Pokhara and Annapurna mountain range in background

Orphanage May 27

Today is a holy day in Nepal (celebrating Buddha's birthday) so all the kids at the orphanage didnt have school (thank god, cause we didnt have to help them with their homework that is too hard for us!). Instead we went to the orphanage at 930am (usually we got at around 330-4) and before we went, me bridge and our friend Angus, went to the supermarket and bought a few games for them to play. We bought Guess Who, a jewelry making kit, a skipping rope, a soccer ball, and a painting game. Alot of their games are really worn out and ratty and when they dont have to do homework they arent really left with that much to play with. so when we showed up with all that stuff, they were sooooooooooo excited! "thank you sistaaaaa, sistaaa helpp me, sistaaaa how do you do thisss, sistaaaa come play" haha it was pretty overwhelming for the 3 of us, and after a few hours we were beat. They loved it though, it was awesome. They are so appreciative and so cute. Usually when we go there, every fwe days we bring a little thing, like some chocolate/bananas/lechees (fruit), just because it makes our day cause they get so happy and their little 'thanks you sistas' is soo great!
TOmorrow is the 28th and the due date for the Constitution, we still dont have word about what is going to happen, but I think that is pretty likely that they will not have come to an agreement (seeing as nothing here is ever on time EVER), so it is probable that there could be a strike or at least some protesting. The last thing we want is to be stuck in a volunteer house full of like 20 people and not be able to go onthe streets or have any space orrrr not be able to work.

The Monastery

Today was a pretty cute class at the monastery. Put all of our practice playing boardgames/charades back home, into use over here. I got them playing charades to learn different words/actions and they were laughing so hard because each one would act out different actions (like lazy, sleeping, bored, ashamed, angry, etc) and they were soo cute. Yesterday was funny too cause I got them playing pictionary using different English words so that was prety funny too. I find that they learn really well with games, and they really like them. Its really impressive how fast they pick up English too, they just retain everything. Thursday and Friday i am not teachign because they are going to a temple/stupa to pray starting tonight (wednesday) BUT they invited me to come haha! I had to reject the offer because I couldnt really understand what the explanation of exactly what it was they were doing there other than praying, but i thought that was pretty awesome. They are celebrating the birth of Buddha, which is this saturday...and I think it might even be the same day of his death but Im not really sure. Anyways, a lot of people here will be celebrating on saturday.
Gotta hit the orphanage!

Everest

We have officially seen Mount Everest and 7 other of the tallest mountains in the world. Yesterday (may 25) we did a Mountain flight, and flew by all the Himalayas and Mount Everest. It was pretty sweet, didnt get superrrr close but definitely cool to see, and got some good pictures. They are insanely massive, Everest is over 8500 meters. I cant even imagine how anyone could climb that thing. I read in a paper here the other day that there was a record for youngest person to climb to the top, and he was thirteen i think. no idea how a 13 yr old could do that.
Bridge and I are thinking of doing a trek this coming weekend, or mabe next week. We want to go with a couple of the volunteers weve met here cause we dont want to go alone, so I think were going with these 2 guys from Canada, and one of their sisters and another girl frm our house. We are going to do a couple days of the Annapurna circuit, which is normally a 20 day trek but we are just going to do 2 days and then bus home cause we have towork and are definitely not that intense! We may not go though sort of depends on the weatehr and stuff...its moving into monsoon season so it rains (ie downpours) at night and massive massive thunder storms, its pretty cool to watch. Oh and also depends if we can even get up north because we are expecting a strike at least on the 28th...so maybe wwe wont be able to. Well find out in the next couple of days!
ANyways, were off to work! xox

May 24

We are back in Kathmandu after suchhh an awesome weekend. Sensory overloadddd here...it was so nice being in the mountains, the air quality was so much better, and not nearly as much noise. Kathmandu is just so noisy and so polluted. Coming back yesterday was such a pain too, we took a bus which should normally take 6 hours but actually took 12. There were protesters on the highway (the highway is like 10 feet wide with cars driving however,wherever they want (no lanes, no street lights). so the protesters stopped traffic completely for about 2hrs, then driving the rest of the way was just bumper to bumper (AND these cars/busses are the MOST UNenvironmentally friendly vehicles ive ever seen) so taht was pretty annoying. luckily we "splurged" and got air conditioning on our bus cause it was about 45 degrees in the mountains. But holy,, the Himalayas were the most unbelievable mountains. and driving home yesterday was rainy and thundery (which is great cause then you can actally see the mountain ranges). But the coolest mountain range we saw was teh Annapurna Mountain range...they are these hugely rigid and snow capped mountains...they were absolutely unrealll, we were blown away. I have never seen anything like it. It was a pretty great weekend...while me, bridget, and our friend Layla went paragliding, the 3 other volunteers we went with rented motorcycles (pretty ballsy considering the way people drive here - me and bridge arent into that, dont worry momma!). Anyways so they rented 2 motorcycles and both boys drove, ad then the girl was on the back of one of them, and they went up the mountain to where we were paragliding and i guess onthe way down (it was a pretty windy road), steve (a korean friend, who didnt have anyone on the back of his bike) drove head on into a military truck...he was fine, got a cut on his leg, but VERY VERY lucky. and the military men like paid for everything (it was like 800 rupees...which is sooo cheap - like 12$...to be completely treated and xrayed at the hospital). But ya, pretty scary to hear about when we got home.
oh haha and also bridget and I have somehow managed to get ourselves nepali clinger boyfriends. (not actually but they are very very eager to hang here)...they legit want to get married haha. last night wewent to this bar/restaurant that weve been going to for food and to hang and stuff and our server, his name is Bupal, wants to marry me, introducing us to his brother and following us...(not in a creepy way, he is friends with one of the boy volunteers) but Nepalis just LOVEEE white people haha he was saying he wants a traditional Nepali wedding in the country and I would wear a Sari haha. Bridget also has a jewelry man who wants to marry her and move to Canada. He sold her some earrings (this is the matching discount guy) ahah she also may ave another boyfriend from last night who let her go behind the bar and make drinks, he wants to marry her too, he said hed give her a job as a bartender if she watned it haha.
Anyways thats the update! Gotta go to work!