We made it to Nepal!!!
It has been a very busy week with many new experiences and a few challenging moments.
We spent Monday getting ready to leave. That meant cleaning, laundry, packing, throwing out some food and such. Finally at 5:12 pm Rick got his exit permit! At 5:18 I got this message, “Your request for Registration Certificate for Foreigners against application id AP1200028123 has been deleted.” What? None of our people helping us knew what that meant. They originally denied my request for an exit permit because my permission to stay was in process. That was part of the reason for cancelling my visa last week. I was thinking maybe it was deleting my permission to stay. Anyway, the Foreigners Registration Office closes somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00 so we had hopes of my approval coming as well. Then at 5:53 there was a request for payment. We were so confused but the office made the payment. My exit permit didn’t come. There was still a possibility that it would come through on Tuesday morning. We were in a bit of a catch 22 situation because the FRO wanted our flight booking, but we couldn’t get it until we knew our permissions would come through. Our office in Hong Kong couldn’t book a flight that might not be used so changed the dates on our previous itinerary and we used that. We really needed to leave on Tuesday in order to attend the Helping Babies Breath training. If we couldn’t then there was no rush. Hong Kong couldn’t book a flight same day and Rick decided we should book our own flights and exercise faith that my approval would come through in time. I thought that was not a good idea but left it up to him. I was resigned to miss the training. We were ready to leave if it worked out.
Tuesday morning was spent finishing up last minute things in order to leave the apartment for our mission president and his family to use when they come to Visakhapatnam toward the end of the month. We knew we wouldn’t hear anything before 9:30 so I tried to be patient but kept checking my emails. I asked Rick to check the portal to see if there was any progress. He did and it showed that approval was granted. He immediately burst into tears and I felt an emotional surge as well, but since I hadn’t invested the same amount of faith I wasn’t quite as vested as he was. At 9:52 the certificate came to my email and we could leave! Our ride to the airport arrived at 10:20 and we handed off the keys to the apartment manager and loaded up the car to head to the airport making a stop to print out our exit permits.
The process of getting our boarding passes and checking our luggage was not too bad except for the $400 excess baggage fees. Money isn’t worth anything if you don’t spend it, right? We were beyond caring. We just wanted to be on our way.
At the Delhi airport we had to go through immigration and that is where we needed to show our exit permits. The process for Rick went just fine. When it was my turn everything seemed to be going fine until the immigration officer looked up my permit on his computer system. It showed that my permit was “in process”, not “granted”. –Wait a minute, I have my permit right here. Here is the information on the FRO portal showing it is granted. Here is the email with the permit attached. Your system has not been updated. Oh yes there are signs telling me not to argue with the immigration officer. What do we do now?–He talked with another officer, twice, and after 20 minutes of deliberation he reluctantly stamped my boarding pass and let us through. Whew!
We had an uneventful flight to Kathmandu and “enjoyed” a repeat of our Indian airplane lunch menu for dinner. We were actually grateful for the food since we had not had time to get anything at the airport. Our driver was waiting for us upon arrival and greeted us with the traditional scarf to place around our necks. We arrived at our apartment at about 10 pm and had fun carrying all that excess baggage up to the 5th floor. It took teamwork.
Our apartment is a very nice one bedroom, one bath area with kitchen, dining room, living room and a pool table on the top floor in the home of the family that owns the building. It is interesting how the three ground floor (with upstairs) apartments and the home intertwine. It is a little uncomfortable going through the home to get to our space but it will be fine for 2 1/2 months and then we will move down into the apartment the other senior missionary couple are living in when they head home. Yes, another move is in our future.
We left for the airport at 7:30 the next morning to catch a short flight to Bhadrapur in the eastern part of Nepal. Our hotel (in Birtamod) was quite nice with conference rooms for the training and a very good restaurant. The chef even made some food with less spice for us wimpy Americans.
There were 50 participants, 8 trainers from Nepal, 2 doctors and a nurse from the US. Everyone was engaged and happy to learn. They will return to their facilities throughout the district of Jhapa and train others. The program is extremely successful here in Nepal and has the full support of the government. I can’t tell you the numbers, but they have had a significant drop in the number of infant and mother deaths over the last ten years.
Besides the training we also visited four hospitals to evaluate their needs and see how they are implementing the program with things like resuscitation kits, postpartum hemorrhage kits and a practice corner. It is amazing what they can do with so much less than what we have in the US. There was a lot of difference between the government hospitals and the private one we saw.
I’m so very glad we were able to be here for this and see how everything works so that in the Fall we will know what we are doing for the next training.
Here in Nepal Saturday is our Sabbath. That is going to take some getting used to. Our chapel is in a very large rented home. That makes it quite unique but functional.
After church we went to Bhaktapur, an old cultural city (now part of Kathmandu) to tour the temples and old structures there. Because it was Saturday (day off) we missed the pottery and wood carving demonstrations but saw some of the finished products. The traditions and culture are fascinating.
It has been an exhausting and rewarding week. We are getting settled in and gearing up for the coming week. We’re grateful for all of the prayers in our behalf and to finally be here doing work that matters and helping the people of Nepal.
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