It seems that in the last seven weeks we had a life time's worth of experiences happen to us ranging from the good, bad, and butt clenching terrifying to the breathtaking (literally) and rather grotty (that would be the illness side of things, that you kind of just get used to). 
Program Volunteer Nepal
Project: Volunteer to help the children in the Child Care Centers Nepal
We kicked off our stay with the training and sightseeing in Kathmandu, all good fun, language lessons with Sanju be an experience, were not too great at languages, but we got the essentials sorted in our heads...
though up in Chobhar they speak Newari so we'll finish this report with a couple of must know words and phrases for anyone going up to the hill top to help you out!
After our 2nd phase of induction we headed to Chitwan for a few days and went on the walking, jeep, canoe and elephant safaris, saw lot of animals, no tigers though. Ashley & I did enjoyed 'washing the elephants' i.e. sitting on their backs and being sprayed by them, a really good way too cool off, though a little snotty!!
The bus ride to Chitwan was an experience it was more like mountainside demolition derby. They go haring over theses Narrow Mountain passes and round blind corners on the wrong side of the road within inches of the edge. All good fun and part of the experience, you kind of become immune after a couple of trips.
The time spent Teaching the Children in Tharu Community & working with the Children at the Blind Orphanage was really rewarding, we also did taught health awareness in the Government school, the children loves to see new faces, and we're proud to say there are a bunch of community children's knew how important being clean, as well as the effect and illness they can avoid, a bicycle ride everyday for 45 minutes to 1 hour in very tiring but good fun. On our first day there we got given a piece of chalk each, the kids loved it especially as we introduced and taught more interesting rhymes, poems. We also had some pretty low point whilst up there, the first I am ill again. They called it "Dal bhat syndrome" (a tummy problem) add to this one night we walk up the whole village by screaming out loud "Spider crawling on our bed". Our big brother come to rescue and picked it off and threw it outside. But the next day we woke up and the Spider just got back and hiding next to our luggage. Not nice. The thing is our host family is Buddhist and they are not into killing insects, they believed that every living things has a spirit. They told us to just ignore it…. So we're trying…
During our 6th week we decided to take a break and went trekking for 7 days up to Annapurna Poon-hill Mountains. I can only describe the trek as 7days of agony punctuated by awesome views and meeting with some holy man that had just came back from meditation in a cave. We reached gorepani on the 3th day Ash & I immediately started to get headaches due to the altitude (3190m) more garlic soup I think… The next day were up at 5am and hiking up a mountain to get a view of the dawn over the Poon hill mountains. Watching the sun rise over the Himalayas was worth trekking! A very spectacular view! Now I understand the true meaning of trekking!! The walking was definitely worth the pain and would recommend a trek to anyone, even just a short one as you meet so many different people and see wonderful places.
All in all, our experiences were varied but all totally worth it, looking back we wouldn't change any of it because it all added to and made our stories! We had an amazing time and met some amazing people everywhere we went.
All the Very Best
Ash and Kez
