Shikarpur

C: The home style in southern Nepal.

P: This was on our drive back. My hopes that my fever would disappear weren't met, and we had to leave after less than 24 hours of being there :-( I was soo sad, but the closest hospital was 4 hours away, and my fever was actually climbing.

C: Yeah, too bad we had to leave so soon. And wouldn't you know that once we got home, P's fever was over. But better safe than sorry... you never know what you've got or how serious an illness can be.

C: The view over a small hill in the village.

C: The cooking space in the home we stayed in. They generously served us one of their chickens that they killed only moments before cooking and other veggies. Super good. They had also gotten us local rakshi, super strong grain liquor, one cup and I was totally wasted.

P: C, you forget the fish that my crazy mamma bought on the way and that we strapped to the back of the 4wheeler. The rakshi created the illusion of curing my fever for about 10 min. After, I was drunk AND feverish. But the food and the hospitality was totally delicious. We ate at the bottom floor of the house we were staying at with many villagers, on a dung-and-straw floor. It was an incredible experience.

C: One of the purposes of the trip was for another organization that we were traveling with to assess the situation of the school for kindergardeners/1st graders. Behind these children, is the only school in the village. It serves over 100 children. They somehow divide the room in two and teach both levels. Its insane, the space is so small and built with reused wood, dirt floors with holes and cracks etc. But these kids are so anxious to learn and they make do. They were all holding their tattered school books in their best school outfits. All the little ones greeted us in a line, extending their little hands with flowers for us. I nearly died and burst into tears from their sweetness. We are officially the second visit of Westerners to their village. We were aliens to them- I'm sure as surreal for them as it was for us. One can imagine poverty but when you are confronted by it, it fills you with mixed feelings- I was struck by the resiliency of human beings, the ingenuity of people with little resources, the imaginations of children to make fun with next to nothing, the beauty of simple life and the consequences of the lack of access to economy and basic resources.

P: I agree. It was such a difficult experince in many ways. But beautiful in others. The kids were so nice and cute. And the villagers were so curious of us, as much as I was curious of them. It was truly like a meeting between aliens. I wish I hadn't been so sick also, because I was on the verge of death. Everything had a bit of an hallucinatory feel.

P: Dharmadhatu is doing such interesting work too. Currently they are running a woodworking workshop to train local villagers, mainly women, to prevent the constant drift to the Kathmandu valley, and to improve the economic situation at the local level.

C: Food on the road. Dal Bhat, the official, traditional Nepali meal. Always sooooo much rice.

P: And free veggie refills!!

C: If P and I move to Nepal, this is where we'll build our house!

P: It is amazing how Nepalis have developed techniques to farm in the most incredible conditions. Driving you can see farms that extend on nearly vertical faces of rock.

C: On our way to Shikarpur, the sight chosen by Dharmadhatu for their development work, also the organization that me and P have done some work with. It was our first official trip outside of the Kathmandu Valley. Nepal is a spectacularly beautiful country. Very diverse in its architecture, people and landscape. The terraced hills give the land such a texture, its crazy picturesque.

P: The road there was absolutly crazy. It took some 4 hours over a high pass to get to a town called Hetauda. You could look down into valleys that extended thousands of feet beside the dirt road. Scary. Then another 4 hours in the jungle 4 wheeling through streams, in the more tropical Inner Terai area. I also have to mention that the day we left I woke up with 101.8 fever, and decided to brave it.