Top Ten and Then Some

10. Sarah and I got massages one day for an hour for less than $10…and we got black pepper tea, which in fact is disgusting and really spicy.

9. In my crazy daze for popcorn, I was really wanting to purchase some from the street vendors before Alex, another Tiny Hands employee, said "Ew they use their hands." "So?" I replied. "You could get hepatitis! Gross." Alex….thank you for your infinite wisdom in preventing me from getting hepatitis.

8. We finally found a truly American "Mexican" restaurant called the Lazy Gringo, which sounds like a huge oxymoron but when you're craving chips and salsa, anything really goes. We had name your own burritos (Boomshakalaka was mine, obviously), chips and salsa, and fried ice cream. Simply amazing.

7. One of our Nepali guides Sangeeta invited us over to her house for a Mo-Mo making party which in itself makes the top ten.

6. To add to that I learned how to make true Nepali tea and Mike fell asleep on our way there in a Nepali tuk tuk, in 100% humidity, 80 degree heat, and with about 19 people shoved in a van that should fit about 8. He was even out of it enough for Daniel to remove his glasses, wear them himself for pictures, and put them back on Mike before he woke up. Narcolepsy at its best.

5. We took a team bonding trip to this place called Nagarkot up in the mountains for one of our last days here. Not only is it a beautiful drive up the mountain, but we got to sit ON TOP OF THE BUS. Yeah. We made a song…"Badesi's on a Bus". And we became a tourist site for passerbys. It was the most amazing view and hilarious bonding experience of our trip.

4. The most epic game of Mafia was played while at Nagarkot complete with utter domination by Daniel until Mike stopped him at the very last second. And a campfire. And views of the Himalayas.

3. And a treehouse hotel. And sunrise walks. And sweet place discussion tour time. And Glee.

2. I found so many relationships through this journey. To me relationships equal finding community, comfort, and love. And love is what everything is based off of. Everything I do, I hope and strive to do it with love, conviction, and God's guidance.

1. This has led to one of the biggest growths I have felt and discovered in this trip. That is my growth in my relationship with God. I have found and been reaffirmed in my belief that we are all out here, striving toward something larger than ourselves, and trying to show love to others in the process. The division in religion, and especially within different denominations of Christianity is really not a division at all, but a force that unites us all in community.

Tidbits:

"When we invest our money in the [poor], we make the [poor] into beggars. When we invest our money in programs for the [poor], we turn the [poor] into beneficiaries. When we invest our life in the [poor], the [poor] will reap life." Given to us by Kara to remind us why we were here and what to remember when we go back.

"It's as big as a watermelon! (in reference to ants) [cue skeptical glances from everyone] "SEED…a watermelon SEED. Obviously I meant seed." Mike Rios

"Damn you, Viviana! Shave your legs another time!" Kara Luebbering in our conversation about traveler's diarrhea.

"I just have one more point to make, seriously you guys, it'll only take 3 minutes…" 7 more points and 35 min. later…John Molineux.

"See that picture (pointing at the beautiful mountains on our drive up to Nagarkot), God painted that and put it there." Santosh

"Kara, the monkey power is in you." Santosh (who never ever frowns…ever)

And now for the things I will miss the most about Nepal:

-Our team

-Chocolate pancakes

-Nepali children and their love and faith

-Chocolate tortes

-Our relationships built with staff of Tiny Hands

-Sizzling brownies

-Monkey Temple steps

-Chocolate crepes

-Roof top workouts

-The smell of monsoon rain

-Nepali tea

-The kindest hotel staff in the world

-The beautiful scenery of the mountains

-The beautiful faces of the people of Nepal

-Bonding times with strangers

-Riding on top of a bus

-Stuffing 7 people into a mini taxi

-Movie theater popcorn and pop for 100 rupees ($1.50)

-All meals over 350 rupees being outrageously expensive (over $5)

-The general appreciation for life, family and friendships I was surrounded by daily

-Too many things to put on this list before my computer dies and I start to feel really really sad

All the love,

K

Chhodnu

"To Leave."

Leaving a place, at any time, means making the times you were just living into memories. As we sit here in the airport, having safely made it to Qatar, I'm realizing that we're going from making memories to having memories. But the more I talk with other group members, the more I laugh about ridiculous situations that so many of us came across, the more I discuss the utter importance of the relationships we made and discussions we held...the more I am humbled by my last 6 weeks. I cannot describe how blessed I am to have had this opportunity and although it still feels quite surreal to have really left, I need to realize that coming back and letting the work, the kids, the relationships, the struggles, truly influence my actions is still a part of my trip to Nepal and that is exactly how it needs to continue.

It's hard to believe just a few days ago Sarah was frantically trying to plan out what this last week was going to look like. It still blows me away how no matter how busy you attempt to make a given period of time, when it comes time to leave it's like you saved everything for the last minute. Sunday we literally had to schedule our days out so as to not overlap meetings, events, etc. and I thought to myself "We had 6 whole weeks, some lax, some packed, and yet I've got 10 bucks on me being stressed about getting things done the last day/hours." A day sick and unable to film at the last children's home, a trip on the top of a bus to one of the most beautiful, breath-taking places I've ever been, a trip to Princess Home Jewelry, and a few goodbyes later and I'm finding myself packing/rearranging my luggage in the line at the airport. Never fails.

To be honest, I wasn't sure how I'd be feeling leaving Nepal; I wasn't sure what I'd be thinking. I knew I would be sad to leave the people who have touched my life, as it's rarely easy to do so, but regarding Nepal itself, I wondered how I'd feel. Well, I can say that it is something I could never know until it happened, as the things about Kathmandu that are so hard to explain, the things you "get used to," actually became comfortable and, in some ways, fun..

No more tiger balm, ghurka knife, hash, or rickshaw offers. After awhile you get amazingly good at saying no, and in Kara's case, saying no and then being friendly results in a free knife. No more smells. Yes, the airport might smell of air conditioning or the occasional plate of french fries, but there is almost an absence of...well, everything. The streets of Thamel have people brushing shoulders with every step. Spacial awareness is the name of the game, and the sport of getting to your next destination without running into something/someone becomes a challenge and a thrill. Every inhalation is a gamble, as you're not sure whether you'll get a scent of fresh fruit, rotting garbage, the grill at a restaurant, or just straight air pollution. Street kids are everywhere, hitting tourist after tourist. But when you have a team of 3 college students from California (Shout out to the APU Resource Team) who's 2 months were spent forming relationships with those kids, getting to know them becomes something you look forward to each day. Getting to the point where they know you won't give them anything, but they still sit and talk, or play soccer, is something I would never have expected to be a part of this experience, but was one of the greatest on the trip. And the heat and rain are accompanied by the rolling hills that line every direction. With a little travel comes an opportunity to explore nature and wildlife in its entirety. Rhinos and monkeys astound me only to be followed by the beauty of the snow-capped Himalayas.

Nevertheless, walking into a ridiculously cold airport where the most exciting area is the security line is an interesting contrast to the world we've been living in, and when it comes down to it, I do already miss the atmosphere. Yes it may be dirty, yes it may be chaotic, but there's a thrill to the streets paired with a kindness of the people that makes every trip something new and exciting. Like I said before, there are people I will absolutely miss, people who amazed me again and again, but I know their words and their hospitality these past weeks--the impression they have made--will last a life time.

In the words of the Tashi Dhele staff (our hotel...with the greatest staff ever): "Come As a Guest, Leave As a Friend."

Here's to the trip continuing through our actions,
Mike

Photobucket Change

Hey Everyone! Just wanted to let you know that the Photobucket link on the side of our blog site will now take you to our team's main page, with pictures of us 9 team members. The group decided it'd be nice to have a place where everyone can post their pictures (not just the Creighton crew), and with the potential new pictures coming in, some functional changes were made.

When you click on the link, you'll go to a page and in a column on the right hand side will be multiple albums. We've separated them into children's homes, cities, events, etc. To see our latest activity, just click "profile" and you'll see the most recent changes and uploads. Lastly, the first page you go to, has a "follow" button next to "cunepal's album" and you can enter your email address to get notified when new pictures are uploaded if that is more convenient.

Thank you for following! More posts to come in this final week!

From the Top of a Mango Tree

The following is a team post, written by Mike and Daniel:

Last week, when we talked to John about our ideas for projects for the last two weeks, I knew I wanted to find something that I could invest in emotionally. Something that may not be extremely productive here and now, but something I would remember, a project that would, hopefully, motivate me to do work and still care when I return home. As Daniel explained in his blog earlier, we were asked to take on the documentary project, meaning we’d have to revisit every childrens’ home, interview every child, and gather footage of every household. So here we are.

Revisiting the homes did not mean a lot of difficulty for the first few homes, since they are within walking or tuk-tuk distance of our hotel in Kathmandu. For the other half of the homes, though, we have had to pack our bags, buy a bus ticket, and say sayonara to our group for a weeklong journey south to Chitwan then up through the center of Nepal to the popular tourist town of Pokhara. There are three children’s homes in this area, and so we’ve temporarily gotten to settle down in a hotel with a phenomenal view of lake Fewa.

What Daniel forgets to mention, however, is that despite making it to the “hotel with a phenomenal view,” we did not get here flawlessly. The plan started with us taking a very small microbus from Kathmandu to Chitwan very early Monday morning. We got to the bus park after waking up a sleeping taxi driver, paid a guy on the corner to take us to the bus (crossing our fingers we didn’t get scammed), and packed into the corner with 3 bags and a little girl who tugged at Daniel’s “beard.” Once we found a rickshaw driver, he took us to the bottom of a hill, and then told us to get off. I believe he wanted us to walk next to him while he walked the rickshaw up the hill, but instead we paid him and bee-lined the top of the hill (thank you, Daniel). In addition, we overpaid another rickshaw who was potentially 85 yrs. old, got led to the telecom center of Chitwan instead of a place to buy a sim card, found Salvation Home by luck, missed our bus to Pokhara, and stayed at a random hotel in Chitwan until we could leave for Pokhara the following morning.

Okay, Benedict Mike-nold, I figured that people don’t want to read about the tiny obstacles and misunderstandings that we easily overcame throughout our travels. Also, you accidentally put quotation marks around beard (maybe you meant to underline it??). The point is that we are here, we are happy, and we are getting a lot of opportunities to build relationships with the children and parents of Holy, Beloved, and Paradise home. We have gotten a chance to meet up with Kara and Katie, who are also doing a project with the Children’s homes- a family photo album project. So in a joint effort, we are throwing a pizza party (Kara and Katie’s idea) for the children before we return back to Kathmandu (a 7 hour bus ride).

Nope, I had to put quotations because I couldn’t think of another word for…whatever that semi-red, fully-scraggily, unsightly thing is on your chin/neck. Anyways. Like he said, we’re almost done with the filming part of the project, and we’ll be left working on editing for the rest of our time in Kathmandu. To be quite honest, this project has been an utter surprise for me. In the beginning, it seemed like we had so much work for the amount of time left, and having had been to every children’s home I worried that it’d seem repetitious and potentially invasive. But every home we’ve been to has been extremely welcoming, willing; and being able to spend more time with some of the most mature and loving kids I’ve ever met has been a blessing to say the least. Not to mention it’s meant being able to go on an adventure doing a hobby of mine with the friend I discovered this hobby with.

My beard is not unsightly, you jerk.

Top Ten Things You Thought You'd Never Say-Nepal Edition

10. "I think I pulled my groin on a mango…"-Kara Luebbering in reference to playing soccer with street kids at a local park.

9. "We've accumulated quite the crowd of middle age Nepali men…I don't know whether to be flattered or creeped out."-Me in reference to also playing volleyball with the street kids at the same local park.

8. "What do you think of America?"-Chris from APU's resource team to some foreigners "Meat, cheese, and oil."-The response.

7. "No tiger balm, no hash, no rickshaw, no taxi, no money, NO THANK YOU."-All of us…constantly.

6. "I literally just stopped a bike with my hand."-Sarah Snodgrass while grazed by a bicycle while exiting a taxi.

5. "Well I rode on my first scooter today…I only hit one person! She was standing still…"-Sarah Snodgrass.

4. "You raid brothels and you bake chocolate melting cakes?!"-Chris from APU regarding Jeff-investigative head of Tiny Hands Security and all-around BA.

3. "You guys missed it, something happened and then there was a swarm of monkeys that all came to the one side and then one swiped at me!"-Mike in reference to a filming attempt at the Monkey Temple.

2. "Did you check out those goats on top of that bus-like where the people normally sit on top-there were goats!"-Sarah Snodgrass on our way back from playing with street kids.

1. "I'm all goat-cheesed out."-Mike missing his good ol' mozzarella and cheddar.

Hope you enjoy :) There are 1000 more that happen daily but I can't remember them all.

Real Top Ten:

10. I've seen Harry Potter twice now. Can't get over a huge bucket of popcorn for 100 rupees aka $1.50.

9. I played my first game of Mafia when I was finally not a townsperson and finally a mafia member and WON because I'm so cunning and sly :)

8. Nepal is so beautiful when you are able to simply enjoy it for what it is. Unfortunately so often the pollution and trash cloud this view (and smell).

7. I can finally navigate the streets around our hotel…which is a huge accomplishment, I assure you.

6. Sarah and I just realized we will be home in one week and 4 days. Not only is this insane, but makes me extremely sad because I don't know when I'll see everyone again.

5. After a 30 min. cab ride and a bit of asking for directions, Mike and I finally made it to an "Apple" store only to see that my computer MAGICALLY TURNED ON. I guess it just needed the power of the Mac store. God answered my prayers in a very literal way and I could not be more thankful.

4. Also on this trip Mike successfully managed to cause a traffic jam in a verrry narrow street. Very scary traffic control woman was not very happy with us.

3. APU's resource team and the teacher's team who have both been with us for the time we have been here have now both left. Makes me so sad and a little lonely not knowing we have other groups to meet up with.

2. Projects are going well! Everyone is insanely busy and it kind of seems like more just keeps piling on but it is fun work and I'm glad we get to help out as much as we can in the time we are given.

1. There are a ton of things I'm going to miss about Nepal. However, I'm more worried about becoming stagnant in my growth of knowledge of larger issues and advocacy once I'm back in the states.

All the love.

First Aid and Filmmaking

After a tumultuous three and a half weeks of visiting children’s homes, dodging rhinoceroses, scouting the India-Nepali border, staying in three towns, playing soccer with street children, and maneuvering the tangled streets of Kathmandu, everyone on our small vision team has fallen in love with this country.

Now that phase one of this sojourn has come and passed, it is time for us to move on to the second aspect of our time here: independent projects.

John, the founder and president of Tiny Hands International, surprised our team with an (extremely) early breakfast visit and sparked a discussion of each of our passions and hopes for the remaining two weeks in Nepal, and we all brainstormed potential ideas for ourselves. Then John took our messy, poorly articulated thoughts and streamlined them into concretized projects.

I am involved in two of these ideas.

The first one is with Mike, and we will be doing what we love to do: filmmaking. John has asked us to make short documentaries of each child at each of the children’s homes. So we get to experience the extreme joy of returning to all eight children’s homes, and getting interviews with and footage of all one hundred children to make little films to send to each of the children’s sponsors in America. This is a time-consuming, but incredibly fun project. The kids love being on camera and playing with us, and we love filming and playing with them, so it’s a pretty perfect fit for us.

The second project is with Ben, and it’s a bit less tangible and a lot less smiley. We are in charge of doing research on medical outreach programs, so that Tiny Hands can decide whether to move forward with its medical branch of the Dream Center or not. So Ben has been contacting his friends in hospitals all over Kathmandu as well as discussing the difficulties we’d face here with Dipen, a Tiny Hands staff member who has been doing his own research. It looks like Ben and I will be working with the Ministry of Public Health to try and get some information about the type of medical care the Nepali government has in place. We also will be meeting with local non-government organizations that specialize in medical outreach to see what ideas have worked and have not worked for them. It looks like we may also be trekking with an NGO into some remote areas of Nepal to assess the medical needs of remote communities.

The next two weeks look very interesting, and the contrast of playing with some of the world’s most beautiful children while reflecting on the intense lack of medical care in rural and urban areas of Nepal is a wonderful task that will ground me in the reasons I decided to come here.

TopTenTime

So it's been awhile buut....

10. My computer broke in Chitwan...so I've been without it for over a week now and it's driving me nuts.

9. I went back to Pokhara where I hiked two mornings in a row and witnessed the most breathtaking views of the Himalayas.

8. Yesterday we watched a Hindi movie...that was 3.5 hours long...and the most ridiculous thing ever.

7. I was told by a 2 year that he loves me. Also i got like 7 kisses. Bestdayever.

6. We met with new investigative head of Tiny Hands and I felt like I was meeting a celebrity. He has worked with trafficking issues in 18 different countries...as the head guy. Really cool and slightly intimidating.

5. Cows in the middle of street no longer phase me.

4. I realized that my heart is slowly but surely breaking over the gender inequality and poverty I see everyday.

3. Went to Harry Potter tonight with 6 people shoved in an itttty bitty taxi. Got a huge bucket of popcorn and a soda. Walked in literally right as the opening scene was starting. People tend to talk a lot in movies and crunch their popcorn really loud here. And...

2. There was an INTERVAL right smack dab in a really intense scene in the movie. I screamed out "what?!" in the movie theater. Turns out people need breaks during movies here.

1. We have been given our "tasks" for the next 2 weeks and mine are to create a games and recreation handbook for the children's homes, doing training sessions with the Tiny Hands staff, giving healthy living presentations, and working with women empowerment and advocacy ideas. It is going to be amazing and soo busy!

Allthelovealways.

K