God isn't in me today

I was in Kalimati (the slums) to help out at another orphanage and found out that the neighbor was a fortune teller. One of the teachers (Divya) from the orphanage said she'll take me that day and was curious what her fortune was too. When she asked the Spirit Lady if we can see her that day, the Spirit Lady responded "No, God isn't in me today."

Since the Annapurna trek I was able to finish my website and logo designs for the organization. So I've been filling my time at another orphanage that's about 15 minutes from where I live. I get there by tuk tuk and most of the kids have already gotten dressed and waiting to walk to school. I see the other volunteers and we talk about work that needs to be done that day. Around 9:30 we start walking, holding hands, dodging cars through traffic. I drop off the kids and see Divya so we can get our fortunes told.

Before visiting the Spirit Lady we had to buy a bag of dried rice, when we do, we put any amount of money in it to pay the lady. I put in 25 rupees, 25 cents, Divya says that is enough. We walk into her home and there is a woman inside getting her fortune told. We were allowed to come in and sit next to them on a mat. Spirit Lady's room was very interesting. It was hot, dark, and tons of ants. One side of the room is trash; empty water bottles, rags, and plastic bags. On the other side were 2 mats (for her and her client), candles, incense, rice, and goblets. I realized that the 3 volunteers and I were sitting on her bed. Sorry for no photos, I wasn't allowed to take any.

First off, I'm not sure if I believe in this stuff, and I never visited a fortune teller, but this lady was creepy and for real, we were freaked out. We were watching her as she was doing the woman ahead of us. She had her eyes closed and was jerking her body around like she had Tourettes. She opened her eyes wide and told her to turn around. The woman turned around and the Spirit Lady grabbed a huge bundle of weeds like a brush, sprinkled rice on it, and mixed it with smoke of incense. She then dabbed the woman with the bundle and mumbled words that Divya couldn't understand. The woman turned back around the other direction and I was able to see her face, she looked sad and sick. Spirit Lady grabbed a few incense, lit it, and gave it to the woman to hold awhile. They pray together and Spirit Lady tells her that she had evil spirits in her, after this meeting, she should pray all the time. 1 volunteer (Sushil) went first, she closes her eyes for a calm 15 seconds and started telling him who he was in the past, who he is now, and what he wants in the future. Sushil kept nodding his head in agreement and kept looking at us like "oh shit." To me, Sushil seemed like he wouldn't believe in this stuff and was only doing it because of us. Afterwards his opinion was completely different.

My turn, I was kind of skeptic but we'll see yeah? I sat down, gave her my bag of rice, and told her my first name. While she was preparing, pouring rice around us and into a plate, lighting new candles, collecting her money and putting it away. I was thinking that she wouldn't be able to read me, I'm a private person, and I think it's difficult for people to know what's going on in my head. She fills my rice into the palm of her hand, webs incense into her fingers, and closes her eyes trying to read me. It took her 2 minutes, lots of jerking and heavy breathing. I sat so close to her face to face that I thought she was going to slap me and shout "There are EVIL spirits in you, get OUT of her body!" in Nepali. Instead, she calmed down, opened her eyes and started speaking. Divya translated for me and said that I have been having lower back aches for a very long time (since I was 14). I've been thinking a lot of things lately and unable to sleep (yes, true). I have so many things to do, I have to do work at this place, work at another place, work here, work there (so true). Another 15 seconds, she looks into my eyes and says that I'm a good person, my reason to come to Nepal is good. What I chose as my career back at home is the right path and I will stay along that path for the rest of my life, and be successful. I have no major obstacles and will be happy, and said that I had no bad energy in the future. She asked if I had any questions, I went ahead and asked it...what about my love life? (you would ask the same question too, so shut up) IMMEDIATELY she responded "I can't tell you anything about your love life, because you had never fallen in love." Whoaaaaaaaaaa...haha...heavy shit.

She then takes another half a minute to read me and asks if I was a Christian. I said no and she looked confused, she asked if maybe a Buddhist, I said no. She tells Divya that she feels there is something about me that is religious, she sees a pastor, priest, or some sort in my life. I tell her that I don't see either of those kind of people. Then she asked "Are you sure there is no one in your life that is like a priest? Ancestors?" Then I told her "Wait yeah, my grandmother is a main nun in South of China, she has her own temple." Spirit Lady said that I was thinking of visiting her since I'm so close to her, and that I should. She said to follow my grandmother, anything my grandmother says, I should listen, visit her and take her advice with me when I continue traveling. I won't know what it's about until I get there.

There are more things she said that I will not mention, things are just meant to stay quiet. At the end she tears a piece of newspaper, puts a dab of rice inside, and wraps it into a square. She wraps it again with a torn piece of black plastic, and wraps that again with a string. It looked like a piece of crack. She tells me to carry it with me all the time and I will get good karma, and if I change as a person, it will change for the better. After the fortune reading, I felt refreshed. To have someone you JUST MET tell you everything about you and your past is trippy. I'll admit that while she was telling me who I was as a person now, almost made me cry. Everything she told me was what I needed to hear, to help me stay motivated with this volunteer trip. That I had a reason to be here in this world and this is what I am suppose to do in my life. I pretended the incense was burning my eyes.

Annapurna Trek almost killed me

Literally. The longest I had ever hiked was one day in Yosemite. It took me 6 days to get to the Annapurna Base Camp, 4130 meters high, 10th highest mountain in the world. The main reason to get to Annapurna is the sunrise view. The basecamp is located in the middle of all the mountains on the Himilaya's. I was on the fucking Himilaya's.

1st day Caroline (Holland) and I met up with our guide Pradip, he's the most adorable Nepali guy ever, he's about 5 ft and the biggest smile ever. We took a short bus to Phedi and started our trek. It was a steep staircase uphill that took us an hour to reach Dhampus. From Dhampus there is a view point of the Annapurna mountain. Caroline and I knew that it was going to be tough. But we made a goal, that when we reach the Base Camp, we will have a beer.

Behind those clouds is the Annapurna mountain.

We trekked 6 hours that day to the village Tolka. I ran out of bottled water and bought a chlorine filter water droplets. I took 2 swigs and felt my stomach stir. I ignored it and went to bed. About an hour later during my sleep I felt there was something wrong. I walked out for fresh air and that's when my fried noodles decided to come out for fresh air too. I vomited ALL NIGHT. I ran to the bathroom (located outside of our bedroom) more than 10 times during the night, a few times I just stayed outside. The next day was hell, I couldn't move, I couldn't eat, if I did, I would throw it back out again. Found out that the chlorine filter water droplets makes some people sick, luckily there was a health clinic near Tolka, Caroline went to get me medicine. I tried to walk for 5 minutes to keep my blood circulating, but that just made my body worse. I slept the entire day and was paralyzed. I couldn't even move my arm over if I wanted to sleep on my side.

Third day, I had to start walking. I didn't want to waste another day. I couldn't believe that I climbed 7 hours in the mountains, UP HILL, that day with no nutrients (other than water) in my body. I only ate 1 apple and drank 1 bottle of flat coke. That day, confirmed that trekking to Annapurna is the most physically challenged activity I ever done in my life.

That night...Caroline got sick. She had food poisoning. We knew then not to eat anything fried. She wasn't as sick as I was the night before, but she was weak. We had to split our schedule and make our destinations each day shorter, I wish they did that for me! Anyways, it's in the past, glad I did it, not going to complain.

6th day, the day we reached Annapurna Base Camp. Probably the best feeling ever. It was snowing really hard and it took us 4.5 hours to get to. It was so cloudy that you couldn't see 20 ft ahead of you and the back of you. Everytime I thought I saw the Base Camp I would get excited, but then I realized that it's just a huge rock. But when I really did see the Base Camp Lodge, I started yelling "I think I see it!! I think I seeeeee IT!" so Caroline (20 ft back of me) would know. I started walking faster and was just too excited. I even did a little victory dance when I got to the lodge.

Base Camp

It was fucking freezing. -5 degrees. Caroline and I stayed in the dining hall with layers of blankets, our cold beers, and our books. Awaiting for tomorrow morning. We woke up at the scheduled sunrise, at 5:23 am. CLOUDY! We couldn't see a thing. We accepted the fact that it's the weather and there's nothing we can do about it, we would have to go back down without seeing the mountains, but still proud. About 10 minutes later we heard squeeling that the sky was clearing. Our guide Pradip is knocking on our door telling us to come outside and that the sun was coming out. We ran out in our flipflops, 30 in. of snow, and starting taking pictures.



It was beautiful. I never thought I would get to a place like this. To be in the center of the top ten highest mountains in the world. It was a beautiful day and we were so lucky that the sky cleared up. It took 2 days to get back down. I think it's cause we were so happy, we were practically running down the mountains. The trek is over, we got to our lodge, and I laid my torn up body down, like a pancake.

Sundance Music Festival

I was almost done with this blog entry and it didn't save when the power cut off for 10 minutes. So I'm going to make this short and sweet without cussing too much in the middle.

What a great weekend with the girls, Zara (Ireland) Caroline (Holland) and I went to The Last Resort to attend a music festival that is located on the border of Tibet and Nepal. People from all over Nepal travel for hours to attend this event. The bands are from India and Nepal, kind of folk/rock type of music. BADASS.

hanging out

The Resort is also well-known for it's Bungee Jumping, Canyon Swing, and Rafting. But FIRST...drinking. It took 3 hours to get there by bus, the girls and I rode on top of the bus because it was packed inside. When we got to the resort we immediately got our drink on before the music started. All day was eating, drinking, listening to good music, and at night it started to rain. Life is so much better when you are drunk and dancing in the rain. That is until you smoke some bad weed and throw up. Yup, that's what I did. I was walking to the bathroom and some Nepali guys were sitting on a bench smoking, they offered me a hit and I took one...no ramro (no good).

I went to sleep in our tent (yay for camping!) and Caroline came in a little after. Around 4 am I think, we heard some fighting and running NEXT to our tent. Then one of the guys was yelling hysterically "Patrick!!! Come back here so I can fuck you up!" for an hour. Yeah okay...like Patrick is going to come back after running his ass off and say "Hey man, I'm here, come fuck me up." He kept yelling and crying for so long, some other people came out of their tents and started threatening him to shut up. All night Patrick was in my dreams.

Next morning, no one was at the tent next to us. EVICTED. Too bad for them, time for Bungee Jumping and Canyon Swing! This bridge is 160 meters high and ranked the 2nd highest bridge to Bungee Jump in the world. The Canyon Swing came first, the bungee is attached to your waist and you just fall off the bridge, when the rope ends you swing across the river to see the views of the waterfalls. The jump master wouldn't let me jump whatever style I wanted because I was a first-timer, so I had to jump forward instead of a flip...fucker. Oh man, I jumped off a fucking bridge, it was AWESOME! What was not awesome is that I had to hike up that mountain back to the bridge hungover. I was so tired. Yippee, bungee was next. The jump master let me do it backwards because I had bungee jumped before, so excited. It was great however backwards wasn't as thrilling than forward style but still intense. The fall is 7 seconds long.

They filmed both jumps and put it on a DVD for me, I have to find a way to scratch it and post it online. I also got 2 free t-shirts. (yay for new shirts!)

Okay so alot has happened the past week and half

I can't believe it's almost a month. I have a hard time figuring out what day it is.

Let's try to re-cap my week:

The children are now back in school, this is their second week. But BEFORE school started I wanted to do an activity with my boys so they have one last day of fun. I created a "Photo Scavenger Hunt." I brought 3 cameras with me (yeah yeah) and had 2 groups of boys participating, 12 boys on each group. I made a list of things that the boys had to take a picture with; monkey, temple entrance, taxi cab, monk, volunteer from Umbrella, 2 dogs, swings, a buddha, Sugar Loaf House, and boys in a tree.

They didn't seem interested in the activity, that is until I told them that I would take the winning team to the cinemas. Their response was like "mmm...nahhh...I'm tired...oh...oh...uh...ohhhh...ahhh, cinemaaaaaa?? ahhh...yeeeees...yeeeees!!!" I got them locked dowwwwwn. So they're getting antsy to leave the house and start this game. I thought it would take them the whole day because a lot of these destinations are far away from each other. So I went back to the volunteer house to do my laundry. I got on the roof to hang dry my clothes and I heard a lot of boys yelling. I looked over and saw some of my boys running to each place, I even saw one of them limping. 20 minutes later, both teams came back to me at the exact same time. The winning team got 6/10 right, and the losing team got 4/10, mainly because they were missing one boy in the picture. So Team 1 triumphly won the activity and were jumping around the volunteer house.

photo with a monk.

Watching a Nepali film with the boys was an adventure. We walked to the bus station and rode for 15 minutes, and another 10 minute walk to the theater. Bought our tickets and waited for another hour till they open the theater. The line was crazy! I mean...these people are aggressive and eager to get good seats. People are pushing and cutting in front of each other to get into one single line. One stupid bitch tried to shove me and cut, and I was like "Oh hell naw," so I shoved her back at the end of the line and she shouted something Nepali to me. I turned to my boys and said "What did she say?" she then noticed that I was a foreigner and not a local and walked away. -sigh- I love my boys, they're so protective over me. After that shove and yell with that lady they formed a circle around me so people wouldn't touch me. It was like having an orphan boy bubble.

I saw a typical Indian film dubbed in Nepalese. The actors can't fight Van Damme style, so when they do an elementary round-house kick, the victim backflips to the ground and agonizes in pain. All of sudden it jumps into a 15-minute bollywood sing & dance segment. They do this sing-a-long 3 times during the movie. All and all, the film sucked, in need of an editor, but the kids loved it and they love me for taking them.

This is the line at the cinemas.

A few days ago I met a Nepalese guy named Sushil. He was an orphan since he was 6. He is now 19 years old and creates films, music videos, and helps street children stay out of trouble. He invited me to his little school located in Kalimati, 15 minutes from Swoyambhu. We walked into a square and he unlocks 2 rooms, inside was a classroom and a rack of clothes and shoes. He told me that it took him almost 2 years to get this organization happening; he wants to help street kids that live in slums to have an education. There are 22 rescued children, before they were picking plastic bottles in the slums, where all the city trash is. Now they spend half the day picking bottles and the rest at the learning center. All this is paid by Sushil. I also met Divia, she is a Nepali school teacher that is donating her time to this organization.

I didn't get to meet all the children but I was able to help the organization prepare for the 2nd week of school. We moved furniture, brainstormed how to paint the walls, and hand-washed their school clothes. Sushil is a very interesting Nepali country boy. I mean, the way his mind works and his goals are so not Nepali style. I think he is the only Nepali in Nepal that is independent and follows his own dreams. Hopefully I can visit this orphanage again.

Past weekend most of the volunteers and I went on a retreat to Begnas Lake, Pokhara. It took 5 hours to get there by bus. I paid $15 for 2 nights of camping accommodation, dinner, lunch, snacks, BEER, and transportation. Score. A great relaxing weekend. Appreciating beauty each second.

Begnas Lake.

Between those days I work at the volunteer house, creating a new logo, and layouts for the new website for the organization. Also I visited another orphanage in Bouddha that my family friend's own. If you can remember my second post, I visited a Tibetan temple in San Francisco, and the monks there told me about their friend Takaihashi that owns a Lama learning center in Nepal. I phoned the secretary Pachung and I met up with him in Bouddha. He took me to one of their orphanages that had 17 children, 8 boys, 9 girls. He leaves me there for 20 minutes so he can grab his motor bike and take me to the Lama learning center. These children speak Nepali, Tibetan, and good enough English. We played a game of tag and they seemed to enjoy my presence.

Pachung picked me up and we rode to the Lama learning center. Currently there are about 20 young monks in the school with 2 teachers. In May they will have 40 more monks attending and will need more teachers. I'M GOING TO TEACH TIBETAN MONKS! This is what I want to do. I'm already living my dream, and now this is a dream on top of another. I will start in 2 weeks.

I would like to blog more often and upload my videos, but electricity here SUCKS. 8 hours a day we don't have electricity. So it has been technically difficult. But please check out my flickr, I've been uploading low-res files.

love you guys.

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.

Are you smarter than a Nepali 5th grader?

I am not smarter than a Nepali 5th grader.

Yup, I said it, and I'm suppose to tutor these kids. I couldn't answer more than half of their science exam. I'm very impressed with the education system here in Kathmandu. I'm also very proud of my boys that recently got their exam results, they're all over 80%. Here are some examples that were on their exams:

What is crystallization? Next question please.
True or False: Vitamin A improves Night Vision. Can I cheat?
Is irrigation important in Nepal? Irrigation...irrigation...what the hell does that mean?

I'd like to share more examples but I'm already embarrassed in front of my boys.

First week felt like 2 weeks

I arrived in Kathmandu about 11 pm. It was raining and a guy name Gwenvaal picked me up. This whole time I thought Gwen was a chick. Anyways he gets me a taxi and meets me at the monastery, we stayed the night there and I woke up to roosters cock-a-doodling, dogs barking, and children playing. (My favorite part arriving in a new place at night is opening the curtains the next morning). I see prayer flags hung around the monastery, young monks tending the garden, and miles and miles of houses.
Kathmandu is a BIG city. It's not a good city, the pollution here is horrible, that's why everyone here is always sick because there isn't any clean air to breathe. Electricity comes and goes as it pleases, 4 hours in the day and night it's off. There are candles and mini flashlights everywhere in the house. Dogs and monkeys everywhere.


I walk down to the garden and that's where I ate breakfast. As soon as I sat down, I sneezed 5 times. (Not a good sign) During my breakfast I meet JuJu (Jullian) from France. He introduced me to the organization and the city Soyambhu and told me everything there is about Umbrella organization. Later that day I met the other volunteers. There's about 20 of them from Ireland, France, Holland, and Italy. I move my stuff into the volunteer house that is situated in between all the children houses (8 houses that hold 50 children) I am currently living in a room with 2 guys and one girl, thank goodness they don't snore. But the dogs bark constantly throughout the night....I think I would rather hear snoring.

I am assigned to a house of 48 boys age 12-20. I'm glad that I am in this house because not only is it a challenge to take care of older boys, but they also teach me Nepalese language, now I don't have to take classes. They call me Sister May, or Bimlee (nepalese actress). It's so cute, they have crushes on me; they make me bracelets, they get all shy when I say Hi to them. The boys teach me to play Marbles (I suck) and Futbol (I rule). They even have a game where they play dodgeball with hackeysacks, so when I have more time, the boys and I can make hackeysacks and play. The boys love Akon...I know right?! I told them Akon is not a great musician in America and they think I'm crazy. Everyday they watch tv for a good hour of Indian drama, Tom & Jerry, and Indian music videos (I laugh my ass off whenever I see Indian Hip Hop music videos) Beyonce, Shakira, Chris Brown, and Akon is HUGE in Nepal.

Few days ago, some of the boys took me to a monastery on top of a hill that took over 2 hours to walk up and down. I taught them how to use my camera, I think they have an interest in art and photo taking. Soon I will print out the photos they took and give it to them. Hopefully this will attract interest to the other boys that are private and would want to come out of their bedrooms (I'm not allowed in) and talk to me.

imagine them screaming Garden State Style


It's been 1 week and it felt like 2 weeks. I do so much in one day. I already know where the supermarkets are, how to bargain with cab drivers, using the tuk-tuks into town, and I pretty much know everyone that walks pass by me and we say "Namaste" all the time. This is why I LOVE traveling, staying in one place long enough to fully adapt to the culture, living the life of a Nepalese person.

My normal day goes like this:
5am- Roosters cock-a-doodle-doo, try to go back to sleep.
7:30 am- I wake up and drink coffee or tea with the other sleepy volunteers.
8-8:30 am- walk to the boys house and have breakfast with them. We eat Dahlbaat, a dish with rice, lentil, and potatoes. It's really really good. On some days they add chicken or buffalo.
9:00 am-Walk the boys to school, I alternate on some days because the boys go to different schools and they all want me to walk them.
FREE TIME until 3:00 pm. On my free time, I will work in the office, creating a new look for their website or preparing a photo book for the organization. I think I will be working at the office 2 times a week. When I'm not in the office I can shop at Thamel which is a 20 minute walk from Soyambhu. Or take day trips to other sights around Kathmandu.
Soon I will visit another orphanage that my friends from Tibet own. I already spoke to the owner and he said that he needs someone to teach Tibetan monks English that will be here in Nepal for holiday. I will start next week when the kids go back to school because now they are on Nepalese New Year Holiday.
3:00 pm- Pick up boys from school and play.
5:30-6:00 pm-Dahlbaat.
7:00 pm- Back to the Volunteer house. Sometimes we hang in the kitchen and talk, play card games, listen to music, smoke, drink beer or tea in the dark with one candle. Sleep around 11 pm-12 am.