Stretching our time to get the most done

Sept 18 (Tues)

Today was another big push at the two home sites. We decided to meet for breakfast at 6:30 to get things going early. That being said, Michael (the architect and missionary) had heard that the Maoist party was organizing a bunda (sp?) to shut down the roads. This is how ordinary people can see how much power any certain party may have, since there really isn’t much TV or news here. Michael, Jon and I walked about 10 minutes out to the main road to see if we would be able to drive anywhere today. And at first we didn’t see any traffic at all. We asked at another hotel if anything was going on, and almost at the same moment he said he hadn’t heard anything and there was to be no bunda today., at least 3 big work trucks came driving down the road. Thankfully we would be able to work!

By the time we got back and loaded up, we didn’t get to the job sites until almost 9am. And we left again just before noon to head over to a new church/school in the town of Trishuli. This was sort of the mother church to the little church we’ve been visiting. We just missed the first lunch session, so we did a short tour of the church and talked to a few different people about their stories. When the school kids were finished with their lunch period we headed back down for lunch, similar to yesterday - rice, curried meat, veg, greens, dal. We hung out with the kids as well. They really seemed excited to see us, play with us, practice the english that they know. I played a little badminton with a girl named Sanjeeta (sp? again, haha) and she showed me her classrooms. She was 14, very smart and outgoing

Once we got back to the little church, we took another little outing down to the Trishuli river to take a little swim. It was pretty shallow so it was actually more like a soak, and the water wasn’t very cold, but it still was extremely refreshing. After hiking back up to the job sites, our team really got cookin’. We got a lot done, and we are going to try and finish the house by the end of the day tomorrow. Today we got the 4 window frames installed, and a bunch more courses of block done.  It’s really taking shape and you can really see the progress, and how the home is becoming a reality. The second site is getting going too, and that doesn’t have the interior windows that ours does, so that should catch up and get a good ways along too.

Hiking down to the Trishuli River

Finishing up in the growing dark

We got back to the hotel after dark, again.  Showered, ate dinner (with a little bowl of ice cream for each of us!), and now to bed. My limbs feel like lead and I’m not going to last very long any more. Can’t wait to finish up these houses for those that need them.