elephant safari! 
ashish (yes, he's coming home in a bag with one of us)
they made us flower crowns(with (l->r) tulie, secil, radika, and jamuna)
tules the photographer, with bisi
twenty minutes later, i was holding her hand (by force, i am not by any means a hand holder.) in the Bharatpur Hospital Emergency Room. if this sounds critical, it did to me too, until i got there. there was no one there, and i was immedately plopped down on a chair, had my blood pressure and temp taken, and prescribed medicine in record time. my amazement at the efficiency of this hospital was surpassed only by the cheapness of my drugs. $4 got me a weeks worth of antibiotics, ibuprofen, stuffy nose meds, and some other random medication i have yet to figure out the purpose for. easiest and most painless doctors visit ever!! and a few hours later, my fever was already leaving the body. the only thing i am still unsure of was my diagnosis... but hey, can't ask for everything. laxmi took me out for soup and eggs, after which she made me go home and "sleep" while she wiped my body down with a cold rag and cleaned my room (all while saying, "nepali way!"). later in the day i awoke and she made me sit while she washed my feet, evidently what you do to tame a fever. though i tried to tell herthat my fever had subsided, she insisted, saying she was my nepali mother. the whole day she took care of me was extremely sweet, and i definitely needed medicine, but i also wanted to tell her that i was 24 years old. i can wash my own feet. days later when she was still "reminding" me to take my medicine, i told her that i was a grown up, i can remember it by myself. if i lived in nepal, i would probably have a 5 year old child by now.
sickness aside, we ended up going to the national park (AMAZING, becca has a blog about it, as well as our unknowingness ofthe FEAR FACTOR involved), and we also hit the one month mark. actually, from today we have a mere three weeks left at Harka. it's hard to think about, as evidenced by our missing the children over our 3 day vacay to the National Park. the day we left, wecouldn't wait to get back to the kids. though a couple were mad at us for leaving (soniya, ashish), most were super exicted when we came back. we have hit a level of comfort and trust with the children that is not often established. volunteers rarely (if ever) stay longer than one month, but most stay for a mere 1-3 weeks at the orphan home. i'm not sure how i would feel staying for that amount of time, but i know that staying this long has been the greatest decision of this trip. establishing a kinship with these children is allwe can really do, but it's also all they really need right now. they don't need toys or clothes, or food necessarily...but they do need a wholelot of lovin from people that are going to be around. it's going to be hard to leave in three weeks. we know that. but the little brothers and sisterswe have made at Harka are not someone we're going to leave in three weeks and never see again. becca and i are both thinking about when we'll be ableto come back and bring friends/family... just a thought!
tules the photographer, with bisiwell, i just made a sorry attempt to upload some photos! it was slightly successful! i hope all of you out there don't think i had given up on what seemed like a futile process. about once a week, when i'm feeling motivated, i try to upload photos in some form or another... and as you can see, this has been successful one time thus far in our trip to nepal- at the Kathmandu Guest House after day #2. over a month into our trip, we now have fabulous photos of children, elephants, temples, and villages. but you can't see them. sorry! we also had the unfortunate event during our trip to Chitwan National Park where Becca accidentally pressed the "format" button on her digicam, thus deleting all pictures up to that point. OH THE HORROR! especially sad was the loss of photos taken during the children's "program" at school, because they were absolutely fabulous of all the kids looking cute in their school uniforms. also unfortunate because i was sick that day and could not go (though i did see the pictures before they were deleted).
ah yes, i was sick. i had just been thinking about how it was amazing that i wasn't sick yet when i wake up to find myself unusually cold. the chills did not cease through the morning, and my calves felt as though they had run up mt. everest. as my whole body appeared to be shutting down, i made the sad decision not to attend the children's school program. instead, they left me on a mat out in the sun to sleep. i awoke an hour or so later, blazing hot, and realized it was going to take a concerted effort to get myself to my room. leaning on the building and trying to appear somewhat with it (the only people atthe orphan home were the 4 'lil ones and Samjana/baby (the newcomers of last week). unfortunately, that was near impossible, and i was happy to hit my bed without passing out on the way there. an indeterminate amount of time later, i woke up to feel the heat radiating from my body. now, earlier i had thought that if i just waited out this fever, it would go away. now, with thermometer in hand (it read 102.9, not sure if it was correct or not), i decided i should probably see a doctor. laxmi had left me lying in the sun and said when she returned from the program, she would escort me to the doctor. hoping that would be sooner rather than later, she appeared and whisked me away on her scooter.
twenty minutes later, i was holding her hand (by force, i am not by any means a hand holder.) in the Bharatpur Hospital Emergency Room. if this sounds critical, it did to me too, until i got there. there was no one there, and i was immedately plopped down on a chair, had my blood pressure and temp taken, and prescribed medicine in record time. my amazement at the efficiency of this hospital was surpassed only by the cheapness of my drugs. $4 got me a weeks worth of antibiotics, ibuprofen, stuffy nose meds, and some other random medication i have yet to figure out the purpose for. easiest and most painless doctors visit ever!! and a few hours later, my fever was already leaving the body. the only thing i am still unsure of was my diagnosis... but hey, can't ask for everything. laxmi took me out for soup and eggs, after which she made me go home and "sleep" while she wiped my body down with a cold rag and cleaned my room (all while saying, "nepali way!"). later in the day i awoke and she made me sit while she washed my feet, evidently what you do to tame a fever. though i tried to tell herthat my fever had subsided, she insisted, saying she was my nepali mother. the whole day she took care of me was extremely sweet, and i definitely needed medicine, but i also wanted to tell her that i was 24 years old. i can wash my own feet. days later when she was still "reminding" me to take my medicine, i told her that i was a grown up, i can remember it by myself. if i lived in nepal, i would probably have a 5 year old child by now.
sickness aside, we ended up going to the national park (AMAZING, becca has a blog about it, as well as our unknowingness ofthe FEAR FACTOR involved), and we also hit the one month mark. actually, from today we have a mere three weeks left at Harka. it's hard to think about, as evidenced by our missing the children over our 3 day vacay to the National Park. the day we left, wecouldn't wait to get back to the kids. though a couple were mad at us for leaving (soniya, ashish), most were super exicted when we came back. we have hit a level of comfort and trust with the children that is not often established. volunteers rarely (if ever) stay longer than one month, but most stay for a mere 1-3 weeks at the orphan home. i'm not sure how i would feel staying for that amount of time, but i know that staying this long has been the greatest decision of this trip. establishing a kinship with these children is allwe can really do, but it's also all they really need right now. they don't need toys or clothes, or food necessarily...but they do need a wholelot of lovin from people that are going to be around. it's going to be hard to leave in three weeks. we know that. but the little brothers and sisterswe have made at Harka are not someone we're going to leave in three weeks and never see again. becca and i are both thinking about when we'll be ableto come back and bring friends/family... just a thought!
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