It is thundering (which means the end of my connection) and I can't think of a creative title under this pressure...

Hi! We’ve been without power for almost two days, so we haven’t been able to get on the internet. It’s been killing the kids! I have also found it challenging to cook dinner and wash dishes in the almost dark.  I think that I have the dishes all clean and find out the next morning (in the light) that I wasn't even close...
Here’s what we’ve been up to…

The solar water heater in the campground is up and running – hooray!! That means hot showers. There are a few things that still need to get done to complete it, but it is working. If you don’t care about engineering details, then skip the rest of this paragraph … One thing that needs to get installed is a pressure relief device on the tank. As the water heats up in the tubes, it can get really hot, evaporate, and create a high pressure in the tank. If the pressure gets too high, then the tank will burst, which is bad… So it is important to relieve the pressure if it gets too high. The solar heaters that we looked at in Singapore all came equipped with a pressure relief valve. The ones that we bought in Nepal don’t have that. The people in Nangi were not going to put any relief devices on the tank - they were just going to put an open pipe on the top of the tank so that the water vapor could escape. The problem is that their feed tank is about 10 ft about the solar water heater tank, so I tried to explain to them that if they left the valve open between the feed tank and the solar heater tank, then the water would just drain out of the open pipe until the feed tank was empty. I said that we really needed to put a pressure relief valve on the tank. When we called the store that we bought it from, the guy told us that they did not recommend that - if it failed and the tank burst, we would be responsible. He said we had to just put on a really tall open pipe . So then I explained that in the winter the water would freeze in that pipe and then it wouldn't provide a means of pressure relief anymore. The guy from the store just said “Oh, well that’s how we do it.” I am definitely working against the "this is how we always do it" mentality. So we have agreed on a pressure relief valve on one port and a rupture/burst disc on the other port (set at a higher pressure than the valve) as a backup. The sales shop was OK with that. So now when I can get on the internet, I am trying to find burst discs and pressure relief valves that will work.

A few days ago we hiked to a village called Salizaar to see how the women there make blankets and other things out of nettle. Nettle is a stinging plant (I touched one by accident, and it really does sting a lot!) – it is amazing that they can make something nice out of the plant. They do it all by hand in their village. The hike was tough – up and over a ridge to get there, and then back up and over the ridge to get home. We were tired!! Our guide on the trip was this older man named Moti. He was a Ghorka in the British army, and he had been stationed in Singapore. He is so nice – one of our favorite people in Nangi. He doesn’t seem fierce enough to have been a Ghorka.

On our hike, Jessica got bit by a leech. It had already fallen off by the time she realized it had been there. The spots where they bite bleed like crazy. Then when we got home, I had one on my foot. It didn’t hurt, and at first it didn’t bother me. According to Jeff Corwin , you should not remove a leech. I was prepared to follow this advice, but then the kids kept giving me a running commentary on what it was doing. After awhile I couldn’t stand it anymore – it was creeping me out. So we touched it with a hot ember from the fire and that made it leave go. I’m not listening to Jeff Corwin anymore!  Those things are gross.

Here are some new phrases that we have learned…

How are you? “Ta pie lie ka stosa?”

I am fine. “Ma lie sun sigh tsu”

How old are you? “Ta pie koti barsa hunu bio?”

How old are your kids? “Ta pie ko batsa koti barsa bio?”

I need to find out how to say “I am 29, again”…

The headmaster of the school has taken to quizzing me with Nepalese questions every morning, so I am really trying to learn it.

One of our favorite pastimes is going down to Moti’s house to pick plums. They are awesome! He has tons of them, so we can pick as many as we want. Moti is also in charge of the nursery (the plant kind of nursery) here in Nangi. They grow all kinds of plants, but especially trees, that they sell to people to raise money for the school.

The kids have befriended another nice man named Jagat. He does wood carving. He makes all of the signs that are posted around the village and on the local trails. He is making signs for Brad, Ty, and Kami with their names on them – they are thrilled and visit him multiple times a day to check on the progress. He may be regretting making those signs .

Last night, a female teacher named Hemkumari made us a Nepalese dinner. She made a type of French fries that the kids loved, and she also made rice pudding that I loved, but no one else really did. It was so nice of her to come up and cook for us. She brought her niece, Tamuna, with her. Kami and Tamuna played together all night and part of today. It was cute how well they got along.

Our cooking skills are getting better. Jessica has become a pro at making bread. It’s great, and we can either eat it as-is or turn it into French Toast. Brad is trying to perfect the art of making cookies without butter. He’s doing a pretty good job of that. We are now waiting for batch number two to finish cooking.

I have not looked in a mirror for 2 weeks now – maybe that is for the best! There are no mirrors up here in our house, so I have no idea how crazy my hair looks.

Bruce left a week ago to go to work in Mumbai. He was supposed to come back to Nangi today to spend the last few days with us, but we just got an email saying that he has to go to London for an emergency meeting. What a bummer!  Oh, well - we will catch up with him in Pokhara or Kathmandu (hopefully).

I will post pictures when I have a more reliable internet connection.  It is all I can do to get a post done before the power goes out again, and I lose the connection...