We are spending today 6/18 in Kathmandu preparing for our trek up to everest base camp.  Rich's little brother and his girlfriend are arriving today and are coming along to do the trek with us.  We are all a little nervous about the weather, altitude, and length of the trek but can't wait to get started.

We are doing a final health camp this afternoon at an orphanage here in Kathmandu where we will be doing check-ups on about 30 kids once they finish their school day.  Tomorrow we have an early flight at 6:30am to Lukla and are then immediately hopping on the trail to begin our journey.  We will probably not have any internet connections but are planning on staying in tea huts in small villages along the way which might have internet.  Anyway, we are planning on being back in Kathmandu on 6/29.  Wish us luck and we will see everyone back in the states soon!

Bryan

So we finished up our health camps in Pokhara and focused our energies soley on adventures and exploring for the last two days.  We were hoping to raft the upper seti river on 6/15 but all of the rain had made the river unrunnable, or so our guides said.  So instead Shweta went off on a spa day for some yoga and meditation while us guys headed off on a hike.  Our plan was to hike to a village about 2,000ft above Pokhara on a hill next to the lake called Sarangkot.  The views of the Annapurnas were supposed to be incredible from the top.  So we packed up some snacks and headed off along the road hoping to find the trail that was supposed to wind up the mountain.  Needless to say the trail was not as obvious as we thought so we spent an hour or so wandering up and down the road trying to find the right way.  Eventually we followed the road towards the city and on the way up we spotted the trail on the next hill over.  So we decided to take a short cut through the neighborhoods and fields.  It was not as clear of a shortcut as we thought so we ended up wandering through the dirt roads and alleys of the neighborhood before we finally connected up with the trail.  We followed the trail for a bit before switching over to random goat trails we found heading up the mountain.  As we go higher we were treated to progressively expansive and beautiful views of the valley and cities spread out below us.  the trails became fairly steep and eventually ended in a long staircase up to the lookout tower on top of the hill.  As our luck would have it as soon as we reached the top the clouds closed in around us and it began to pour down raining.  So our hopes of a mountain view were quickly washed away and we were left to contemplate our luck in a cloud of rain while nawing on some trail mix.  Never ones to get too discouraged we decided to get home quickly and turned the downhill into a nice run through the rain.  Every person we ran by and cab driver we waved off looked at us like we were crazy.  We made it home in record time with a hot shower and big dinner soon thereafter.

The next day 6/16 we were finally given some sunshine for our rafting trip on the lower seti river.  It was a good long day that began at 7am with a bus ride along the highway towards Kathmandu.  After a few hours we came to the put in where the sun was still out to see us on our way.  Wes, Rich, and Shweta were all on the raft while I tried my hand at kayaking again after about a two year hiatus from any whitewater.  I was a little nervous at first but after convincing myself of my skills with a few practice rolls I settled back and got ready for the ride.  The river was definitely flowing faster and fuller after the rains but the rapids were not very challenging with only a few tricky turns and swirling eddies causing problems.  The scenery on the other hand was fantastic as we wound our way through green hills with crops of corn hanging precariously on the steep slopes.  Along the way we would pass small villages with wood huts and local fishermen net fishing in the shallows.  Rickety foot bridges would occasionally span the river hooking together villages and roads with an unstable connection.  As the river moved on the rapids became larger and more exciting with a few nice wave trains and large, recirculating holes over the last 30 minutes.  We finished up with about 3 total hours on the river before having a great dhaal baat lunch at the take-out.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the trip and I had an especially great time getting reacquainted with a kayak.  Hopefully it won't be as long before my next whitwater foray.  The only problem seemed to be that all of our sunscreen quickly washed off and as a resualt we have been nursing some pretty bad sunburns.  After our lunch we took the longest and slowest public bus imaginable that proceeded to cover the 90km back to Pokhara in a snail like 4 hours.  We celebrated our final night in Pokhara with some pizza, drinks, and soccer on TV.

Today was just a long travel day.  I got up and did a little shopping before breakfast.  Our bus back to Kathmandu was fairly fast but really bumpy and a little scary as the driver made quite a few daring passes at high speeds.  We made it to Kathmandu in 5 hours feeling a little car sick but happy to be in one piece.  We are back at the Happy Home for the night and have met a few more volunteers who are headed to Chitwan for a few hot weeks.  We were of course treated to a great dhaal bhaat dinner and are taking it easy before our last day of health camps tomorrow.

Bryan

Hello everyone,

This is my first one of these so I may be a little rusty at it but I’ll go ahead and give it a shot.  Nepal so far has been an incredible experience.  I was just telling the others today how I was already starting to become disheartened at the thought of leaving (even though we have more than half our trip to go).  My favorite things so far have been the people, especially the warm and lovable children, the food, the sunrises and sunsets, and of course all the work we’ve had the opportunity to do.  I think almost all of the things above have gone hand in hand with each other.  The medical couldn’t be as enjoyable as it has been without the helpful doctors and pharmacists volunteering their time to guide and engage us during their examinations and diagnosis. For example, today consisted of us examining the children at a local orphanage in Pokhara.  Although most of the children were very healthy, each had some form of ailment or other ranging from diarrhea to ear infections.  The doctor guided us through an entire physical examination on almost all the children, something they may have never received until this point, and gave clinical background concerning their conditions if they had any.  It was great to apply and finally comprehend some of the simple things we had learned throughout first year such as the Rhinne and Weber tests.  After all the examinations the children enjoyed learning about and using our medical equipment on each other.  It was great to see and satisfy their curiosities about them and their smiles were more than rewarding.  Experiences such as today’s have been just a handful of the things Nepal has given to us and I think that if we are able to give back even a fraction of it I will have found the trip a success.  Can’t wait to see what tomorrow’s work will have in store for us.

shweta

Not too long of a bus ride over to Pokhara.  The standard cramped and bouncy Nepali bus that took about 5 hours.  Of course as the token Americans on the bus we had to cause problems in the form of an extended lunch break.  Not sure if it was our fault but at the lunch stop it took a while for our food to show up so the whole bus was loaded and waiting for us, including the driver who was hovering over us as the food was served.  We crammed it down along with the best mango soda ever (Slice!) and then loaded onto the bus through the piercing glares of the rest of the passengers.  The arrival in Pokhara was fairly uneventful with the usual throng of taxi drivers and hotel representatives yelling at us every step with the hope that we would ask for their assistance.

In the afternoon we set out with the goal of hiking to the World Peace Pagoda on a hill at the edge of town overlooking the lake.  About half way up we ran into a couple that informed us about the awful field of leeches that awaited us about 100 meters up the hill.  Even as we talked with them we noticed the blood sucking critters forcing their way up our boots and towards our ankles.  With Shweta well in the lead we made our way quickly back down and instead took our hike around the perimeter of the town where we found many inquisitive and curious Nepalis who bestowed on us the usual greeting of "Namaste!".  The evening has been spent with the enjoyment of a few drinks and another great version of dhaal baat that non one seemed to really enjoy but myself.  Tomorrow hopefully holds another adventure in the morning and then a health camp at a local orphanage.

Bryan

We spent the last 3 days (June 9, 10, 11) in a smaller village within the Chitwan area where INFO Nepal has established an orphanage called the Happy Home in Chitwan.  We spent the days doing manual labor around the house and the evenings playing with the kids.

While we were at the home we were able to finish a long fence around the area that needed more concrete reinforcement poured.  We also made several gardens around the home that required clearing out the area of grass and shrubs, churning up the dirt and then manually carrying what seemed like a ton of fertilizer over and onto the garden.  Lastly we planted about 100 trees all along the edge of the fence.  We did this all in some really hot and humid conditions.  It really gave us some perspective and respect for all of the Nepalis in the area who make their living by working the land.  Simple things like moving dirt or flattening out an area that can take 30 minutes in the U.S. with the use of a backhoe or dump truck takes about 5 hours of backbreaking work with homemade shovels, hoes, and buckets.  Within about 5 minutes of starting work we were all drenched with sweat that didn't seem to stop flowing all day.

The Happy Home here in Chitwan really is an incredible place.  Some how 19 kids ages 4-13 live, eat, sleep, play, and study here in a wonderful mix of love, chaos and discipline.  All of the kids were very cute and helpful around the house.  Unlike many American kids they really seem to enjoy studying and Ihave yet to see any kind of fight or disagreement occur between them.  They are all watched over by the house mom who proved to be a pretty incredible woman.  Every day she would come and make breakfast for the kids and get them dressed and ready for school.  After taking the kids to the bus stop she spends the day cleaning the house, doing laundry, gathering food from the gardens and generally dealing with all of the problems that come up.  In the evening she makes more food and keeps the kids focused on their studying and chores before doing some more cleaning up and getting the kids into bed.  It is a pretty incredible task to be mom for 19 kids.  The kids help out wherever they can and really seem to have formed an amazing bond with one another with each kid looking out for, helping, and caring for each other.  It really does seem like an oasis of hope in an area where ambitions and desires can quickly be extinguished by the reality of life in a very agrarian area.

We have now moved onto Pokhara to do a few more health camps at orphanages in the area.  We'll keep everyone posted!

Bryan

The last two days (6/7 and 6/8) we have run health camps here in Chitwan.  They have been an incredible look into the healthcare, culture, and lifestyle for the majority of Nepal's people.  The healthcare in Nepal is mostly privatized with those who can afford good healthcare receiving the best treatment.  There are few large hospitals outside of Kathmandu and usually the best option is a local clinic/pharmacy run by medical practitioners like Dr. Raj who helped us with our camps.  Men like Raj are not fully accredited doctors but instead go through 2 years of school and then spend most of their time getting hands on training either in the hospital or usually out in the field at these rural clinics.  The medical school in Kathmandu accepts 40 people a year, so there is clearly a lack of care around the country.  People like Raj work long hours in their clinic or making house calls and do everything from tooth extractions to stitches.  Mostly they care for basic problems that arise from lack of sanitization and basic access to healthcare.  These are usually stomach problems from malnutrition or worms, many bacterial and fungal skin infections, severe ear infections, and complaints of headaches, backaches and loss of eyesight all arising from long days spent working in the fields in the heat.  During our two days of healthcamp we got a first hand look at these problems, many of which are not seen in such advanced stages in the U.S.

On the morning of our first health camp we woke up, had breakfast and then piled into the back of a pickup with Dr. Raj, two assistants, and our medicine for a half hour drive out to the village.  There we were warmly welcomed with flowers picked from around the village and many greetings of Namaste (hello in Nepali).  We set up in a building about 40ft x 20ft made of concrete, thatch, and tin.  We had an assistant at the door taking names and ages.  Then the patient or usually whole families would come over to see us students at the tables we had set up.  We split into groups of two and did our best translating with a few villagers who spoke some english or hindi.  With our limited language skills and lots of gesturing we were usually able to get to the source of the problem.  We would also take most people's pulse and blood pressure before sending them onto Raj who would make the final diagnosis and prescribe some medicine.  It was a good, fast system that let us see many patients, practice our basic skills and diagnosing, and learn from Raj the afrt of the rural diagnosis and treatment.  Most of the patients suffered from the usual ailments found in rural, poor areas such as stomach aches, head aches, and infections.  Most of them were uncomplicated cases that needed little more then some antibiotics or cream, but it was very disheartening to hear how ong many people had dealt with such easily curable problems and what kind of impact it must have on their everyday life and well-being.  The day flew by in a blur of sweat, gestures, and smiles with a short break for a village lunch o dhaal baat, potatoes, and spinach.  At the end of the day we had been able to see 250 people in about 8 hours!  Despite the frantic pace it was clear that we had made a good impact on the community and had helped improve the lives of many.  The evening brought dinner, stories, and suggestions from everyone involved, and some much needed sleep.

Our second day of health camp proved to be much slower paced and allowed for a bit more time with the patients and explanations from Dr. Raj. for types of care.  We set up our camp in the INFO Nepal Resource center about 1 mile from where we were staying in Saurha.  Most of the patients we saw were local children with stomach problems and advanced ear infections, but we also did about 8 tooth extractions and Rich and Shweta got to pull out their first teeth!  The children were incredibly cute and sweet and it was hard to find out that many of them had some permanent hearing loss due to untreated ear infections they continually develop from swimming in the rivers.  We kept the same system of dealing with patients as teh day before and saw a much more manageable amount of 75 people in about 6 hours.  These first two days of healthcamp were an eye opening experience to the situation in Nepal and throughout much of the developing world.  It was an inspiring and educational two days and we are looking forward to the other health camps we will run during our trip.  We will be in Chitwan for the next few days at the INFO Nepal home helping with some manual labor that needs to be done before we head north to Pokhara.

bryan

Royal Chitwan National Park was founded in 1973 as the first national park in Nepal.  It covers 392 sq. km. in the southern Terai region of the country.  It is home to numerous endangered species including the Indian one-horned rhino, bengal tiger, and gangetic dolphin.  On our first full day in the area we were able to go on several safaris through the park.  We woke up in the morning at 5:30, had some breakfast and headed towards the park.  We met our guides by the Rati river that runs along as the northern border of the park.  We climbed into a long wooden canoe that had been made by hollowing out one large tree trunk and set off down the river with our guide.  It was a very peaceful trip in the early morning as we passed by a few Tharu villages with people net fishing in the river or harvesting grass on the edge of the park.  We mostly just came across birds but we did see an alligator on the bank and an elephant way off in the distance.  We floated down for about 45 minutes before being dropped off deeper into the jungle to hike back to town.  It was an exhilirating walk back through the jungle as we spent some of the time on larger established trails and the rest making our own way through the jungle undergrowth.  Every once in a while we would halt at the edge of a clearing and our guide would quickly scale a tree to see if he could spot any wildlife.  Unfortunately we came across nothing more then tracks, but the afternoon proved to be much more successful.

One of the most exciting parts of our trip came when we returned from our jungle trek.  We all quickly changed into our bathing suits and ran back down to the river where the trained elephants in the park were getting bathed.  We were able to climb on with 4 people per elephant and hang on as the elephant waded into the middle of the river and then upon command from its driver fall over onto its side sending us sailing into the water.  We spent about half an hour playing in the river with the elephants.  They would let us crawl right up their trunk and onto their back where they would squirt water up at us before throwing us back into the water.  It was an amazing feeling to be around such powerful and enormous animals.

After bath time we had a few hours for some lunch, soccer, and a bit of rest before we took off into the jungle again, this time from the back of our new friends the elephants.  The backs of the elephants offered a totally different vantage point of the jungle as we could see over the undergrowth and really get a sense for how thick and dense the jungle really is.  This safari also proved much more successful as we saw about 8 one-horned rhinos and even two babies.  Being on the elephants allowed us to walk right up within twenty feet of the rhinos as they seemed very at ease being around each other.  We weaved our way through the jungle for an hour and a half catching sight of Rhinos and deer as we went along.  Our driver even let me switch places with him on the elephant's neck and steer us around the jungle for a while.

After the safari we spent the afternoon back at the camp with some more soccer and dinner.  In the evening we went into town to the Tharu cultural center for a performance by a group of boys from the local Tharu village.  It was a very touristy event but it was an entertaining show with lots of local dances.  It was a good end to a long, full day in Chitwan.

Bryan

Hey everyone

We have all made it safely to Nepal and have spent the past few days in and around Nepal.  Despite all flying on different airlines at different times through different cities, we all arrived within 2 days without any problems except for some crazy jet lag.  Kathmandu has proven to be a wild, crazy, dirty, and amazing city.  Apparently people are supposed to drive on the left side of the road but from what we have seen and experienced it seems to be a free for all that has all of the nimbleness and art of a ballet mixed with the horn blaring forcefullness of a demoliton derby.  Miraculously we have seen no accidents as buses, cars, tuk-tuks, bicycles and pedestrians all jostle for a piece of the road.  We were met at the airport and given our first taste of the city by the leaders of INFO Nepal who ushered us into the more touristy district of Kathmandu called Thamel.  We spent the first night here as everyone in the group trickled in before moving to the outskirts of the city to stay in the "Happy Home" which is the program director's house.  It is a wonderful new four story cement building on the edge of town that is always abustle with volunteers and the director Asim's family.  The first day we were on our own as we waited for Shweta to arrive so Wes, Rich and I went to a national forest right on the edge of town and hiked up around 2,000ft to the Jomachal Buddhist monastery.  It was a great respite from the city as the hike up took us away from the hustle and bustle of the city and left us above the pollution to look down upon the whole Kathmandu valley.

Once Shweta arrived the next day we began our program in earnest.  We spent the first two days taking Nepali language classes in the mornings for 3-4 hours with our instructor Krishna.  It has been a little hard to pick up for me because I am not a great language guy.  Luckily we have Shweta who knows Hindi, which apparently has some similarities to Nepali.  In the afternoons we have been sightseeing around the city at all of the important Buddhist stupas and Hindu temples.  Despite the bustling city around them the temples and stupas still offer an incredibly peaceful and tranquil environment.  It is hard not to feel the history and importance they have when you are around them.

Yesterday we travelled about an hour and a half outside of the city to a "training village" where we lived with Nepali families in more primitive and typical settings seen around the country.  We were all prepared for what we would find which was a far cry from what is considered basic in the United States.  We shared small rooms in mud/concrete homes with wooden beds covered with mats.  The floors were all dirt and the bathrooms were little more then holes in the ground.  For breakfast and dinner we ate the customary meal of daal bhaat, which is plain white rice with a lentil curry poured over.  No one uses forks or spoons so we all got to let loose our inner child and eat with our hands.  The families were very kind and accommodating and the kids were eager to practice their english with us and help us communicate with the rest of the family.  It was a good taste of what to come on the rest of the trip.

We are back in Kathmandu now fully trained and cultured and are eager to see the rest of the country.  Tomorrow we are heading down south to the Chitwan region where we will run several health camps at the loval orphanages and monastaries.  Chitwan is also home to one of the countries' most famous national parks where we will take a safari to see the rhinos and elephants.  We should also be able to ride the elephants for a while and even help bath them in the river!  We will update along the way when we can.  Take care everyone!

Bryan