Mary in the Mountains

Since my mom was used to visiting us every year in Curacao,

she wanted to come and visit us here in Nepal too.

She says her motto is, "Have suitcase, will travel."  :)  Anyway, she had a good time and maybe she can come again.  The flights are a *little* bit longer than the flights to Curacao, but eventually you get here!  :)  This is what you see when you look out the window as you fly into Nepal!  Majestic!

She traveled with my niece Liesl, who is helping out at the school, and with Shea, who is helping out at the Muscular Dystrophy Center of Kavre (see previous post for their website).

We went with Shea to see the Muscular Dystrophy Center.  Here he is with Santosh, the director.

 
They have worked so hard for the boys and we're proud of them.  Santosh gave Mom a radish from the garden.  They're a little bigger than they are at home (!) but they taste the same.

 School was on a break for the national festival holiday of Dashain, so we had time to do some sightseeing around Banepa.  Here is a temple that was put up in town for the holiday.

Mom enjoyed this view from our balcony, which we never get tired of...

Here's a close-up of part of the town that's straight ahead.

...and just to the left, on this day we got to see a rainbow!  (Plus in the distance you can see the Chandeshwori Temple, which is just down the road.)

 

One day we took a walk over there to the temple, which some people think was probably built in the 17th century.  Here is the entrance.

Inside, there's a mural you can sort of see (can't find my good pic) of the goddess Parvati in the form of Chandeshwori slaying the demon Chand, who is at the bottom of the mural.

There was a sacrifice at the time, but we didn't get too close.

Here are Shea and Liesl in another part of the temple compound.

We had such a beautiful day!  Did you see the blue sky?

In front of the entrance, this time of year, you see a swing set up for the children.  These can be seen all over Nepal during the Dashain festival time.

We didn't wait in line for our turn!

This is the road to the left of the temple, which leads to the village of Opi and beyond that, eventually, China!  We walked up to Opi and Mom did pretty well hiking in the mountains!  I guess her aqua-aerobics classes paid off!

 

She was glad (as I was too) not to have to carry anything like these ladies were.  These baskets have a strap on their foreheads. Sometimes they carry a lot more that this! These girls know how to work!

Even the children help out the family.  (We saw this little fellow right before we saw the ladies.)

These guys were also working hard, but Mom didn't want to get too close to them!  You can't really tell, but they were pretty big!

Mom was hoping no one would fall off of this bus!  It's a normal sight to see many people crowded onto the buses, and I think the drivers are very brave to drive on these mountain roads!

I'm glad this driver stayed in the middle of the road and that he didn't meet any buses coming the other way!

 

Just your every day trip up the driveway!

Here's the house at the top.

 

Here is their view--beautiful!

  

Here's the close-up of one of the houses.

I'm so happy to see they have electricity (at least when the load shedding schedule says they can).

We walked through the village

to the top of a "hill" (as they call it, but it's a mountain for me!)

and here is our "reward":

Pretty nice, eh?

To their right, is this view:

Let's zoom in shall we?  Yes, it's a swing on the edge of the mountain!!!

Looks like fun!

(I hope they're not TOO close to the edge!)

Oh, what's over there?

It's a family walking.  (Yes, I'm enjoying my zoom lens!)

 

Soon we were walking back ourselves.  Here is our destination--the hospital campus. 

Well, that's all for today!  More adventures of Mary in the Mountains soon!  Have a nice day! 

Himalayan Hiking

Recently, on the holiday of Shahid Diwas, which has something to do with remembering martyrs (haven't found out the details yet), we were finally able to do some hiking here in the Himalayas!  Now, we didn't actually hike here

in the actual snow covered peaks!  :)  However, we do like walking around our area which I guess they call the foothills, but which I (from N.E. Ohio) call the "footmountains!"  Until this recent holiday, Ramon had not had time to take a "real" hike, so we were glad for the opportunity to climb this little mountain, which is about 700 feet higher than our town.

The top there that you see is about 5450 feet, and we are at about 4750.  Anyway, we just walked right across those fields and hiked straight to the top!  If you click open the picture and enlarge it, you can see some of the trails if you look closely!  First we had to go around the hospital's fence you see there, which meant we had to go through a small part of town where we ran into some of the kids from school and church.  They are really sweet kids and were so happy to see us!  It was nice to see them running down to hug me!  (I sometimes feel like a celebrity!)  They're saying goodbye in this picture.

Then we saw "someone" who apparently tries to run away!

Not everyone had the day off.

We got to the fields

and looked back at the hospital and school.

We met this fellow who was so happy to speak both English and Spanish with us!  He told us he had lived in New York City for a number of years--where he learned both languages!

 
After a little more hiking, the hospital, school, and fields looked like this:

We came across some beautiful aloe vera plants.  Ramon is with Sergio, a visiting volunteer doctor, who went with us.

Here is the field beside the plants.

Yes, there were some people working there.  The girl at the top left was washing clothes at an outdoor faucet.

Apparently they live over here, just to the right of the field.  You can see this house in the first picture if you look closely.

What views they have! 

I'm not sure if they have to walk like the folks you see there and carry everything they want/need up to the house or if there's a road on the other side.

We continued up the hill,

sometimes through some thick spots.

Stumbled across this water pipe way up there.  Looks like it was deliberately cut.  Wonder what the story is there!

Finally we got to the first "Look Out" where we saw this lovely view.  It was a little hazy, but as you can see, we could see for MILES!  That is the hospital in the "front" and our city of Banepa to the left.

This monument is up there.  I need to find out what it's all about and let you know.

Ramon and I are smiling because we made it without any difficulty!  

I'm also smiling because I still didn't know yet that I STILL had a 30 minute hike ahead of me to get to the top where there was a tower!  We did pretty well for a couple of "oldies!"  After awhile, we finally saw it!

The last part of the trail looked just like "Little Round Top" at Gettysburg National Park!

When we got close to the tower, finally making it to the top of the mountain (Yeah!), we saw another monument of some kind.

Here's a closer look.

The carvings were on all four sides.

In the tower we found this friendly group of Nepali youth.

They wanted to know where we were from and what we thought of their country.  They were happy to know that we really love their country!

Because it was hazy, we didn't get the views that you get when it's clear, but we still could see for miles again and it was beautiful! 

I couldn't tell at the time, but now that I'm looking at the pictures, I do believe that mixed in with the clouds you can barely, just barely, see some of the snow caps of the Himalayas!!!

We took this road back to Banepa, going around the other way.

These holes were in the ground all the way back down for a ways.  We suppose it is for poles to pull something up the hill.

Found these boys on the side of the mountain.  They didn't have school because of the holiday, but as you can see they were working.  Sergio gave them some dried apricots which is all we had.

I walked on ahead of Ramon and Sergio and took this shot of them coming down the road.

The road became a little difficult!  Sergio said he has seen motorcycles on this road!

Do you see the road in the background?

Let's take a closer look. 

Yes, there is traffic going one way.  Bear in mind that it's not a one way road!  I don't know what happens when someone comes the other way!  (No, I haven't driven here yet and I don't plan on doing so soon!)

Soon we came to a village. 

The lady you can barely see there by the houses is playing with a baby and waiting for her water buckets to fill:

The road is a little better now, but not much!  That's the driver looking out the window.  Remember they drive on the left here so the driver sits on the right.

Just around the corner we found this handsome little fellow who, like boys everywhere, can't wait to get his license!

I'm sure this young man doesn't have a license yet, but he sure knew how to drive!

He had just come from this section of road:

Next to come by was this bus.  These boys are not hanging out of the door for fun.  There really is not room inside! 

By the way, there was a fairly nice high school in this village.



Goodbye Village!  See you soon (I hope!)!



This is our lovely walk back home--nice, eh?

Hope to be able to hike with some of you reading this if you ever get a chance to come here to visit or volunteer!  You'll love it!  We thank the Lord for the chance we have to work here and also for the chance to get to do a little Himalayan Hiking when time allows!