22 APRIL

48 years since Marita said "Yes,"  to my request for a first date. 

 I still remember the excitement and thrill of sitting beside her as our driver took us to a Wednesday night church meeting.  Wow!  Call me a wild and dangerous suitor!.  But, we have been together since, in the adventures and misadventures, the blessings and challenges, the pain of growth and the joys of discovery. Not to mention the  the fun of having kids and grandkids.  

She still is following me around,  and that is an empowering blessing without equal.  As I forgot to say in my retirement comments and have later told others individually:  When asked if Marita has a medical background, i say "No."  She has many gifts, but the  one thing that has been most a support to me is that, besides being a creative, compassionate  and energetic mother, she has always made home more pleasant, more restful, more satisfying, more enjoyable, more restorative and energizing than my work.  No matter what the joys, privileges or rewards of work have been, I would rather be at home with her.  

All that to say, before heading off to the medical ward this morning, I picked some yellow daisies and pink miniature roses for the table, sent an e-card and remembered my reflection of a month ago upon arrival in Nepal.

Thanks to God for sustaining companionship.

Jon

HAND HOLDING

If I settle on the far side of the sea, 

even there your hand will guide me, 

your right hand will hold me fast.      

                                      Psalm 139:9,10 NIV

Funny, the things I notice when I enter a new country:  airport style, open spaces, trees, flowers, architecture, facial features, languages, group dynamics, food sightings,  clothing, advertisements, sacred places, colors, vehicles, garbage, electrical wiring, odors...

One thing that caught my attention early on here in Kathmandu:  couples walking...holding hands.

Many are the subtle oppressions - imprisonments, if you will - of Afghanistan:  security risks, dress and travel restrictions, dust, heat, cold, language barriers, religious limitations,  power outages, chaotic streets, pot holes, clutter, walled enclosures,  garbage, odors.  But one of the more challenging for Marita and I:  no male-female touching in public.

Oh, there is plenty of appropriate public touch among the same gender.  Men easily and often shake hands, give three kisses, commonly walk hand in hand with their friends if not arms around each other.  Women, more subdued, also walk hand in hand, arm in arm.  But only once, perhaps twice, in the eight months we were in Kabul, did I see a male-female couple holding hands as they walked.  Such amorous behavior in public is taboo, even if not as punishable as under the Taliban’s critical eye.

Even with the irregular surface of roads and walkways, even in the slip of “mud season,” should a woman fall, she is left to righting herself alone, perhaps with the help of another woman nearby,  but certainly not by a man, even if he be her husband.

When we first got to Afghanistan, this was a frequent source of irritation...perhaps more accurately: anger, for Marita.  She felt isolated, ignored, vulnerable if I did not walk beside her or hold her hand if she felt unsteady.

In transit from  Kabul to Nepal via Thailand, we have renewed the joy of touch, to walk hand in hand, arm in arm.  Even more so, since her hip replacement just three months ago makes her susceptible to falling.  And, with all the airports, long walks, stairs, buses, taxis, hanging on to purse/backpack, carry-ons, passport, cane...there is much need to hold on to each other.

So, it was refreshing to see a young couple holding hands as they walked down the busy street of the Pulchowk neighborhood here in Kathmandu and to be reminded of the joy, the comfort, the security of being held in firm grip by the one we love...by the One who is love...no matter where we are.

If I settle on the far side of the sea

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.       Psalm 139:9,10  NIV   

I, your God,

have a firm grip on you and I’m not letting go.

...‘Don’t Panic.

I’m right here to help you.‘              Isaiah 41:13  The Message

Thank you, gracious God.

Reach out;  hold a hand today...as God holds yours.

                                                                                               JB

                                                                                               15 March 2012

                                                                                                Patan, Nepal

Knitting

Casting on shouldn't be so hard!

Beth, a nursing instructor, and Dr. Theo's wife, sent me a list last Fall of things I could bring to Nepal for her women's group.  Young women commit suicide at an alarming rate here



and she's
had some of her
nursing students share depression symptoms with her, so she decided to start an activity/craft group once a week for the 3rd year



students.  Believe it
or not, some of the
students are here only because their
parents told them to become a nurse.  Their heart is not in it.  So, by creating projects that will use their hands, the students open up and talk about their feelings......which helps.

Our church sent a duffel bag full of yarn, needles, cross-stitch items, thread, paper, pens, crayons, and badminton shuttlecocks.  I took the yarn the third day I was here, along with knitting and crochet needles. Beth had some from her mother's friends, also.  The girls were excited to learn to knit.  Only a few knew how, and they were gracious to help teach others.  In fact, they HAD to help as we had a bit of chaos with 30 girls !  Some took up the crochet hooks as we ran out of  needles.  But, we know they
will trade and share among themselves as time goes on.  At first we said only one skein of yarn, but that didn't work.  When the time was up, there was not a lick of yarn or needles left!

Beth's home is one level above the nursing school and she can look out her windows and see the girls on the roof, or the stairs, in groups.....knitting.  It does her heart good.

The next week some of the girls had knit a scarf or booties, or a little rug....it somewhat depended on how much of the yarn they managed to get away with!  They were quite proud of themselves. 

These cards sold for 60 cents apiece!  Worth much more!

Knitting was suspended as a classtime subject in order to prepare cross-stitch cards for the Nursing School Mela, which is an annual fair.  Many had already learned the cross-stitch and Beth had made a pillow cover featuring their beautifully done pieces.  I have helped her finish more pillow covers as the girls complete their projects.

Here are the students with their projects, minus about 6 we sewed up that afternoon.  They are off on a two-week 'summer' break now and wanted to take these home with them.  Beth and I have it down now....she cuts and I sew them together...
assembly-line.  If we can find more material, we'll make some more as some of the girls made multiples of cross-stitch projects....all inspirational themes.

For a couple of weeks, I helped Beth finish two quilts and make aprons, ruffled pillows, hotpads, etc. for the Mela.  I even donated a caftan I'd bought at the thrift store and wasn't wearing. Out of it  we made two aprons and hotpads to match, plus two ruffled pillows...she found solid fabric to match for all.  We kept laughing about using our clothes, etc.  Beth just kept bringing up more projects she'd started the night before, so we kept sewing!  After all, scholarships for the nurses was the goal.




I've made peace with the treadle sewing machine.....have gotten into the rythym now.  Have learned how to wind the bobbin by hand and other idiocincrasies.  I will be piecing a quilt top I brought along so needed to get independent on the machine.  The pink quilt?  Had 280 squares and 320 knots....I did all the knots!  And I handquilted the border and binding....4 trips around.  And it sold for $45. to a visitor from Korea.      The purple quilt Beth hand cross-stitched 6 large squares and sewed it all together.  I only tied it.  The hospital bought it for ten dollars.  This is the place to buy quilts ladies!  All in all it was a productive project and made a lot of money for scholarships.  I'm glad I could help.

Serendipity

I am learning ...”to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. “ 

                                              Paul, writing his friends in Philippi

                                              The Message

Our apartment, on the east end of Guest House, Annex 1,  overlooks the valley below here on Shrinigar Hill, in  Buhusaidanda, nearly two kilometeres up the “Mission Road” from the Tansen bazaar. 

A few weeks ago, realizing our strategic location,  I asked Ganesh, our cordial Guest House Host, if I could obtain some plastic patio chairs to set outside our door at the base of the ten foot morning-glory-adorned rock wall that our entrance faces and supporting the guest house and the dining room above us.  

   I could then, as the sun is rising or in the cool of the evening, look out over the valley just now being cultivated by tractor or hand hoe in preparation for planting some one thousand feet below, with the recent afternoon thunder storm greening the brown landscape that greeted us on our arrival.  

 

Very occasionally, with delight, we can see from our bedroom window the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas to the north as they risk to peak out of the clouds like shy Nepali girls; heretofore,  their presence seemed but a rumor.

The view is not unobstructed, as electrical wires and water lines pass low overhead and water and sewer pipes poke out of the sloping ground like elbows through a torn shirt.  But with both mental and actual “Photo Shop” work those distractions can be eliminated.

This week, Ganesh brought the bright blue chairs by.  Dusting them, i readied them for the morning contemplation and devotion, setting them in position for the best view.

But shortly after, the hospital work crew began digging up the septic for the guest house which, opportunistically,  is directly below our sunrise-facing bedroom.  Apparently,  the buried square cement “tank”,  about 10 feet in all dimensions,  is full and ready to be emptied.  I have no idea how often that needs to be done, but it is covered by about two  feet of soil and rocks. 

 

Beside the tank, using the stonework skills common here on these rocky hillsides, the workers made a lovely pit that looked like it would make a delightful fish pond, the setting being right.  And with the lovely flowers we have come to enjoy here...roses, sweet peas, geraniums, marigolds, straw flowers, tulip trees, petunias,  bougainvillea., amaryllis... that would be a great idea.  

The next day, the three workers labored tirelessly as they lowered  a rope- connected bucket into the black abyss, emptying it into the newly built “fish pond” adjacent.  When the depth became low enough, one of the workers (presumably the newest hire) got into the tank and helped with loading the bucket until the tank seems all but squeaky clean and the adjacent pond, strategically situated next to the steps over which I view the Spring-awakening valley below, is full to the brim with black sludge.   I did not see him enter, nor notice his exit, but I could see his blackened hands lift the bucket up to his fellow workers.

         Marita has closed the windows, but with cold that I got a few days ago, I am unperturbed.

I talked with Ganesh about the plans, thinking on option...certainly not my first choice...was to just let the moisture evaporate over the next millenia and then distribute the fertile soil on a nearby flower bed.  Ganesh thought they might cover it will soil, which , in my opinion, would be an excellent site for “quick sand” trap for some unsuspecting intruder.  He thought it might be used as a flower bed;  in my view, a floating one, if so.

That prompted me to tell him the story of Jack in the Beanstalk, which was a new tale to him.  So, perhaps some morning I will look out the window at the sunrise and see a gigantic,  stout vine of a sweet pea wondrously winding to the heavens... and I will climb it to find a pot of gold...if not a better view of the Annapurna Range.  If I don’t come home as scheduled, at least you will know the reason (assuming I did not loose my footing and go splat in the “fertile crescent”)

I am not sure if this is what Paul had in mind when, according to Eugene Peterson,  he said that he was “content with his circumstances” and “could make it through anything.”

But at any rate,  I am thankful, at least this time,  for the serendipity of the common cold. *

PS.  Since, they have covered the black abyss with a few branches to deter kids from playing on the bog.  But, with Marita’s observation that the branches might actually attract the little kids around here to play, they added a more protective bamboo surround. 

*fortunate for me, I did not use echinacea

The Nursing Students Annual Mela

Tansen Nursing School, now a Nepal Government School, lies at the foot of the medical complex.  There are approximately 130 students in a 3-year program.  Some are quite young as only ten years of schooling is required by the gov't.  Most of the instructors are Nepali, but a few expats teach also.  The girls live here in the boarding arrangement.  Beth is one of the expat instructors and supervisors and lives overlooking the school.  She knows what is happening just by listening and looking, as the girls love to be outside.  This last week was a Spring break and Beth helped organize sports teams for them....an effort to satisfy their love of competition and to foster interaction between the  
classes.  I could hear lots of cheering for three days as they played their volleyball tournament on one of the rare flat areas on the hill.  It is surrounded by an extremely high fence for stray balls!

The students love to get out of uniform!

Also the girls had been preparing for some time for the annual highlight....the Mela....a Fair.  This is the only time of the year that boys and men are allowed on the campus, and for these young girls that's a big deal!

Our craft dept. (Beth's class and me) had been making cross-stitch cards to sell.  I had never done counted cross-stitch before, but managed to make two of the seven samples for Beth.  Then I managed to help her finish off some of the many projects she so creatively put together: ruffled sofa pillows, pillowcases, hotpads, aprons, etc.  Most all was sold and the profits of the day go toward scholarships for future nursing students.

     

The Beauty Salon students were eager to get some clients on Friday.....so Jon and I, and some others, gave them some practice.  The Nepali's seem to be like Afghans in that most things are done in groups....not just one person to decide what to do with Dr. Bishop! A whole group.....and they chatter and talk the whole time you're there....their way of supporting one another perhaps.  I arrived to find Jon prone on a cot, covered and waiting for his 'mask' to dry on his face.  The cotton balls were the crowning glory.  What a sport he is!                  

The Salon did many things...headrub, back rub, facials, fancy patterns on every painted nail.  I insisted they leave my toes plain, but it took a few times to convince them.  Jon came down with a bad cold overnight, so I don't know if his facial, head massage and footsoak were good for him!

These women know how to dance!  I wish I knew    more of what they were about....and where they were from.  The students come from all over Nepal, and some costumes and food booths were more ethnic specific.  But I could tell they were enjoying themselves immensely.....and the score of young men who came were too!

 As the day progressed, the audience grew.  Being that Saturday is their day of worship, I think it took til after lunch for folks to be free to come.  

But lunch was provided, for a few rupees!  And after she ate what her grandpa bought for her, she got an ice-cream bar.....and gave us a big  smile.

The little green plates you see are made of large leaves that have been washed and stapled together to make a bowl.  

The girls are eating Mo-Mos.....a filling of various sorts of meat and vegetables and spices, formed into a ball and wrapped by a circle of

ladies serving up food for the crowd.  These are called
Lollipops....Chicken type drumsticks that look like a
stick.

dough like won-tons are made from.  The little twist at the top is a signature.....and they are steamed, not deep-fried....one of the few things that are not.  Jon and I eat at the hospital canteen once a week for lunch....and everything I picked was made with potatoes, somehow...disguised by being fried like a chapati...no, it was  a potato-spinach pancake.  The samosa had potato in it.  The 'soup' had....you guessed it, potato and soybeans.

I'll leave you with one last dance and a happy face on your cheek.....this celebrative day was all that they wanted....fun, food and funds!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2069

Nepal doesn't follow the Gregorian calendar.  In fact, they follow three different calendars, depending on where you live.  Friday, the 13th, was the first day of the new year in Palpa district.  The new month is Bausakd.  Don't ask me how to pronounce it.

Our special treat that morning was to see the Annapurna range with snow!  The skies weren't totally bright blue, but, hey, there is SOME blue!

 Closer......


They were visible until mid-afternoon when the prevailing winds brought in clouds and smog.  But, they are there!!

It reminds me of the faith required to believe in anything....if it's not visible, or understandable.  So many things we believe by faith.......not the least of is our faith in the Divine Creator, Sustainer, Savior.  Once in a while we get to SEE the majesty...full-blown and beautiful.  The rest of the time, we exercise faith that God is still there, though unseen.....that we are loved beyond belief and kept in the palm of God's hand, even though we don't always feel it.....the clouds and smog of prevailing winds get in the way, part of living in the world, in whatever culture.....BUT WE HAVE TO TRUST IN WHAT WE KNOW TO BE TRUE....from what others tell us, from what the maps tell us, from what occasional glimpses tell us.......our faith is founded in multiple sources....we can KNOW our creator and trust in what we read, hear, and experience of Him.  SEE?  The mountains are there!!!!  All this time hidden....

Looking down from the mountains,
Jon was attracted to the farming going on below us.
There are tractors here....

Looking from the top of the hill, our house is on the edge of the
hill looking over the farmland....above the fog in these photos.

And a bit more of Creation ...a succulent.

Our outdoor orchids....lining our walkways

Easter in Nepal

Thursday before Easter was our first big storm here.  This is a land of thunder & lightning!  We had had some of both other days, but this time the rain followed, in torrents!  I had been sewing at Beth's and had to borrow an umbrella to get home for dinner.  Jon comes home, grabs his camera and heads out again...for quite awhile.  He went to some high spots on the hospital and hill behind to catch the scenery, and actually caught some lightning on film....not easy!!


Jon arose early the next morning to capture any new visions of mountains that might occur with the removal of the haze by the storm.   He saw the sun rise in the east, with a few clouds about.  Then he actually detected a faint outline of taller mountains behind the obvious hills........could those be the long-awaited Himalayas we are told reside to our Northeast?  Usually we can see neither range because of the haze, but here they are!

Our next hope will be to see the snow on them.  Is that asking too much?  They are the Annapurna Range......Annapurna is one of the 8 mt. peaks above 8000 meters tall in Nepal....let's see, how tall is that in feet?  26,545 Feet!!  One of these days we will see it from our house.  WE just have to be patient......and maybe wait for the monsoons in late May and early June.

Friday evening was the Stations of the Cross procession, beginning at the very bottom of campus, at the Nursing School.   I thought it would only cover the 120 steps up the hill to the hospital and homes.  Wrong.  We had only done two Stations, and we were climbing all the steps!  There must have been  fifty of us, ages 10-87.







 We continued climbing with every station.  I discovered there was more to the campus than I had seen....the children's schoolhouse, for one.  One of the kids carried the wooden cross to each station and others added the nails at one, red cloth, white cloth, thorns when needed.  It was dark when we finished.

Friday was also the day I made the Rabbit Carrot Cake for the party on Saturday.  Since it only needed one layer, I made the other layer as a birthday cake for our di-di, Chandra!  She was delighted to take it home after work on Friday.  She had made us Samosas for lunch and Chipatis for me to use as tortillas for my enchiladas for dinner.  With my US spice mix and Tillamook Cheese, we had a yummy dinner that reminded us of home.....minus the cottage cheese and green salad.

Saturday, today, was our Easter Sunday!
Yesterday it was Easter Friday in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Tomorrow is Easter Sunday in  the Western Hemisphere.
When did Christ arise from the grave, do you figure?
Hope it doesn't matter!

We walked to the 10 am service at the Tansen Church on the upper road.  The pastor did insert a few words of english to keep some of us informed as to where his sermon was going.  Afterward, Jon and I walked on into town to have lunch at the Hotel. thinking Beth was going there from the 'lower road' church. She never showed up, but we had coffee with a medical health worker we met after church, then stayed for  a lunch of Mo-Mos, spicy meat wrapped in won-ton type dough and steamed. 

 Then we had a Sizzler......hot meat and veggies with noodles and sauce spread over.    Hot is good as it kills any germs that might  make us sick.  We then walked home very slowly, to allow Marita's body heat to stay within limits and give Jon camera time.  

 Shortly after arriving home, the thunder, lightning and rain started again.    Jon ran out again, after failing to find an umbrella (guess we didn't bring one).  





What follows the rain?

Our last event of the day was an Easter party for all of the missionaries.  Boy, do they know how to party here!  It went on and on and on.  Something I now recall from other sabbaticals in isolated places.  There is no hurry to go home!  We enjoy the few times when everyone drops everything and spends time together.  After a couple songs, a couple special numbers by the kids and a skit, we were divided into 4 teams of a dozen or so and were handed a list of things to find and questions to answer by quizzing folks.  Speed and quality of items were considered in allotting points.  And we had to plan  a charade for the end of the party.  Finally, we got to eat the goodies everyone brought....savory and sweet.  They decided to save my bunny cake for the birthdays that needed celebrating later.

 The evening ended with the charades, another game, some special music by adults and kids, and clean-up!  It was a nice time....almost 4 hours of party.    The storytelling will be held another time.

Tomorrow at 6 am is a sunrise service for those who want to keep Easter on Sunday.  I am not going.  Jon is taking call for the Doctor who is preaching at the service.  But he plans on getting up at 5 and climbing the 350 stairs above the hospital......for his own sunrise service.

The stairs begin where the large building is on the left.

The hospital is under the large roofs in the middle of the

photo.  This stair takes a right turn at the top and continues some more.  I don't know if I will ever climb it, but Jon seems to like the view from on top!