I think I'm going to Kathmandu, That's really, really where I'm going to...

18 Aug 2013

Rae here.  Since I am starting the blog this week, you might think the post title applies to me. No, no, it doesn't. Phil went to Nepal and he will be writing about it later in the blog. I guess I’ll start this week by writing about our first house guests.  Tuesday afternoon we had two young women from New York come to stay with us for a few days.  We did not know them, but were asked by the Pullas, who had been serving as missionaries here for a while, if they could stay with us.  The girls had already been in India for about 6 weeks, and had done some travelling to different areas.  They wanted to come to Delhi an d then also go to see the Taj Mahal.  The Taj (as they call it here) is around 3 hours from here, of course that depends on the ever popular traffic.  They went to the Taj on Wednesday and had invited me to go with them, but I decided to stay home for a couple of reasons and so didn’t go.  When they got back they said it was beautiful but so very hot (one of the reasons I didn’t want to go quite yet). 

As you know, the church makes our world smaller, which is how these girls became acquainted with the Pullas.  The Pullas have a son who is serving a mission in New York and so he’d met Carolyn there at church.  The girls are 22 (Carolyn) and 16 (Isabella).  They  had been staying mostly in an ashram (kind of a religious retreat with hostels) on the outskirts of Bangalore, so they were pretty excited to have a soft bed, a shower (instead of a bucket), ice, constant Internet, television and a few other things they hadn’t had for a while.  I was in awe of them and their courage to come here and travel all around for 7 weeks.  They were having such a good experience and seemed so grateful to have this experience. It was fun having them. Here is a picture of them.

Another reason I didn’t go to the Taj with the girls is because I had girls camp coming up and had some things to get done for that.  It turned out that it was a good thing that I didn’t go because we ended with another issue with water in the basement. I ended up dealing with that a lot of the day.  I know that there was no water in the basement Tuesday night because the girls had gone down there that night.  When I went down Wednesday morning there it was. It is just such a mystery.  The water seems to be clean water and we had had no rain for a few days.  Some men came to investigate, but I don’t think they figured anything out.  Thursday was a holiday (Independence Day) and so they said they would come back on Friday to see if the water level had gone up or down.  I knew there was no way it would go down and even if it went up I didn’t want it setting down there for 2 days, only to add more moisture and probably mold to the already very warm very humid room.  So they had the poor girl from upstairs come down and haul bucket after bucket of water out of there.  I felt bad for her, but didn't want that water just setting there.  I hardly dare say this too loud, but no new water so far.  

Now about girl’s camp. This year we didn't have an overnight, but I think the girls did have a good experience.  Friday afternoon and evening we just met at our church building for some activities.  Camp was supposed to start at 1, but didn't really start until about 3.  We had a lot of girls who couldn't come at the beginning because of school.  We served lunch to those who were there and then dinner at the end. (See some pictures below.) I had to speak to the girls about the yearly theme and the camp theme.  I created a frog (below) and then put it together as I talked to them about our theme: Fully Rely On God. his theme was fun for me because it made me think of my grandkids. I used to tell them Froggy Frog stories that I would make up for them.  I thought they might like to see Nana in her froggy t shirt.

It is a bit crazy because they seem to think that because I am from the US, where the church is stronger, that I should be able to do anything at a moment’s notice.  I haven’t gone to girl’s camp in several years, but they thought I should be able to teach them all the camp songs just off the top of my old rusty head. Somehow I managed to come up with a few things and they seemed happy. We gave them an activity to do where they worked on their values and then later worked on a service project.  We put together some hygiene kits that will be delivered to a girl’s orphanage.  I was so impressed with how hard the girls worked on these projects and happily they did them.  They really are such sweet girls, and I am so impressed with them.  I love them already. Here are two pictures from our Friday activity.

Saturday morning we woke up to heavy rain.  We were to be at the Vasant Vihar building to catch the bus by 7:30 AM.  We were going to a resort about 1 ½ hours away.  After we all got on the bus one of the young women gave a prayer and one of the things she prayed for was that the rain would stop so we could enjoy our camp. I’ll tell you the rest of that story later.  The drive to camp was an interesting experience in so many ways.  I’ll try to describe some of what I saw and felt.  I know I've talked many times about all the traffic and all that comes with that, now put yourself on a big bus and your perspective changes again.  

We travelled SW of Delhi.  After travelling for a while we turned off the main roads and travelled on a very narrow, poorly maintained, water soaked road.  We shared this road with oncoming traffic of all kinds not to mention people on motorcycles, bicycles, on foot and LOTS of cows, a few pigs, donkeys, and don’t forget the dogs.  The cows that we usually see are kind of white, you’ll see a picture of a typical one, but we kept seeing these cows that were not quite black, and their horns were kind of curly.  They seemed to be more prevalent in this area.  I even saw a man giving one on his cows a bath.  The donkeys we saw were very small and I thought they were very cute.  Also along the way we saw all these very small mud huts with thatched roofs.  They were so small I could hardly imagine a person being able to lie down in it and I’m sure that they weren't built for just one person to use.    We kept trying to take a picture of them but none of them turned out, because of the rain on the windows and the moving bus.  The area we were in was clearly agricultural, but then we would come to a small village and then a larger business or factory would appear. Here is a picture of the aforementioned cow,(this one happens to be standing right in front of the gate to the church) and scenery in the area where we were.

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The resort we went to was called Botanix and it was quite a lovely setting.  It was probably not quite like a resort that you might be picturing.  It was a basically a large nursery, working farm, with a few cabanas and meeting rooms.  When we got there we gathered in a large open ramada and had some breakfast, a devotional and then divided into groups for our activities.  One of the pictures you'll see is of a ride on a cart pulled by one of the typical cows we see around.  I was fortunate enough to get to set at the front of the cart, right at the business end of the cow, and got to be flicked with the end of its tail a few times. 

After the cart ride we tried our hand at forming some pottery.  When you see the picture, it is hard to tell, but the man who is working the wheel gets it to turn by twirling it with a big stick, no motor. It would start out very wobbly, but then it would even out.  I really wanted to see what it was mounted on that it could spin long enough to form a small pot before it had to be twirled again.  After pottery we went to visit one of the large green houses, and were shown a few things about plants and planting.  We then went to a large area where there was a rope bridge, a hanging bridge, a climbing web, a tire obstacle and a couple of other things.  While we were doing these activities they brought us some much needed water to drink.  I thought the way the water was packaged was interesting; there is a picture of that too. After these activities we had lunch, and then Phil spoke to the girls about the importance of education. Here are some pictures of our great time.

After Phil spoke, and let me just tell you he did a great job, the girls went swimming.  Swimming is not something that these girls get to do often and it was quite entertaining watching them.  Some of them were trying to swim, some were a bit timid about putting the face under the water, but clearly they were all having a great time and were really enjoying the opportunity to cool off after the very hot, very humid, and rain free day we had thus far had.  After the swim we gathered again for closing.  Pres. and Sister Sackley, the mission president and his wife, spoke to the girls; there was a testimony meeting; we gave awards; had a closing prayer; a snack; and then headed to the bus for our adventurous ride home.  If you remember, I talked about the prayer that was offered before we left, well, it worked.  

Our day was very warm and very humid, I know I already said that but I really want you to know that it was very warm and humid, so much so that those who didn’t swim were soaked too.  Well, just as the closing prayer was being said, it began to POUR rain.  It rained really hard for about 10 minutes and then stopped. It was like the Lord held off the rain until girls’ camp was over. Perfect timing.

I’ll turn it now over to Phil.

Phil here in second seat - it’s nice to be the co-pilot today. I won’t write about much this week but I did want to say a little about Nepal. If we are friends on Facebook, you probably saw that I was in Nepal for two days this week. I was invited to speak at an education fair for students there who were interested in leaving the country for college. Since I represent a US education with a campus in India, they were able to kill two birds with one stone. Nepal in general and Kathmandu is somewhere I have wanted to visit since I was a little boy. I don’t know if it was the Hope and Cosby “On the Road to Kathmandu” (okay, I think that is one of the few places they didn’t go in their movies) or if it was from when I used to spin the globe, dragging my finger until the globe stopped, and then saw where my finger stopped and saw the name. For whatever reason, Kathmandu has always seemed exotic and exciting to me, so I was excited to go there.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do much in Nepal other than work but I have to say I was impressed with what I saw flying in and during my drives around the city. Nepal is cooler than India, at least cooler than Delhi this time of year. It is very green, which I knew, with beautiful mountains, which I also knew. I couldn’t see that much of the mountains since it was cloudy for much of the time I was there, but when the clouds cleared, voila! The thing I didn't know about Nepal was its extensive water resources. When I was flying into the Kathmandu Valley, as we broke through the clouds, I was impressed with the green and by the number of rivers, streams, and canals. There was a web of water systems everywhere. It turns out that Nepal is second only to Brazil in terms of water resources. I guess that makes sense now that I think of it...Snow and covered mountains? Check. Twenty thousand foot drop from the highest point to the lowest? Check. Natural drainage network to the Sea of Bengal? Check. Yup, they would naturally have extensive water resources. I definitely want to go back on holiday and take Rae with me.

Their water resources are extensive but their human resources have been taking a hit for years. Many parents want their children to go the US, UK, India or elsewhere for their college education. It is not that there are not good colleges there, but these parents see a foreign education is the key to economic success for their children. So most of the best and brightest leave for college. Unfortunately, most never come back. The brain drain is over 80%. The vast majority of these students just never make it back for more than a visit.

Rae mentioned above Thursday the 15^th was Indian Independence Day. It was 1947 when India and Pakistan won their independence from the British. There are still some alive who were freedom fighters at the time; there are obviously many who are the children and grand children who made Indian independence possible. I thought about what it would be like to be alive in the US sixty some years after our revolution. It has caused me to reflect on subjects like freedom and democracy. Deep thoughts with Jack Handy.

Well, I think that is it for this week. Tune in next week at this same bat time, same bat station for more adventures of our daring duo.

Namaste