Pretend that this was written about 30 days ago….]
I couldn’t figure out where to start with this blog, so I’ll
just give you a glimpse at what our lives look like here…
Weather: Cold! I have to layer up with all my clothes just to keep remotely
warm. It is the tail end of their winter, and the sun comes out to say hello
pretty often (resulting in sunburned noses due to the close proximity to the
sun) but you definitely have to bundle up at night. I enjoy wearing different
clothes than in India, but wish that there was some heat source to feel warm in
this house with MARBLE floors. It takes a lot of peptalk in the morning to
throw myself out of bed.
Lodging: We are living with the ladies and kids here at Asha. The main building
has 4 floors- the Gibsons have a room on the first floor, where BVG (“papa”)
has a room, there is an open meeting space, and the office. The second floor
& third floor each have 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms-Roberto has his own room
on the second floor and us girls share a room on the 3rd. The fourth
floor is the roof, basically, and that’s where the kitchen is-very different!
They have a long wooden table in the kitchen for meals, but a lot of the time
we just eat outside on plastic chairs. We love the sunshine! The kids live in
the house across the way, and we go hang out with them afterschool for some
football and help them with homework.
The kid’s house, view from the roof
Electricity/Internet: Nepal does this thing called “loadshedding”
where they only turn on the electricity for about 12 hours off & on
throughout the day (or night). It’s amazing how much you change your
lifestyle according to the amount of electricity that’s available. We had the
schedule written down in our room and would memorize it each morning….ha. The
internet cafes would only be open when the electricity was on, and even then
they would sometimes stay closed. It cost about 10 rupees per hour, which was
about 25 cents. We would save most of our interneting for our day off.
Facilities: No hot water!! Sometimes, if you’re lucky and choose the right time
of day, you can get the water a little warmed by the sun. I don’t shower all
that much, but have found that it makes it easier if I pretend I’m narrating
myself through an artic adventure show….”Now we’ll take a trip into the
plunging cold waterfall…get ready!” haha… needless to say, my showers are not
very long! Our toilets are squatty potties and I have gotten surprisingly good
at the squatty stance…and have sort of come to enjoy it! We do get to flush the
toilet paper here, thank goodness. Oh, and sometimes we take trips down to the
Gibson’s western toilet for those “bathroom bathroom” trips…if you get my
drift. 😉
Laundry: Buckets again! It’s not too bad though, I kind of enjoy giving
attention to each piece of clothing & making sure it’s clean. We put our
clothes on a series of clotheslines, and they usually are dry by the end of the
day. Thankful for the washers & dryers at home!
the big boys doing their laundry! Ajay & Sagar
Food: We eat the same thing every day
for meals-rice, yellow or black lentils, and some combination of veggies–usually
potatoes, eggplant, green peppers, peas, green beans, & squash. Thankfully,
they give us special treatment for breakfast. The kids have to eat the same
thing for all 3 meals, but at breakfast they give us cornflakes with hot
milk, apples or bananas, hardboiled eggs, and
bread with peanut butter and honey. It is quickly becoming my most favorite
meal of the day!
The kids chowing down on our last morning there– notice all the pictures in the black frames! we got to leave them with a few pictures we developed and put them up around the house
Days off: We
would load into this cramped van with about 20 other Nepalis and head to
Lalitpur! It was about a 30 minute drive with a lot of stopping and going, but
it got us to a glimmer of civilization. We spent most of the day at Higher
Ground, this cute little coffee shop with free wi-fi, the best carrot cake you’ve
ever eaten, and a justice mission (they sell jewelry that underprivileged women
make and I think they are Christians..). We skyped, emailed, caught up with the
rest of the world, and sipped on tea or coffee. We visited the grocery store
(so many choices!), walked around the town, and usually grabbed lunch somewhere
fun. On our last day off, we visited The Lazy Gringo, an Arizona-style Mexican
restaurant-SCORE!!! Come to find out, it is run by IMB missionaries that keep
is as their business to stay in the country. Even better! We chatted with one
of the owners, ate chips and salsa, and savored our little taste of home.
Our Normal Schedule:
7:00- wake up and run to the bathroom, put on lots of layers
to face the day!
7:30-Go upstairs to help serve breakfast! We wait for the
kids to come up In their neat, orderly lines, sing their prayer song (“Thank
you God, for our food, which you have given us, Thank you God, AMEN!”).
8:00- Serve breakfast–the kids eat rice &
leftovers from the previous night-I’m amazed at how much they eat! I’m glad we
don’t have to eat such an intense breakfast
8:30-Have “team time” on the roof after
we tuck into our breakfasts. We talk about what needs to get done that day, do
some worship songs, someone usually shares something the Lord is teaching them,
then we shout our declarations at the mountains. Declaration time is pretty fun-basically,
you vow something over that day. A few of mine have been “I will not let the
language barrier prevent me from ministry!” or “I will not insult the Lord’s
creation, which is what I am!” or “I will love others the way that Christ loves
me”. Great way to start off the day.
9:30- free time! Usually a combination of laundry,
reading, journaling, Bible reading, cleaning up, napping, etc.
12:00-Go upstairs for lunch! Eat the usual &
chat with the ladies
1:00- If everything works out that day (aka if we
have our translator with us), English lesson with the ladies! We have 4
students- Shanti, Babita, Kalpanna, & Sara. They are all ready to learn
& excited about whatever we teach them. We have gone around the kitchen and
labeled things in their Nepali & English words…like “sink”, “table”, etc.
Though it is frustrating to communicate with such a barrier, I really enjoy
spending time with them.
2:00-Help the ladies with the dinner prep. Usually
cutting & peeling vegetables or snapping green beans.
3:00-Wait for the kids to get home from school
3:30-Kids get home and we serve them a snack! Most
of the time it’s not something you would typically think of as a snack… like
some weird porridge stuff or just some yellow rice. They gobble it all up!
Sometimes they make some black tea for us. yummm
4:00-Go over to the kids’ house and do a
“devotion”. They sing songs for us, pray, and we usually read a Bible
story. We have made a lot of fun videos for them, one about being a diverse
Body of Christ, about the fishes and loaves, etc. They LOVE videos, and we
usually include Joel, the boy that isn’t able to go to school, in them. This
makes him feel really special and we are trying to teach the other kids to
include him in things. These kids know their Bible!!! Elaina gave
them a “Bible Quiz” the other day and they blew us out of the water-they knew
crazy stuff like “what was the name of the king that Esther married?” or “What
was Ruth’s mother- in-law’s name?”
4:30-5:45- Play with the kids. They have a small
area to play in but they use their imaginations a lot! We play games like “S-T-o-P
stop!” or hand-clapping games. The boys play football, and often times it’s just
Angelika getting passed from one person to the other.
6:00-go upstairs and try to help with dinner-usually
they have everything done, but we’re available if they need anything
6:15- serve dinner to the kids! I love this part
of the day. We tease them, give them too much rice, and chat about their day at
school. They leave around 6:30 and we take their spots at the table
6:30-Eat dinner. On rare occasions, we get
chicken; one time we had pork and another time we ate the pigeon that they
caught earlier that day-Roberto got to snap the neck off!
7:00-go to kids’ house and help with homework. I
usually partner up with Namrata and help her with her English homework. After
she’s done, she gets out her English word picture book and tries to impress me
with reading the words (when in actuality, she has just memorized the pictures-ha!).
the kids have to learn such interesting things…and Nepali seems like a hard
language to pick up!
7:30-Head up to our room for feedback time. Talk
about how the day went, what could be improved, and about all our issues…haha.
There is usually a candle in the middle of the room and the wax gets played
with. On fun nights, we watch a movie together or play Bang! Or the Nelson
Game.
9:00- Read/ journal. Again, so thankful for my
Kindle
9:30/10- Sleep!
Hopefully that paints an accurate picture of what our lives looked like this past month
I miss those kids like crazy!
