Nangi for the first time...

Hi!  I have made it safely to Nangi!  This has been crazy so far.  On Tuesday, I flew to Kathmandu and then to Pokhara.  I spent Wednesday hanging out in Pokhara.  It is a neat town... Lots of backpackers of all ages.  Great food.  Interesting shops.  While I was there, I met up with Chitra, who is my primary contact in Nangi.  We spend a few hours shopping for solar water heaters.  We found a shop that had what we wanted, so I just hung out while he bargained the price down.  We are now the proud owners of two solar heaters - to be delivered in about a week.

This morning I met Chitra at 5 am, and we drove to a small town called Beni.  From there we hiked up to Nangi.  It is a hike, and I am tired!!  I guess it compares to the Mt. Kinabalu hike that we did.  After about 5 hours, the clouds rolled in and there was a huge storm.  Luckily, we were right at a tea house, so we stayed there to ride out the storm.  I would not have wanted to be out on the mountain in it because there were 1/2" pieces of hail.  Ironic that just yesterday Chitra and I were discussing the need for buying a special cover to protect the solar units from hail.  I kept asking if Nangi gets hail...  now I know!  Total time to Nangi was about 8 hours.

I am now sitting in a computer lab at the school.  It is a little surreal - the village is very simple, but the school has computers that connect to the internet.  This organization is trying really hard to give the local kids the skills that they will need to succeed in the world as it is.  There is a guy next to me who is on Facebook.  He is the grade 11/12 math teacher, so we spend some time comparing what he teaches to what I taught.  It is surprisingly similar.

I'm going to spend the day tomorrow walking around the village making lists of things we need for the project and of things I need to bring to make my own kids comfortable.  The living arrangements are definitely different than the Shangri-La!