Life on the Flip Side

I
have fallen in love with Nepal! It is a beautiful country and I just love the
smells, the sounds, the people, the food, and the traditions. There are so many
wonderful and colorful things to buy in the markets and it is so cheap, I wish
I could send all kinds of presents home! The Nepali people are extremely warm
and loving…we have really enjoyed getting to know the women and children we are
working with here. We are able to play games with the kids, help them with
their homework, make videos, and the other day I even led them in aerobics,
which they thought was really funny. Yesterday we went to the children’s annual
day at school where they performed all sorts of songs, dances, and plays. They
had been working on it all year and they were SO entertaining! We have been
able to spend some time teaching the ladies English and have put up messages
and scriptures around the house with messages like ‘You are beautiful’ or ‘God
says you’re valuable’. The other day we had a good long laugh with them because
of the language barrier. They were trying to ask us if we wanted tea or coffee
and we were getting nowhere in the conversation. I ended up singing “I’m a
Little Teapot” and they all burst into laughter. The house we are staying in
overlooks the Himalayas and it is beautiful to go up to the rooftop in the
morning and watch the sun rise over the mountains. One day we took a hike up to
the botanical gardens and were even welcomed by some Buddhist Monks into their
temple. We have been able to make connections with several other missionaries
in the area who are doing God’s work here on a longer term and it’s so
encouraging to know we are just a small piece of the much bigger puzzle of what
God is doing in this nation!

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 Our
time here in Nepal has been very challenging…just living day to day can be such
a chore. The weather is cold and has been getting colder every day after the
rains have come…we can see our breath even inside the house. At night I have to
wear my hats and gloves to bed because there are no heaters. We don’t have
western style toilets, only squatty potties, so even when we are sick to our
stomachs all we have is a hole in the ground to crouch over, which is kind of nasty and degrading if you’re not used to it. There is supposed to be some sort of solar
heater but the water is freezing cold so we have to wash our clothes and shower
in ice water or not all. Because of this I have only taken two full showers
this entire month and done laundry once. I have had a cold most of the time
we’ve been here because I simply cannot get warm. There is little to no variety
in the meals, we have the same breakfast and they feed us white rice for lunch
and dinner…sometimes with potatoes or vegetables but there is little to no
variety to choose from. One day they caught a fat pigeon in a basket outside
the kitchen and we watched as they ripped its head off, cooked it up, and
offered it to us for dinner! There is only electricity in the house for a few
hours a day and we have no television and no internet service at all which
leaves us feeling very disconnected from the outside world as well as family
& friends back home. Also, the dogs in the neighborhood bark so loud all
night long that it is nearly impossible to fall asleep even if it were warm
enough to. There is trash everywhere in the streets and the waterways and it makes
me wonder how anybody can live in these conditions.

 Isn’t
it amazing how different those two accounts are? They are both accurate but one
probably makes you want to book the next ticket here and the other might leave
you wanting to stay as far away as possible.

 (By
the way, in case you were wondering…the first paragraph is truer to how I feel
about Nepal!)