Meet Justice

DAY 19 - Nepal

I’m surrounded by seven sets of inquisitive eyes right now. They’re sitting here patiently staring at you. Well, to be fair, they’re staring at me writing to you. I think they like you, but I think they also really like the looks of this fancy silver Powerbook I’m typing on…and the 200 or so pictures I just downloaded on it.

If you were here right now, I’m pretty sure you’d fall in love instantly. Not to sound presumptuous, but these seven sets of eyes next to me belong to the beautiful faces of the kids here in the Ramgha village. We’re sitting on the porch of their pastor’s home, looking down at the sun setting gently over layers and layers of Himalaya foothills. I’m in Nepal I think, and I just pinched myself for the hundredth time to make sure I’m not going to wakeup...

We’ve been in a bit of a holding pattern the last day or so in Katmandu. We were supposed to head-out yesterday to come up to this central province that’s about 370 miles north of the capital. Unfortunately the pastor got delayed by a funeral service he had to administer. But this morning we finally hit the road about 8 am with the 3 of us and another 7 of our new closest friends crammed into the back of a taxi van. We soon discovered that we had luckily picked the only real party bus in central Nepal as our young Chinese- Nepalise driver treated us to a mix of the latest local techno and dance hits- non English of course- for the next 3 hours. The roads up through the mountains are beautiful but slow. Buses, taxi’s, horse drawn carts, and military check-points keep the speed of progress quite limited.

Finally we stop in a decent sized trading village along the road. Unfolding our legs and discovering we still had all our limbs was an encouragement, and inspired us to catch a snack and a quick rest break until loading up in our next leg- a local jeep. The jeep took us and a load of 50 lb rice bags as far as it could up the badly pot-holed dirt road. After about half an hour however, the road was closed. And the fun began.

We’ve known for quite some time that we needed to be in some sort of physical condition for this trip. And it’s not that we didn’t spent some time on the treadmill before we left. It’s just that nothing at LA Fitness- nor on the east coast of the States for that matter- can really quite prepare you for a hike here in Nepal. Granted, we are nowhere near Everest, but from the amount of huffing and puffing and profuse sweating in these 7,000 foot “hills” you would have thought we’d just climbed to the summit of something. After about 3 hours of beautiful views however, the next village around the bend was our destination, and we’re thrilled to be here in Ramgha.

Back on the porch now, the sun has set, and I smell something yummy cooking next door. Time to try out the local cuisine and give these tired legs some rest. We’ll check back in tomorrow.

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