Namaste from Nepal
Well the past few days have kind of been a whirlwind. Flew 16 hours to Dubai, stayed the night at a hotel and then flew the next morning to Kathmandu Nepal. We are staying in a little apartment with three bedrooms, one for each of us, and a little kitchen where we have been cooking for ourselves.
It is much much colder than I expected. I have been wearing a tank top tucked into my jeans, two sweaters, two hoodies, a vest, and a rain jacket on top with a scarf wrapped around my head for warmth. I have been rocking two pairs of wool socks as well. We haven’t had power the two days we have been here and didn’t have hot water until this morning, so it has been an adventure nonetheless.
Yesterday we went shopping and got set up and then checked out the project. A little background as to why I am here. I am here with two ladies who are starting a nonprofit helping women sell textile products. I am here to help with some grant writing, and PR, marketing stuff for their organization. They are working in tangent with another nonprofit that is owned by a lady that lives here. She started a nonprofit five years ago where women come and take sewing classes in the morning and then literacy classes in the evening, most Nepaleses women can’t read or write, and then in 6 months they can graduate and start their own sewing business. However, some of the women that graduate don’t want to start their own business they just want to work with a company using their skills and make products. This is where our nonprofit comes in, they hire women who graduate from the program and they make products and then the organization sells them for them and a portion goes to the women themselves and then the rest goes to the sewing school. This is also a way for the women to give back to the program that helped them get a skill.
So we have done a lot of walking around the town getting settled. Today was a hard day for me emotionally for personal reasons but there is a song that I always listen to when I need to remember God is with me. It is “even when it hurt” by hill song. I was singing it in my head in order to keep from crying, we walked into the cutest little Himalayan coffee shop and I kid you not they were playing that song. A Christian song in a Hindu country. God is good am I right? It is the little things.
We also met the sweetest lady when we were leaving, she asked to have our table as we were getting up to go and the lady I was with asked where she was from she said Costa Rica. She asked if were were Christian and we said yes and she said “oh! Praise God we are sisters!” It was so cute. She was telling us in 6 months they are leaving Nepal to go to Europe to work with refugees. She was a really sweet lady and I felt blessed to run into her.
Nepal is a lot of what I expected but also nothing like I expected. A few things to know:
- Namaste is actually a greeting, not just something you say after yoga class.
-It is really really cold here
-Nepalese get cuter as they age. I kid you not the elderly are so stinking cute.
-Every Nepalese women has a nose piercing.
-Everyone drives a motor bike instead of a car
That’s all I got for now I guess. I mean its only been two days.
It is much much colder than I expected. I have been wearing a tank top tucked into my jeans, two sweaters, two hoodies, a vest, and a rain jacket on top with a scarf wrapped around my head for warmth. I have been rocking two pairs of wool socks as well. We haven’t had power the two days we have been here and didn’t have hot water until this morning, so it has been an adventure nonetheless.
Yesterday we went shopping and got set up and then checked out the project. A little background as to why I am here. I am here with two ladies who are starting a nonprofit helping women sell textile products. I am here to help with some grant writing, and PR, marketing stuff for their organization. They are working in tangent with another nonprofit that is owned by a lady that lives here. She started a nonprofit five years ago where women come and take sewing classes in the morning and then literacy classes in the evening, most Nepaleses women can’t read or write, and then in 6 months they can graduate and start their own sewing business. However, some of the women that graduate don’t want to start their own business they just want to work with a company using their skills and make products. This is where our nonprofit comes in, they hire women who graduate from the program and they make products and then the organization sells them for them and a portion goes to the women themselves and then the rest goes to the sewing school. This is also a way for the women to give back to the program that helped them get a skill.
So we have done a lot of walking around the town getting settled. Today was a hard day for me emotionally for personal reasons but there is a song that I always listen to when I need to remember God is with me. It is “even when it hurt” by hill song. I was singing it in my head in order to keep from crying, we walked into the cutest little Himalayan coffee shop and I kid you not they were playing that song. A Christian song in a Hindu country. God is good am I right? It is the little things.
We also met the sweetest lady when we were leaving, she asked to have our table as we were getting up to go and the lady I was with asked where she was from she said Costa Rica. She asked if were were Christian and we said yes and she said “oh! Praise God we are sisters!” It was so cute. She was telling us in 6 months they are leaving Nepal to go to Europe to work with refugees. She was a really sweet lady and I felt blessed to run into her.
Nepal is a lot of what I expected but also nothing like I expected. A few things to know:
- Namaste is actually a greeting, not just something you say after yoga class.
-It is really really cold here
-Nepalese get cuter as they age. I kid you not the elderly are so stinking cute.
-Every Nepalese women has a nose piercing.
-Everyone drives a motor bike instead of a car
That’s all I got for now I guess. I mean its only been two days.
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