An Easy Day in Nepal

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Other than the way my day began, it was one of the most pleasant so far of our trip while checking out projects.  But, I must begin at the beginning.  Last night I was beyond tired, the kind of tired I get when I have jet lag and all I can think of is how to keep my eyes open long enough to go to bed so as not to wake up in the middle of the night.  I was fighting sleep during our dinner with E/S Wasuita.

I came home to try and stay up so was working on my computer and that is when I realized that all the pictures I’d taken that day were completely gone.  I’d done something stupid.  Jim wanted a lot of those pictures because they were ones he needed to show one of our NGO’s what needed to be fixed, and pictures do tell a better story than trying to describe it.  Of course, I wanted some of the pictures I had taken also.  I was so upset by this that when I went to bed at 8:30 and went to sleep, I dreamed about losing those pictures and fretted about it each time I woke up even for a short time.  Finally about 3 hours later I was awake for good and couldn’t go back to sleep even as tired as I was.  It was about 11:30 PM.

Then Jim told me he thought that if I went on the Internet someone could tell me how to retrieve those pictures off my camera.  Sure enough he was right and I had hopes of recovering them.  I tried all the ‘free’ ones, that turned out you actually had to buy them in order for them to work.  When I couldn’t do it any other way I gave in and purchased one of the programs.  I downloaded it and then it wouldn’t work.  It took several hours to get it working right through e-mail conversations, and then miracle of miracles, I had them ALL back.  I was exhausted because by this time it was already time to get ready to leave.  And here I was looking forward to a leisurely morning because they were not to pick us up till 10:30.  I had just enough time to shower and get ready.

I was miserably tired so drank a Coke and left with the driver, picked up E/S Wasuita and we drove to CHOICE for a meeting about their projects, and even better, a lunch served to us prepared by Bishnu’s wife and some of their staff.  It so far was the best meal we’d had here—perfect!  I also had another Coke, and the second one woke me thoroughly up so that I had a lovely day, awake and happy.  We had 3 CHOICE people in crammed into the far back seat.  Both of the projects we saw were in outer Kathmandu and easy to get to (except of course getting out of the massive traffic in the city).  The first was a project we’d seen the last time we were here where we’d attended their turnover ceremony.  It was working beautifully.  Then we progressed onto another of their projects that was in process.  We hiked a little bit around the tanks and plastic pipes to see what progress they were making.  While they attended a meeting I played on a swing that was erected with bamboo poles and rope.  We had great fun up there.  Then the others finally joined us and we returned to our hotel in so much less time.  We were back at 4 PM.

For about one month they make these bamboo swings.  The driver, a drunk man, and these little boys (below) were enjoying the swing.  I also got to swing (the swing seat was not comfortable).  When the others came back from their meeting a few of them also started swinging; we were like a bunch of little kids. 

It was so pretty here because they grow a lot of flowers; this is just below where we were swinging.

At 5:15 we left with Wasuita’s in a taxi and met up with E/S Valentine for dinner at an Americanized restaurant.  We then went shopping for our daughter-in-law who wants a certain type of ski jacket, and so of course Jim had to buy a windbreaker.  They are so reasonable here it is amazing, and he did need a jacket for this trip.  Today was so pleasant and breezy—a beautiful, perfect day, but tomorrow we leave for 3 days and 2 nights, so it is back to the grindstone…if I ever get a chance, I have a parcel of pictures to send along.  This is such a beautiful country.  

Well, off to an early bedtime for me since we have to leave at 7AM, packed and ready to go on our next long jaunt.

Love, Mom & Dad, Jim & Karen, E/S Greding