Yes we have arrived safe and sound in Nepal, all our flights went to plan with no delays and NO excess luggage that we had to pay, thank God. We did have a $360 excess to pay in Brisbane but either the girl at the desk felt sorry for us or God has his hand in it someway to make her forget to give us the bill, we only realised on the plane that she didn't give us the bill.
We had a stop over in Bangkok after a nine hour flight (with no personal TVs for the girls) then a three hr flight onto Kathmandu, unfortunately we were over the wing and in the middle seats so we could not see the magical Himalayas clearly without invading someone else personal space on another seat. The snow capped mountains greeted us with coolness in the air, our nights and morning are about 5-10 degrees and the days or 10-17 degrees- very fresh. We are trying to get used to the cold after the PNG heat and it might take us a few weeks.
On the first night we slept at the 'Summit Hotel'.
We all received a traditional 'Mala' and greeting from Mohan (Interim ADRA Country Director) who met us in the airport.
We have a beautiful house-except for the 3 storeys. The fourth storey is via the stairway seen below.
We live in Unit 5 (of 18 units in this little complex).
We are climbing stairs all the time, the girls have a room each and we have room for visitors, so all are welcome.
The ADRA office is next door (as seen from our roof) and from my office (3rd Storey window on the right) and Simon's office (4th storey window on the right - note the private bathroom) we can see into our kitchen.
Our 'Didhi' (cook and cleaner) Sarita is a real blessing, we have had beautiful Nepalese food for dinner every night, she is a really nice and Jenaya is almost as tall as her and Tiarna is taller than her. At the ADRA office Simon has it really hard, he gets hot drinks delivered to him on demand and for around 35-40 Rupees (about 50 cent AUD) a cooked 3 course Lunch is made for the staff in the kitchen that is on the ground floor of the ADRA office. WOW life is really hard.
Kathmandu is a very confusing city with little alley ways for roads and some corners are small and blind and you have to always beep your horn to let anyone who is on the other side know that you are there. I ventured out with Sarita to a little local supermarket with the car pictured below and there is no way I would be able to find my way back there by myself, hopefully that will improve.
Kathmandu looks like a city of cement buildings. Here is the view from the 4th storey of our house - yes, we have grass on the roof,
We can look out to the mountains and if we are lucky we might be able to see the snow capped mountains through the smog or pollution that blankets the city.
The view to the west, with Bunya pines. (We can also see gum trees, Casurinas and Norfolk pines as well... obviously there have been other Aussies living around here!)
The view to the North.
The traffic is hectic no road rules here, if there were then nobody learnt them. I took the girls with me to the fruit and veggie market with two helpers who work at ADRA and Sarita. Crossing the road was a fight with the traffic - very scary for a mother dodging all the bikes, motor bikes and cars. Its every women for themselves on the roads here.
The girls start school on Tuesday but we haven't seen the school yet, it supposed to be a 10min walk away. We have taken a few walks and still can't find it, so that gives you some idea what the streets are like. Each house has more then 6 foot fences with broken glass sticking up from the top - I suppose to stop someone from invading. We are free to walk around during the day with no security problems, but not at night we have been told.
We have load sharing power here as well, it is worse than PNG- Yes worse! In one week we are without power for 63 hrs (out of 162). Mostly from 5-10am in the morning and from 5-9pm at night, the girls get really mad with me when I tell them to have a shower and wash their hair so I can dry it with the hair dryer while we have power, because it is to cold for them to have wet hair.
The best thing of all are the people who work at ADRA they are fantastic, they are all very excited to have us here and when we ask for something to be done in the house, 1/2 hr later the same day the request has has been fulfilled. We have been very blessed. There is one guy his name in Arjun, he has been our 'Gofur' doing everything for us. Without him we would have been lost.
God has many plans for us here, we are waiting with baited breath to find out what those opportunities are.
Stay tuned.
They had a 2.5 hours of assessment tests covering the "three R's"(breaks in between) and have been placed into Grade 5 and 3 respectively.
Tiarna's Classroom.
Jenaya's Classroom.
As you can see it is rather cold here at the moment. The girls have thermal singlets on as well!
There are around 70 students at the school (K-12). The high school have different times to the primary school with staggered recess and lunch times as well.
The primary school classrooms are on the bottom two floors (with a PE and Art room around the side in another building). There is a basketball court on the roof with an enclosed wire roof over the court (it would be a LONG walk to get a 'lost ball' otherwise!).
