Home away from home

I write this from my new apartment which I moved into just a few weeks ago. I feel like it's been a long time coming and I'm so stoked to finally be settling into this new pad.

After a few weeks of looking around at not so great apartments, a little over a month ago this apartment came across my path as a family from school were moving house and were looking for someone to move in. I checked it out and really liked it, but needed some expert advice on whether this really was a good apartment or not. You see, in Nepal, it's not just about whether you like the look of a place. You've gotta take into consideration what the water supply's like (by February, Nepal will be short on water so working out if you'll need to truck in water and who pays for it if/when it happens is a big deal), how safe and secure the area is and how noisy it gets.

After getting the OK from a missionary friend who's been here for 10 years, I set upon writing up a lease agreement. Unfortunately, the landlord's husband was away for work and wouldn't be returning for several weeks so the lease wasn't signed for awhile.

After he returned and an agreement was made, he got the place painted and I started to move in.

In the weeks leading up to my move, I'd started to scout out who was leaving Nepal and who I could buy 2nd hand stuff from as buying things new is very expensive (if only they had IKEA here). I'd managed to track down 5 people and bought most of what I needed from them, including all my furniture (having a couch is the BEST), kitchen stuff, linens and lots of other bits and pieces.

I also had to get gas bottles filled, a water filter installed, the internet connected and work out who to hire as house help (the thought of having someone come to clean your house a few times a week may seem ridiculous, but it gives local women employment, and with washing machines being a rarity, it's definitely handy having somebody come to wash your clothes).

Then, there was the inverter - a backup power source for when the electricity goes out. Before coming to Nepal, I'd never even heard of an inverter, but with electricity cuts for up to 18 hours a day, having a source of power is a must. After trying to work out exactly what an inverter is and asking around for where I could get one installed for a good price, I decided on the help of a missionary guy who installs inverters as a 'Business As Mission' venture.

So, as I sit here on my comfy couch with christmas lights flashing around me, I'm so excited to be in an apartment that I love and that I can now call 'home'.

Looking forward to many more adventures (hopefully not to do with house disasters!) ahead!

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The Last Resort

I just spent a week with Grade 9s from KISC at 'The Last Resort' - an adventure camp about 4 hours out from Kathmandu.

We set out early on Monday morning, and after arriving at the Resort, we found our tents and began team building games. The guys leading our camp group were amazing at keeping the kids engaged and challenging them to stretch themselves and work better at communication and teamwork.

That afternoon, we walked to the centre of the bridge and we all had 3 goes at absailing down it - the first time the camp guys lowered us down, the 2nd time we lowered ourselves and the 3rd time we raced to see how fast we could go.

Day 2, after a fantastic breakfast (how many other camps cook you omlettes in the morning!) we split up into 2 groups and headed out on a long hike. Most of the way up the mountain required lots and lots of stairs so we'd walk for 5 minutes, then take a 10 minute break. It was very exciting, after 3 hours of walking, to make it up the mountain. After lunch, we headed back down and were totally stuffed so we just hung out and played cards for the rest of the afternoon.

Our 3rd and final full day, we got into our swim suits and got ready for canyoning! I'd never even heard of canyoning before, but it's where you absail through waterfalls - AWESOME!!! It was SO much fun and totally new for me which is why I think I loved it so much!

That afternoon, we headed for the high ropes course and spent the rest of the day doing obstacles between the trees.

In the evening, we were in for a treat. After a delicious dinner, some of the resort staff did fire dancing, and after that, there was live music by some other resort staff! Good times with some fun dancing!

Our last morning at the resort, before breakfast, we all had a go at 'horizontal bungy' which made us all really work up an appetite as it was hard work!!

Overall, a fantastic week of fun activities, yummy food and great company!!!! Probably one of the best camps I've been on EVER!

Looking forward to the adventures ahead!

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Out of the Comfort Zone of the Classroom

For the past 6 weeks I've spent 3 hours a day, 5 days a week learning Nepali. It's been lots of fun and I've slowly been able to communicate more with Nepalis at school and in the wider community.

As part of my language learning, my teacher's got me doing a thing she calls 'CLL' - Community Language Learning. This started a few weeks ago where I would find a Nepali who worked at KISC and have a 10-15 minute conversation with them using only Nepali. I asked them the usual questions about their family, where their house was, what foods they like etc, and they would answer using words and phrases I didn't really understand. Even though our conversation was limited, I enjoyed this time as it gave me an opportunity to get to know some of my colleagues.

Then, about a week ago, my teacher decided it was time to step out of the comfort zone of the classroom and into the community. We walked along the street and found a woman who was with her child at the park. I sat down with them and began asking her the questions I knew (where is your house?, how many people in your family?, what do you do for work?). The conversation was pretty one-way and after I had exhausted my questions, there was no-where else to go. The conversation was over in about 5-10 minutes.

After that experience, I was feeling pretty apprehensive about CLL as I realised how very limited my Nepali was, however, just the other day, my confidence began to grow after my conversation with Nabin.

Again, my teacher and I ventured out of the school grounds and headed up the street trying to find someone for me to talk to. She initially asked an older guy to speak to me but he wasn't too keen. Instead, this younger guy who was nearby volunteered and so I began to speak to Nabin. He was great! He spoke very S-L-O-W-L-Y and if I didn't understand something, he repeated it again S-L-O-W-L-Y, then said it in English, then again in Nepali. I came away with a few new phrases and a bit of reassurance that stepping out and speaking Nepali with the locals isn't too bad after all.

Looking forward to the adventures (that involve speaking Nepali) ahead!

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Pokhara

I recently got back from an awesome few days chilling by the lake in Pokhara.

Pokhara is the 2nd biggest city in Nepal and also the starting point for many treks in the Himalayas. Since I only had a week off from language classes, instead of going trekking, Trish, Esther (also KISC teachers) and I decided to spend a few days chilling out instead.

Our holiday started with a 6:45am bus trip, and after taking 2 hours to get out of Kathmandu, we finally arrived in Pokhara around 3pm. The rest of the day was spent settling into our guesthouse, walking by the lake and checking out a few shops.

On Friday, we took it easy, walking up and down the main strip of shops, stopping regularly to see what was on offer.

On Saturday, Trish, Esther and I headed up a mountain to the World Peace Pagoda. We'd read in our trusty Lonely Planet guide that we could take a more scenic route through the forest so we headed towards the beginning of the trail but got a bit lost on the way so stopped to ask a few 10 year old kids if they could tell us which way to go. They were more than happy to walk with us and ended up being our guides up the mountain (for a small fee of course). Sadly, the view wasn't that fantastic due to the mass amounts of clouds so I'll have to make the trip back up again the next time I'm in Pokhara.

On Sunday, Trish, Esther, Philippa, Debby and I decided to hire a boat and go out on the lake. We had the BEST time! It was so relaxing floating along, reading, eating and chatting. We'd hired the boat for 4 hours but after 3 hours it started raining, and unfortunately the roof on the boat wasn't waterproof so we quickly headed back into shore and spent the rest of day at a cafe drinking chiya.

Monday was our last day in Pokhara so we spent the time wandering from shop to shop buying all the things we hadn't bought yet.

Arriving back into the dust and traffic of Kathmandu on Tuesday made me appreciate our time in Pokhara even more. It's definitely somewhere I'll go time and time again while I'm in Nepal.

Looking forward to more adventures ahead!

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