Today was an opportunity to meet many wonderful people. My new friend Leslie from Sacramento, California that I met at Kopan Monastery introduced me to Tara. Tara and her family have a beautiful home in Baluwata, a village within Kathmandu. It always amazes me that you can have so much litter, pollution, and poverty and then walk through a door and see a beautiful garden and home.
Tara and her husband returned to Nepal after years of living in the USA. She is very involved in many of the NGOs focused on helping the people of Nepal. Tara’s sister, who I met, was the first woman high school graduate and college graduate in Kathmandu.
Tara has offered to let me stay at her home after I leave Tewa’s dormitories. It may be a perfect location to get to the bus for Tewa and still be close to the orphanage, where I will be tutoring the children in math.
On arriving at Tewa, it was so wonderful to see all my old friends. The dormitories have turned out better than I could have imagined and it really shows how much hard work went into preparing for the grand opening event. I am sitting in my room writing my blog with the smell of fresh paint. The rooms have a view overlooking the greenery of the mustard fields.
We attended a dinner hosted by the President of Tewa this evening. I met some ladies from the States and Canada, who are also here to attend the opening of the dormitories. I also met a young woman from Kenya, Caroline, who works for a non-profit out of Colorado that is similar to Tewa but focused in Africa. Caroline was giving me some tips for my trip to Rwanda later this year, but that is a whole other blog in September.
I realized that I should have purchased gifts for the staff at Tewa and all the people who worked so hard to build the dormitories. I must figure out how to go into Patan tomorrow to pick up some gifts. Unfortunately tomorrow is Holy, the festival of colors. If you followed my blog last year, you know it can be very difficult walking so as not to get sprayed with dirty water and colors, which are tar based powder that does not come out. I will have to figure this out.
On a side topic, when I arrived at my hotel in Tamal. I spoke with the travel agency and realized I could save $700 on my trip to Bhutan. I really liked the one that I had already hired, but that is a lot of money. Well…… wouldn’t you know that they made a mistake and I needed me to pay $300 more. I had to really negotiate and got it down to $180. Although I still saved money, I probably would have stayed with my original group. So much for being penny wise and pound foolish.
Well, it is very late and I am cuddled in bed with three blankets, no heat, so I better go to sleep.
Namaste, Paula
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