Nepal

This is Ian Sanderson. For Ian's 40th birthday we rented motorcycles and headed out for a road trip. Clich? perhaps, but fun nonetheless.

Merry Christmas!

Two images of daily prayer in Nepal. The first one is Hindu. On a hillside above Lamatar, on the edge of the Kathmadu valley, there is a small cave that is known as a holy place.

Today the stupa here in Boudhanath was lit up with one hundred thousand butter lamps in honor of World Peace Day. A powerful prayer for peace, and I can't think of a better thing to pray for.

Finally getting out more to see what goes on in the valley, I visited Loyola House, a home for about 35 boys who study at local schools.

Weddings: in some sense, the same the world over. But here in Nepal, even more so.

Winter has come, such as it does here.
Trees are still green but the sunlight has a pale coolness

Today is Thanksgiving in America, and I have so much to be thankful for. More than I can say, more than I can carry in my heart, my life and time here in Nepal are incredible blessings.

One of the things that I originally thought would be very hard to adjust to in Nepal is the lack of hot water. My family, like most people, doesn't have a water heater.

I am back home in Boudhanath. Funny how quickly a place can become home. I have been gone a week, but it felt much longer. It is good to be back and see my family and friends here.

On the way back from Pokhara, Greg and I stop to visit his friend. Maila Praja is his name. He is Chepang.

In the back of a monastery behind the main shrine room in a Tibetan refugee camp in Chorepatan, Nepal, an old woman attends the butter lamps.

Most of Nepal is still very rural, and village life seems to dominates the collective imagination, even of those who now live in large cities such as Kathmandu.

Dashain is the time in Nepal for families to come together, sharing food, and gifts, and all sorts of traditional activities. One of these is swinging on huge bamboo swings.

Though I have been here for only a month, it seemed time for a road trip.

An old motorcycle, a good traveling companion, and an open road... freedom.

Most of the rice is now heavy with grain, almost ready to harvest, but not quite. Much of it needs a bit more time to finish growing. But this last little bit of time has its own problems.

Today is the first day of the rice harvest, with the first field I have seen being harvested right outside my back door. As one would expect, everything is done by hand.

A patchwork of small farms cling to the hillsides in Lamatar on the edge of the Kathmandu valley.

In Lubhu, a town to the south of Kathmandu, there are two main industries: weaving and making yeast cakes for chang.

This morning in church we had pretty incredible readings.

I live with a Tibetan family in an apartment in Siddha Nagar, a neighborhood over small a ridge north of Boudhanath. This is the view from our roof. 

Around town there are a few open taps, "springs" where people come and get water and do laundry all day. It certainly is a talent to keep your long skirt dry while doing laundy in a pool of water.

Today the city shifted gears into festival mode for the annual Teej festival at the Pashupati Temple, a Hindu temple to an avatar of Vishnu named Pashupati, or "Lord of the Creatures." On this day,