Namaste everyone!
Courtney, Megan, and I arrived in Kathmandu yesterday morning and spent the day getting acquainted with the city. Our lovely Nepali mentor Bhupal helped us get Nepali SIM cards and our host-mom Rashmi has an awesome room for us and has kept us full with chai and plenty of dal bhat. She even made halwa for us for an afternoon snack!
Our arrival was spoiled a little when we found out that the local government workers in most of Nepal are currently on strike, which means we won't be able to have most of the meetings we came for. This means we might shift around our local travel plans by a few days, but we’ll try our best with the cards we’ve been dealt. Elected officials aren’t on strike (just the local employees) so we still might be able to meet with some important people!
We also found out that the money advance we sent NCDC, our NGO, to fund our trip has gotten stuck somewhere between the US banks and local banks. We’re working with our team back home to fix this up as soon as possible.
The travel team put work aside for a while as we took in the city. We climbed 365 stairs up to the top of Swayambhunath, also known as the Monkey Temple, which is more than 1500 years old.
We later met up with Dr. Soma Nath Sapkota, the Director General of the Department of Mines and Geology for the Nepali government and an old friend of Megan’s mom! He invited us to his home for dinner, which was an incredible meal. We’re also planning to stop by his office and hear more about what they do when we’re back in Kathmandu near the end of our trip. His family was extremely welcoming and it was a great way to end our first day here.
Already, Nepal has proven itself an awesome place filled with lovely people and we’re so excited for the rest of our trip! We are so grateful for all of the support from the CU community, family, and friends. We are extremely lucky to have such a solid team, both here in Nepal and back in Colorado.
Thanks for reading! We’ll be updating this blog as often as we can, so be sure to check back regularly to hear all about what we’re up to.
Best,
Ashna Guliani, Courtney Kauffman, and Megan Jones
Commentaires