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!