About 5 days from right now I will be sitting on the runway at O'Hare Airport, anxiously awaiting takeoff. Though I will be arriving in Kathmandu a couple of days later (traveling via London and Doha), I thought I'd take a minute right now to update on all the essentials!
As for a little bit of background, because many of you have asked:
Rebecca and I met while working the front desk at Many Glacier Hotel during the summer of 2006. While I was working in Glacier this summer, Rebecca and I chatted about how we had nothing really important planned for the coming year, and had been thinking about going abroad and volunteering. Somehow it came about that we both would love to go to Nepal, and thus the fabulous idea was born!
From that point it was just logistics, how to get there, where to work, how to get enough money to go. Originally we were going to go through a volunteer organization, but in the end decided to cut out the middle man and work directly with an orphanage. I randomly stumbled upon Harka Self-Sustaining Orphan Home on the internet, an orphanage in the Chitwan area (very south of the country) that runs their own farm (including pond with fish!) and houses somewhere around 13 orphans, ages 2-12.
We arrive in Kathmandu on the 13th, stay a few days to explore/take a language class, and then head down to Harka via bus. We'll be at Harka for two months before heading back up north to trek to the Everest Base Camp (fingers crossed) for the final month of our trip. Of course there will be many more explorations along the way... and hopefully we'll be able to keep you all updated! Evidently there is a "neighboring" village with internet, we'll let you know later what that actually means. I'm not sure which blog who/when we'll be updating, but we both made simultaneous ones without knowing the other person was making it. I think that sentence was super confusing. Nonetheless, we have another blog at www.travelsinnepal.blogspot.com- so check out both!
Thank you all so much for your donations and support, I definitely would be in a lot of debt were it not for your help. This is something that many are not willing or able to do, and finances were not going to be the only thing to stop me. Thank you for help baking, planning, and being friends!
We have a potential address and phone number at the orphanage, so if you trust the mail/phone, we'd love to hear from you!
Harka Self-Sustaining Orphanage Home
(near San Miguel Beer Factory)
Ward No. 12, Nauranga, Bharatpur, Chitwan
P.O. Box 61
Nepal
phone: 977- 56-5-20727
...we'll keep you posted on the quality of San Miguel Beer.
