A Couple Days and Counting

You know that feeling that you get when you are suppose to be leaving for a trip or moving to a new place, or have that first interview? You just want it to get here and start the journey, move or process ... well that is where I am at. School is about to start and I am chomping at the bit for August 6 to arrive so that we can start the school year and see how it plays out.
The whole school staff orientation begins tomorrow (Thursday) and I have a couple things to present but overall I am sitting back and observing. It is actually a nice feeling. No real pressure, just along for the ride.

My TV Channels

I don't have a TV, but then when you have a great picture window like I do and you arrange your living room furniture correctly, you can have quite a few channels to watch depending on where you sit in the room.  So I was watching the sunset channel the other night and caught this on film.

Someone had asked me one time if I could see the sunset and I replied that I could in my new place. It had been a long while since I had seen the sun set, what with all the rain and clouds. So I decided to capture this one the other night while I had the chance. Film never does a sunset justice!

Of course, some of you may be looking at this photo and thinking,,, this looks more like a curb appeal show in the before mode. Nope, this is my sunset channel complete with construction.

I have another channel that is called, " The Brick House" It is the saga of a family and their coming and goings from their brick house. I do have a couple of construction channels and another one on agriculture and growing corn. There is also a "Who's Who at the Diner" show that I watch. On Mondays the Ambulance guys arrive in mass at the local dive, to eat, not rescue a diner.

So I have a lot to watch! Never a dull moment.

Concert

Worship team

Worship on the base

praising the Lord

Nepali praise dance

 Went to a Christian concert over the weekend and it was great. There were about 300 people there, mostly young people, praising the Lord and singing His glory!  

They had English worship, Nepali Worship, dances, drama, and preaching.  It was very enjoying and at one point I was thinking of the fact that one day we will be standing around the throne praising God just like we were doing at the concert! That will be a glorious forever.
Here are some photos from the event!

more dancing

drama dancing

more dancing

drama

Christmas in July

On the 25th, I hosted my first dinner at the new place. It was a Christmas in July party! It was fun to introduce Nepalis to the concept. I played christmas music and we didn't eat turkey. We had meatballs on bulgar and spaghetti. For dessert we had chocolate pudding and bananas.
I had asked everyone to bring a small wrapped gift. Then we pulled names from a bag to pick one of the gifts. It was a lot of fun.  I got a toothbrush and a finger puppet pig.
It was a good evening of fun and fellowship.

Last of the Stuff

So for those of you following my saga of living in two houses at one time.. I think I am totally out of the old place!  Today the last of the stuff that needed to be picked up by others or transfered to the another house, was collected and moved. So now the house I was house-sitting for six months is me-free and in the process of being made ready for the former house dwellers.  It must of been quite a sight for two foreign women to be riding through the streets of the hood with a net bag of books and a room divider used to keep a young child or a dog from entering an area of a house! At one point I said to my friend driving, "Maybe I should be scooping up people off the street with this netting." She replied, " Only small ones"   Which was probably a good idea since the poor scooter was having trouble making it over the sleeping policemen! So I settled for trying to catch fish in the large, deep potholes filled with water that we had to dodge instead.

Anyways everything is cleaned out to make way for the returning family. Just need to keep the dog feed until next Tuesday!

This Is Why!

Here is the  main reason I don't leave the valley during the rainy season!

The passengers had to pull the bus out of the muck... or more into the mud.I am not sure which was actually happening.

 I read this article in the paper, sitting in the dry teachers' lounge at school, while drinking a nice cup of hot tea, as the rain poured down in buckets outside.

Thinking of Deep Fried Frog Legs

Okay, so the amphibia serenade continues and its not raining! I guess they just needed the heavy rain the other night to get them started. But I did sleep better last night as I shut the living room windows to help block out the noise a bit more. This morning I walked in to my front bedroom and thought, 'boy, I am glad I didn't choose this room to sleep in." It was fairly loud in there even with the windows shut.

These are the things about house hunting that you never get to know until you actually live in a place and by then you have paid the rent, moved all the heavy stuff, and gotten settled. But I still love it and I know that the frogs can't sing forever! In the meantime, I am reading a lot of stories about frogs (many seem to be able frogs who think they are princes) and looking at recipes for how to cook frog legs.

Did you know that the name frog comes from an Old English word - frogga which derived from an Indo-European word preu.. which means "to jump"?  I learned something new today and it is only 5:30  AM.

Wishing that Frogs would Croak.

We have had about 12 hours of rain as I write this! Last night about 10, I woke to a noise that I could not place.It sounded like a machine droning on and one. So I got up and walked around the house, only to  realize it was the frogs in the field in front of my place. They were croaking and humming like crazy! And they continued all night and into the morning. As far as I know they are still croaking. I left the house about 6:30 and they were going strong.  I would like to say there were millions out there...but that would be a bit of an exaggeration, so I will limit it to 5000!  I am quite tired today due to my all night serenade...I  figure I will need a nap about 10 AM.  Fortunately, most of the year we don't get much rain, so its something I have to put up with during the monsoon season. Only one more month!  YAWNNNNNN!

Deep Fried Dill Pickles+

Messy fingers

deep fried dill pickles

Okay, not so deep fried.. but the oil was
still very hot!

So for the past six months, an American friend and I have been talking about making us some deep fried dill pickles. The first step was finding the dill pickles, which my Dad actually found when he was here.  We have been talking about it as one of the things to do over the summer and today we finally got all the ingredients together in one place.  I found a quick and easy batter recipe on line and got it all ready. Had to let the batter sit for about an hour, so we played a game.  After an hour, we decided to start the frying. The batter was not that thick, so we had to improvise with chickpea flour, but it all came together at the third attempt.  With all the  extra batter, we decided to  fry up some cheese (Water Buffalo cheese is not the best kind to use we found out...too watery) and a bounty bar and snickers. The snickers was great and the pickles were good too, but I loved the bounty bars!! I didn't realize you could make a bounty bar better, but you can! The cheese was not a good idea.  I actually tried deep frying some frozen coke ice cubes, but they disappeared into a large splatter of hot oil and we had to quickly turn off the stove.

This is a coIa ice cube before the batter.
it didn't work well.

Just as we got it all ready, some new friends stopped by and helped us enjoy all the artery-clogging food.  We used the cola ice cubes in our soda to wash it all down.  Then I worked all the grease off, cleaning up the kitchen!

A deep fried feast with friends

 It was a good adventure and now I can check that off my bucket list. We  did decided that the next time we had a hankering for something deep fried we would just go to the state fair and buy it. It would be much easier and a lot cleaner!

A Tour of the House

Bedroom with the dark curtains..good for sleeping

Wardrobe - lots of extra closet space

kitchen. door goes to porch

bathroom

Here is a quick tour of my sparse house. The other bedroom I didn't take a photo of as it is all storage at the moment. 

living room

more kitchen. pile of food in corner

living room with the two bedroom doors

 my saree curtains

Finally Friday

This has been a long week and I am quite tired...mentally!  So I actually slept in until 5:45 this morning. It was the sound of the raindrops drumming on my stove exhaust pipe that woke me. I forgot to close the kitchen door to muffle the sound. I probably could have slept right up to my alarm at 6, I am that tired. So we will see.

The good news is that over the night the load shedding schedule changed and we are down to only 27 hours a week with no power!!! I was quite pleased. Not sure how long it will last, but with all the rain this year, hoping it goes for a while.

With the added power, I plan to go home tonight and ....go to bed early! 

Who Says You Can Teach a Dog New Tricks?!

I think that my dog, Noah is teaching my dog sitting canine, Nim, bad habits.  Noah likes to jump up walls and walk along the top of them. I have been trying to get Noah not to do that by letting him out the gate more often. However, today as I was sitting up in the living room, surveying my yard and watching the dogs interact with a dog outside the fence...nicely for a change... Noah jumped up. Nim watched and approached the wall a couple times, but chickened out. Actually he could not work out the footing. Which is a good thing, but I was afraid of Noah's bad habits rubbing off on Nim, because just this morning I saw a pillow in the downstairs bedroom that had been ripped up and the stuffing scattered around. This is a Noah trait also,but only Nim is in that room.. Hmmm!?

Trying to Go Video

But alas it didn't work! Today I worked on some pseudo-stop animation talks about L1 vs Foreign Languages and then on a TCK quick flick. The language one is done and I wanted to attach it for you all to see.. but it didn't upload.. too big, I suppose even though it is only about 2 minutes.  So if you want to see it... I can email it to you. It was a good day and I felt like I actually accomplished something.  Just frustrating that I can't get it uploaded.   I will work it some more.

Sleeping in the New House

Last night I got to sleep in the new place. I was quite happy and slept well. There are new sounds and lights to get use to but it is fine. When the dogs barked, I just turned over and drifted back to sleep with a smile, knowing that it was not one of my dogs disturbing the neighbors sleep.  I woke this morning and cooked breakfast in my kitchen. It was quite a shock not having a dark, narrow kitchen. But one with lots of windows and space. I do need some shelves, but that will come.  So the first day in the new place was great. I will have to stop by the old place and feed the dog and get some stuff out of the fridge, but otherwise I am a one house woman again!

Cook and Drink

Well, yesterday was a huge step forward in the new place. I was able to hook up the gas for cooking and I got drinking water. Of course both of those tasks were an adventure in themselves because nothing is ever easy in this country, but it all worked out in the end and I can cook and drink safe water now.

Me? A US History Teacher?! Yikes!

This next year, I am throwing off  the teaching shackles of elementary school and moving into deeper waters. ( all this while still doing my other job of Academic Director). So what deeper waters?  I will be teaching Grade 7 & 8 Library Skills and Grade 11 US History! It may be rough sailing at frist, as I have not taught upper grades before, but I am looking forward to the challenge and learning some new things. The US History course I am quite excited about. I have most of the overarching units planned and I wish I was taking this course myself.  When I was in high school, my US History teacher was Australian, so I feel I have a good sense of what an American is ...HA!  I want to add TCKness in to that mix, so I have been doing a lot of reading and making notes about all things American History. Here's to the USA and all it stands for! Rah! Rah! Rah! May God bless it!

Turbo Charged

I don't know if you have heard of or seen the movie, Turbo the Snail. It's a story about a snail that wants to go fast and gets a chance through a weird encounter with a car.  When it comes out here, I plan to see it because sometimes I really feel that I can relate to this snail.
Yesterday was one of those days!  At 8:30 I was supposed to be in two places at the same time and about ten minutes prior to those two meetings, I got a phone call saying that I needed to go to the Visa Office at 10.  Believe me, a trip to the visa office takes forever! (especially when all the paperwork is not prepared.).
So I rearranged my schedule and got to the local school I was supposed to be touring and observed a couple classes, before catching the school car going by on the way to the visa office. (I literally got out of one school car, crossed the road to catch another one headed into town.) It was all very orchestrated, in a haphazardly fashion and 45 minutes later than expected. Once at the Visa Office, the brakes came to a grinding halt! It was quite laborious.  I had another meeting to attend at 1PM back at school, but was still at the visa office at 12:45 so had to push that back to 2PM and made it with about 10 minutes to scarf lunch down. At 3:30 rushed out of the 2PM to meet people at the new house. And  since I was in this fast progression of events again...decided to continue with a progressive dinner with a couple friends. We went to a couple new places and sampled dishes before finishing with cheesecake at a Singaporean place.
After I got home that evening, I just sat there on the couch and thought, " Man, today was lived in high gear. A snail in high gear. I really need to see that movie!" 

SIDEWALKS!?

Today as I was walking to work, I noticed the main street now has sidewalks! I was so amazed that I hopped up on one...yes, hopped is the correct word as the curb is about a foot high...and sallied forth, right past the school drive. It was such a joy to be off the muddy street that I did not even realize that I had walked on, forgetting to turn up to the school. When I got to the goat shed I realized that I had walked too far. But no fear, I turned around to walk back on the sidewalk to the right road, keeping my feet high and dry!

paving stones

where the sidewalk ends?!

it's the little things in life that make the difference.

View from the Outside.

The two open windows on the second
floor are in my living room

Here are some more photos of the new place. I took photos from the outside today because I was missing a key, which I now have.  I was able to get the neighbors to open the door, so that I could get up to my second floor flat. I did introduce myself to Raj, before going upstairs to see if the carpet had been installed. It was! But I forgot to take a photo of it while there.

I am the second floor, which is
partially hidden by a shed in front.

I took a friend down there to show her where my house was. She was very impressed with the area and the place. But then after looking around, she nodded at the field in front of my place and laughed, “If they ever burn this field, you will be a very happy camper.” I looked into the field and saw what she meant! I don’t think they will burn it there. It will disappear some night and get burned elsewhere. But never a dull view wherever you look around here!

Another 4th!

Well...

I didn't get to the US Embassy party. It was pretty rainy and church went an hour longer with it being the first Saturday of the month.. so I went out to eat (Chinese) with a Nepali family and then went over to their place to work on a puzzle. For dinner,Bi (meaning my younger brother), decided to BBQ chicken and kept saying, 
   
"Thank you America for BBQ!" 

His own marinade was a mix of US and Nepali and it was very good. To the BBQ we added my favorite Newari food which is a rice floured crepe with meat and scrambled egg. Stephanie, a college student who is visiting for a month and I added cheese and ketchup... Hey, we're American!... and it was a meal fit for a king!
We had an enjoying evening sitting around talking about ministry and politics before donning helmets, hopping on a motorcycle to race the raindrops, to eventually arrive back at my old place... so I could feed the dogs.

 God Bless America..again!

Is there a 4th of July in KTM?

Yes, but it is not a huge celebration. In fact if I had not had plans for a bonfire in the evening with a group of Americans, I probably would not have even remembered it. It was moving day for me. The truck came and took two loads of furniture to the new place. It felt like a bit of freedom, coming out from under the bondage of mold and crowded spaces.  So I was glad to have that done a day early.

That evening I went over to a friend's place for a bit of a celebration. She even downloaded an app for fireworks that we could watch as our grand finale.  We had potato salad, corn salad, coleshaw, pickles, cheese, and cucumber salad to eat with the meat we cooked wrapped in tin foil. A couple weeks ago we had had a bonfire at this same place and about 15 minutes of a roaring fire a toad jumped out of the pit. Well he must have had a case of de je vu. because he hopped out again, partially singed on the head.

We had good fun playing capitols while eating, then a time of prayer for our country and some worship time.  It kept spitting but we sang on and huddled under the leaves of the trees.
About 8:30 I headed home and made ti before the rain.  But I missed the fireworks!

Today the US Embassy has their picnic and I plan to go... I am on the list to get in.. but we will see what happens with all the rain!

God bless America!

Many Hands Make Light Work.

Finished packets

one line of cards

working my fingers to the bone

the hall all set up

                                                                         

                                                        This morning I was in a bit of a quandary! Do I work at the office and get my curriculum and lesson planning done or do I go home and pack? What to do?

So I decided to go to work.  BUT instead of working on my things...I helped the Admin Staff collate 1000 packets of flashcards for EQUIP. These are flashcards that the teachers trainers hand out to teachers in our training school as a resource. Each summer the staff is called upon to help put these packets together for the upcoming year. This year the EQUIP team strategically planned a training for  this week, so I joined the staff to  help put  all these cards together. I helped out today,(maybe got 12 -15 packets done) which is the last day of three days. But it is back breaking work and my fingers have blisters.

A huge bunch of kudos to our Admin staff and team for completing 100 packets!

Many hands make light work!

Measure Twice, Cut Once!

The other day I was working on my job as a librarian. We need some new shelves and I designed them. I even went and found a measuring tape and worked out on a sheet of paper the dimensions for it all. I did it in centimeters because I am in Asia. Then I turned it in for approval and ordering. I got the paper back the next day.

Looking closely at the paper, I noticed that they had gone back and done all the measuring in inches. ARGH!  If I had done it all in inches, they would have gone and re-measured in cm. I am not sure if it is because I am a woman or because I am a foreigner. Maybe it is both! I can’t win for losing! But at least we can update the library a bit!

New Place - First Look.

Didi and I went over to the new place to clean and check out the details. Here are some of my first pictures...

Looking into the Living Room

Back Bedroom

Front bedroom 

View of the hood.

living room view again.

sparse kitchen

Seeing It Through

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0ZvI0fNFhU

I have been reading ( the Word) and hearing  (sermons)  about persevering  lately.  Not just through the tough times, but also the good times. Often when life seems good, we coast... and we shouldn't be..

Today I came across a video that gave me a metal picture of this persevering idea.  These people do it was the 'joy' and challenge of it. They are not going through a rough time... they signed up for this race.  I want to be like these people in my actions, thoughts, and life! (I have no desire to be like them in the actual race! That is just crazy!) But their tenacity and passion to climb higher is inspiring! May that be me in all that I do in His kingdom!