Cultural Experiences

08/20/08
We have begun week three. This weekend we got outside of the city for the first time. Sat morning we went for a nice run with some fellow staff members of Shannon’s. We ran maybe fifteen minutes to get beyond the cities outside road, Ring Road, and we were all of a sudden into rice fields and peace. We made our way up to a little village about another thirty minutes out or so. Sat is the one day of the week that Nepalise take off and it’s their spiritual day, so the village was full of families worshipping, visiting, and playing music. It was peaceful and lively. It was what we needed. We had heard that just outside of the city everything changes, but we hadn’t gotten the chance to experience that yet. There is world of difference in just forty minutes of running, as if we were running back in time. The people of the village were extremely kind, but I imagine seeing six or seven white Americans running through there streets was not an every day sort of thing, so we may have gotten a few extra stares. Being in that environment with people worshipping at the different temples and blessing there food and each other, a person can’t help being impacted in some way. There is a power to the peacefulness that is unavoidable. This peace shows in their faces, especially the children’s. There is this obvious lack of inner stress or angst. It seems that they, speaking in general terms, are at peace with where and how they are. There seems to be this lack of anxiety in the air, as if everyone knows that they are all in the same game together and are okay with being teammates and let’s not get excited, that’s not going to make this moment any better. Maybe it’s just contentment. It definitely feels refreshing.

On Sun. we went out to a touristy village called Bhaktapur. It was lovely. This is the slow time for tourism because of monsoon season, so it wasn’t too busy. There are no cars or trucks allowed within the temple squares, so it’s nice and easy to walk around there. Some of the oldest and largest temples in Nepal are here. Most of them were built long before the fifteenth century and all are built with absolutely amazing detail, it seemed that at every corner there was a temple of some sort. The Hindu’s and Buddhist have coexisted here since the beginning of the city, actually empowering one another, what a concept, this is where the power of these temples seems obvious. We will definitely be back here to explore more of this on our own, once again we were with a group of folks, which is cool, but being alone would allow us a little more freedom to check it out.

We are getting a couple of bicycles this week from the director of the school, he has extras for us to borrow, and our possibilities for exploring will increase exponentially. Plus, it’s like when you’re looking for a new job, it’s easier to find a new one when you already have a job. Well, hopefully that’s how it’ll work with the bikes, because the selection is limited. The other cool thing is we are having dinner with some folks that go on rides three or four times a week in the mornings and they have already invited us along. A couple of them have lived here most of their lives. Local connections are being made, SWEEEEETTTT!!! This is where we’ll get all the good beta.

We have been looking at photos and feel blessed to have the friends that we have. We are holding all of you in our hearts and love all of you.
Peace and love,
Craig & Shannon