India (resent again. 1st email got cut off)

6 years ago Walter, the kids and I were suppose to move to India. Walter had been given a new project to build a plant outside of Mumbai. 4 days before Walter and I were to get on a plane to India to find our house and finalize our school plans his company called it off and that was the end of our India trip, instead we moved to Pennsylvania.   Disappointment isn't a strong enough word to describe how I felt when that trip was canceled. Walter has been to India many times since. Unfortunately his are always for work and never about site seeing. This past weekend I finally got my turn to go to India. 

This trip was born back in November with one girl expressing a desire to see the Taj Mahal before her expat life came to an end this year and my response was - I'll go with you ( this seems to be my mantra, a willingness and eagerness to do or try anything new without any details involved, you don't have to ask me twice :)   From this small statement a girls weekend plan was hatched. We started to spread the word around and low and behold 5 others quickly jumped at the chance to see the Taj Mahal too.  Funny as the word spread that we were actually going on this trip and plans were laid more and more women expressed a desire to go.  

Most of our correspondence with each other was through email. Dates were chosen, visas acquired, hotel accommodations were argued over, a tour guide company was found, airline reservations were made, yogurt with probiotics was eaten (hey Dehli belly is real ask my girlfriend, you'll do anything to keep it away, it worked for me ) and boom we were going to India. Now mind you this group of 7 women were not all close friends. 2 women didn't even know one another until they met at the airport the day of departure. Even myself I can say I really only knew 2 of them well. The other 5 I either knew of or sort of knew. We were a mixture of nationalities which can make things interesting. Countries represented by us were Australian, American, Sweden and Britian. This shows you all sevens strong desire to go to India. 

Giddy like school girls we arrived at the airport and off we went flying away to India. All was good on the flight until toward the end when the flight attendant says something over the loud speaker that I don't quite catch except cover your mouth and nose. What?  Turns out they spray a sort of Lysol through the plane for germs. Weird and gross. Okay well at least now I'm germ free. Lol!  It worked because I'm the only one that didn't get the cold that all my girlfriends got. 😊 nor did I get Delhi belly. Though I doubt the spray had anything to do with that. ☺️ 

A few things I learned is that not all toilets flush the same way after completely soaking my friends feet in the next stall in the Delhi airport when I mistook the wrong knob as the flusher. Oops!  Luckily it was just clean water I sprayed her with. The bathroom attendant was not happy with me. 

Somehow after this incident we were ALL mistaken for Americans because we were being loud. What is it with bashing the Americans, are we really that loud of a culture. 🎉🎉🎉🎉. Not me of course 😜 

Speeding through immigration (ok maybe not speeding more like crawling through quick sand, but nothing was going to ruin our excitement ), checking out Duty free (a favorite store amoung expats, you never know what a new country will have), finding our little Indian man the tour guide with the sign that had Ali's name on it. Away we went on our adventure. We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. 

Driving through New Delhi was not what I was expecting. It was quite lovely. Very green with lots of trees and grass, traffic was not bad, monkeys everywhere, an occasional cow on the side of the road. Almost seemed civilized, almost being the key word. When we got to one intersection we did have several children hawking giant planes. It was a little disconcerting when they were climbing on our van so we could see them better. Some just came right up to the van with their hands out looking for anything. It was funny because the driver and tour guide said absolutely nothing and acted like they weren't even there. When the light turned green we just drove off. 

Arriving at our hotel was so exciting. My girlfriend made all the arrangements but there had been some issues with her choice from a few of the other women. It was a 5 star hotel and I can't say it was the cheapest place. I was just along for the adventure so for me I was up for anything ( *remember my mantra). The Imperial Hotel was beyond any expectations that I had. It was a British colonial style hotel. Wow!  The service, the rooms, the food, the artwork I'm beginning to sound like a tripadvisor review or my mother. The women in beautiful saris with a British twist, the men in very smart British coats. Everyone soooo friendly. They even said welcome home when we entered the building. We loved this place. 

It will be a huge reality slap when I go back to staying at the Townhome Suites by Marriott in the US. 😊

This guy was like the head doorman at the hotel. He had like 6 other guys standing with him but he was dressed the fanciest. He always was so happy to see us. 

First afternoon, high tea. I have been to high tea in NYC but never like this. Though I got chastised by the Aussie and Brit for eating my scone the wrong way. Geez who knew. I need different country eating lessons before I go on these kind of trips with other women. Lol. We had quite a few laughs and more food and tea than I could imagine. Never thought those words would come out of my mouth. 

It was completely different from the beer and bar food I'm use to. 😜. 

Much advice was given to us about safety. Women like us from other countries, traveling at night, not walking alone, keeping an eye on our purses were all reiterated over the days we were there. Fortunately we were very smart, had a tour guide and driver with us most of the time and we knew our boundaries. We always looked out for one another and therefore I am happy to say did not have one problem. Never did I feel unsafe, a few times uncomfortable, but never unsafe. 

Shopping was a major desire we all had. We tried to fit it in everywhere and anywhere. To the left of our protected hotel gates there was a small Tibetian market. Ooh so much stuff to look at and touch, well of course buy too. We were like fresh meat off the market, these small shop owners looked at us like dollar signs. I have never been hounded so much to purchase something or just anything in my life. It was fun but by the end exhausting. Plus we were still getting our Indian feet and trying to get use to our surroundings. Besides bartering on everything, I would have to convert rupees into US dollars to figure out how much something costs. It's like 62 to 1. Do that in your head. Thank god for my handy dandy conversion app on my phone.  Plus we were rushing because it was getting dark and first rule of safety from the hotel was be back before dark. First rule broken!  

I could not wait to get back to our hotel and by then was really wanting a cold beer.  

Women selling bedding/ linens on the street

Trying out sing bowls before we purchased. The sound had to fit our aura. Had to bring one of these home for Jack. After his trip to Nepal he knows all about Sing Bowls. 

This is the Tibetain Market where we shopped. All these garage doors opened and little stalls are inside. This picture was taken in the morning it's only open in the afternoon and evening. In the evening people are all around and they display many of their items outside their stores. 

Made it to the bar and it was soooo good. Cold beer served in a silver freezing stein. So classy the bartender loved us. Indian beer called Kingfisher was my choice. I'm a cheap date 400 rupees (like 6$) compared to my gin drinking girlfriends with their 1379 rupees (25$) GTs. 

Again the argument of our 5 star hotel was revisited. Lol. I didn't complain. 😊

In my mind there was nothing wrong with this 5 star hotel. 😄

Next morning site seeing is on the list. Our tour company shows up after I went to the most fantastic buffet breakfast at the hotel I've ever had. It even had a "buffet guide" seriously I'm not kidding. He would show you around and even carry your plate. Food and tea, delish!!

First stop was Humayan's Tomb. It is a mosoleum built by the senior wife (they had multiple wives) of the 2nd emperor or India in 1570. It took 16 years to build. It is the first garden-tomb on the Indian subcontinent. 

Bright green parrots are everywhere

Loved seeing all the school children here on their field trips. 

Now off to Delhi, you ask is there a difference between New Delhi and Delhi! YES a gigantic one. Going from ND to D was wow. Delhi was what I was expecting India to be like.  Chaos pure chaos!!  Cannot emphasize the word chaos enough. More people and cars and filth and trash and slums than I have ever seen in my life. This was the India that soooooo many people had told and warned me about. I have always heard you haven't seen poverty until you see India poverty. Were they so ever right and I live in Thailand where there are some poor people. Poor is not a strong enough word to describe some of these peoples situation. More like desperate and destitute.  Men laying all over with barely any clothes and filthy.  These people live in the dirt and mud. It was like entering into a time capsule and being spit out into another world. 

How is it that we all live on the same earth and can be similar in shape and size but be oh so different and have such different lives? Amazing and eye opening. 

This picture was taken before we took the ride of our lives and experience a very small taste of what living in Delhi is really like. This picture was taken in front of the Red Fort of Dehli. We were like an attraction ourselves. More pictures were taken of us and not with our cameras. People were just following us around taking our picture. Men and Children were trying to sell us everything and anything. People and more people were everywhere.  I guess this is what it's like being famous and having the paparazzi follow you around. Lol. Weird!  

Our tour guide asked us if we would like to take a tuk tuk ride into the spice market. Of course was our answer, why not. So glad we said yes but so glad I had no idea what were about to embark on because I probably would have said HELL NO!  

Up until this point we had been pretty well protected and shielded from regular Indian life. We rode around in what I nicknamed "The Bubble" our van with an English speaking guide. Oh how was I ever so excited to see the bubble after this journey. 

We were split up into two tuk tuks with the driver not being able to speak a word of English. Our tour guide happened to ride in the tuk tuk I was not in. It didn't bother me until the return trip back from the spice market and we got separated. This was a 10 minute moment of extreme uncomfortableness. 

All got happy again when the other tuk tuk showed up and we were back in the bubble. 

They are smiling now!  Lol

Mayhem, absolute mayhem. So close you can reach out and touch someone. You have to keep your knees, hands and toes in or they will get whacked. The cars, motorbikes, tuk tuks, ricksaws all touch at some point. People crossing the street are everywhere. Traffic was like a very carefully choreographed dance but no laws are followed or at least any laws that I have to follow when driving. Shockingly I never saw an accident or someone get hurt. 

Primary school in the background. More men than I have ever seen in my life. We even asked our tour guide where are all the women. 

As many pictures as we took of others someone was always taking a picture of us. 

Ooh some women

My girlfriends playing real life extreme "frogger".  I saw my life pass before my eyes as I made it across the street and looked up to see a motorbike barreling down on me. My girlfriend actually screamed out SLOW DoWN at the guy.  He missed me by inches. 

Flowers were so vibrant amongst the filth and dirt. 

Spice and nut shop we went into. The owner gave us a demonstration of all the spices they sell and how their used in Indian cooking. Showed us teas from different regions and lots of different nuts. 

Of course you get caught up in the moment and I bought all sorts of spices. Now I just need one of those lovely Indian women to come to my house to cook it. I have no idea, what I was thinking. 😊

Now you might be thinking after reading above what was the smell like. Those who know me well. I'm a smeller. I smell everything and am very affected by smells. Walter tends to think I'm crazy with what I can smell. After seeing the street photos with all the cars and people that the smell was as my kids would say rank!  It wasn't. It smelled wonderful which really was quite confusing for my brain. The streets were so disgusting but if you saw the amount of spice shops in this area you would understand. Have you ever had Indian food or walked into an Indian restaurant?  The spice smells were so powerful that this particular area smelled wonderful. Close your eyes and it was sitting in a beautiful restaurant waiting for amazing food, open your eyes and it was like walking through a garage dump. 

Now as soon as we drove out of this area the smell hit you hard and fast in the face and it was not pleasant. Think of a bathroom at the end of a hard rock concert that 10000 people attended. Yeah that bad. 

What an incredible experience this tuk tuk ride was. I really wouldn't trade it for anything. This ride gave us an authentic opportunity even for just a short hour what it is like to drive through the streets of Delhi. To see the life of how these people live.

As we rode around you see people everywhere. Have I mentioned the amount of men. 😉 They would just stare at us more like bore into your soul. Rarely did you see women. If you did they were so happy to see us and usually smiled or stopped for a picture. 

These women were so kind. I guess tourists themselves from a different region of India. They stopped said hello or what we thought was hello ( didn't speak English) held our hands and were genuinely interested in us. They were beautifully dressed. 

What an adventure it has been and it's only just begun........

India to be continued......

Cheers from the other side

😘 M

Jack's Nepal Pictures

Namaste

I'm a little delayed getting these pictures out but we have been busy.  I thought some of Jacks pictures that he took were definitely worth sharing.  Enjoy!

Nepal through Jack's eyes

Jack is wearing a khatak is a traditional ceremonial scarf, originated from Tibetan culture, it later adopted by the countries (Mongolia, Bhutan, Nepal, some part of Russia and India etc.) where Tibetan Buddhism was spread and they too adopted a similar kind of culture.

Khatak has many usage, Khatak are use for birth, wedding, funeral, ceremony etc. It symbolizes purity and compassion. It is usually made of silk. Tibetan khatak are usually white symbolising the pure heart of the giver, though it is quite common to find yellow gold khatak as well. Tibetan and Bhutanese khatak has symbol of eight lucky auspicious signs meaning to bring good luck and fortune. There are also special khatak with five different colors. Mongolian khatak are usually blue, symbolizing the sky.

Khatak can be presented along with incense and other religious items at arrivals and departure of guests. The Tibetans commonly give a kind acknowledgment of "Tashi Delek" (meaning good luck) at the time of presenting.

Jack came home with several colors 

The town of Katmandu.

I know it's really blurry but Jack wanted me to include it. The white blob on the roof of the van is a goat. Yep you read that right, a goat. Jack said if there is no room on the bus the goat rides on the roof. I told Jack that is a great idea. Next time we over pack he goes on the roof this way we don't have to listen to him whine. Yeah well he wasn't thrilled with that answer and I got an oh MOM,  lol

This person was very wealthy, says Jack. 

The little hut that sold wool clothing. He actually bought slippers here because it was sooooo cold.  Those are gourds on the roof. Set there to dry. 

How they dry the corn. 

The "resort" where Jack stayed. 

Jacks room

Jacks room. That is a heater but they didn't use it because Jacks teacher was afraid. 

No "central" heat or air. Jack says he needed the heat it was COLD!

Laundry. Guess I should be grateful for my washer/dryer combo unit. 

This was Jacks view from his room. 

His view on his walk to the school, 6km round trip. 

Goats, goats everywhere. 

The Himalayan Mountains. Yes he took these photos. Wow

Jack was amazed that this guy could carry all these corn stalks. 

The school

The girl in the back of the class with pink sleeves was one of their guides. She was 12 and fluent in English and Nepalese. She was from another village close by. Jack was ReaLLy impressed with her.  She helped with translation. 

Dancing 

First game ever of Duck duck goose. This boy was chasing Jack. I absolutely love the sheer joy on this boys face. The kids are so happy. 

The entire school and Jack and his classmates. 

The group that went to Nepal, the guides and Sherpas. 

Cheers from the other side 

😘 M

India post coming soon!!

Cooking Class

Thai cooking classes are in abundance here in Pattaya and Bangkok. Cooking with Poo is a world renowned cook who started in the slums of Bangkok where she still currently lives and runs an extremely successful cooking school. I haven't made it there Yet (in May) but it's on the list. 

Since moving to Thailand I have A LIST. Things that I want to desperately do before we leave. A Thai cooking class is one and got to Cross it off the list today but now I've added Cooking with Poo in Bangkok. That's the trouble with this list it keeps getting things added. 

I have been to a few cooking classes but Happy Home Thai Cooking Class was different.  My favorite expression here sums it up beautifully, Same Same but Different. In the US the cooking classes I've been to you're in a sterile kitchen with all the appropriate measures for safety. You never cross contaminate (god forbid). Lol. Cookware is run through a giant industrial dishwasher. There is a certain plate for only meat and you never put veggies on the same plate. Measurements are accurate. The instructor would never grab a spoon and taste out of your bowl to see if your dish is perfect then add something over your shoulder if it wasn't. 

HH Thai cooking school was like cooking with grandma. We show up to this tiny house where the downstairs is turned into a room with 2 wooden tables with 7 gas burners with big gas tanks under the table ( okay maybe not that part is like cooking with grandma). A super sweet Thai woman, Sherie, greets us in the street. She speaks beautiful English which she later tells us was a necessary skill she taught herself when she realized she needed to be able to support herself in her own country. She is soooo happy to have us. She has just moved her business and is happy we found it. She has 2 tables set up for us to sit around and relax. The wooden tables with different chairs and thai table cloths. In the middle is big plastic pitchers full of water with a bunch of miss matched plastic cups. She hands us all aprons. Fans are all around because there is no air conditioner. 

We have brought Prosecco with us. Really can you do cooking class without it? 😉. 

She brings us over to the ingredient table where all the produce is displayed and she tells what everything is. So fresh!  

We each have a station set up with our own cutting board, knife, plate, bowl and of course gas burner with pan.   All the ingredients are aligned on a plate.  An soy sauce bottle, fish sauce bottle, oil, palm sugar, and fresh tamarind juice are in the middle for us to use how we want. She walks us through step by step.  We are all making individual servings. Our first course was Green Curry with Chicken/Kang Khiao Wan Gai. We start by making our green curry paste and then add in the rest of the ingredients.  It's like a soup that you eat over rice. After we are all done we pour it into bowls and head to the table to eat. Wow!  

But wait we are not done. After eating and relaxing we get up to do the entire thing over with 5 different dishes. We made Tom Kha Gai/Coconut chicken soup (my favorite), Larb Moo/Spicy Pork salad, Spicy Pork with basil leaves/Phad Krabi Paola Moo and Mango with sticky rice/Khao Neaw Mamoung (another favorite). I should not have eaten breakfast. We ate and relaxed after every dish we prepared. If we didn't finish or didn't want to eat everything it was put into a Baggie for us to take home.  I have never cooked such awesome Thai food. Lol 😜. 

There were 8 of us cooking together. It was such a great day of chatting and cooking, Plus a little bit of sipping. Sherie would walk around with her spoon and try what we were making and add something here or there. The place was not by any means fancy but everything looked so clean. Though I am not sure where the utensils were washed. And I don't think the knives were sterilized in between cutting chicken, pork or vegetables but I'm use to it after living here for some time now. 

A funny that you would never see in the US - she was missing a gas burner, we had 8 people and she had only counted on 7. She dragged out a large propane tank (like what we would hook up to our grills) and she turned the knob and lit it. The top was converted into a burner so you can place your pan right on it. You stood around the tank and cooked your food. Hilarious. Sadly I'm kind of use to this stuff so I barely give it a thought until just thinking about it now. Lol

Ok so safety might not be their first concern but boy the Thais know how to cook. 

The food was delicious. I came home with a few doggie bags but not as many as I thought I would. 

I survived all the cross contamination and sharing of utensils and learned how to make awesome Thai food. Now all I need is someone to buy it, prep it, and put it all on a little plate for me to throw in a pan. 😝. Oh and clean up after me!  Best cooking ever. 

Can't wait for Cooking with Poo!

Cheers from the other side

😘 M

He is home!

My "world traveler" is home. After a long day of traveling Jack is back amongst us with lots of hugs. He was happy to get a warm shower something he says he hasn't had in a week. He came home with lots of Masala tea (new habit he developed) and lots of fun trinkets for us. I could barely get him to bed with all the stories he has to share. Poor guy had to compete with Erin and Andrew coming home from the valentines dance with their own stories and gossip. 

I am so thankful he had this opportunity to go to Nepal. He had a fantastic time and is already talking about next years trip. I will look at his pictures tomorrow and hope to upload a few to share.

Bonus - he had a different pair of underwear on from when he left so I know he changed it at least once. 😜. 

Cheers from the other side

😘 M

Next up Andrew leaves Sunday for Baan Melid this is the hill tribe in Northern Thailand. He is going for a week. It is a service project trip where they will live in the school and do various projects around the school such as painting and cleaning. They also will spend time teaching the children games and playing fun learning activities. 

Project Nepal - day 4 and 5

Jacks teacher is having difficulty uploading pictures so I just included the emails. When I get more pictures I will post. 

Namaste,

What a great day. Our children and the Nepalese children have really found their feet; we were able to hand over the activities to them to run with a good deal of independence today and the interaction is magical.

Mr Mulford organised a fantastic day of art activities: the children were drawing perspective drawings, our children taught them to use water colours and oil pastels, we even managed to conduct lessons outside in the playground today.

Our nursery children continued to make creatures with the play doh and spent the afternoon colouring cut outs of sea animals; their progress in mark making, use of colour and their concentration was a real joy to see.

We have enjoyed a steeper climb home today, rewarded by seeing where our classmates live (they are walking home with us which is lovely).  

We have taken about a billion photos as we are all filled with awe and wonder - leaving Nagarkot will be heart wrenching: the relationships we are forming within the school community are immensely fulfilling and here is still so much work to be done.

Your children are tired but in good spirits; Nat and I are really enjoying getting to know them better and seeing them blossom in terms of confidence in their leadership and independence in organising activities and evaluating when to move the learning on, they are stars.

Last day at school tomorrow, sob, sob.

Sorry, I have tried 4 times to upload photos but with no success. I will try again later.

Have a lovely evening, 

Maxine and Nat.

Namaste,

At the risk of sounding over the top you should know that I am typing this e-mail and struggling to keep the tears back: it has been such an emotional day.
The whole day has been characterised by positivity, energy and connections: our children knew the classes that they wanted to work with and the relationships they have forged over the previous three days have led to amazing participation by the Nepalese children in activities they have never experienced before.  It has been heart warming to see boys and girls participating in the games we have donated (boys tend to dominate and girls hold back in Nepalese culture).  Nat organised the juniors with art activities and a rotation of learning to play the games we donated whilst my early years group simply got on with drawing and  teaching the children to play twister, jenga and how to build Lego; this left me to chat with Kalyani about the maths and science curriculum and suggest new activities she can incorporate into the school's pedagogy.  It's only the beginning so I sincerely hope this trip receives the same level of support next year.
To close the day we were treated to a short presentation followed by singing and dancing; Sophie, Tyler, Shivangi and Claudia made exceptional, heart felt spontaneous speeches at the end - mums and dads, you would have been incredibly proud.
To summarise, our hosts have been supported in beginning to develop the education they deliver; the children have been given opportunities and resources that we would expect our children to experience as a bare minimum; some children have shown talent in art and desperately need the motivation, encouragement and opportunity to develop further; your children have grown as leaders, developed their ability to analyse situations and respond as necessary, made connections that transcend the language and cultural barriers and most importantly thrown themselves at the challenge whole heartedly. Nat and I have loved every minute of the service component of our trip, it has been magical and a real privilege.
Your children have already asked if they can come again next year and if Sanjeevani Primary School could be our international community partner: I think that speaks volumes.
Tomorrow we return to Kathmandu for sight seeing and souvenir shopping; I will do my best to guide them towards tasteful artefacts, that said, everything  nepalese is cool.

I will keep trying to upload the photos.

Have a good evening.

Maxine and Nat. 

Cheers from the other side

😘 M

Project Nepal Email day #3

This email is from day #3. Sounds like a really fantastic experience for all the kids. I am finding this fascinating. Pictures are below. 

Dear parents,

Namaste.

Yet another fabulous day up in the Himalayas, if you haven't made it up here do think about coming; the scenery is amazing and the hospitality here at The Farmhouse is brilliant.

So today we awoke to a temperature of 5 degrees; being seasoned veterans the children arrived up in the restaurant dressed to impress in woollen hats and gloves bought from the lady on site who knits lovely things.  The breakfasts are fabulous, our children are tending to favour the pancakes washed down by gallons of masala chai.

We walked to the school arriving about 10 o clock and the kids were waiting for us, even the little ones who desperately wanted the play doh again. We asked them to make spots for ladybirds so they could practise their numbers and also to make numbers out of play doh; they all learned something new, it was evident that the rote learning taught them their numbers but they had no idea what 5 actually meant.

With our older children we demonstrated how the teachers could use dominoes to practise addition, connect 4 to practise times tables facts, number bonds with multiples of ten and five (finding partners who had the matching pair) and using number cards so children could show answers to addition sums.  Again the staff were incredibly grateful and inspired to adapt their teaching methods.

To give you a little background, teachers in Nepal don't receive any training and those paid by the government don't always turn up for work.  Two of the teachers at Sanjeevani Primary School are sponsored by a company in Singapore; they are keen to innovate practise but it is only their salaries that are paid ($35 USD per month) there is no funding for resources, not even basics such as pencils or paper.  Incidentally, the government paid staff receive $200USD per month.  Everything that we are doing here is new to the children and the teachers; you cannot underestimate the impact your children are making- the challenge is for us to find a way to sustain the training and resourcing for the school.

Tomorrow will be an art based day, Mr Mulford and I will chat about that over our fortieth cup of masala chai.

I will send a few photos later this evening.

Have a good evening.

Bidai.

Maxine and Nat.

Jack in the school teaching numbers. 

The views are quite stunning. 

Obviously someone else was also taking a picture since no one is looking this way. 

Jack again rocking the Eagles sweatshirt. I did send him with 3 other sweatshirts. I wonder if we will see them in any pics along the way. 😜

In the school grounds playing a game. 

This is Jacks best bud Tyler. 

I really need to work on Jacks picture taking skills. Lol

A nice warm fire at night. The Farmhouse has no heat or air and only certain hours of electricity. Lots of cards and book reading. No technology at all hope Jack hasn't gone into withdrawal. Lol

Jack hanging with the group at night. 

Cheers from the other side

😘 M

*** Congratulations to my cousins new baby boy. May the next several months go smoothly and he grow big and strong and is able to come home to his brothers and sister. 

Project Nepal

Update on Jack in Nepal

A little background on the Nepal trip and how it was formed. 

The school where my kids attend have various fund raising projects going on. Project Nepal is one of them. One of the boarders at Regents is a student from Nepal on a scholarship and tries to raise awareness and funds for his hometown. The primary Round Square Week developed because of Project Nepal. Only 10 children were chosen for this trip last year before Jack came to school. 1 child backed out right at the end of the school year so one spot was open. Jack came to the school at the start of the term in August and was hearing talk about this trip, he expressed interest. Coming home after school he would tell me about it. Talking about going to Nepal and what they were going to be doing there. Now mind you if you know my Jack this is not normal. Typically if it's not sport centered he doesn't have interest but with so much talk of this trip and 2 of his buddies (always helps when you have a friend to travel with) going he really wanted to go. 

Walter and I just let him talk and thought the interest would fade. When he went away in November for a week I thought for sure he would come home saying how homesick he was (missing me 😜 ) and the interest in Nepal would fade fast. How wrong I was. Actually it was the opposite after spending 2 days at the Hill tribe he wanted to spend more time doing service projects. He hounded me about going to Nepal telling me the window was closing for his ability to go. Now mind you he had not been asked to go but he was SO sure if I told school he was interested they would want him to come plus they had room for one more person. Gotta love a self confident kid. 

After discussing it with Walter, I approached Jack and told him he had to come up with 5 facts about Nepal, watch a movie that was recommended by school about the Dalia Lama and write a small paragraph about why he wanted to go. This was my last ditch effort to truly be certain he wanted to go and for the right reasons not because he and Tyler would have a 5 night sleepover together in a cool country. I didn't think it was necessary for Walter and I to spend our good money unless he truly was vested in this trip. He did it all!

Contact with school was made, they were more than happy to have Jack, deposits were made, visas were obtained and now he is in Nepal. 

We receive a daily email from his teachers/chaperones. 

Here are the first 2 emails with a few pictures. It kind of gets me choked up when I read them. 

What a lucky boy he is!

Dear parents,

I am happy to tell you that we have arrived in Nagarkot and the power has just come back on!
The journey from Kathmandu was incredible and the children were awestruck by the scenery: mountains, everyday life, winding roads and goats, yes goats.

Our rooms are very comfortable and the children are either sharing in pairs or threes.  We have had a lovely snack of vegetable pakora and chips and are looking forward to some supper; masala tea is a hit!

As the sun has gone down the temperature is dropping, cold by Thai standards but for us tough Northern Europeans, just like a summers day! Our children are enjoying monopoly and each others' company, long may it continue.

I will update you tomorrow as soon as we have power and internet access.

Photos are taking a while to upload so I will try and send some more later.

Regards,

Maxine and Nat 

Dear parents,

Your children are amazing! I wish you could have been here to share everything we have done.  Here are a few selected highlights:

Our hosts have been playing the guitar and the children have enjoyed singing and dancing with them, I have a lovely video of this which I will try to upload separately. They have been great company for us and each other.

Many experienced 'hot water bottles' for the first time last night.  " What do you do with them Miss Watkinson? Can we put them under our pillow?" Eventually we got the children sorted.

It has been very amusing watching the children trying to eat their meals with gloves on; for some reason they were reluctant to take their warm clothes off even at the dinner table! I think the novelty of big jackets, hats and gloves is wearing off now.

We walked 3 km downhill to the school, in the cold, warm jackets on and definitely needed.

Our children were shocked when they saw the size of the classrooms and the lack of facilities but they excelled themselves in leading activities.  With the younger children Jules, Shivangi and Bryce demonstrated how the children could work with play doh to make animals.  The children had never seen play doh before and initially had no idea what to do, two hours later, yes two hours of sustained interest they were using their own imaginations to make animals and flowers.  Prabin said he had never seen this amount of energy from the children before. A magic moment.
The rest of the group, Tyler, Claudia, Callum, Jack, Sophie, Coben and Leon all led activities in separate classrooms where they drew their families and talked about names and ages, encouraging the nepalese children to do the same.  They demonstrated games such as duck, duck, goose and bungalow which really helped to break the ice.
They loved the leadership and are busy writing about it in their Global Citizenship diaries as we speak. 
We survived the 3km walk home, climbing 800m; the school children do this everyday, having eaten nothing since breakfast time, which put our discomforts into a very different perspective.
Your children's attitudes and enthusiasm are incredible, I doubt many others would tackle the differences in culture and overcome the lack of shared experiences so well and with such success, you should be very proud of them indeed.
Once supper is over we will plan for tomorrow.
I will do my best to upload some photos and videos but can't promise as the internet connection is quite slow. Please bear with me on that one.

Have a lovely evening and we will send another update tomorrow.

Regards, 
Maxine and Nat. 

Jack and his buds. 

Eagles are well represented in Nepal. Whatever Jack! on that sweatshirt. 

He may be a great kid but his choice in team favoritism is awful. Lol

Their facilities where they are staying. 

Walking to school

At the school playing duck duck Goose

Funny thing - though we moved from MI I had to borrow and hats and gloves and buy him pants because I brought no cold weather clothes with us. Pathetic I know 😉

Cheers from the other side

😘 M