Year in Kathmandu

Will’s first day at school. Blair sending his best wishes to Will.

It’s been a challenging few weeks. I’ve been delaying writing my blog because I’ve been in a bit a ‘snit’ for sometime and didn’t want to come across as negative. But this is part of life and part of the adjustment process when moving abroad or just moving.

We’ve been in Kathmandu for 2 months and I feel as though I am now better prepared to live in the Botswana bush. We live in the capital city of Nepal however we are adjusting to 10 hours a day of load shedding (no power or back up power only),that stopped working this past weekend, veeeerrryy ssslllooow internet, slower then Botswana…my patience is getting a  good workout. Clothes are only hand washed and hung to dry. Haven’t figured out laundry during the rain yet. No vehicle, walking and public transit everywhere. On Mondays I have a 6pm meeting I attend I leave our home at 4:30pm to get there in time. I’m learning how to cook differently, no oven and only 2 burners, shop differently, we only have a small fridge so can’t store stuff. However, I haven’t thrown out much spoiled food, we’ve been eating everything in the fridge. Sleep differently (Blair and I are adjust to sleeping on the smallest and hardest bed we have ever slept in) Ok, ok, ok you say ” Is this not the reason you are travelling? to experience different things, learn new ways etc.?”  Absolutely! I am told that this is a normal phase in the adjustment period and I realize that my personal growth opportunities here are abundant!

On the up side. we now have hot water…as long as it’s sunny. Water is heated by solar panels. I can not tell you the difference hot water makes. We were so very spoiled in Botswana.

Willis has been dealing with GI issue’s and last week EISH!  Enough was enough and last we took him to the hospital. We were so impressed with the service we got, within minutes from arriving in the ER the doctors had seen us and ordered and IV to re hydrate Will. I’ve been fighting a persistent cough and cold and this week Blair has been home for 3 days with horrible stomach spasms, cramps and… all part of the transition period.

This past Thursday Willis started school…Grade 8 at Pathshala Nepal English Medium School! This is a whole new chapter in Kathmandu for us, for me. My focus or the past 3 weeks has been home schooling Will in Math to prepare him, the math seems to be quite advanced compared to Canada rand Botswana.

Enough writing already! Get to the pictures! Sorry, I needed to unload. Thanks for listening I feel much better.

Hugs from Kathmandu, XOXO

How cool are these trucks! I just love them.

EISH! It’s been too long since my last post. Too many pictures for 1 post and the task is feeling daunting. So I’ve decided that I don’t need to put all the pictures I’ve taken since my last post in this one. I’ll split it up and post more often….we’ll see how that works. Anywhooo…since we last met. We have moved  into our apartment and working on adjusting to things such as lack of hot water, load shedding (scheduled power cuts, we are at 10hours/day of no power), sharing the smallest and hardest bed Blair and I have ever had to share. I think the bed is what we consider a single and a half….definitely not a double. A new way of cooking. We only have a 2 burner gas stove top, no oven and 1/2 a fridge.  I can purchase most fruit and veg, eggs and milk at local vendors, a couple minutes walk up a steep hill. Other shopping requires more effort, a longer walk. The other day Will and I walked 40 minutes to buy toilet paper. As Blair likes to say, “lots of opportunity for personal growth…”

As of yesterday Willis is officially admitted at a school. Pathshala (www.pathshala.edu.np) an English Medium local school. He begins grade 8 April 25th, 2013.  In the meantime Willis and I are diligently working through the grade 7 math book. Math seems to be quite a bit more advanced here in Kathmandu. I can’t remember solving for algebraic polynomials till grade 9. Both of our brains are getting a work out. “lots of opportunity for personal growth” Getting Will into school was much more challenging then I had anticipated.The cost of the   British School and the American School, Lincoln, took them out of the race ($10,000.00 per year plus). Blair’s volunteer allowance doesn’t begin to cover that…. So I started looking for local English Medium Schools. The competition is strong.   We had to fill out an application forms and Willis had to write and entrance exam as enrollment is limited. All in all I’m hoping Pathshala will work out. It’s in our neighborhood, which was unexpected, so Will can walk. And he get served a hot lunch everyday. Rice, dhal, veg curry and meat curry if he chooses. Yay!

The following picture do not bring you completely up to date with our adventure….my thought was “just get this posted already” .  EISH man! I think I’ll post more often and smaller posts. We’ll see if that works.

Cheers for now. XOXOXOXO from Kathmandu

P.S. Just noted the format. I do not like it all. My intention was more a photo album. I will try and sort that out but in the interest of time I am going to post this now.

Walking during a Bandh (public strike)

Streets of Kathmandu during a Bandh

Blair and Will hard at work in Nepalese Language Classes

Inside a Microbus. Mine and Willis’s first Microbus adventure.

The TukTuk. Another form of public transit in Kathmandu.

Roadside fruit vendor, on our way to the airport.

Awesome decorated truck!

Down the road and over the bridge on our way to the airport.

The different looks of the Ring Road on our way to the airport.

How cool are these trucks! I just love them.

Kathmandu Airport. The arrivals waiting room. Waiting for Woody Brown to arrive. Our first guest.

Woody and Willis enjoying a well deserved drink.

Hotel at the end of the Universe

Our room, cottage…whatever. It’s so quaint.

Blair and Woody being silly. Check out the size ratio of them to the cottage…. a quaint little cottage.

Trying to be creative with the camera.

Our first trek in Nepal…ok hike really.

Just love the brick work and architecture.

Stairs!

And we’re off…

Pic 1 of 3. Stunning.

Pic 2 of 3. The air is fresh. I love the terraced fields.

Pic 3 of 3. Our plan. At least once per month get out of Kathmandu to clean air and this.

Farm house on the side of the hill

Looking down, way down on a village.

Woody. Picture ops every turn.

Final climb up.

Will makes new friends everywhere.

Came upon a school group on a field trip.

At the Wood Cafe in Nargakot. Get it Wood, Woody. We had to go. Hehe….

A OK!

Drowning a spicy dish with the Millet Wine.

Power cut in the Middle of dinner

The girls all love Willis. Like Father like Son.

Bus Trip back to Kathmandu.

Cool looking building from the bus.

Narrow roads. You get very close….

Another farm House.

Kalanki, Kathmandu. Where Blair goes to work every day. Humanity as far as you can see.

Blair, Will, Woody and KalankiThe

Good morning! It is 5:22am in Kathmandu. I’ve been up since 3:30am….still working to get over jet lag. “They” say it takes a day for every hour time difference. That would be a 10hr and 45min time difference from Toronto to Kathmandu. 10 to 11 days…so I’m ok. Blair and Willis are doing much better then I am. I get tired….all I can think about is bed and sleep. I’ve always been a sleeper. I love to nap. To me there is nothing better then an afternoon nap on sunny afternoon after a very active morning,  hence I’m awake at 3:30am on Sunday morning.

This first week has been all about orientation. Orientation on our sponsoring Canadian organization UNITERRA (CECI) and it’s programs in Nepal. Orientation on Nepal: history, culture, politics, geography etc.. Orientation to Kathmandu, Blair’s partner organization in Kathmandu (whom he’ll be volunteering for), house hunting, a welcome lunch with other UNITERRA volunteers and yesterday a city tour. It’s been an amazing week!

My first impressions of Kathmandu. Crazy, chaotic, quite, alive, colourful, accepting…I cannot believe how quiet this city is at night. Kathmandu is a city of over a million people living very close together, high density living! The occasional dog barking but that’s it. Maybe it’s just where we are living in the city… But it blows my mind each night. During the day the city is filled with life and all sort city noises, by 9pm you’d think you were living in the country. Getting around Kathmandu is nerve jarring. We have been spoiled with a driver, thank god! I have yet to see a traffic light or people staying in their appointed lanes. Horns are used to communicate. Mostly to alert your vehicles presence, at an intersection or going around a blind narrow corner or coming up behind pedestrians. Friendly honks though, not laying on the horn.

The pictures that follow are the ones I took on our city tour. They are from my perspective. We all took cameras and it was really interesting seeing Will’s perspective. To see them check out Blair’s pics on facebook.

View from Sky 100 Hong Kong via Kathmandu

Happy March 1st. A Pinch and a Punch for the first day of the month!

Ok so I’ve been meaning to get a post going for the past four years as we were in Maun Botswana…..yeah didn’t happen. Here we are now in Kathmandu Nepal Day 4 of our 1 year adventure. We all have our camera’s, I got a nice little one for christmas to carry with me at all times because there were just too many missed picture opps in Maun. My plan is a photo journal for the year, with the goal of taking a picture every day.I have never been one to carry a camera so I hope this will help create a new habbit.

The following pics depict our journey from London ON to Kathmandu Nepal.