Adventure & Service the adventures of a dentist and an engineer
making a difference in the world

I've been thoroughly enjoying our Canon Digital SLR camera.  The views here are amazing and we haven't even see the real mountains yet due to all of the clouds.  My favorite shots are the panoramas because they drop you into a location.


Here's a bonus shot that I took today while we were walking around town.
This shrine is one of two that are in the middle of an intersection near the hospital.

The Good Stuff:

Jessica decided that she would stop scandalizing the local church by wearing a skirt that showed her calves.  So we headed into Banepa to check out the seamstress shops and pick up more food.  The gracious Evan guided us on yet another path to the "city center" with her Nepali husband Sungram.


We stopped off at the EZ Mart (think compact grocery store) to get rice, seasoning, etc.  We got a bunch of stuff and only paid 830 Nepali Rupees (~$11).  My big find was Heinz Ketchup which is my favorite complement for the potateos we picked up in th morning.  Thankfully this time I brought our backpack which made carrying all the groceries super easy.

From the grocery store we navigated the streets dodging honking motorcycles and puddles.  A bus rattled by with a guy hanging out the door yelling "Kathmandu... Kathmandu....".  All around people stare in wonder at the 4 white Americans roaming the streets (three of which were blond females).  The "dress shop" was actually pretty nice.


The girls spent about 30 minutes picking out their favorite fabric and getting measured.  While Jessica was getting fitted the power went out and they had to finish using a gas lantern.  Sungram said that the power usually goes out for at least two hours.


Jessica and Anna each got a salwar kameez, or kurti, with customized sleeves, length, fabric and cut.  All for about 900NPR ($12).  Expect to see Jessica in her new outfit in the near future.

We continued our adventurous morning tradition this morning. Evan is a Canadian/American physical therapist that has been living here for 6 years and she offered to take us with her to the vegetable market. We hadn't walked down to Banepa so we enjoyed seeing the neighborhood and all of the people headed to work along the path.  All of the houses here have shops or barns on the ground floor.  The upper stories are houses for members of the family.  It is common to have unfinished floors that will be finished when each child gets married.


We started out at 6:30am since most of the good stuff gets loaded up to take to Kathmandu.  Evan suggested that if we had gone even earlier we would have had better selection.  Each stall had their wares laying out on towels or blankets on the ground.

Each shop insisted that we buy at least 1 kilogram which is a lot of garlic and onions. In the end we got potatoes, garlic, onions, spinach (or similar) and apples for a couple dollars. Hauling the 5 kilograms of potatoes up the long hill to the hospital was my job.

Jet lag has its advantages. We wake up without an alarm, if you don't count the cows, birds or the Hindu temple speaker system. The canteen provides a delicious "bun with egg" for less than $0.25 and we only have to walk 2 minutes to work. That leaves us plenty of time to explore the neighborhood. We took advantage this morning.



~ Kevin

Our first morning at Scheer Memorial Hospital was strange indeed. The night before we arrived in darkness both physically and informationally as our drivers did not speak English. We were dropped off at our apartment and given the key without a word. So Sabbath morning we awoke very early (6:00 am in Nepal was 5:15 pm in CA) and wondered around the hospital grounds looking for water that was safe to drink (on our first use of our SteriPEN it dropped and the light bulb shattered). We found no one that spoke English but we did find the hospital canteen. Somehow our order of an omlett and bottled water came out as milk tea. We wondered back to our room just in time to see our neighbor carrying a Bible and we asked if he was going to the church. We stumbled through a sort of conversation that ended with us following him to a small building full of warm and curious faces. The pastor spoke English and informed us that the English service was in a couple hours.

From there our day was clear sailing, at the English church service, we met many quality people and instantly made friends with students visiting from around the world. The missionary doctor invited us and the rest of the young foreigners over to his home for Sabbath dinner. There we realized that we had a huge water filter in our apartment and we had been thirsty all day for nothing.

The afternoon activity was a ride up the mountain with our new friends where we captured a fantastic view and a glimpse into the native way of life. The following pictures are from our first day.



Here's a better look at the view we were all admiring:

As we drove from the Kathmandu Airport to the hospital in Benepa, I had a running inner monolog that went something like this:

"OK, Jessica remember that you chose to go on this trip! You knew about the poverty, language barriers, being stared at, and people using any excuse for you to give them money, so this is all as expected. Know that you'll adjust and you'll be glad you came. God is taking care of you and Kevin and this is already a great adventure!"

My culture shock remained but without the fear and I began to take in the crumbling buildings, washed out roads, random trash piles , and sick dogs limping beside the road with curiosity and confidence.

My spirits improved further when we entered the Scheer Memorial Hospital grounds. We are staying in a small clean two bedroom apartment. It reminds me of the old Rosario Beach cabins that my family visited during the summers of my childhood.

~ Jessica

We had a great day running around Hong Kong during our 14 hour layover. Here's pics of our adventures:

Working, moving out of my apartment, packing for our trip and flying out all in one day was not a great idea. But we made it on time. It is a little weird traveling with Jessica after so many work trips without her. Definitely nice to be able to lean against the person you're sitting with. The last trip Jessica and I went on besides the big group mission trip to Peru was our honeymoon. Definitely a different feel this time.

The quick summary about our trip is that Jessica is going to be a volunteer dentists at Scheer Memorial Hospital outside of Kathmandu. I am going to be installing a donated dental chair and helping to move the dental clinic to a larger facility. I'm sure there will be opportunities to help with computer support and pulling teeth (hopefully). We will have internet access so hopefully we will be posting updates here and Facebook.

After a long saga we finally had our tickets finalized today. We are leaving Aug 19th and returning Oct 9th. Two weeks? Not a lot of time before we leave. Should be fun.