Training in Pokhara "But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord" Micah 3:8

6:00 am Tuesday August 28 we load the vans with the equipment and off we go.

As you can see there is plenty of traffic even in the morning.  By the time we had picked up the rest of the team it was probably 9:00 am, rush hour.
  The pictures do not do justice to the chaos of the roads.  Look carefully at the picture below and you will see three lanes on the left and one on the right approaching us.  The approaching lane was only there some times most of the time they had to move over and get out of the way.

The picture above is on the new road, it leads us out of the city.  As you see there are people, lots of people, going lots of place in the morning.  They love the Hindu god Vishnu on the dashboard, he is a very necessary part of travel as you can tell.  What you don't see to the right is the prayer roll and it is constantly rolling.  I'll take a picture of one and show you soon.

This picture to the right is for you to see the driving order in the city.  You notice that these trucks are the king of the road and they are very aggressive drivers and will not pull over or slow down for anyone or anything.







These next two picture are from the road between Kathmandu and Pokhara.  Look closely running from right to left or left to right you will see a winding ribbon of road that is the road we are traveling on.  Cool isn't it!!

If you are wondering about the view, that is the edge of the road and it is really a very long way down, and yes the drivers like to get as close as possible to the edge.  Actually it is because the roads are very narrow and another truck was coming down the road and he had to move over.  Have you noticed the side of the road we are on?  They drive on the left side of the road. 



I thought Aaron would enjoy these pictures after owning a Rino for a while.  Look closely you will see a man under the truck working.

Still another repair.

Repairs happen where the breakdown occurs as you can see.  This is a very frequent sight along the road. The vehicles are not maintained on a schedule, the maintenance is done when something breaks.  I know that Caleb will like the jack stands.  The  last comment is more of a question.  When you took auto mechanics were you trained to this kind of repair work?  They litteraly have the rear end apart and are replacing a broken  axle I stuck my head out of the window to take this picture and you can see our driver in the mirror.

This is the station we stopped at to get fuel, our van is the gray one.  Our driver is in the stripped shirt.

 This is the restroom?  As you can see it is a little different.

This road is certainly interesting.  I decided that I don't have to go to Lagoon for fun any more I can just get a taxi ride downtown or across the country.


Now we are about half way to Pokhara and Rob Clark spies a cable bridge over the Trisuli river and decides we should walk across.  Here are some pictures of that adventure.

Here Janet walks across the bridge with Sister Rempp and Ann Clark behind.  It is monsoon season so the rivers are very full and running very fast.  The most noticeable thing about this picture is Janet still in her only dress, no luggage yet!  It was hot and humid as we crossed the river.

Back on the road and Janet sees a woman washing hair.  This is possibly the only water source near to her house. She will bring her water for cooking with her when she goes back.  It is easy to see the need for our work in the country.

We drove for about an hour to Kurintur.  We rode in the cable car up to the Manakamana Temple.  The cable car was built in 1998, the town around the temple was built long before that.  People would walk with the brick and other building materials to the town for about 3 to 4 hours to get goods and materials there. Most of the people living there still walk because the ride up is cost prohibitive for them. 

 Now for me it would be walk prohibitive it was a very steep mountain side, yet there were farms and rice paddies on it.  Look closely and you will see a water buffalo in the barn, almost in the center of the picture.

A small street near the Manakamana Temple below

Holy Men also near the temple.  When you think of these holy men you think of them not being in the world or of it.  As we were standing near the temple one of them got a cell phone call and was talking to someone, we missed the opportunity for a photo.

Janet couldn't resist the opportunity to have her picture taken with this little squirt, I think she misses the grandchildren.  This little guy couldn't take his eyes off of the white faces and when she got close for a photo he wanted to play with her earrings.  Kids, they are all the same!!!

This is the last picture in town near Manakamana temple.

The man holding the "pet" goat is going to the temple to worship.  The goat is also going as a sacrifice to the Hindu Goddess Manakamana.  Jeremiah 1:19 "But I was like a lamb (goat) or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me...".  Good bye sweet little goat!

We made it to Pokhara.  The training is going well as you can see.  I'm putting a few pictures here so you can see how it is going.  First glance it looks like you might be in a classroom in the US.  The person with his chin in his hand is named Ravi and he is heading the study with the Maternity hospital that we are working on to help get government approval for our project.

Dr. Ashish is the presenter at this table, he is also our contact for the project HHB.  He will help us collect the data for the study that is taking place and the Kathmandu Maternity Hospital.  So he is wearing many hats to help us.

Closing ceremonies for the 2 day training. These two ladies have just received their mannequin and are standing for a photo op.

Yours truly handing out the materials to the trainees.  We were going so fast from place to place that when we left for Pokhara I forgot to put any white shirts in my bag.

Sister Deppong is the lady that we are replacing.  They flew out of Nepal September 1, 2012, for St. Lewis.  The Deppongs are an amazing pair, they have blessed so many lives during their mission in Nepal.

During lunch we went over to the hospital to visit the maternity ward to see a little of how they do things at the hospital.  Dr. Clark wanted to see how they would deal with the newborn that didn't breathe and what their procedures were in that kind of an emergency.
On the way from the training we saw these people waiting for something when we asked what they were doing we were told they were waiting for lab work.

This is the delivery room, the baby just born, and is being placed in to a warming bed, the mom is in the bed just to your right.  It looks a little different than I remember.

This is the "recovery room".  The thing that stands out to met is the lack of fluff.  Everything is functional, even the beds.  You see a lot of women dressed in white  they are the nurses. You will also see many of them with badges identifying them as students because this is a teaching hospital.  The nurses are being trained to be SBA's skilled birth assistants.  Most of the babies are delivered by these SBA's.  With all of this help, where is the doctor?  There are two delivery rooms and one OT (operating theater) in this hospital and each room has three beds for delivering babies, and one doctor overseeing the whole thing.  Busy Person!!!  MD's in Nepal earn about $400.00 per month.


These next two pictures are of mothers that delivered the day before the pictures were taken.
















On the way back to the training  this is what greeted us outside of the hospital where people were waiting to get lab work done.  Look behind the people and see the pile of dirt.  It is sand and there is also a pile of gravel, a building is being built directly behind this section of the hospital.

The next two pictures show the way they haul the sand and gravel to where it is mixed into concrete.  They dump it from these baskets into a pile between the forms the;y are using for footings.  They pour water into the mixture on the ground, and proceed to mix it up.  When it is mixed they put it into a plastic gunny sack and two of them carry it and pour it into the forms.  Once it is into the forms they; put a vibrator in to the mix and finish mixing.  At first I didn't believe it then I saw one of the workers pour water into the mixture in the form    

and then put the vibrator into the mixture.  

As you can see anyone can carry the load.

We needed to get out of Pokhara early today because there will be a bandas (Strike) tomorrow Friday and we wouldn't be able to leave because all of the roads will be closed so we are leaving earlier than we had expected.,  We did want to stop off at a sewing project that was sponsored by the church and see how things are working.  These pictures are in a sewing center that was sponsored by the LDS charities this past year.  It is running very well and helping lots of people become self sufficient.

Off we went back to Kathmandu, we will be visiting the Kathmandu maternity center tomorrow on the way home.  Tonight we will be stopping at the riverside resort near the tramway to Manakamana Temple tonight and then home tomorrow.  

Next chapter:  Home to Kathmandu, where's Janet's luggage?