It's a new year here in Nepal - 2066 started last week.
For the New Year's/Easter long weekend, I went trekking with some friends. We flew up to Jomsom, part way round the Annapurna circuit, hiked up 1000m to Nepal's second most sacred Hindu site, Muktinath, then came back an 'alternative' route, that our map showed, but which seemed to have a washed out trail near the end. We survived that adventure, and met up with another friend in Jomsom, and walked out for 3 more days to the main road. It was a great weekend, and I'm glad to have had the chance to get out in the mountains one last time before heading home! Lots of photos
here, showing the spectacular scenery - and the amazing weather we had, particularly for the first two days.
School holidays also occur over the new year, so there was a picnic being held for the teenagers at the church. I was asked to come along to help and hang out with the kids. We drove an hour out of town, with all the necessary equipment - huge pots, firewood, food for everyone and games. Everyone set to cutting up vegetables and meat for the curry, while the bottoms of the pots were covered with a paste made of ash and water to keep them from going black on the wood fire (below left). Then a few folk stayed back to get the food cooking on the fires, and the rest of us went off to explore the area.
There was much excitement, as the rhododendrons are now in bloom. They are Nepal's national flower, and all of the boys were climbing the trees to cut down bunches of these lovely flowers. They were happy to share them around, and then everyone stared eating them! I was quite startled by this, but apparently they are prized for their properties as a herbal remedy. The don't have much flavour - slightly sour, kind of like eating clover leaves at home. Certainly not as delicious as the feast cooked for us while we were out exploring!
A few weeks ago I was out on a couple of home visits in another beautiful part of Nepal. On two separate days we went in the hospital 4-wheel drive vehicle up to villages in the hills. Each day we visited a patient at home, and both were doing quite well, despite living in rather inaccessible areas. It's very encouraging to see when family support is such that people in wheelchairs are able to do well, even though the areas around their homes is not wheelchair accessible. I've
posted pictures of the visits, as well as the roads we travelled on to get there - it really felt at times we were driving on top of the world!
School holidays also occur over the new year, so there was a picnic being held for the teenagers at the church. I was asked to come along to help and hang out with the kids. We drove an hour out of town, with all the necessary equipment - huge pots, firewood, food for everyone and games. Everyone set to cutting up vegetables and meat for the curry, while the bottoms of the pots were covered with a paste made of ash and water to keep them from going black on the wood fire (below left). Then a few folk stayed back to get the food cooking on the fires, and the rest of us went off to explore the area.
There was much excitement, as the rhododendrons are now in bloom. They are Nepal's national flower, and all of the boys were climbing the trees to cut down bunches of these lovely flowers. They were happy to share them around, and then everyone stared eating them! I was quite startled by this, but apparently they are prized for their properties as a herbal remedy. The don't have much flavour - slightly sour, kind of like eating clover leaves at home. Certainly not as delicious as the feast cooked for us while we were out exploring!
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