EVERYDAY LIFE AT THE ORPHANAGE.

Now I have been here working for over 4 weeks already and I find it very rewarding. The kids are all very unique in their own way, very polite and well behaved and gives me great respect, maybe because of my age since they are taught to respect their elders, sometimes being one of my age has it's advantages and trust me there are fewer as the years go by, no... more like fly by, so I will enjoy the ones there are. I start every morning by getting up at 6:15 to get ready for my daily meeting with Karna where he tells me what my schedule for the day will be. At 7:15 we all have tea where one of the kids talk about a word everyday, afterwards we share any dream we might have had, or more like nightmares some of them sounds like.The kids go to 2 different schools and now they are both done with their exams so they are home everyday for 3 weeks, just my luck since now I have to teach them something everyday for 1.5 hours which might not seem long to you, I guess the biggest challenge would be that there are 23 kids between the ages of 5 to 17 , so trying to come up with something that would interest them all is a job in itself, the class is called analysis class so I have to go more into depth of whatever topic I choose to teach them. After morning tea I do exercise with them for 60 min which is great for me to try to stay in shape, this takes place outside in the yard which is cobblestone and dirt no grass, no running shoes but slippers, they only have that and their school shoes. The only problem is, and that is one of very few and one I will never get used to here, that lots of times it is to the smell of smoke from burning garbage that people put a match to when the piles gets too big in the streets, so not sure how good exercising like that is for your health. Dal Bhat time for the kids is then at 9:00 where I help serve that, and after time for brushing teeth, then finally time for the adults to eat breakfast, I am even getting used to eating rice and lentils and the spicy curry vegetables at breakfast time. Now prepare for my 10:30 class, they finished writing a book each that they have to publish, before I was on the topic of happiness, which branched out to lots of different topics trying to make them believe in themselves, positive thinking , visualizing +++ and then we did some meditation which they all love to do. I know what my boys are thinking after reading this. As you can see everything is very punctual which is necessary when you have so many kids.. we got 3 new boys so now there are 23 kids, 7 boys and 16 girls. I have free time in the afternoon, time depending what is going on, the kids are doing their duties, cleaning the house, washing their clothes, which I by the way have to hang up on a clothe line that wraps around the 3^rd floor and there is a 2.5 foot cement ledge to walk on, no railing so a bit scary, I just have to make sure not to look down, I have gotten used to this too. When the kids are at school I would pick them up at 4:00 and then 4:45 is teatime where they eat a big plateful of beaten rice, so just raw rice beaten flat with a little bit of nuts and spicy squiggly things, that is the only thing I cannot eat, just too dry and tasteless. On Saturdays which is their only day off school they have fruit or carrots instead, for lunch they get fruit or carrots every day, so that is what they have every day for food never anything else, oh Fridays they have popcorn at tea time. The reason for no meat is because it is just too costly and they are on a very tight budget. After tea it is play time for 45 min. And then we have chatting where we can sing, dance, read, tell stories, play games or whatever we feel like, but we have to be in the girls bedroom to do it. I am in charge of that as well, when they go to school they do homework instead of exercising and chatting which I help out with, in all this I think I have leaned more than they have:-) today we went to pick up report cards and they are all at the top of their class in one school but probably not in the other one which we will find out next week. After chatting, where I read a book at the moment and they sing and I love to listen to that, the sound of their Nepali songs are so beautiful!!!The kids have their night Dal Bhat at 7:45 and they brush their teeth and do more homework if needed, so they go to bed at 9:00pm and we adults finally get to eat, by then I am really hungry, but with the help of a lot of little bananas I manage to survive to then. We then chat to about 10:00 and to bed, that I have even gotten used to by now,  I am usually really tired and sleep very well, no worries here, I have gotten used to all the different noises, another added one though  is security guards walking around in the streets using their whistles really loud in the middle of the night, not sure what reasonable  reason they would have for getting away with that one,  but no problems, I sleep like a baby.  This didn't sound very interesting maybe, but we have lots of fun in between, one thing the girls take great pleasure in is hiding my things when I forget it in the dining/ study room.. and try to play tricks on me, they ask me many questions and love to hear about my life, but their lives are very restricted in many ways, no computer no TV, no video games no leaving the place at anytime only for school and buying fruit for afternoon tea when there is no school, but by being here they get a great chance of getting an education, food and a bed to sleep in, even though they do sleep 3 in each, which they otherwise might not get. It feels good for me to be here helping out and to see how life is on the other side of the globe, it is an eye opener for sure and I really am so glad that I came here to be part of the kids lives.I hope I can make a difference somehow, I am already starting to worry about leaving them behind, the little 5 year old is so cute I might have to bring him home with me, but really they all are. All for now

Namaste Inger

MY TRIP TO NAGARKOT APRIL 1.

Before I left in the morning to catch one of the ever so enjoyable local busses here... not.. the kids tried their best to play some tricks on me to try to get me to be the fool of the day, with no luck though. Vibeke came from Denmark as a surprise on March 30th and staying 22 days. Her and Karna were going to get 2 more kids from the village of Gorka where all the kids are from. So before they went on that journey I had to take 2 days off, my first since I started. I decided to go to Nagarkot 30 km outside Kathmandu. Arjun took me to the bus station, if you can call it that. He found me a bus that went half way, which was to the Historical City of Bhaktapur where I had to transfer, which was pretty much, the drivers helper,( they have young boys helping with collecting the money from all the people getting on the bus, since there are so many the driver couldn't possible deal with that) telling me to get of the bus and walk 5min up a street to catch the next bus, so just walking along clueless as to where to go but by luck the only bus I saw after a 10 min. Walk was just leaving for Nagarkot 2 min. later, my destination, so couldn't be more perfect, of course it all was the same as my trek bus, apart from it only being a 2 hour drive, but with a ton of people again getting on and of, packed inside and on top of the bus, along the dusty road..

I arrived around noon and found a place to stay, named At The End Of The Universe with a view over the mountains. I went on a 3 hour hike up to a view point at the top of a mountain, where supposedly you could view Mt. Everest from, but all I could see was a vague outline of the mountains in the distance. I got back just in time before dark after walking through a small village, followed by a great dinner and a much needed but way to short hot shower, that I had to wait for the power to come on before I could enjoy.
Next day I decided to get up at 5:00am to see the sunrise, at the same view point but got a ride up there,
behind the mountains, the sun came up but the mountains were covered in a fog, so all I saw was a tip. Unfortunately not the right season for clear skies here, it is too hot and hazy now. After a hearty breakfast I started out walking back to Baktapur through the mountains and a lot of little farm villages,
that is so neat to observe, the endless mountain slope terraced rice, potato, wheat and vegetable fields, love to watch the people and all the animals, the little goats, big buffalos, chickens with their little chicks, dogs of course they are everywhere, which was great, not the dog part but hiking in the beautiful mountains, I didn't meet any other tourists so I just enjoyed every step of the way, hard as it was in the heat of the baking afternoon sun, but being out trekking in the mountains again was worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears. Just kidding there was no blood and tears just sweat, a big blister on my big toe and the appreciation of being out hiking in the clean mountain air what bliss!! There were so many cute little kids along the way, a lot of them with their runny noses and dirty clothes.
On the way I saw the Changu NarayanTemple which was one of the 4 spectacular Historical sites of the Kathmandu valley, and then walked back to Bhaktapur with it's own temples and the famous Durbar Square. By the time I got there, 7 hours later, still carrying all my gear that I brought with me. I was really tired, sweaty and dirty after a well worth it hike, but decided since I was there still an hours bus ride from Kathmandu I would wander around to see Bhaktapur so another couple of hours before I had to find a bus to go back home. I told the helper to tell me where to get of closest to Thamel, and now after dark fell he said, you get of here, which was on a big road where the cars were zooming by and he expected me to just jump into the traffic in the dark, so since I hesitated the driver just started to drive again, I really had no choice but to get off in a hurry, the things I am forced to do at times are very uncharacteristic for me, but most of the time fun and exciting. I then had to cross the big road which was a challenge on it's own, to catch a taxi since I had no idea where I was, and most taxi drivers have no idea where you want to go, so you pretty much have to lead the way yourself, which could be a problem at times. Back to Hotel Lily where they were kind enough to give me a room where I had my first really long hot shower in a month, wow that was soooo amazing, these days it takes very little to feel appreciation for the small things that I used to take for granted.
Yesterday was new years day, it is now January 2, 2067 here in Nepal, so at this moment I am way ahead of you all, but still as young :-), so we took the children on a picnic to a park close by, thanks to the money I raised we were able to make some nice food to bring, we played scavenger hunt, they had never played that before so they took great pleasure in that, the park is called Balaju water park, so lots of water but of course very dirty by our standards and then we could go into the forest as well, I meet a group of locals that had music playing and they wanted me to dance, so I did that to humour them, some of the kids came by and had a great time laughing at me while watching, one of the boys joined in as well, so a fun day, but tiring after spending the day in the hot sun. The walk there and back was rather interesting or should I say disgusting, first along the sewage trench and then along the river which is so filled with garbage and sewage that it looks like a dump more than a river, the people living along there in houses or more like sheds must be immune to the smell I guess, other wise you couldn't possible live there. After all that said I still love it here and the kids are still amazing. That is it for now.
Namaste Inger.

Temples of the Kathmandu Valley.

Happy belated Easter, which we do not celebrate here, and at the orphanage they do not celebrate anything really anyway, so save some easter eggs for me, preferable dark chocolate.Thank you lol...No Easter lunch no lamb roast instead I really had nothing since I guess the inevitable and my biggest fear had to happen sooner or later, that I got sick to my stomach I'm really surprised it didn't happen sooner rather than now considering that I do eat different things at lots of different places and as they say back home if you are going to eat at new places, go check the bathroom out first, the way that is kept is usually a good indication on how the kitchen looks for cleanliness, if going for that little rule I would starve to death, there would be nowhere to eat, I don't even want to think how their kitchens look and have no ideas if there are any regulations on that here. I have been feeling great up to now apart from the short time on my trek, but it was a little different as you will still hear later when I one day eventually will get back to that chapter of my life one of these days, so I thought I would be an exception from all other volunteers who have all gotten sick, at one point. So I started feeling a little sick in the morning of a day that Kaji had said he would take me to The Pashupatinath Temple, which is said to be one of the Holiest temples of the world, revered and worshiped by both Hindus and Buddhists, it has set a shining example of religious harmony. It is located on the western bank of the Bagmati River in Kathmandu, the river was almost dried out at the time of my visit though. In its sanctum is placed a Jyotirlinga ( believed to have self appeared) the like of this is not found anywhere else in the world. It is believed that Pashupatinath is the Lord of the entire living beings and the source of eternal bliss and peace, Hmmm I could go for that-:) It is a glory of Nepal. It is surrounded by many other temples spread out over 264 hectares. Along the river are all these stone ledges where they would do cremation of the dead where I seized the opportunity to view a Hindu funeral performed with their established long customary rituals followed by the cremation that takes place without a coffin, the body placed atop a woodpile wrapped in just cloth with the head visible they then add some hay on top and set the body on fire, the day I went, there were numerous cremations performed and me not feeling the best and the smell of human flesh being burned, the smoke everywhere and the temperature being 32C, which by the way is the temperature everyday now, didn't help my illness one bit. After a few hours of the cremations the remainder of the unburned wood is collected and sold to restaurants who use it to BBQ their meat, apparently a delicacy, knowing that now, will no doubt put a dampener on the purchase of any further BBQ-ed meat for me. The rest is washed into the almost dried out river where little boys were roaming around digging through the disgusting filthy water looking for any gold there perhaps had been on the body at cremation. This was a very interesting experience indeed. After that riding through the smelly traffic on the back of Kaji's motorbike darting through traffic half the time in the wrong side of the road, my condition worsened slightly. Next another very interesting site, the great Buddhist Stupa, of Boudhanath. Nepal is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of bio-diversity due to it's unique geographical position and altitudinal variation, ( otherwise I would say the poorest country)The elevation of the country ranges from 60m above sea level to the highest point on earth Mt. Everest at 8848m, all within a distance of 150km resulting into climate conditions from sub-tropical to Arctic.There are 4 UNESCO World Heritage sites in Nepal 2 are in cultural and 2 are in Natural categories. The cultural are Lumbini, the birth place of Lord Buddha, and seven monuments of Kathmandu Valley within a radius of 20 km ( all counted as one heritage site) The Natural sites are Chitwan and Sargarmatha National Parks. Kathmandu Valley World Heritage site comprises of 4 historical palaces- Kathmandu, Patan, Bhaktapur Durbar Squares; two Hindu Temples- Pashupatinath ( which is the one I just visited) and Changu Narayan,( where I just went 6 days ago when I had my first 2 days off after I started work), and two Buddhist Stupas – Swayambhunath and Boudhanath ( which I went to with Kaji) it is one of the most important places for pilgrimage for the Buddhist, it is the principle centre of the Himalayan,Tibetan, Asian Buddhist worshipers and one of the largest and most significant Buddhist monuments in the world, I must say it was a pretty spectacular sight. I got to go inside a smaller temple where I was lucky enough to witness the prayer of the Tibetan monks, a very unique experience. After that Kaji drove me back to Thamel where my very late lunch consisted of curd and a cinnamon bun which was my last meal in a while, just became pretty sick after that and still not a 100% and I have a rash all over my body now. The smell of smoke from burning garbage is getting to me that is the only thing that I can't handle here and the only thing I can't get away from, all the other things are only temporary, when I walk around town, the constant spitting of people, I think I forgot to mention, and the smell of sewage that runs along some roads in a trench, is even becoming normal not to say it is pleasant though but part of living here, that with an open mind, I can handle. Thanks Malou for the BD card!!! Kaji gave it to me today and said he hadn't checked his PO Box for 2 month so it had probably been there for a while.. I will light the candle tonight, and I got the letter from you too Andy thanks. Enough for now, miss everybody lots... Namaste  Inger

All is so surprisingly normal here now!!

Just a little more news from the land far away. It is amazing how normal everything has become, after first arriving here and my first encounters were pretty much all dismay, disgust and surprise over how bad everything looked and smelled, now a walk down the street into the city centre is “just another day in paradise” :-) for me, the garbage laden streets, dust, smiley and or dirty kids, motorbikes with 2 or 3 kids in front or behind the driver with no helmets, chickens, cows, a constant asking of shop owners and street sellers for me to look at their merchants, beggars, sleeping dogs anywhere they can find a comfortable place to rest for the still constant nightly barking, by the sounds of it, all of them at once, butcher shops with fly covered meat, by the way yesterday I shot a hilarious picture of that, wish you could see it, I had a good laugh!!!, and as you all know the best medicine, which I for sure could use out here to boost my immune system from all the seemingly unhealthy flying objects that I am sure carries a million germs that I with big concern have to breathe in every day, goats tied to street poles, where there one day are four and the next day only 3, a man walking down the street trying to sell me one of his goats for 15000 RP, that he is walking with, regular people asking me for money along the way, since where I live there are no tourists so I suppose I stick out in the crowd, it is me and the locals, all that is just a way of living here and I am just one of them now, most I don't even think anything of and if I do it is with a chuckle, if anything I now find it most fascinating to watch and live it all and do enjoy it all to the fullest. Everybody is very friendly, everywhere I go, but I have come to the conclusion the reason that I have already been invited to numerous houses by waiters, shopkeepers ++ is probably because they for some strange reason might think I have money to give them, who knows maybe they are just super friendly and want me to come for dinner. Friday I went to register at the Danish Embassy, just in case one day the earthquake treat should materialize , so they know where I am, I am sure that will make a different when I am under 5 feet of rubble ha ha..I then talked to one of the Danish Ministers working there who gave me some helpful information on more places for me to see, and people to meet. Arjun one of the guys from the hotel took me there on his motorcycle, I can't believe I am doing this, especially because of the helmet law and the crazy traffic, but rest assure I am only doing it because the speed is not that great with all the traffic. I am really enjoying my stay here and the days and nights seems to disappear with lightning speed, I have now been here one month.. I miss the mountains here, the calm and the clean air up there. I am now sitting in my Dream Garden and just had a big BBQ buffet where I ate like a pig, very gracefully though, first time in a long time I have ventured to eat meat, you would know why if you had seen a butcher shop here as well, so my diet pretty much consists of rice, lentils, potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, beans, and peas which I have for breakfast and dinner and still use a spoon to eat, where all the rest in the house eat everything with their fingers, quite interesting to observe them eat and with such speed that you would think they were worried they wouldn't get more if they slowed down, then I eat lots of fruit, yogurt and eggs for lunch or in between, and not to worry I get plenty of food, there are a ton of nice restaurants and cafe's that I can eat lunch at. I have found them all I think:-) I even found some great dark chocolate to feed the chocoholic beast in me:-)   enough for now, have fun...... Namaste Inger.
PS. Sorry for any mistakes I will excuse it on being in a hurry when I write

My Trek in The Himalayan Mountains.

THE BUS RIDE THERE. I am going to write in more detail about my trek. Now this is more for me to remember names of people and places I went to, so maybe not so interesting for you, but here we go...... My trip started out at 6:00 am March 1^st I was picked up by my guide Bachan, who was going to lead me through the trails of the pristine valley of Langtang, home to the Langtang river where I would be spending my time trekking through the rough terrain on the mountain slopes for the next many long and exhausting days, how wonderful, at that moment I was actually going on one of my life's dreams, to hike in the Himalayan Mountains, that was music to my ears, what could possible beat that, a defeat that turned out to be every bit as challenging as anticipated in the many months leading up to this amazing day, and then my dedicated, polite porter Nabaraj who carried all my gear through it all, never left my side and was always just 2 steps behind me through the whole journey, walking and stopping whenever I did. I was taken to a taxi, first one the trunk couldn't close properly which resulted in my backpack falling out, the taxi's here are very small, so we had to hail another one, which is no problem they are everywhere. We arrived at the bus station, where we were to leave at 7:00, half an hour early but left half an hour late so one hour in the bus already, we had to sit at the very back. My Guide told me it was going to be a 10 hour drive, when I was expecting 7, which turned out to be and my fellow trekkers can attest to this, the most difficult mental and physical part of the whole trip. Off we went, after one hour I was feeling quite carsick from sitting in the back and it felt like we very bounced all over, the seats were really old, hard and lumpy, my legs couldn't fit for the seat in front, so all I could think was how am I going to handle 10 hours of this, next I just kept telling myself I am fine I am fine I am fine over and over to try to make myself feel better, and miraculously it worked. After 3 hours we stopped for lunch, and after that I felt even better, thank goodness. We drove through the mountains the whole way so a lot of turning sharp corners and the road were only wide enough for one car so the bus driver constantly honked his horn to warn oncoming traffic around the bend that he was coming, so when we met other traffic one of the vehicles usually had to back up before they could squeeze by each other, and looking straight down on one side and right against the cliff on the other side at times, I was just hoping for the best and didn't worry about it too much. I was informed that there were no more restroom stops the remainder of the way, so I was starving myself,as you could probably imagine knowing me I had my back full of snacks:-)but no food or water in fear of needing a washroom, even though the bus stopped about every 5 to 10 min to pick up and drop off passengers and goods on the way, the top of the bus was full of people and inside in the isle was a lot of people and bags of rice and potatoes. The last four hours the road was just dirt and big rocks, so we drove snail speed at times, but pure hell, the drive was only 145km, so 10 hours for that was not what we had expected. With every bump on the road which was constant my knees hit the seat in front and if turned to the side there was a metal thing sticking out of the wall that was even more painful to deal with. The dust on the road was flying everywhere, the poor people that were walking or standing along the road got the brunt of it every time a vehicle went by. My teeth were covered in dust at one point and decided to put my nose hair to good use since all they appear to be is a pain in you know what, my guide told me not to smile so much.... but who was I to complain, there were only 6 of us trekkers in the bus who were all on our separate trips with each our guides, the rest local people who were all getting on and off along the way, either on top of the bus, or inside standing in the isle, young and old and with kids and didn't seem to mind, even though they were like sardines in a can.. At the very end the roads were very steep down and the rain had set in so a little more scary I must admit. I just read in the paper 2 days ago that a bus went over the edge and into a river and 32 was killed. Finally at 6:00 we arrived at Syabrubesi, all exhausted from just sitting all day, but the feeling of having just had the biggest workout and with quite a sigh of relieve ,every part of our body either shook into place or out.We ran to our lodge since it was raining quite hard, but it was nice and close, settled into a room and unpacked a few things. The washroom facilities was 2 floors down, but I managed to get a nice hot shower. I ordered my dinner Dal Bhat with chicken since I figured that would be the fastest to make since it is their national food. Half an hour later I happened to look inside the kitchen and there on the floor they were plucking the chicken, so dinner wasn't to be enjoyed for a while yet, but at least very fresh. The most interesting ride I have had so far and very glad that it is behind me, and the thought that I at some point had to go through it all again soon was put in the back of my mind so I could really enjoy the fact that I was one nights sleep away from the beginning of my trek.... to be continued.......

Love to hear from you as well !!!!!

Hey to all!!!
Thanks to all who are posting comments to me!! it is great for me to hear from you as well, so please write me as much as possible and do put your names, since it doesn't always show who it is from.
 I feel like I am in a different world, no, more like on a different planet,  away from everybody and everything I know.... a strange feeling but I am enjoying everything despite what things are like here and have no problem living like this so far, I am already getting used to everything,  very surreal though, today after I followed the kids to school, I had to cross a big road which is not that easy without any traffic lights, so in the middle of the busy intersection was a cow walking around, and nobody was bothered about it, I figure that must be normal to the rest of them.
The way things are here keeps you a little more humble and appreciative of life as we live it in other parts of the world. This morning we got drinking water at 3:00am so Karna had to get up to start a pump to fill up 2 big containers we have for that and if there is extra, then all the kids will wash their hair and clothes in that as well because our washing water is not really that clean, so all got up at 5:00 to enjoy the water for an hour before it is shot off again, that is all going on outside in the yard and the kids are all happy to be able to do that no mater what time a day, today we had power at that time so he didn't have to wake us all up at 3:00am to the sound of the generator. I sleep surprisingly well considering all the constant barking of all the street dogs, they are starting to annoy me though, in the day they will all be sleeping along the streets, on top of garbage heaps or elsewhere, I am sure to save energy for the nights barking, I feel like waking them all up:-) Walking to Kaji's house in the dark was not that great, with no electricity everything is black and we always have to walk on narrow streets, so with cars and motorcycles and pedestrians it was not the most comfortable thing to do, even though I had my little flashlight, thanks Deb!  Dinner was good, we sat on the floor to eat. On the way back his brother drove me home on his motorcycle, no helmet, which I will tell you is a very interesting law, I suppose it makes sense to them, you can ride as many people as you want on a bike, any age too, in the morning when I walk people drive their kids to school and sometimes have even babies on the bike too, now the interesting part, you are only allowed one helmet per bike, the reason I was given was if they get in an accident, they will take off their helmets and start a fight so 4 or more helmets are too much, I know that sounds  far out, but they must have stats that helmet bashing is more dangerous than the accident it self:-) , if you were here you would probably believe it too, anything is possible. Well I am off to my Garden of Eden for some sanity and peace. I miss everybody a lot so please write me!!! Inger

More news, all is still well..

 

Monday the 15^th was another holiday, The Festival of the Horse, and I had some free time doing the day and ventured into Thamel as the Downtown core of Kathmandu is called, about a half hour fast walk which is sometimes impossible because of traffic, since there are no sidewalks anywhere. It was my first time on my own, I find it a bit challenging for the reason that everything still looks the same to me, with a million signs and little shops everywhere, and a lot of streets divide in two and I might as well toss a coin as to which one to choose at times, but I made it there after first going the wrong way which lead me to a street where raw sewage was running beside the road, in cases like that it would be nice to not be quite as sensitive to aromas especially that kind. I was walking around watching people do offerings to their God and taking pictures, which by the way I still can't get to work, hopefully one day, so you can get a better idea of how it looks here. I went to see the palace where the Prime-minister came that day and he arrived as I was there so an astronomical amount of people came to  see. After wards I walked along very tiny traffic congested streets to get to the big Temples, from the 17^th century made in the Malla period, Krishna, Bisnu, Shiva, Kathmandu Temples and Lavmari House. I meet a young University student who showed me around for a couple of hours to the different temples. Walking back I wasn't a 100% sure which way, but all of a sudden when I was really doubting myself came one of the guys from the hotel on his motorbike so he gave me a ride the rest of the way, what a relieve, who knows I might still be walking around if not for him. My throat is hurting now after all the dust and smog, my poor lungs inhaling all that everyday, not good if you are a bit of a health nut as me, there goes 30 years of hard work right down the drain.. uhhhh... The Orphanage: I really like it here the people working here are super friendly and nice, two men and two women and Christina who have been showing me around and telling me everything so far left last night Tuesday the 16^th, I will miss her. There is a young man Karna who is more or less in charge of the place and is also a teacher at one of the schools where the kids go, he is super nice and makes me feel right at home and his english is really good, then there is the cook Bisnu, who is a younger maybe mid twenties guy who also does all the shopping for the Orphanage, he is really nice as well, but at times hard to understand, then there is Enjana who sews and fixes all their clothes and helps at meal times, she is very shy and does not talk that much but sweet , and last Indira who is really sweet but barely speaks any english, she cleans and cooks as well an helps at meal times so it is all good. They all sleep with the kids I am the only fortunate one with my own room. everything here is run really punctual and strict, but the kids are really happy, appreciative, always smiling and very well behaved.They tell me it is not always so. Today I was in Paradis, found a place in Thamel amongst all the craziness called the Garden of Dreams, there are big brick walls or nice old buildings all around it and then a beautiful quiet garden with very few people because there is an entry fee, so a lot off my free time when the kids are at school will be spent there I think, reading books, so relaxing, pretending the air is clean at least.

Tonight I am invited to Kaji's house for dinner, he is the owner of the Hotel I stayed at and the guy who started the orphanage with Vibeke in 2003. 

All for now Mamaste Inger