I tried to write this post last week but I've been very busy over the past few days trying to help Jeff prepare for the next school year, which will begin on April 25th, a few days after I leave.  But last Wednesday we celebrated Holi, the festival of color.  I'm sure a lot of you have seen pictures of this holiday or even celebrated it yourselves, but it is celebrated quite uniquely.  I forget the purpose of the holiday (this isn't a history lesson, look it up if you must know), as I'm sure many Indians and Nepalis have.  It is kind of like a Halloween or a Mardi Gras, in that the holiday has lost its meaning to many celebrants but is still celebrated with all the fervor one could muster.  It is a no holds barred sort of holiday as well.

How to celebrate:
Step 1- buy multiple colors of tikka (powdered dye).
Step 2- change into clothes you don't mind getting stained.
Step 3-  Keep on your guard.
Step 4-  Pummel friends, family, neighbors, strangers and innocent bystanders with said tikka powder.

It is a blast.  Thank whichever gods fell in love and gave birth to this beautiful holiday.  For Holi we decided to stay out of town and keep a lid on all of the fun as apparently things have been known to get a little violent on occasion.  As you can imagine, getting a fistful of tikka powder in the face from a complete stranger is not going to be the most pleasant thing.  And if you don't have great self control, good humor, or enough patience, things have the potential to go awry.  So we went to the beach (the Bheri River) where we were free to plaster each other with red, green, pink, yellow, and blue.  Let me tell you one thing, it does not taste very good, though I'm pretty sure we all ate some.  I spat pink for hours and I was told the other day I still have some in my ear.  Everyone who partook was colored from head to toe.  Thankfully somebody had the foresight to bring soap and shampoo so we could bathe right there in the river, before the tikka had time to really set in.  Every time Maggie's father washed his face off one of the aunties would run over and throw more tikka in his face.  He eventually gave up trying to wash it off and consequently still has a red tint about his forehead.

I didn't get many pictures from the event because I was afraid to have my camera ruined.  I will try to get some pictures from Ben though and update this post with a few.

Update: just borrowed a bunch of pictures from Ben- here you go.

The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Blinknow's positions or opinions.

So for the past few weeks one of the 3rd grade girls has been begging me to come visit her house after school, but the tricky part was that she lives two hours from school.  It was really difficult to find time at first, especially with soccer practice everyday.  But this past Friday I finally succumbed to little Laxmi's pleas.  It was actually very nice.  Instead of walking two hours to her house Laxmi sat on the back luggage rack of a bicycle and we rode about an hour to her home.  We rode down the road past the market, past the bus park and past the airport, until it became noticeably less populated again.  It was then that we turned down another, smaller road, which was lined with small shops but surrounded by sprawling fields of rice and other crops.  In the distance were a few small, rolling hills freckled with modest homes, some made of cement, others of mud and corrugated tin roofs.  We stopped at a temple along the way.  It had a beautiful garden with some awesome and very old trees.  Laxmi lived about halfway up one of the hills in a mud and corrugated tin roof house.  It was simple living for her and her family, but she lived in a very happy neighborhood.  After meeting everyone we shared some chow chow (ramen noodles), passed around a soccer ball, jumped rope, and played 20 million questions.  One of the more interesting exchanges went something a little like, "Where are you from?" "America." "You invented the atom bomb, no?" "Hah, um, yes we did" "Do you live in town or village?..."  Its funny how kids can throw you curveballs like that, even when living as remotely as they do.  I then shared a few snickers bars with everyone and departed shortly after.  Laxmi is already trying to make a weekly thing of it.

In other news, our numbers just grew significantly today.  Maggie has returned after being away for two months, bringing with her the famed Jeff DiLollo and a new volunteer named Ally.  A few hours after their arrival and the huge welcome wagon that attended it, Safira's parents arrived.  So with five more people staying here, and one more due to arrive in a few days, we have a packed house and a lot of excited children.  We will see how satsung (our nightly meeting and prayer) goes, I have a feeling it will get out of hand.  Usually we only have to play the question game with one new person upon their arrival, but now it seems we will have to play with three.  Anyway, it is good to have new guests among us and to have old guests back.


The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Blinknow's positions or opinions.

Nena, the Wellness Fellow here at Kopila, found out yesterday that a few of her friends were passing though Surkhet and would have liked to see her.  They did end up visiting today after spending several weeks trecking around Nepal.  What did we decide to do with these weary travelers, you might ask?  Take them on a hike up the hills behind Kopila Valley.  These "hills" mind you, would most definitely pass as mountains in the United States.  Some of the smaller Appalachians most likely, but mountains none the less.  I have done this hike twice in the past and it gets easier every time I do it, but it is about a two hour hike full of steep inclines to the top where there is a small restaurant of sorts that makes chow chow (basically Ramen Noodles).  We took a bunch of the kids with us as well, but kept it open to only the older kids.  The younger ones start asking to be carried about halfway to the top.

After sitting on top of the restaurant for about half an hour, relaxing with a few of the faster kids in front of some spectacular scenery, and eating some chow chow, we began to hear some grumblings about going to this place that I have not heard referred to as anything other than, "the place where the Rhododendrons grow."  It sounds like a Shell Silverstein poem and is even more beautiful, though for different reasons.  None of the other volunteers wanted to go today because they had been recently, but  17 of the kids wanted desperately to go.

So after lunch on the roof of the mountaintop restaurant, 17 kids and I hiked up an even steeper peak for about 40 minutes.  We came to a lightly wooded area full of tall thin pines and tall golden grass, with an old stone wall lining the ridge.  We walked along it for a few minutes until a single red spot appeared in the distance amidst all of the brown, gold and green we were surrounded by.  It was a single bright red cluster of flowers, Nepal's national flower, the Rhododendron.  Everyone had spotted it and at that moment there was a flurry of children hopping over the ridge to run to the steep hillside which was the place known as, where the Rhododendrons grow.

As I came over the ridge the color scheme changed completely.  It turned into a mix of deep greens and gold, all flecked with a very rich red.  The kids were climbing tall branchy trees to get at these flowers like a troop of monkeys in a fig tree.  Some of them took their shirts off and used them like bags to fill up with the flowers.  Apparently you can eat them and they don't taste too bad.  Its a kind of sweet flavor followed by a tart after taste.  The kids whose shirts were being used as bags had red juices dripping down their chins and bodies, but their messes were accompanied by purest looks of happiness.

I soaked in the beautiful landscape for a while from where the Rhododendrons grow and enjoyed a flower or two before we decided it was time to go back home.  The kids had their shirts stuffed with flowers making it look like they were carrying severed torsos down the mountain.  They snacked on even more of the flowers the whole way down, which took us only a little under 30 minutes.  Going down such steep terrain isn't easy, but we all made it down in one piece.  Then it was about another hour to an hour and a half of hiking down the original mountain.  We went down a different way and got to see some other areas of the mountainside I haven't seen before.

Now that I'm home with a big blister on the bottom of my toe I just have to say how worth it that extra very difficult 40 minute hike was. That was easily the most fun I've had in a while.  Just looking at the pictures from today validates how worth it the blister is.

The far side of the peak on the right is where the Rhododendrons grow.  The restaurant is at the foot of the peak

The ridge

Over the ridge, and the kids scattering out to loot the trees 

 Some rice paddies amongst the Rhododendrons

Krishna Shahi reaching out 

Taking in the view 

Some of the boys stocking up 

The group and their loot 

The easy way down the Rhododendron peak 

A new path down the mountain

The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Blinknow's positions or opinions.

Just noticed it's been a while since my last post and thought I'd give everyone an update.  Nothing major is going on at Kopila Valley except for the absence of one of the fellows.  John has departed from Kopila for two months in order to travel around Asia with his brother and to spend some time with his family and friends back home.  Rest assured, he will be back, which has the kids very excited.  But in the mean time we have some major gaps to fill here, most noticeably the dent in the dhal bhat is no longer as large.  Only kidding John, though we have told the aunties to make a little less.

Also, to point out a correction in my previous post, Kalpana Miss has not moved so far away that she can no longer work at Kopila Valley.  She has moved out of her home and moved in with her new husband's family but she will still be working with us, which is great news.  I was mistaken about some of the details.

In other news, I have finally caught something here that lasts for more than a day.  First it was what appeared to be ring worm.  Plenty of medicine on hand for that though, so no worries there.  But more recently it was some other kind of unidentified bug.  John's brother, Bobby, was the first to come down with it.  He was sick for a few days starting the day after Kalpana Miss's wedding.  I think he had it the worst of any of us but soon enough we began dropping like flies.  It's nothing you can't live through but whatever it is just makes you sort of uncomfortable for a while.  The first day is the worst but then it seems to stick around a little too long, sort of like a guest who has over stayed their welcome.  Actually, a bit more like an uninvited guest crashing your party which doesn't seem like a big deal at first but then they make a huge mess of the place and crash on your couch and linger til noon the next day and raid your fridge because they don't have a ride or cash.  Ya know, not the biggest of deals, but a pain in the butt.

Tutoring, tuition, whatever you want to call it, has been going quite well.  I have a pretty busy schedule now with filling in for coaching as well, which has been making the days here pass by much faster.  I can't believe it's already been over a month.  I'm afraid these last two months will go by even quicker.  Having seen others leave this place recently has made me realize just how sad my last days here are going to be.  I will not dwell on those for now, but instead I will just make the most of what I still have.  But even so, I called them "my last days here" but what I really meant was "my last days here for the time being."  I find it impossible to imagine that I would never visit again.



The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Blinknow's positions or opinions.