Thursday 9th February, 2012

We awoke late this morning 9am but when I opened the computer to check emails oh no.!!!!! Last night we had more thunder and lightning, but because the power was on we had left phones and computer charging, whether there was a bit of a spike we don’t know but the computer would not start up this morning. Ken spent the morning working on it and it appears to be ok now but the hard drive was definitely scrambled. Shelley bought us take away coffees so that was nice.

At 11am we all went down to LaBistro for brunch. They mucked up the order and then the bill so we told them the waiter has to write the order down when he takes it not later at the desk as that is when he got it wrong. We all left the others to amuse themselves until 3pm when we were all expected at Dhumbarahi for the prayer meeting.

Abi saw an amusing police incident this morning. The police pulled over a motorbike and instead of giving him a ticket they took his bike away and rode off!!!!

Ken and I walked out to Chubahil where we were to meet with Bro Kishon and Sis Kalawati to discuss some welfare matters. On the way we stopped at a light shop and found an exceedingly bright LED bulb that is 12volt. As there is so little power here most meetings are conducted with very little light. Last year we put a LED bank of lights in Chubahil, which is still working but is not bright enough unless you are sitting under it and that does not work in class times as everyone sits around the perimeter of the room so the light is not very effective. This bulb is only a 4watt globe but is so bright that you cannot look at it directly for very long and as it is a traditional globe shape it throws the light evenly too. We took this with us and Ken was trying it out in Bro Kishon’s home, he immediately took a shine to it and wanted it left in their home so we may have to purchase more yet.

On the way we heard a “great noise” begin, it was their music but the loudest I have heard yet, we stopped and retraced our steps and there was a band and decorated car, it was a traditional Nepali wedding. We waited for a few minutes but the bride and groom did not appear so we left. The music was enough to give anyone a headache. We left Chubahil at 4.30pm to walk to Dhumbarahi for 5pm prayer class.

The young people had arrived earlier and Sis Punum was there too. They were all sitting around upstairs when Shelley whispered to someone that she was hungry. Sis Punum must have overheard and next minute she whispers in Shelley’s ear and takes her downstairs to the kitchen where she made her some noodles and watched while she ate them. To appreciate this you must understand that all of us love the noodles except Shelley, she hates them with a vengeance and there was no one to eat them for her and no where she could quietly slip them either. Yesterday Joanna polished off what Kathryn and Shelley couldn’t eat, you just quietly swap plates when no one is watching. Ken gets my cup of tea each time. Coffee or tea here is so highly sweetened only Srijanna and Sis Kalawati make it how I like it and they cannot understand how we can drink it without sugar.

Darren spoke at Dhumbarahi on the Exodus reading and we followed the route the children of Israel on a map which we will put up on the wall. It was a very small class but because of that there was a lot of interaction which is a lot of fun as we are able to gauge their prior knowledge which is very good and they freely ask questions too. No questions to keep us on our toes today, we can breathe a sigh of relief, they have come up with some curly ones so far. Sis Srijanna translated and it was really good to see her so excited when she saw the connection in some quotes we were comparing as she went on to explain it to the others. Those there all understood English so they were getting the message twice.

After the class we had a hot lemon drink with no sugar in ours. It is very cold outside today so we all rugged up again to walk out to Sukedhara to catch taxis. Sis Punum and Bro Jonah came with us so we decided to walk Sis Punum to her home and then we caught 3 taxis back to Thamel via Chubahil to drop Bro Jonah off on the way.

As we came back into the mouth of Thamel we told our driver to stop behind the others who had been let out of their taxis, but he kept on driving even though we asked him to stop a couple more times. Then our taxi driver reached across to Darren in the front seat and started pulling at something, he appeared from the back seat to have Darren in a head lock, but after a few seconds we realised he was trying to pull a seatbelt around him (I didn’t even realise there were seatbelts in the taxis) he had just got this around him when he had to slow for police. The policeman shone his torch in the car and waved us on as we are tourists he didn’t stop the car. The taxi went quite a way into Thamel before he let us out. We expect that either he didn’t have a licence or was unregistered and we were his free pass through the police check. Still we went right to Gullinchee’s restaurant and the others had to walk there!

We all had a yummy tea at Gullinchees our favourite Tibetan restaurant about $20 total bill for 9 of us to have 2 courses and a drink each. We rolled out of there at 9.30pm as they were closing and back to the hotel for bed. As I am writing this we have power so Ken is fixing 2 of their 12 volt batteries and having difficulties because the soldering iron plug does not fit properly into their dodgy power point I am sure he will get there.