People often come and go at the orphanage I work with. They give their valuable time and in return they take with them beautiful photos to remind them of the children when they get back home. The problem is, those pictures end up on a computer across the world; the kids never get to see the pictures themselves. 

This past week I put together photo albums. One for each child at the orphanage. Filled with images of themselves and their brothers and sisters, so they’ll have memories of their childhood as they grow older. I wasn’t sure the reaction I would get: possibly boredom, definitely a few ripped pages. Turns out they loved them. I’ve never seen them all so quiet. They spent time pouring through each page, pointing out the faces in each picture, naming their brothers or sisters, sometimes not recognizing themselves (at their age—and height—they don’t have a chance to look in a mirror very often).

I had to say goodbye to these little ones today. It broke my heart; but I always knew it would. I’ll be back next year, filling their albums with more photos when I return.

I’ve gotten a bit too comfortable in Kathmandu, but every once in a while I’m reminded that even walking down the street can be a dangerous affair. With no traffic lights, no defined lanes, and no sidewalks, cars, trucks, taxis, tuk-tuks, rickshaws, people and various stray dogs all share the same road.

Squeezed into the back of a tuk-tuk on one of my first days in Kathmandu.

Today my taxi nicked a guy walking down the street. It was nothing terrible, thankfully. Then again, that guy may say different. I’ll never know because the taxi driver just kept on going. Pretty standard in a country that requires drivers to pay for any medical expenses in an accident they caused. I’ve been told by too many sources to deny, that sometimes a driver will go back and hit someone a second time, because paying for a funeral is cheaper than a lifetime of medical bills. 

So if this one counts, that makes three car accidents I’ve been in this year. Here’s hoping it’s the last.

Technically Shane and I have been married a year and a month, but since I’m a little late with everything else, so it is with this post.

Shane spent three weeks on this side of the world to celebrate our first anniversary. The first two days were all about relaxing so he could get over his jet lag. I then decided it’d be a good idea to take him to see my babies. It was a great idea, but not exactly relaxing. A human jungle gym for a day, he finally got to meet the fourteen little people I’ve been in love with since the day I walked in that door back in March.

We then took a few days off in the lakeside town of Pokhara. Massages. Biking around the lake. Late dinners. Boat rides. Waterfalls. Lounging by the pool (a rare luxury in Nepal). And watching the sun rise over the Himalayas.

To top it off, our thirty-seat flight back included the Home Minister of Nepal (equivalent to our VP) and his twenty-person entourage. 

To be completely honest, and a tad mushy, I didn’t really care what we did. After all these months, I was just happy to have my husband next to me.

I’ve had the chance to do some amazing and interesting things since I’ve been here. I’ve danced on rooftops with the neighborhood women to celebrate Teej, been almost crushed between hundreds of thousands of pilgrims worshiping Shiva, attended a toga party, and defied fate (twice) by riding on the back of a motorcycle through Kathmandu.

Let’s be clear, most nights I’m watching pirated copies of Mad Men in bed, but every once in a while I venture out for some fun.

Last week I was invited to a small, intimate gathering at a friend’s house. Inside were thirty young Nepalis. Mostly women, a few men. The topic of the day was ‘Sex and Sexuality,’ led by a Zimbabwe-born feminist and activist: Hope Chigudu. 

While Nepal is termed an “accepting” country, it’s mostly because culturally it’s taboo to talk about anything referring to sex. So things like LGBT issues or sex outside of marriage are kept quiet and people are marginalized because everyone refuses to talk.

Hope’s talk ranged on a variety of subjects, but mostly she spoke of the need for us to be open with the idea of sexuality in all its different forms and with that there will come more understanding and acceptance. She also said that everyone should go home and get out a mirror to look at their vaginas. That one might have been a tad much for the present audience.

While I sat and listened to the conversation in the room, what struck me was not the progressiveness of the words from the group, because they weren’t. Even though these were young, educated people, the weight of generations of silence was too much for one day. But what I felt was that I was witnessing the progress happen. This was the start of the new women’s movement in Nepal, in a living room, on a Saturday afternoon. And I was there to see it.

Hope and I

This is a few days late, but it’s still on people’s minds. We had a pretty sizable earthquake here on Sunday night. The 6.9, centered on the eastern border, was felt from Bhutan, down through India, and across Nepal. 

It started as a slow roll, and this Cali girl didn’t even get off the couch, but about halfway into the nearly two-minute quake, things turned. People began yelling, we could hear windows shattering, and scaffolding falling several stories to the ground.

We ran out into the courtyard, unsure if it was the ground or our legs still shaking. To make it truly ominous, the skies opened up and the monsoon rains poured down as the entire city—entire country—huddled together in open spaces.

All of us were incredibly lucky. Just walking distance from where I stay, three people were killed as a wall of the British Embassy crumbled (above). The death toll across the region is up to 115, but landslides are causing delays, and they expect that number to rise.

The numbers are horrible, but all of us living in Kathmandu know it could have been much worse. The city of over one million shares the same construction as Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Buildings are concrete slabs on top of concrete slabs. Had the epicenter been any closer, the city would have been leveled. 

The quake has had one positive affect. The Nepali government is taking charge and actually preparing for future natural disasters. The US military was here this week, working with the Nepali army on disaster drills and training in the event of another major quake.

I live and work in the same house. My daily commute involves walking the five steps from my bedroom to my office. Needless to say, I’ve been feeling a little cooped up lately. I needed a change of scenery so I booked a room for a few weeks.

I’m staying in Thamel, which is the ‘touristy’ part of town. But it also has a lot of great restaurants, and even better coffee. 

I headed out for a solo bite tonight at a local restaurant (Or2K for those of you that are craving the platter right now). The floor seating and close tables provides a sometimes intimate, sometimes annoyingly congested atmosphere.

I ended up next to a guy in a button down and slacks - not your normal Kathmandu attire. We got to talking and turns out he’s been the acting ambassador to the Israeli embassy for the last ten months.

We sat and talked for three hours. Politics, foreign aid, travel, books, corruption in Nepal, big family weddings (I got away with one small one, he’s having four on three continents, the politics of which were more confusing then our discussion on the Middle East). He also invited me to a diplomatic dinner he’s hosting in a few weeks.

The formal ambassador arrives tomorrow, so he was off to get ready, but I can now check one more off the bucket list: dinner with an ambassador.

I’m thinking next up, Obama.