Alice in Wonderland

Well here we are again, our month anniversary was about two weeks ago. Wow i can’t believe so much has happened and in just a month i have fallen in love with you, yes yes Nepal i am talking about you! We have had oiur highs and we have our lows but it is amazing i am so glad that we got to meet!! Anyway i still cant get over that we are now in something like our 7th week here, things are going by so quickly it’s unreal, sorry guys having one of these sloshy moments hah. So back to business, milk story; Sunday is our day off and we choose what we want to do with it. So we as a teamio seceded to get up at 6 and use this day of rest to our advantage, we all got up and went to buy milk from two different sshop because we wanted 10 bags, yes 10, well for milk and porridge and you know stuff like that. Anyway believe it or not we haven’t been to the right of our house and were very curious to what is down that way. We went exploring, funtimes basically big heel sarah twisted her ankle dropped the milk, i tripped and people laughed, we decided to not go any further as it is not worth it turned back, Mairi dropped milk, picked up milk, dropped again. By thi point the Nepalis that live down there are on their roofs watching and laughing at us. Well at least we gave them a show hey, brightened up their morning ;) we then spent the rest of the day in mine and sarahs room with the beds pushed together watching Gilmore girls and of course with food breaks inbetween! So already starting the week on a high is mighty fine.
Monday, i am literally alice in wonderland! Okay so we got the bus to the Nepali school, and im sure they weren’t this small before, but this bus was tiny well for me everyone else seemed fine. So i got on the bus and there is hardly any space anyway so i squeezed in to find that i cant even stand up, no joke though if i had stood up my whole upper body would have been through the roof. Soo i find a seat and it’s next to this nepali man who is proper old like must have been in his 70s, but he is looking cool, in his short shorts and nepali hat. Anyway i sit next to him well not even mext to him. I sit on him. Yep i was actually sitting on his knee, man and the thing is he could have moved up but he didn’t haha. It was vair vair awkward. So heres a picture for you imagine alice in wonderland where she grows in that house. Well imagine me frowing in the bus. Wait you don’t have to just come to Nepal and see for yourself! So we get to school and we meet the lady in charge her name is Bunti and she is absolutely amazing, i reall admire her man she is so lovely. She started this school because she didn’t like the way the nepali schools teach by just memorising and not actually knowing what the words mean. Also she take in children with special needs and to put the holy cherry ontop if the holy cake, she is a Christian which is amazing. I LOVE THIS SCHOOL. Anyway we will be working there once we get back from Kathmandu and conference etc. When we get home each day we are doing conference planning, so thats what we did today. We are making good friends with downstairs, one of the brothers came and helped us with the cutting and painting which is lovely that even though we don’t understand each other much that he can still come and do stuff like this with us. Its a real blessing to have the family that we have living below us.
This week in PSC me and esther are withe the older children which is alot of fun fractions yay, Caitlin cant do them, she never has and never will. Now i cant remember if i have or i haven’t told you what a didi is. So just to be on the safe side i’m going to tell you. Didi, this means older sister. In Nepal you call people you don’t really know but you class as close people to you as older sister, younger sister, older brother, younger siser and if they are really old, grandma or granddad ha. Anyway, Didi means older sister. We have a Didi that comes to our house three times a week and cooks and cleans for us and sometimes does our washing. So if i ever talk about Didi, thats what i is referring to :) so now that is clear what i wanted to say is that the Didi makes the most amazing food and on Tuesday she made us pizza with like 400 veggies in it it was amazing SO good! Also Sarah an i went to the orphanage that is linked with the church. We will be going every Wednesday evening to help with homework and eat dinner with them. The chidren there are lovely, they just jump on you and they all want you to mark their homework for them and when the power went out they all jump on you cos they are scared. They are honestly all so happy and lovely. We also stay and have dinner with them which is the traditional dhal bhat.
So its now Wednesday, again at PSC, and the best subject ever this morning, P.E yay. I love school first fractions then P.E. although i cant really complain, we didn’t have to do P.E just supervise which was niceeeee. We had to go to a presentation thing at the hospital for INF day, we all got a pre schooler to look after, i got the child that decides to play spitting games, and spit on the man infront if me...he also decide to practice his numbers really really loud when the speaker first started speaking. Awkward is the only word i can think of right now.
For the next couple if days we didn’t really do much just went to school and did conference planning although we did make some playdough which was fun. I also needed to get a taxi, and they tried charging me a 200 to go up the road, and this is the best bit we started having this like jokey argument and i said..cheack this out, i said “i have been living here for a month now and i knoe the prices” eeekkk i actually said i live here, and its true man this is so amazing. Now that i said it, it must be true! Anyway got it down to a reasonable price but its fun to haggle! So this is all happening on Friday. Sarah and i get back from collecting stuff from school to be greeted by the landlady downstairs to tel us that he husband is ill and is in hospital. This is the amazing part their family are hindu/bhuddist but they asked us if we would go and pray for him. How amazing is that, they knew we were Christians and they associate Jesus with healing and they asked us. I mean if that isn’t god working in some way then smite me, cos i have no idea what it is. So we went put in our sets (posh nepali clothes) and we also put on make up, which felt so good. It may seem stupid but honestly all your rubbishy feelings go away cos you almost feel normal! Anyway we got the dreaded bus to the hospital with the landlady and met the whole family there. We then went on a tour rounf the hospital and got back to his bed where we sat on it and prayed. You could really feel gods presence and healing powers surrounding him here. It really was amazing. Anyway after that they called us family and not to say thank you and sorry anymore cos we are family. Nepalis don’t say thank you and sorry here, its not the common thing to do like in England. We are too polite LOL just kidding we are british! So after that mairi and i went and did our fruit and veg shopping in Rambazar which i absoloultly love like if im feeling rubbish i jsut take a walk down there and u feel 100times better!! We then had to pack up ready for conference where we loaded everything onto Rich’s push bike and pushed it down to school, which i have to admit was rather funny, one of the brothers downstairs and his friend helped us because we looked as if we were struggling and looking more and more like fools haha. So we got it all in school and sarah and i headed home at which point it started to rain. It hasn’t rained in at least a month i think and wow did the heavens open. We got soaked to the bone. You know like in movies where they are walking down a dusty road and they haven’t had water in like a thousand years and then it rains the two actors start laughing and running down the road and they get absoultly soaked. Now just take those two lovely glamourous people, and replace them with two drowned rats, tripping up on the stones and running like a fool cos their shoes keep falling off. That is what you call a Caitlin and Sarah. When we eventually managed to get in we got changed and joined the family on their front porch bit and ate these bean things and watched the bolts of lightening fall down and the rain becming heavier and heavier. It was breath taking. Actually made me miss the English weather....then i thought am i being stupid i get a hot christams, you guys are gunna be freezing! LOL.
So this is the weekend we go to Kathmandu. Saturday is church. Am starting to miss my church the homely feel and the English side to it all. Athough i am missing church, the recent events that are going on have caused pain and hurt to people close to me, and for me to see that this is going on when i am so far away is so painful. I am almost glad that i am not a part of it. But at the same time i am struggling because i want to be there for the people that are involved and i just want to hug them! Anyway i left church early and came home and did the washing up and tidyed, its kind of like my therapy for some strange reason. It relaxes me and gives me something to concentrate on. Well for a few minutes until i get bored as usual. But this lasted about 2hours :) yeahh babes. The girls came home with crazy aunt chrissy and we all went out for lunch. All 11 of us it was lovely, we stayed there for a good few hours and then had the best dessert ever. Banana split, oh my dizzles was it amazing haha. I feel like all i talk about here is food and how amazing it is. True fatty at heart here. Anyway it was now getting dark and again started to rain, and again Caitlin was wearing stupid shoes. So i took them off and legged it down the road to meet the others, too late i was soaked yet again haha. So we got home and we packed up our troubles in our old kit bag for Kathmandu, did our nails and got an early night because we have to be up at the unearthly time of 4:30am tomorrow morning.
So Sunday and leaving for Kathmandu. Met old richy boy at the end of the road to pack the stuff onto the coach when it gets there at 6. Moved everything out of big house and am now sitting on the corner of the street with all this stuff waiting for the bus to arrive. At which point the shop has given us chiyaa (nepali tea) to keep us warm and all the other people are arriving ready to get on this bus for our amazing 8hour journey to Kathmandu! So sitting waiting and sitting and waiting and still no bus ring ring, yes yes the bus is not here...yes you find out where its is..you thought it was 7 we leave..you have had the emails you were ment to be here at 6. Well they have just woken the bus driver up and he is on his way now. Oh deary so the bus arrived at 6 30 and we all piled on the journey was actually really good. It only took us 7 hours i think. But yarhh so we arrived and oh my giddy heart, this hotel is a 5 star hotel that is basically a world away from Nepal. Me and mairi were sharing a room and it was gorge, red carpet very romantic a bath tv HOT WATER. You couldn’t wish for more! So first things first foooooood. Wayhey im in heaven, food here is normal and hot and meaty and not dangeours well to a certain extent! So we did our first burst of babysitting which was relaxing and quiet. Was proper shattered tho. Bed and i was dead to the world!
Oh my life..best showere ever, i actually had to put some cold water into it because it was TOO HOT. Eeekkk mayn its exciting. This is our first day of holiday club and it went really really well the kids all seemed to have a blast woop. Oh yeah before i forget breakfast, hot cooked meat. YEAH BABES. Anyway the kids made friendship braclets they really emersed themselves into it and they said that this is the best conference ever. And only on the first day, well at least they got our bribes in the post! And today we made contact to England we spoke to one of the bms reps Ben and it was so clear. He was just checing in to see how we were, not dies or anything like that and we said no still here etc etc.
Tuesday woke up extra early especially to have a bath nand wowzarwezar was it worth it eek it was so amazing. First bath in Nepal ahh was so exciting. And it felt so good i just relaxed and read my book!today we did an obstacle course for the kids and they also did the scratch art which they enjoyed, and today we played a jokes game, we did flower fishing where they could only use their faces they to pick out sweets hidden in flour! Was very fun to watch haha. We ended off with hand stack prayers which they really enjoy doing. In the afternoon we babysat which was again relaxing.
Wednesdays theme for holiday club was God our Boss. Man did these kids put there heart and souls into this next craft. Throughout the weeks before we went to Rambazar to collect old cardboard boxes etc. So with all of these at the ready, the jids had to make their own cars in which they did so well. They put loads of detail into it, they did the control panel and the gear box and man it was so amazing! I am so proud of them and how they worked together. Again we played the best games everW we playeddd..the mars bar game, cotton wool and jam on the nose and mummifying me in newspaper. That was fun cos they couldn’t reach my lanky head so they made a human tower LOL. Oh it was funny. Today we also saw Margret Gibbs, it was nice to reconnect with home just abit. She told us that people have been giving good feedback about us which is lovely and how thankful they are for us to have come to conference which is amazing to hear. In the afternoon we had a session oh it was soo much fun! to sum it up we were all really hyper including the children, it ended up with me covered in paint from head to toe, running around like headless chickens and beong overly loud at dinner time cos we all stayed on the same table. Oh and did i mention thanks to the red paint, it stained me orange so it looked like a fake tan gone wrong which wasn’t fun trying to explain to people but it was very funn.
Thursday/time to freeze! Right today stared all lovely and chilled we started our board game thet we organised and they had fun playing with that. The brak soon apperared so we had cake and coffee. After that we all metthe kids at the bottom by the swimming pool where they all tried to puch me in, so we decided to go swimming. So we all went upstairs and none of us had our swimstuff with us so we went on shorts and tshirts. By the way did i mention that this swimming pool is outside and its not heated..no well it was and my did it take your breath away. We all jumped in and i almost cried!! But i was brave and we all managed to play a few games and i even swam a few lengths. Ha we got out an dover dinner we did the prizes and the goody bags form the week and said thanks to the kids, they really enjoyed it and said they have loves every minute which is nice to hear! So packe dup again and got ready to leave.
Up at 5 and man was i feeling rough had proper bad stomach cramps couldn’t stand and was dreading the bus journey back. However it wasn’t too bad just felt uncomfterbale and sick, so i moved the bags from the back seat and set up camp and fell asleep which wa slaverlyyy the journey was amazingly good again only took i think 7-8hours to get back. We then went to elly and richs to have dinner where i was feeling proper rough so ended up in their spare room which was rubbish cos they had pancakes and melted chocolate and stewed apples..with cinoman mahhhh badtimes. But i am alove and feeling so much better so this weekend we have spent in lakeside chiristmas shopping and writing cards and letters. So a pretty chilled weekend oh yeas, and downstairs took us to a festival oh my was it scary, you see in the Olympics where they ride the bikes round the wooden track and go really high, well a woman did this with two other men and they did it on a motorbike and it didn’t loo very stable, oh and they also did it with 3 cars aswell!! Ahhhh my heart was racing i was praying but man did i want to do that again haaa it was soo much funn! Anyway here i am now Monday, sitting on the balcony in the dark because it is 6 25 listening to my music and writing to you lovely people, if there is anybody out there! Ha. I also got my first letter today HOW EXCITING. But today has been our first day in Nepali school and was lovely we taught them father Abraham and i taught the class i was in English, they were doing the letter Q. I couldn’t even say the words haha oh well thats all the fun of living in a new world and being me!!
Just a quick add on last week I waas really ill, but I am good now prayers for the whole team to be healed of sickness and home sickness would be really appreciated!! But I’m back and bouncing so all is all well!
So I know this is a rather long blog but it is practically what i have done everyday for the last two weeks!! So you cant complain that i don’t tell you anything.

Guys keep in touch as i’m missing home and stuff

Write to me its always nice to open stuff

And i will write to you back and you can have a special Nepal stamp haa

Anyway tubs needs to eat thank you for all the prayers and encouraging words guys

Pray that my family are well and are not struggling and nan gets better
Pray that are health still stays strong
And pray that nothing will rock us
I love you mann am missing you all but am getting along rather spiffingly
Lots of lovey love and hugs
The one and only
Alice in wonderland
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