a week later.....

We are settling into a routine.  The church quilt dons our bed. Our groceries were delivered on the back of

a very short man last week, a woman this week!  Our 'di-di'  bakes a loaf of bread twice a week, does our laundry by hand, and cooks us a meal.  A little bit of cleaning is thrown into the last few minutes. We try not to use much water, showering less, and then  in a washbasin that is used to flush the 'loo'.

The electricity is fickle here, also.....but there is a backup generator for the frig and a light or two.  I leave the ceiling fans on so I can tell when there is electricity.  I took my ironing pile to the guest house this morning, but couldn't do it then.....when the fans come back on, I'll go back.  And the tabletop oven is electricity, so my long-awaited bread pudding will have to wait.  I am finding cooking to be a drag!  The tomato sauce is a lot of red food-coloring!  I made goulash with the hamburger that needed to be used.  I had the elbow macaroni even......but the sauce is pretty important.....really makes or ruins it.  Without chili powder, I used dried red chiles.....but the sauce looked and tasted terrible! We sliced off some of our Tillamook Cheese loaf to help it out.   And of course, there are lots of leftovers!  Ugh.  Tonight I signed up for dinnera at the Guest House.  Hope it's not a curry.  I'm getting a bit tired of curry dishes after this many months of eating it.  

The water line from the truck to the tank...hospital buys
water to keep functioning.

If you look at the overhead picture at the begining of the blog, you will see the long, narrow buildings as the hospital, many levels underneath those roofs.
Clustered around the hospital are the local shops and hotels for the families of patients.  Families need to stay to take care of the needs of the patients, like meals.  So, the families hang out in the wards, bringing food  for them.  Then they sleep elsewhere at night.
those of who work and live around the hospital use the
local  grocers for some of our needs, and often our 'di-dis' go there to get it for us.  Otherwise, it is a 2 km. trek to Tansen to get anything not sold here.  I made that trip twice last week -  once to shop, once to church.....on Saturday.  In Nepal the day off is Saturday.  So, we attended a Nepali church with Theo and Beth Beels.  There are two Nepali churches in town, so they try to divide attendance up to support both.  We who needed chairs, are sitting in the back two rows.  Everyone else is on mats on the cement.  Eventually the women's side overflowed into the men's side...attendance-wise.  An hour of singing, led by the band, then gave way to praying and a sermon.  Everyone prays at once...outloud.  Children had their own program elswhere. Two hours and we were walking home.



That afternoon, the missionaries had an english service in the Guest House meeting room, followed by fellowship and dinner together...good old spaghetti.  Over a dozen children, some a bit older than others.

This is the main entrance to the hospital.  The newer section you see is only a few years old, being built, mainly, to enlarge the emergency room capactiy.  Jon will work on photos and a cyber-tour of the hospital for a future blog here.

On  Sunday, Beth suggested we walk to town to buy some fabric for me to have outfits made.  She promised to walk slow.   We found many fabric shops, and bought two sets....one for dress, and one for everyday.  But we brought them home to wash before leaving them with a tailor.  It looks like Jon will go with me tomorrow(his day off) to find the tailor.  Beth has been sick all week since.  I wonder if eating lunch out at the only restaurant in town is what did it?


I'll leave you with construction sites.....the road we were walking on was flanked by oportunistic builders, taking a postage stamp spot and raising a house on it.  No running water.  Electricity can be strung in.  And you have view property!  Zoning is unknown here.

Needless to say, the trip up the hill home was a bit slower and more tiring.  The temps are in the 80's these days.  I think twice about going anywhere, as I know I will have to come back up....and I spent the next three days doing just that......next blog.