenience more than anything but it is likely to get worse before it gets better. The colder temperatures mean there is less glacier runoff and less water in the ground and rivers.
Now for the Ugly. Kody apparently got into some water when he was playing outside with the neighbors. Now his stomach is terribly upset. Luke also has terrible stomach problems and this is making life pretty difficult for them. Add that to us being sick and it makes for an interesting holiday season.
Overall, we are adjusting very well and most of these problems are just problems everyone goes through. We have made many new friends and are learning how to live again. We have become involved in a local church and this has also helped.
This week had the opportunity to travel for my work. The trip was not a long trip but it meant that I could leave the valley and get out to a remote village. I love getting out from behind my desk and getting out into the villages. This is where I get the most satisfaction from my job.
The trip was to a small village on the outskirts of the Kathmandu valley to a people group known as the Tamangs. A building was being built for the local villagers through assistance from one of our associates sending bodies. The project was very important to the local school because it would help the students. In remote areas like this it is often too difficult for young boys and girls to go to school and we wanted to support their efforts to have the priveldge of going to school. I remembered how much I hated going to school when I was little and I thought how selfish I had been for not appreciating how fortunate I was.
As I rode my bike out of town I passed a brick factory. The way Nepalis build bricks is by packing the mud in molds by hand, drying them in the sun, then firing them in the kiln. It is terrible backbreaking work. What really caught my attention was the workers looked to be around 10 years old.
Now this may shock alot of you reading this. I admit that when I first heard about such child labor I was shocked, but this is a different culture and these children needed these jobs to eat. They were able to make enough money to feed themselves and if they were not able to afford to go to school then why not work. This becomes an unfortunate necessity of life.
I finally made it to the little village where I would meet a Scottish woman who was working with the Tamangs. We began hiking up one of the steepest trails that I have ever been on. It went for approximately three miles straight up the side of a mountain. At one point we crossed a road and I was able to use one of the most important skills I learned when I used to kayak......... The ability to hitchhike. We were able to thumb a ride with a backhoe operator up the next few miles of road and reconnect with our trail near the top of the mountain where the village was located. I must admit that I have never hitchhiked on a backhoe before. This proved to be an important part of our trip because we learned about several robberies that were occurring on the trail and the backhoe operator would deliver us safely around them. We also learned that there had been a tragic accident on the top of the mountain involving some of the Tamangs. A truck hauling rocks for the project had fallen off the side of a cliff and killed three people.
We arrived at the village and were able to witness a buddhist funeral. It involved ritualistic dancing, singing, and playing drums and horns to appease the gods. Following the ceremony the body was carried to a nearby hilltop and creamated. This tragic accident had unfortunately widowed a young mother of two small children around the ages of Kody and Luke. Being a single parent in these remote villages is very tough and this loss was devastating to this young family.
The village is very supersticious. Many believe that the project should be halted because the accident was a sign from the gods that they were displeased with the work. Others were able to recognize the importance of the project and saw it as a terrible accident but nothing more than that. Either way the project would be halted for the next 13 days. This was the mourning period for the family and the village would be shut down during this period.
We met with villagers working on the project throughout the day and at the end of the day it appeared that we would be able to resume the work following the period of mourning. The project is an important link to the Tamangs. It shows them that we respect them and value them because we want them to have an education. It also shows them that we want to invest in them and expect nothing in return. Projects like this are investments in peoples lives. Anyone can give money to the poor but they still remain poor. Helping them fight poverty by teaching them how to do it themselves is a long term investment that will hopefully lead to a brighter future for the Tamangs.
At the end of the day we hiked back down the mountain. I was exhausted when we made it to my bike. The young boys and girls were able to go to school in the village but the older kids who were able to go to middle and high school had to hike down this mountain every day and then back up at the end of the day. I cannot believe how much I have taken for granted.
There have been a few changes this week. The biggest change is that the winter fog arrived on December 1st as it was scheduled to. This means that it is noticably colder every day. Each morning it is extremely foggy on the way to work and I am covered in dew by the time I get there. The fog will lift by noon and the sun will begin to warm things up, but the mornings are starting to get pretty cold.
I started language classes this week. I meet for an hour each morning before I start my work. My teacher is named Himal, which means snowy mountain. Why did'nt I think of this name when we were arguing over baby names????? Anyways, I am only learning the script and a little conversation right now. It is a completely different alphabet with several variations of the letter T, D, I, A, E, and O. The Nepali language does not form sentences like the English language does. For instance the sentence...... "My name is Jon" is really "My name Jon is." "My wife Shawna is. My book on table is." Well you get the picture.
What they don't teach you is the international language of testosterone body language, of which I speak fluently. This is so complicated that you could never teach it. It is inbred in every man. Here is how it works......... I can look at a guy on a motorcycle and communicate to him, "My bicycle can take your Hero Honda anyday." After which he can respond with, "O'Yeah, well I will race you to the Bhagmati bridge you white faced turtle." Then the race is on. I can communicate this without taking my pollution mask or my sunglasses off. It must be communicated through my eye brows because its the only thing showing.
I try and communicate this with as many people as I can on the way to work every day. We will weave in and out of traffic, onto sidewalks, over man holes, finally ending at the bridge. I have a pretty good record on the way to work, but I have lost many races on the way home, (its all uphill).
This week I passed over a hundred cars and trucks, dozens of rickshaws, several cows, an elephant, and an monkey that must have weighed 80lbs.. It is a great way to get back and forth to work and all this comunication is done without speaking the language. It only works with men though. It must be a testosterone thing.
Other than that life is starting to settle down a little. We have little free time which keeps us from being homesick. We have made some good friends and our kids are starting to adjust to the change. Thanks for all your prayers. I know that there was alot of prayers being sent on our behalf and they made a huge difference. The adjustment here was alot harder than we expected.
