Hopeful Home

If your coming to Nepal and looking for a great volunteering opportunity you should check out the Hopeful Home orphanage. We spent about a week there having fun with the children and helping out. Even though we ate Dahl Bhat  for every meal the food was still tasty. All the kids there were super nice and always trying to be helpful. They loved to play soccer and every evening we would run out and find a dried up rice patty to play in. We were even able to spend the festival there. Tihar, the festival of lights is one of the most dazzling of all Hindu festivals. In this festival they worship Goddess Laxmi, the Goddess of wealth. You will find out all about it in the pictures. The houses are decorated much like our houses are at Christmas. A part of of this festival involves going from house to house singing and dancing until money and food is given, sort of like our Halloween and Christmas mixed together, though different. This is done for 3 nights until very late (sometimes until 4 in the morning).

You think your house is small ,this house is the home for 35 kids.

This is me with the special Bhai Tikka. We don't know why there are seven colors.

This was mine and my brothers "sister" putting my tikka on.

These great bamboo swings are hand made by families specially for the festival. All the kids loved playing on the swings.

This is us in our whole Bhai Tikka festival regalia.

HAPPY BHAI TIKKA!!!!!!  This is all the kids at hopeful home except for 3 girls who went to a different spot to give Tikkas to their brothers.

An important part of the festival is decorating the house. Everyone gets involved.

The age of the kids vary and so does their dancing. The styles vary from traditional Nepali to Hip Hop. It makes for an interesting evening.

This is the fruit of their labor (we helped a bit) .  A tray with rice, money and food that is presented with candles and nicely decorated.  Sometimes the home owners drove a hard bargain, we had to sign, clap and dance for almost an hour. This is Goma, one of the wonderful women who run the orphanage.

We were walking around in the street when my mom was like "hey look at that dog" she then continued by saying " I know why  its all dressed up its the day that the Nepalese honor the dog".

Thanks to all of our friends in Hinton who donated money for a charity of our choice.  Many of the above pictures show children who will benefit from about half of that money.  This orphanage is well run.  The children are well fed, clean, HAPPY, respectful, and they are all supportive of each other.  They also follow a pretty structured schedule which include a couple of daily homework slots.  The expectation from the adults that work there is that school is first and achievement is important.  We knew the money would not go through different hands when we donated.  We gave it to Gopini (the boss) and she runs a tight ship.  If you'd like to check out where your cash went please visit: www.hopefulhome.org 


Again, thanks from all of the kids.

Lumbini,Birth place of Lord Buddha

Being to the birth place of Buddha was great. There were so many tourists, pilgrims and religious people. We spent the night in the Korean monastery. It was still being built but it was pretty impressive. We also went to the peace pagoda which was also super impressive.

Buddhist monks doing what Buddhist monks do...

The Peace Flame.  This is in the centre plaza where all of the different monasteries are.

This was our room at the Korean monastery.

That's the super impressive peace pagoda.

And the super impressive Korean monastery.

Royal Bardia National Park - It's a jungle out there!!

We spent three days in Royal Bardia National Park. On the first day we went rafting, not for a adrenaline rush but to see animals. The next day we went for a jungle walk and walked the whole day. The third day we took a jeep ride for 2 or 3 hours and then in the late afternoon we went on a one hour elephant back safari. But sadly during that whole time all we saw was deer,monkeys, gangetic freshwater dolphins and a crocodile. Some people saw wild elephants, tigers and rhinos. 
 Day 3
Sorry we had to put day three at the top because of a technical problem.



Jungle sunset.  Ooooh, Aaaaaah.



One of guides preparing our yummy lunch by the river.



This was the closest we got to seeing a wild rhino.




Since there are no pictures of us we put one of our friends.


Day 1



This was our raft.
Day 2





That foot print was made by a wild elephant.



This monkey was one of the more exciting things we saw.



These termites are amazing. Our guide broke a part of the termite hill and the next day it was fully fixed.



 

That's our jeep driver fixing the jeep in the middle of the jungle with leopard growling noises nearby.  (By the way the leopard growling noises were real.)