With our departure rapidly approaching we have had many dinner invitations. The families we have come to know and love are so warm and wonderful. We will return home with our fill of Nepali food but I wonder how long it will be before we are craving dal bhat or momos.
Monday we attended a gratitude ceremony at a local school where we had donated desks and benches, computers, hygiene kits and a few cupboards. It is a very poor school and they were extremely appreciative of our donations and the efficiency of CHOICE and LDSC. I am so glad we could help. School children should not have to sit on empty rice bags on the concrete floor for classes.
Our replacement couple arrived in the evening and they were equal parts excited and exhausted. It takes time to adjust to a 12 hour time change. The good thing is that traveling for 30 hours means you are so tired that you can sleep anyway.
The following day we had an Asia Area devotional over zoom. It was a great way to start the transition of responsibilities or shall we say pass the baton. After the devotional we went to a meeting to introduce the Nuffers to Maya at Days for Girls. We hope they are able to get a project going with that organization.
On Wednesday we took the Nuffers to meet our accountant and also to take care of some business. We needed to quickly end the meeting so that we could go to a lunch/orientation with CHOICE Humanitarian. We had to eat and run to make it to an appointment at the bank to set Elder Nuffer up as a signer on the LDSC account. Unfortunately it was all for naught as the bank required a wet signature from our area director in Hong Kong. Rick was unable to convince them that it was not needed last time so should not be needed now. No luck. Since they were already at the bank Nuffers decided to exchange some money and it ended up taking an hour to exchange $300. They had to write down all of the serial numbers and provide all kinds of other random information. Welcome to Nepal!
That evening we had a lovely meal and a fun time had President Chandra’s home. It was both a welcome and a farewell.
Thursday was more meetings and introductions but the highlight was having dinner with President William, our India New Delhi Mission president, and his wife. Again it was a welcome and farewell. I am so glad we got to know the Williams in New Delhi as we don’t have much contact with them here in Nepal. Ironically the restaurant was having a special Northern Indian Food buffet that night.
The highlight of the week was the water project inauguration in a village called Malta on Friday. The trip was 2 1/2 hours on rough winding roads with steep cliff drop offs. It was a high adventure to be sure. It has been so fun seeing all that makes Nepal unique through the eyes of newcomers.
As has been our experience with other ceremonies, the people are very excited to have us there and honor us even though we didn’t have much to do with the project. We are the current people representing LDSC and so we humbly accept the honors.
This particular project should be a model for all water projects. Because the villagers contributed so much labor it came in under budget and they were able to add a small building for the water committee and the community. Another interesting fact is that there was already water here but the system only had 14 community tap stands and there wasn’t always enough water. They now have 195 tap stands, one at each home, and there is enough water and with excess to use for irrigation. It is amazing what engineering expertise can accomplish.
The Village
We rounded out the week with two more dinner invitations and find ourselves full of conflicting emotions. Saying good-bye is so much harder than I ever dreamed it would be. Turning over our work to someone else is also hard. The Nuffers will be great, but we won’t be able to see the projects we started through to the end. I guess that in life we just do our best and try to leave a place, a calling, a job or whatever, a little better than we found it and then trust those that follow to do the same.
When I was asked to speak at the water inauguration ceremony I explained that I was feeling very emotional because we were leaving Nepal and I felt sad to leave such a beautiful country and such beautiful people. I said that I was there representing an organization which has people all over the world who donate small amounts of money to make these kinds of projects possible. I told them that I am just a regular person like them and I was honored to be in their country and be a part of the project. That seemed to really touch them. While we were at a school in Lamjung a couple of weeks ago I noticed this thought on a poster, “One flower does not make a garland.” It resonated with me and the work we do here. We can accomplish so much more working together and create something wonderful.
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