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Last week Rick touched on Tihar, the festival of light, which started on Saturday. The festival continued until Wednesday and it was interesting to be able take part in some of the celebrations. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were national holidays so we couldn’t do much work.

Here are the traditional daily celebrations:

1-Crow; the messenger of death of the god Yama. Crows are fed special treats on rooftops to appease them and to ward off death and grief for the coming year.

2-Dog; honored and worshipped by offering special treats, giving tika and garlands. It celebrates the special relationship between human and dog and the need for a dog in passing through the gates of Svarga.

3-Cow; people show their gratitude to the cow for their gentle nature and all they give by feeding them treats and worshipping them with tikas and garlands. On this day Lakshmi is welcomed into the home with rangoli and footprints that lead the way. Lights are draped on houses and small oil lamps are placed around the home because it is believed the goddess won’t visit a dark home. She is worshipped with chanting, prayers and offerings to bring wealth, prosperity and good health. 

4-Ox; worshipped and celebrated because of the labor it performs in the agricultural communities of Nepal.

5-Bothers and Sisters; ceremonies are performed to bless and create a protective barrier with water, oil and a special colored tika and a makhamali flower garland. Gifts are exchanged as well.

We joined our landlord and his family as they worshipped Lakshmi. They created several beautiful rangoli with a path for prosperity to come to their home.

Sati, the family dog was honored. His name means “friend”. He’s a pretty good dog and we enjoy his friendly greetings but not the deposits he occasionally leaves at our doorstep!

Even street dogs are honored…

One evening we had music and dancing on our neighborhood street.

We saw the lights in the surrounding area from the rooftop.

There were rangoli all along the way as we took our morning walks. Some were quite elaborate.

As with all things, the fun of the festival came to an end as did the late night singing, dancing, chanting, shouting and fireworks. It was nice to be able to get back to work since we will be leaving for Thailand on Monday.

Our trekker, Will, returned from a successful adventure and spent the night before leaving Kathmandu. We went through Pashupati on our morning walk on Friday and saw lots of monkeys and other interesting things.

 

 

With people back to the office and ready to work on Friday we were able to tie up some loose ends on our Helping Babies Breath training that is rapidly approaching. We also made some headway on some other projects. It is good to be working and useful. It’s what we want to be doing.

Luke 9:24 says, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.”

We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We will think of you eating turkey with all the trimmings while we enjoy a nice plate of Pad Thai!

 

 

 

Clean, safe water — a matter of life and death that we take so for granted. Especially the convenience of having it by turning on a faucet at our kitchen/bathroom sinks!

The highlight of this week was our trip to visit some past and present project sites. What a marvelous experience seeing firsthand the fruits of the labors of CHOICE Humanitarian-led workers on water supply projects!

These projects were implemented in the hilly Lamjung District of central Nepal. They did it with local labor contributions, the beneficiary villagers helping to dig the trenches, lay the pipeline, and then backfill the trenches.

Our outing started early Wednesday morning so we could make the 6-hour drive and still have time to visit some people and villages before dark. Kiran’s 16-year-old son Abeesh came with us. He had to go to Besishahar (where we stayed Wednesday night) to apply for and get his citizenship papers. (You’re not automatically born a citizen in Nepal!) Besishahar is where Kiran still has his permanent residence papers, this city being the headquarters of the Lamjung district he was born and raised in.

As we’ve come to expect, the roads were terrible. Construction is underway to improve some stretches, but that made for more dust and delay. But we endured the discomfort and it was worth it!

 

 

 

 

The best part of our trip? Seeing the people who didn’t before but now have clean, safe water so conveniently available at (though not in) their homes, so happy and so very grateful to those who made it possible and made it happen.

 

 

We met in a pavilion they built for community gatherings for a little celebration. An old woman told her story, which I’m sure her neighbors have heard many times before, as some of them looked bored or maybe slightly amused (perhaps they were thinking “She embellishes it every time she tells it!”).

 

But she knew she was playing to a fresh audience even though we didn’t understand her. Kiran video-recorded it and promised to provide us with the video and transcription.

Many others echoed what she said. A common sentiment in this particular village — what surprised and delighted them the most — was that they could have water delivered to their homes from a spring that was below them in elevation. It is now pumped from the source below into a storage tank above them. They never thought that would happen! It took a lot of wrangling to get the electricity for the pump, but CHOICE and the villagers prevailed upon the local government and now it’s a reality.

Thursday afternoon we got to visit a school and had another ceremony where in addition to Kiran and other school and community officials, Taunya and I both spoke, extemporaneously!

 

This is a school that CHOICE supplied with water and some furniture. Kiran told us later that they took a survey asking the students what they valued the most. Overwhelmingly they answered “water” — because its availability at their homes meant they could actually go to school — their mothers could be home to fix them breakfast instead of needing to make the 3-4 hour journey to fetch water each morning!

We met this sweet, frail old woman at her home and took a picture. She wanted us to stay for a while but we didn’t have time. Kiran told us about her and her husband (who wasn’t there at the time — he was at the community gathering waiting for us to arrive). They are in their late eighties or early nineties. Starting as a young girl, she spent 60+ years fetching water from that downhill source, which meant carrying the full containers uphill. CHOICE also built them a new, modest home that they are so grateful to have.

 

 

 

The water from their tap-stands also allows residents to irrigate and grow gardens, and thus have some healthy vegetables to eat, and the surplus to sell. Many of them grow rice too. We saw some of them working their plateaued rice fields, others threshing the harvested rice, and still others milling it to remove the husks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw some of their improved cow sheds and “poly houses” that were also funded by Latter-day Saint Charities and built by CHOICE.

 

 

 

 

On Friday, just after we got home, we went upstairs for a little get-together with the VanDenBerghes, who were invited to lunch by our (and their former) landlord, Krishna, who also invited us to come.

The VanDenBerghes were the humanitarian missionary couple who were here from 2018-2020. They had to leave when COVID shut things down in March 2020, 5 months before their mission was over. Hmm, that’s about the amount of time we have left. I wonder how we would handle a 24-hour notice to drop everything and leave! They were able to tie up some loose ends remotely, and I supect we could too.

It was great to see and visit with them a little. They actually came back to see the members they grew to love and were sad not to be able to say a proper goodbye to.

They planned a “Linger Longer” that we all enjoyed after church yesterday. After that we went with them to watch a program put on by the students (and some of the teachers/staff) at “The Organization” — Self Help Nepal — that was founded by a sweet German sister (Ellen Dietrich — “Ellen Auntie” as all the children at the orphanage/school affectionately call her) who just got back from spending several months at her home in Germany. The program was celebrating Tihar, the Nepali “Festival of Lights”. It was long — almost 3 hours! But they were enthusiastic performers and fun to watch and listen to (even though the volume was way too high). They have a teacher who teaches them singing and dancing several hours a week, and it was obvious they enjoy it!

 

 

 

Speaking of new friends, another highlight of our week was meeting (over Zoom) the new couple who were just called to replace us when we leave Nepal! They’re the Nuffers from Richmond, Virginia, whose background and experience are ideal for serving as Country Directors of LDS Charities Nepal. We know they will do great things during their 23 months here, not only in the humanitarian work but also in serving the members. We were super excited to learn that she plays the piano and has taught private piano lessons! The members we’re struggling to teach will be even more excited!

Isaiah 58:11 is my favorite verse this week:

And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought,
and make fat thy bones:
and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water,
whose waters fail not.

 

Late Friday night I was awakened by what I thought was an earthquake. I looked at the time and told myself to remember and then went back to sleep. When I awoke in the morning I wondered if I had dreamt the whole thing, especially since Rick didn’t feel it. I checked online and learned that there had in fact been a 6.4 earthquake in Jajarkot that was felt in Kathmandu (300 km away) and even in New Delhi. Sadly there has been a lot of damage and loss of life. They are still working to get to the village areas that were cut off by landslides and so expect the death toll to rise above the current 157 people. The government is organizing relief to the affected areas. We are looking at the possibility of helping, perhaps with semipermanent housing. We’ll see what is needed and what we can do. We feel safe in our apartment that was built to US standards and withstood the devastating 2015 earthquake that killed over 9000 and destroyed cities near the epicenter.

We were shaken this week when we learned that one of our projects was rejected. We knew going in that it was a long shot, but it still hurt. We made an appointment with the partnering organization to share the news in person but that was made more difficult because they invited us to lunch. Declining the offer would have been rude so we let them know over a delicious organic meal. We hope to be able to propose another, less costly and more directly beneficial project with them that will be approved.

This morning while playing badminton at the park, as we usually do, a woman in uniform informed us that we were not allowed to have the net tied between two trees. Ok, we have been playing in the park for five months. She apparently didn’t speak English and must have thought we didn’t understand, although she made it perfectly clear especially when she so “kindly” started taking down the net. When I asked if we could play without a net she seemed to indicate that we could not and a woman nearby answered in English that in fact we are not allowed to play badminton AT ALL. I don’t get it, but we will comply. We went outside the park to an area we discovered last week that is an open field and has a basketball court. There was a group playing cricket in one part and another playing volleyball so we went a safe distance away and started batting the birdie back and forth only to have a busload of young men start to play soccer. Time to head home. I felt really annoyed and disappointed. However, we will be unshaken in our efforts to get regular exercise and we will find a place to play badminton.

I wonder if Clapping Man will be allowed to continue his aerobic dancing in the park. He is wearing headphones and is a very exuberant dancer. There are many other people exercising in the park as well. They do yoga, calisthenics, martial arts, and Tai Chi to name a few.

I only took five pictures this week! None of which is very noteworthy. I’ll share three.

I’ve named a few of the dogs we see regularly. We have Scout, Mutt and Jeff, Scruffy and Bently. They don’t recognize their names yet and I don’t think I can come up with names for them all. (Today’s count was 46.) Some of them are pretty cute and some are quite sad with their mangy hair, wounds, sunken eyes and ribs showing. Our driver says they are trying to address the issue by picking up the female dogs and taking them in for “family planning” surgery.

I thought this chicken on the sand pile was funny. It looks like the guy shoveling sand wondered why I was taking his picture.

   

We had a guest from Utah stay with us before his trek to Mt. Everest Base Camp. He is the son of our friends still serving in India. He let us know today that he is having a great time and shared a couple of pictures.

     

This week has been busy with figuring out the details for submitting our wheelchair project and planning for the next neonatal training which included figuring out the messed up and inadequate budget. It has been rather tedious with too much time sitting at the computer.

Here are a couple of monkey pictures in case we don’t spend much time at the jungle park in the future.

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I felt pretty discouraged several times this week. I know that life has ups and downs and that what I was experiencing was minor especially in light of the effects of the earthquake. We can be shaken by the challenges of life but with our foundation in Jesus Christ we can come out on top.

Hebrews 12:28-29–“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for God is a consuming fire.”  (NIV)

More entries for the “Some New Thing” file:

Earlier this week, at Taunya’s suggestion we took a detour on our morning walk around the perimeter of the park. That was a first. We didn’t see amazing new things on the outside of the park’s tall fence, but at least we satisfied our curiosity.

This was a curiosity and a first from a couple of days ago in the park.

This morning we called it good with 124 back-and-forth hits in badminton. Not a record, but just a reminder that we can keep a good thing going when we put our minds to it!

Yesterday we hit a new record — the number of dogs we saw on our walk — 46!

Today we saw:

• a live white rabbit on the dashboard of a taxi.
• a monkey doing three cartwheels in a row (Taunya saw it, I missed it.)
• a funny monkey-see-monkey-do we both saw: a monkey came near and started pulling and chewing on the badminton net rope that was hanging down near the ground. Not to be left out, another monkey and then a third came and did the same thing. It turned out not to be a tasty treat, so the enticement was short-lived.

There was another monkey first from earlier this month that happened again today! It was while we were playing, and gave us each a good belly laugh at the monkey’s antics: climbing up the tree and then onto the net tied to it; trying it out, finding it a bit more precarious than tree branches for hanging out on.

Our humanitarian work is coming along. We saw some small progress in getting our wheelchair project going, as well as in other ongoing and still-in-proposal-stage projects. We again took advantage of our project-work downtime to go out and see what Nepal (Kathmandu at least) has to offer.

We planned to visit the Royal Palace, but when we got there Thursday morning we learned that it was closed for Dashain — to open again the next day. Not wanting to wait for our dose of royalty, we went instead to Patan Durbar Square in Lalitpur where there were also royal residences — and Buddhist and Hindu temples. We hired a guide for the demand-spiked-price of $22 (!) for an hour’s tour. (Manoj managed to find a parking space, so he came with us.) We learned a lot more about Nepal’s history, as well as how intertwined Buddhism is with Hinduism here. And with Hinduism’s 363 million (!) deities (according to our guide) we won’t run out of things to learn about the dominant religion and culture! And the history of Nepal with its succession of kings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Royal is as royal does — but oh, the extravagances of royal privilege that were on display. Private spring water, a swimming-pool-sized “bathtub”, ornate thrones and clothes and the list goes on. (Royal subjects’ envy and resentment come as no surprise.) We saw some of this excess last week at Pokhara — where the royal family used to go on vacation — in the forest that was reserved for the king and his party to go hunting. Don’t even think about trespassing!

 

 

 

But royalty-nostalgia is alive and well in Nepal. According to Manoj, there are many (maybe most) people who wish the King would come back, preferring a monarchy to the corrupt stab-at-democracy they live under now. It makes me think about King Mosiah’s “if it were possible that you could have just men to be your kings, […] then it would be expedient that ye should always have kings to rule over you.” Rarely has that possibility been realized!

Peter’s “ye are a […] royal priesthood” rings true and states a reality worthy of pondering more often.

“Be Loyal to the Royal in you” floats around in my head, source unknown. But a piece of paper with the following thought on it was left in one of my classrooms years ago, and I latched onto it and hung it by my desk where I could see it and remember:

I am a child of royal birth;
My Father is King of Heaven and Earth.

Have a Royally Wonderful Week!

Who knew that we would celebrate our 43rd anniversary in Pokhara!?! Not us, even in our wildest dreams, especially since we had never heard of Pokhara before coming to Nepal. It is actually a well known city because it is near the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas. Many trekkers come to the area from all over the world. We saw more tall, pale people in three days than we have in the last 9 1/2 months combined. It felt really odd.

We were able to take a day hike to Australian Camp and Dhampus, about 9.2 km. The trails in Nepal are mostly paved with stone and have many, many, many steps. The hike was listed as easy so we decided not to rent trekking poles. That was a mistake we won’t make again. We probably went up 4000 steps (that actually may be a conservative estimate) and down 5000 that were even taller steps. I realize we have not been hiking in just over a year, but we do walk everyday and have some stairs and hills so how could our quads and calves be sooooo sore?

The trail took us through forests, fields and villages.

One of my favorite experiences on the hike was these boys sharing some village dancing and singing. They were doing it on the trail with the hope that trekkers would pay a token amount to pass. We were happy to contribute.

We enjoyed beautiful vistas of terraced rice fields and the Pokhara valley on our hike.

The following morning we got up early to see the sunrise on the Annapurna Range from Sarangkot. It was spectacular and we felt lucky to have timed our trip with almost perfect weather.

The next stop on our half-day tour was the Peace Pagoda. It was built by Japanese Buddhists to promote world peace. We went right after the sunrise and were able to avoid the crowds and see the mountains before they became obscured by the clouds that tend to shroud them around noon this time of year.

We then went to Devi’s Falls before going back to our hotel for breakfast.

After breakfast we walked down to the Phewa Lake and took a boat ride out to a little island that has a small but important Hindu temple on it. This temple is one of four that faithful Hindus make a pilgrimage to in their lifetime.

It was a wonderful trip, a nice getaway but it is good to be back “home” and back to work. We feel so blessed to be here and having so many different experiences, learning new things, being challenged both mentally and physically and hopefully making a difference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swimming upstream, or running (jogging really) uphill like we did today on our way back from the park. (Gotta get the old heart rate up!)

But as the thought came Wednesday morning, it was “going against the flow”. We were playing badminton when (as often happens) a young man comes up with a hopeful look. We offer to let him play, so Taunya usually gives up her racket first, then after a while playing with me (quite energetically — which gives me a run for my money), another one comes up, and I offer him my racket. They go at it with their youthful vigor, and after watching the show for a few minutes, I follow Taunya’s lead and go walking around the park (after all, we came to exercise, not to watch others exercise). She had a head start and I didn’t know which of the many paths she took, so I just trusted that we would meet up eventually, and so we did. Then we started walking together and noticed that going counterclockwise we were against the flow of foot traffic. Everyone else was walking clockwise around the outer path. It was noteworthy because we had just been talking about traditions, and how they can be good or bad.

We humans have a lot of inertia and subconscious (and conscious) resistance to change, especially when the change challenges tradition. “My Way” or “The Traditional Way” is THE way things ought to be, but sometimes that way turns out to be problematic.

The tradition here is to have the Sabbath on Saturday, the day most people have off. We have been in Nepal for 5 months and it still feels strange, and we still mistakenly say Sunday when we mean Saturday. It is so engrained!

A different example: On Wednesday we ate lunch at Le Sherpa, a very nice Kathmandu restaurant we’ve eaten at once before. How was this bucking tradition? New on their menu was braised beef steak, which I just couldn’t resist, so I ordered it! Tender like a pot roast, it was delicious! (Oh, how I miss a good burger!)

 

 

The Hindu tradition of not eating beef was what I was thinking about. I don’t feel at all bound by it, because I was raised eating beef and it was not frowned on (except in excess)! So while this is not my tradition I can appreciate the fact that many others accept the bondage of it. With Tevye, we believe that good traditions keep our lives steady, and we are shaky without them. Religious and cultural traditions, like the holidays we celebrate (today marks the start of Dashain (pronounced “duh say” or “duh sigh”, depending on who you ask), the two-week-long celebration of the triumph of good over evil in the Hindu tradition, about which there will be more to relate), are the most binding and stabilizing, but stability can be rigidity and rigidity can ossify, in which case growth and development cease.

Cultural appreciation outing of the week:

We visited the World Heritage Site in Kathmandu called Hanuman-Dhoka Durbar Square (or just Durbar Square). Home to dozens of Hindu temples and shrines to Lord Shiva and other Hindu deities, we only spent about 90 minutes there but could easily have spent 5 or 6 hours (maybe just in the Museum alone)!

 

Heritage conservation work is ongoing, and is being funded by the Chinese, which I find interesting.

Another fascinating fact:

There is a tradition here of a living goddess (“Kumari”) who is considered to be an incarnation of the goddess Taleju. The brochure says her residence (the Kumari Ghar) “is a three storied quadrangle lavishly decorated with fine woodcarving. It is the third story of the building that is especially attractive with its five bay windows, in which the Kumari appears from time to time in the company of her guardian priestess to see and be seen by her admirers.” We got there at one of those times to see a chosen-when-three-now-nine-year-old girl (no photography allowed) who neither looked happy to see nor be seen by us curious spectators.

(BTW, it was not just the two of us on this outing to Durbar Square. There’s a story behind who accompanied us but I’ll leave that for Taunya to tell.)

The most tradition-bucking example this week is finalizing the proposal for the Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation’s new training facility. Traditionally, enthusiasm by our supervisory decision-makers for new building projects is rarely generated. We are definitely swimming upstream by pushing for it to be approved!

I’ll close with the best example of going against the flow of our fallen world and its Telestial ways. With our Prophet leading the way, we will Think Celestial, and act accordingly. Pressing forward and upward “in the path of [our] duty” we enjoy the liberating and enlivening flow of living waters, drawn to, bound to, and stabilized by our dear Savior. May it increasingly be so for us all!

This week we flew into Janakpur, near the India border, so that we could visit the four schools in Rautahat where Latter-day Saint Charities-Nepal and CHOICE Humanitarian donated desks and benches. We were there to do the official “handover” ceremony although the furniture had been distributed a couple of months earlier. Visiting the sites is part of the “Monitoring and Evaluation” aspect of each project. We found the furniture to be very well built and being well used!

Upon arrival in Janakpur we were met by our hired driver and he took us to see two temples in Janakpur. The first, Ram Mandir, was built in 1882 and is the oldest Hindu temple in Janakpur.

We then drove a short distance through town to the Janaki Mandir which is believed to be built on the spot where King Janak found the infant Sita in the furrow of a plowed field. (Sita became the wife of Rama who is the avatar of the god Vishnu.) This amazing structure was built in 1912 and is an important pilgrimage site for Hindus in Nepal and India.

The first thing we did when we entered the plaza was take a couple of photos and then we were inundated with people wanting to have their picture taken with us. We haven’t experienced this “rock star” scene here in Nepal and it reminded us of our time in India. Kiran, our associate from CHOICE, was rather shocked by the experience and became the primary photographer.

This region of Nepal is called the Terai. The plains stretch from the east to the west along the southern part of the country. It has a very different feel to it than in Kathmandu with the people and culture showing the influence of their close neighbor, India. One of the traditions of the area is Mithila painting. It originated in the 7th century with women painting their homes with murals and designs. The tradition has been handed down from generation to generation and is a lovely folk art tradition.

We stayed at a hotel in Bardibas, a city along the highway on the route to Rautahat. We were disappointed in the accommodations but it had A/C and was clean enough, no bed bugs and the bath towels still dried us even though they had holes. The food at the hotel was mediocre and we didn’t try to eat in the villages where the schools were. We were prepared to some degree with a small jar of peanut butter, crackers, granola bars, fruit and some moong dal so we didn’t starve.

The following day we headed out early and drove almost two hours to the first school. We traveled through the villages and as we got closer we noticed probably a hundred kids walking to school. Upon arrival we were swarmed with students wanting to see these strange foreigners. This particular school has around 1500 students and 19 teachers!! Some of the classrooms have no more room for desks and many students stand at the back. Hopefully they rotate so they don’t have to stand all day. We were impressed with the students’ desire to learn.

Ceremonies are a big deal here in Nepal. They first introduce the guests and honor us with a garland or scarf and a tika. The mayor, deputy mayor and chief administrative officer attended the ceremony. The school principal spoke as did the mayor, Kiran, Rick and the CFA. It started pouring rain during his speech and he dismissed everyone to take shelter so the ceremony was cut short.

We went around to see some of the classrooms and the furniture and to see how they manage with the challenging number of students and not enough space, desks or teachers. We then met with the leaders and they expressed their appreciation to us and discussed the additional needs they have. One of these is that they have only six toilets for the whole student body. Three for the girls and three for the boys. That’s just crazy. We have a new project to provide additional furniture to schools in this area and hopefully CHOICE will be able to put another project together to address the latrine needs at this school as well as one or two of the others we visited.

We were honored at each school we visited. The students were all so well behaved and very curious about us. I think even some of the adults were intrigued by us, so much so that while applying a tika on Rick’s forehead the man either got overly excited, was nervous or just thought the pale guy needed more color!

Rick looks annoyed in the picture but he just had food in his mouth. Note the powder on his hand and pants. I found it hard to take him seriously because I felt like laughing when I looked at him especially when sweat made the powder run down his cheeks and off the end of his nose. I realize I look pretty amazing too!

We have another new project in this region providing equipment and supplies to help meet basic healthcare needs. We visited two government health posts that are part of this project.

It was a long and tiring but good day. We returned to our less than amazing hotel and mediocre food with a greater appreciation for it after seeing the humble circumstances of the village people of the Terai.

 

 

As it’s doing as I write this, though it’s not pouring. A soft rain, as the song goes (one of my favorites):

Rain falls, soft rain at my window.
Every butterfly has hurried away,
All the honey bees have called it a day,
And the columbine are bending their heads in the rain.

Rain falls, soft rain making puddles.
For the children’s feet the puddles are sweet,
And the skeeter bug fleet finds the small pools a treat,
And the columbine are bending their heads in the rain.

[Chorus]
While the rain is falling there’s a quiet hush about the world.
While the thunder is calling there’s a quietness about the world.
A time to remember the beautiful things,
To look for tomorrow and your fondest dreams.

As Taunya wrote in a recent post, we like to look for rainbows whenever there is rain. There is a silver lining in the clouds. A bright side that keeps our hopes up, looking for the good and beautiful things we keep finding each day we are here.

After a relatively quiet week, this week things started getting busy again. Pouring, even, you might say!

On Monday we went to see Krishna and Santosh, our friends at the Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation. We had a frank discussion about their hopes and dreams as they relate to financial support from LDS Charities. They have some very ambitious goals, but their heart is as large as their vision. We hope to be able to help them realize their dream of building a facility where people can come to receive hands-on training on biodynamic and organic farming — a much better way than prevalent practice. Their organization is very well suited to provide this training, but a new building is a pricey proposition, so getting approval will be a challenge!

 

 

On Tuesday we walked to an architectural delight, Dwarika’s Hotel, which we have walked by many times on our morning walks. We had lunch at one of the many restaurants there, splurging on pan-seared salmon for me and a delicious quinoa salad for Taunya. The occasion? Celebrating our mission one-year anniversary! It’s hard to believe how fast time has flown, and that a mere six months remain!

 

 

 

 

Wednesday saw us travel to the same school and on the same bad road we took in July to visit the school that LDS Charities funded the rebuilding of after the 2015 earthquake. We did not get stuck this time, thank goodness!

The occasion was the handover ceremony and ribbon cutting for the new computer lab (15 desktop computers) and a small playground set for the schoolchildren. These items were purchased using a small amount of leftover funds from the building project. It was quite the ceremony, with guests ranging from the founder of the school to the (possible) future prime minister of Nepal! (Even yours truly got to speak!)

 

 

On Thursday, while Taunya attended a Primary activity, I went grocery shopping with just Manoj. Although I missed my expert shopping companion (Manoj is an excellent driver, but has nothing to opine about our food preferences — which are radically different from his) I think I did pretty well with the list Taunya gave me!

On Friday, the idea occurred to me to create a Keyboarding Progress Assessment Sign-up Sheet and run it by the branch president — all of whose kids are learning piano — who gave it the thumbs up. This was an experiment to see if we could more easily meet one-on-one with our students remotely to see how they did with their assignment from last week. Well, yesterday afternoon we only met with two students (the younger two of the branch president’s bunch), and needless to say there were technical difficulties. Zoom with a shaky internet connection, not so fun. The video and audio were not in sync. The one holding the phone pointing the camera at the other’s hands on the keyboard could not hold it still. Jittery video and lagging audio are a bad combination. But it was an experiment, and now we know that remote piano lessons are way less than ideal. We suspected as much, but there’s no substitute for experience!

Why didn’t we just continue as we were doing? As in last week, while Taunya was teaching a group lesson, we had the students individually come one-at-a-time to have me watch them play their assignment, and assess their mastery of it. The reason is the need to start practicing to have some choir music ready by Christmas! Instead of regular music lessons we’ll have choir practice right after church, but since we don’t want to lose momentum with the lessons we’ve been giving, it will just be every other week, until it is needful to practice every week!

So yesterday we had choir practice. It became very obvious that there will be no choral singing (with parts) from this group of budding but experienced-singing-melody-only singers! We may do some small ensembles using our American embassy people who do have experience singing a harmony part, some solos, and instrumental numbers. A Christmas program with heart, if not joyous harmonious tonal texture!

Speaking of musical delights, I have a wonderfully fond memory from my college days in the 70s of singing in a double-mixed quartet the song I started this post with. I remember one time while performing it having a moving spiritual experience, as we slowly (reverently even) sang the last verse:

Rain falls, soft rain at my window.
I will go outside where the sleepy rain blows,
Feel the wet on my face, feel the wet on my clothes;
And like the columbine I want to bow my head in the rain.

Barring extreme weather events, may the “rain on [our] face” (among many other good things) always make us “glad that [we] live in this beautiful world Heavenly Father created for [us]!”

If you read Rick’s blog from last week you’ll remember that he mentioned our trip to visit schools in Rautahat. Well, because of a teacher protest against new legislation tens of thousands of teachers made their way to Kathmandu so public schools were closed causing us to postpone our trip. We were disappointed but maybe it won’t be in the upper 90’s with 80% humidity when we reschedule.

As the weeks have passed I have noticed and photographed many contrasting things, coming to think of these juxtapositions as typical Nepal. Most of these photos are of clothing but it applies to everything. Beautiful flowers growing by the garbage pile, the discolored, crumbling wall surrounding a home faced with gorgeous tile work, a yummy bakery shop with piles of junk under the stairway leading to the entrance, just to name a few.

Walking around the neighborhood and along the busier streets to get to the store or the park we see people dressed in a wide variety of outfits. The combinations and differences are fascinating.

They range from interesting combinations of prints to totally coordinated kurta outfits.

Black plaid “pajamas” (that is the name for the pants worn with kurtas and tunics) are common as are the more color coordinated native Nepalese attire.

Here we have a little family dressed fancy and some women dressed in their finery on their way to celebrate teej at Pashupati. And yet another trio walking along the footpath (sidewalk) on an average morning.

A trio of men showing the wide range in clothing found here.

A few fun fotos for you to compare and contrast.

I find the colorful combinations charming. That they wear scarves even when sweeping the gutters or buying a bit of produce is so fun.

We live next door to Blooming Kids International Pre-school. Our building is the taller one in the background. From our side of the school we have a nice view of the tree sized marijuana plant next to the playground! Seems a little incongruous to us.

A change of focus but still part of our daily outings…Baby monkeys getting a ride on their mama’s back is just so entertaining. One morning after attempting to get some good photos at the park I was surprised that upon leaving I saw the human equivalent. The sight made me chuckle.

Just suppose we hadn’t made our way to Nepal and had missed these enthralling encounters…

 

Not much happened this week on the humanitarian front. We have a tentative itinerary of our trip next week to Rautahat to visit a project that supplied schools with furniture. It will be Wednesday traveling there, stay the night, tour/site-visit on Thursday, stay again that night, and come home on Friday.

On Tuesday, our branch president asked us to give talks in Church, which we did yesterday. Taunya’s assigned topic was hope, mine was the Millennium. They went well. We both had prepared adequately and had practiced singing There is Peace in Christ (2018 Youth theme song) to pre-recorded accompaniment. This song is a perfect introduction to Hope, so we sang it at the beginning of Taunya’s talk.

As part of my talk I asked the following question: What essential work will there be to do during the Millennium?

My answer was temple work — not a novel idea, by any means! Right now the relatively small number of saints who go to the temple are not able to keep up with the demand. But will that be true during the Millennium?

Let’s see. The current population of the earth is approximately 8 billion. The world population since the beginning of human history is estimated to be between 69 billion and 110 billion people.

Let’s simplify and say 100 billion more people will be needing temple ordinances performed on their behalf. If we further say we have 1000 temples, and 100 million saints working for 1000 years, the math is easy. (Let’s assume also that during the Millennium, with unimaginably powerful technology (i.e., the gifts and power of God), family history research will be so fruitful that the human family tree will be fully filled out in plenty of time.)

100 billion people needing ordinances would only require each saint being proxy for one person per year! And you could serve as proxy for those 1000 persons, each one in a different temple! (Actually, we don’t know how many spirits still need to come to earth, gain bodies and receive gospel ordinances, so these numbers could be way off.)

Due to lack of time I omitted an analysis of all the logistics from my talk, but the question occurred to Taunya (and others): How will all this temple work be scheduled — if it all needs to happen during the Millennium, which though a long time, is still “just” 10 centuries?

To restate the envisioned division of labor and how it relies on several simplifying assumptions:

• 1000 temples (assuming they get built fast and early on);
• 1000 years (could be more or less by a few);
• 100 million saints (recommended and ready to serve as patrons — this number will certainly fluctuate and presumably steadily increase over time); and
• 100 billion persons needing individual ordinances (family sealings are another matter).

So, 100 thousand saints per temple per year means each temple must accommodate 100 thousand ordinance-sets in a year’s time. Assuming a 50-week year and a 5-day week, that’s 100,000 / (50*5) = 400 ordinance-sets per day. Assume 2 hours per ordinance-set-performing-session and a 20-hour day (!), that’s 10 session blocks per day. Each session would need to accommodate 400/10 = 40 patrons. That is doable even by today’s standards.

Resurrected bodies won’t get tired so the work can proceed steadily without need for breaks. This labor of love will be unimpeded by any earthly (or any kind of) opposition, for it is the very work and glory of God, and Christ who will reign supreme over all the earth. Simply glorious to contemplate so great a cause!

Photo credits to Taunya, our fearless photojournalist!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hindu women in Nepal observe an annual public holiday to celebrate the festival of Hartalika Teej, in commemoration of the “marriage of the god Shiva to the Hindu goddess Hartalika”. The “Teej” part of the name is from a word referring to the red teej bug, which is why wearing and display of the color red is customary on this day.