Breaking & Entering

Last Sunday, Heidi and I woke up and realized that our house had been broken into overnight (or burgled as the Brits say). It had rained hard during the night, and I guess the thieves took advantage of the noise, managing to get in and out while we slept. They clearly knew what they were looking for- portable electronics and cash. The neighbours in the apartment below us woke up to a similar scene: broken window, missing electronics and a lingering sense of insecurity. We spent most of Sunday in a bit of a daze, trying to make sense of this experience. We replayed images in our minds: strangers going through our things, drawers opened with their contents strewn on the floor, Heidi's purses dumped on our balcony. This violation of our space came at a most inopportune time. Over the past few weeks, we were finally feeling a bit more settled, beginning to adapt to the rhythms of a place that is still quite strange to us. And then this happened and effectively threw us off balance. Our apartment has served as a refuge for us, allowing us to escape the reality of living in one of the poorest countries in the world; a reality that sometimes threatens to overwhelm us. When we need to forget that we live in Nepal, we can always retreat to a place that feels a bit like home. We can turn on happy music, drink a glass of wine and be filled with renewed energy. In subtle and not so subtle ways, the break-in last weekend threatened this space that we have relied on. We are doing what we can to restore the security of this space, recognizing that the process will take some time.

In addition to the fears and sense of helplessness that this experience has brought, we have also been encouraged by the many people who have expressed their support- our family and friends at home as well as our friends here. We have received emails, phone calls and visitors, reminding us that our most important assets cannot be stolen from us. Yes, it's quite annoying many of our things, some of which we had recently purchased, are now in strangers' hands, but they're just things after all. When you live so close to many people who struggle to put food on their tables, you realize that losing a computer or an ipod is not such a big deal.

Last Sunday, Heidi and I took a walk, since we needed something to do other than sitting at home thinking about the break-in. We stopped by the house of a Nepali friend. As we explained what had happened to our friend's father, a Nepali pastor who does a lot of work with handicapped people and is himself in a wheelchair, he compassionately assured us that with suffering comes blessing. Of course, we had heard these words many times before, but they held new meaning on this day, coming from this man. He read a few verses from Psalms and promised to pray for us. As we left his house and walked toward home, we saw a rainbow in the distance, the first we had seen in Nepal since on the day we arrived. We're probably both a bit too cynical to see this as a sign from God, but at least temporarily, we put aside our cynicism and felt a moment of peace.

Ode to Ben

A few days after Heidi and I arrived in Nepal last August, we welcomed MCC Nepal's first Serving And Learning Together (SALT) participant, Ben Ippel (pause between first and last name). I'll admit that we were a bit nervous about meeting Ben. We realized that we would probably be spending a lot of time together, since the three of us were in unfamiliar territory and with the same organization. We knew Ben was young, only 20 years old, and you know how young people can be- needing lots of attention, thinking they have all of the answers, etc. Of course, these are unreliable stereotypes, but I was young not so long ago, and these stereotypes would have been a fairly accurate description of me at 20 years old. We had no reason to be nervous. I think we both realized we would get along well with Ben when he openly talked about his diarrhea during our first dinner together (in Nepal, it happens…a lot).

Over the past eleven months, we've had a lot of fun together. We traveled for three hours on top of a bus. We risked our lives paragliding and rafting. We've encountered elephants, monkeys and Sadhus. We've eaten hundreds of momos and our fair share of daal bhaat (although Ben ate much more than a fair share). We did spend a lot of time together. Ben is one of those rare people who are easy to be around. We spent hours hanging out on our balcony, eating ice cream and talking about life. Ben did his best to fit into Nepali life, despite being 6'4" and very white. His host family loved him, as did the children he worked with. It was not unusual for the three of us to be walking down the street and be stopped by someone from Ben's church or work. Everyone who met Ben became his friend.

Last night, we said our sad goodbyes at the airport. Ben is headed back to the U.S. to finish his degree. For Heidi and me, Nepal won't be quite the same without him around. In honor of Ben-ji, we wrote this heartfelt poem:

Ben in Nepal

Fairest of them all

He trekked & climbed

Nickeled & dimed

And won the hearts of us all

Ben is hot

And ate daal bhaat

With kids he played

But didn't get paid

He slept on a really short cot

La. Hunchha. Has.

You are one of us

Our dear saathi

You rode a haatti

La. Hunchha. Has.

Baby bear, don't go

Back to New Mexico

Kathmandu needs you

But not as much as we do

We love you so.

At the Boudha Stupa with our language teacher

Ben hanging out with Sadhus

At the peace pagoda in Pokhara

Traveling on top of a bus

Saying goodbye to Ben's family

Rafting on the Trisuli River

Orange life jackets, black helmets, yellow raft, white water.

Not much else was necessary on our little trip down the Trisuli River. Amos, myself, and 4 other friends ventured a few hours out of Kathmandu over the 4th of July weekend to the Royal Beach Camp along the river.

After a lovely thatched-roof-bungalow-banana-tree sort of welcome, we were off into the wilds of the Trisuli, accompanied by our very comical Nepali guide, Himal. The river was at times calm, allowing us to take in the gorgeous, green, rolling hills and wildlife (mostly wild children and goats), but began to pick up speed after a while. After stopping for a picnic lunch on the sun-baked river rocks, we forged ahead, into the great unknown. We bounced along happily, taking on the not-so-big rapids fairly well, gaining confidence...maybe a bit too much confidence. Before we knew it, we had flipped end over end, totally rocked by a rapid called "The Butterfly". (Embarrassing, I know.) After a bit of fear and trembling and bleary-eyed searching for survivors, we congregated (all surviving) and heaved ourselves back upon the raft. (If not for my tight-as-a-corset life jacket, I'm sure my heart would have lept from my chest into the river.) The last hour of the trip was pretty uneventful, for which I was grateful. Rafting is fun. Falling out of a raft involuntarily is, in my opinion, not fun.

The trip down the river lasted only a few hours. After returning to our Bungalow Heaven, we did nothing but sit, eat, drink, wade in the river and relive our life-threatening/adrenaline-producing experience for the rest of the quiet evening, exaggerating in all the right places, just to makes ourselves feel more brave. We spent just one night there, falling asleep to the sound of the rushing river and a gentle overnight rain. After a morning of food and ample relaxation, we hopped onto a bus and wound our way back to Kathmandu, leaving the Trisuli behind...until next time.








here we are! L to R clockwise: Eka, Jez, Paul, Amos, Ben