EVEREST here I come!

Hello!

I am back in Kathmandu, it feels weird and i was definitely sad to leave trisuli this morning. last night durga and i had a long conversation in which he told me that Hannah, Cameron and i really became apart of the community. that unlike many volunteers before we became locals to them and that all though my time was short i had made a large impact on the reformation of the young leaders group and started what will hopefully be a life changing project at the mosque. one of the girls in the young leaders group took Cameron and i up to her house on Wednesday as it was the celebration of buii tika (brother tika) and we presented with tika and a sweets by her family and sisters who now consider us their brothers. it was really amazing! over the last two weeks the kids have started to call Raymond buii, which means Raymond brother. it was really cool to be considered one of them. the kids all came out this morning and gave me tika again which ended with me having red stuff all over my face then they gave me garlands of flowers, 10 of them! it weighed a lot but it was really awesome! one of the older ladies wanted me to take one of her daughters (both young leaders) cause she liked me so much! I couldn't stop laughing and the girls were so embarrassed. On Tuesday we took all the kids to badipur and the hike was quite long for a bunch of kids but we all made it and bandipur was simply beautiful. the work that is going on there is really great but there is a problem with alcohol abuse amongst some of the parents so it makes it tough for the volunteers as there is little they can do to stop the parents from beating up on their kids. Anyways, leaving this morning was really tough but i'm planning on stopping over for a night on my way from Pokhara (where I'm planning on going after my trek) because durga would like to have me over for dinner. I've been doing very good in keeping a written journal in the book Elbert gave me so I look forward to typing it all out. there's been a lot of little things to remember and I've really been able to keep track of them which will make explaining and remembering it all later a lot easier. I fly to lukla tomorrow so it'll be about two weeks before i have internet access again but I'm really excited for the trek to begin. one of the girls droped out of the program about a week and a half in so there's only 4 of us going on the trek but there sending two guides because they think i might be faster then the rest because i've been hiking almost every morning in trisuli. i don't want them to break up the group but i guess we'll see how things are once we get on the trail. I realized today that the acclimatization days will most likely mean that during those days we'll most likely make a 500m ascent then come back down and sleep the night which means 6 - 7 hours of hiking on those days as well. my suspicions were proven correct this evening when I asked the guides, the rest of the people in the group were unpleasantly surprised to say the least! haha! they keep telling me it's going to be so cold like MINUS 10. haha, then i remind them I'm from Canada and they say i could probably do it in shorts! I decided to rent a jacket because I don't see myself using it at home and it's only a dollar for every two days so it's not like I'm breaking the bank. I got waterproof gloves and a really nice ear/neck warmer for $5 and i bought those, other then that i'm saving my money for some fun stuff when i get back and souvenirs.

i know that paragliding and bungee jumping were two things mom didn't want me to do but I've been assured that both are run by the best agencies in Nepal and i know people that have done both and said they were absolutely incredible and top notch. they are arranged by GVI (they offered me a really good discount) and I was told they are two things you have to do in Nepal. however, I would like mom to be ok with them so please let me know.

Thanks for taking care of my car, sounds like it'll be top notch when I get home and I love you all. I better get packing for my trek to BASE CAMP EVEREST so i will talk to you all when i return! love you again and take care!