Wedding Season

Fagun (the Nepali month spanning Feb-March) is a very auspicious time to get married, and this past week has been particularly so. My parents have been treated to a great cultural experience as we attended 4 wedding events in 3 days over last weekend.

The most exciting was the wedding of my Nepali supervisor, Manoj, to one of the nurses at the hospital. I took the day off work to enjoy the full wedding. It was a great celebration, which I have documented in pictures here.

It has been great to have Mom and Dad here in Pokhara, experiencing what my life's like. They've spent several days in the hospital with me, getting to know the staff, and helping out where they can. Mom has spent time with the patients doing various activities, and we recruited Dad to help with wheelchair construction.

They've also been busy seeing the tourists sights of Pokhara, and my Mom's foot is sufficiently recovered that she's able to walk around a lot, and we've got some short walks in, though no trekking for this trip. I've joined them for some of the tourist things, but we've also gone to do some things that I've been wanting to do, but hadn't yet. We went to Khaireni, a leprosy community and farm about an hour outside of town, and met Jutta, a German woman who's lived in Nepal for over 40 years and owns the farm. She was fascinating to talk to, and has even become a Nepali citizen - not a light decision, as she needed to give proof of having renounced her German citizenship before she could even start the process of becoming a Nepali!

I went with Mom and Dad last week to try to find a hot springs I had heard about. Naturally the local bus we got didn't take us to the hot springs, but to an hour's walk away, and so we went the rest of the way with a Nepali who was going the same way. It was a good thing the getting there was so entertaining - with beautiful views out the window along the river, and then a nice walk - as we managed to arrive with only half an hour before the last bus of the day left. We had a very brief soak in the hot springs, and headed back to town.

Tomorrow we head off to Chitwan. I'm very excited as I've not had a chance to go to the National park there, and ride elephants, and perhaps even get to see tigers. I'm equally excited about the fact that Sita is coming with us, and will be taking us to the town where she grew up in the Chitwan district, and we will stay with her brother overnight. It should be a great week.