Nepali New Year Week

Okay this week went by quick. Last Monday was Nepal's New Year.

The other volunteers and I were working hard. We had to set up a festival and party for the new kids that were arriving from another orphanage in the city called Gongabu. These kids used to be in a orphanage that was in poor condition. The country director of my NGO visited Gongabu and was shocked on how these kids were living, so he paid the owner to take the kids here in Soyambhu. So anyways, it took weeks to build another orphanage for 20 new kids, it's called Sugar Loaf. All of us were running around buying supplies and setting up drawing competitions, talking to sponsors, and playing with the children. All that hard work deserved a night of drinking, but we were so tired we decided to stay home and drink.

We bought bottles of Vodka, Gin, Whiskey, Juice, and Soda. We started playing drinking games such as Kings. It was annoying because I made up a rule that everytime you say the words 'yes' or 'no,' it had to be in Nepalese, which is 'chha' and 'chha-na.' But I kept getting it wrong. Results: Piss drunk. We even made the kitchen room the new dance floor.

The next morning was unbearable. Nobody went to their children's houses cause we couldn't afford them seeing us half-awake, and dizzy. Didi the house keeper ran out and bought a bundle of cilantro and she showed me how to make 'miracle' tea. She boiled water and rinsed the cilantro. She then takes a sifter and pours the mixture through it. She poured one cup and tried to run away, I brought her back to make her and the other volunteer Benji to take one too. Benji told me to down it, so I started to drink and I thought to myself "oh, this isn't so bad," then I got to the bottom and I thought I was going to throw up. I downed it and I just sat there with my eyes closed trying to keep it down.



Later that night most of the volunteers came back from work and walked around the Soyambhu Monkey Temple. A volunteer named Doc from Ireland has been here for over a year and told us that the temple was lit up with candles and we should go and check it out. We walked around the opposite direction so we would hit the entrance at the very end. Immediately we felt a warm energy and knew we were close to the entrance. Candles were lit everywhere! I must have stared at one monk catching each melting candle drop on the palm of his hand for 20 minutes.



It was so beautiful it could make you cry.