Making Things Beautiful "...awake, and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem; yea, and put on thy beautiful garments, O daughter of Zion; and strengthen thy stakes and enlarge thy borders forever, that thou mayest no more be confounded, that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee, O house of Israel, may be fulfilled." Moroni 10:31

The scripture from Moroni is so appropriate for Nepal at this time of year.  The dry season is here, no more monsoons, the festival of Dashain began on Tuesday of this week, and we are here to take it all in.  We are in Nepal to do a good work and that will happen one tiny step and place at a time.

First to dusty roads, the roads are torn up for a variety of reasons, the cars in turn stir up the dust and it then suspends in the air like a fog.
During this time a celebration begins "Dashian", I guess it a little like our Easter, it as a celebration of a new beginning and the families celebrate by giving lots of fancy clothes, and jewelry   The shops have very glitzy and blingy clothes.  Nepali women traditionally wear very colorful clothing but this time of year is extraordinary.

This shop is full of very colorful dresses and fabric to fulfill your every clothing desire.

The dress is first then the shoes, "Baaph re Baaph" WOW!

A shoe for everyone, at least if you are female.



As you can see the city is vibrant in spite of the complexities of the infrastructure or lack thereof in this city.

But, the reason we are in Nepal is to help bring a little of the saviors joy and peace and consequently tranquility to the brothers and sisters in Nepal.

With that goal in mind we began the transformation of our surroundings.
This is the story of bringing a little bit of heaven to us, there were unexpected consequences from this experiment that we could not have foretold.  To your right is our yard, maybe a little hard to see, but you see the overgrowth of plants and the lack of grass and a lot of dirt that amazingly becomes mud in the monsoon season, Janet will attest to that.  We needed to begin by cleaning up and thinning out.

Before we could get the grass and flowers we needed to replace some of the driveway, so off we went to buy bricks.  Once we had purchased the bricks we need to get them home and the brick store didn't deliver.  We hired a man and his pickup to take them to our home.  The picture to the left is in front of our home.  The load was large so he brought along some help to unload.













So now the fun begins!  We begin digging and pruning and hauling things around, I really didn't mean me literally, the people we hired  moved the dirt, as you can see they have different methods of moving dirt than we do, and when you look closely you will see a woman carrying her end of the sack filled with dirt, she was an inspiration to me for many reasons, first, her strength and stamina, and the second is a story I will tell you a bit later.






Bricks are in place and the old dirt is gone, I'm not sure what that was about but they removed some dirt about 2 inches deep.

This was starting to shape up and our Didi began to see the vision and jumped in to help haul the new dirt, that's her in the picture above with the bucket.

The dirt needed to be level before we could lay the sod, so this worker woman leveled the whole area with a stick about 1 X 1 maybe 30 inches long.  When it was getting late one evening I asked her if she still needed to go home and fix dinner for her husband, she told me she didn't have a husband.  You know me I asked her what happened to him, she told me her story.  She had left him because he decided to get another wife, which by the way is not to uncommon in Nepal.  She didn't like the idea and kicked him out, sounds easy right?  In Nepal when a woman has been married and, for whatever reason they lose there husband, they don't remarry, it is a cultural stigma.  This woman had two children and, would not be supported any way by her ex spouse, because the husband has no obligation to help support his family.  One of the girls is now in college and the other is still in a high school kind of school.  She is a inspiration to me, as we talked I asked if things could every change regarding women and she said maybe in the next couple of generations.  Ask Janet about the status of women in Nepal when you have an opportunity, you'll get an earful.

The soil is level and ready to plant grass.  The sod is cut a little different, they cut it into 1 foot squares.  Makes it easier to carry, but more pieces to put down.









Things were starting to look good, so much so, that or guard/gardener started to get involved and helping with the project.






That is Hari on the left cutting down the overgrown marigold plants that are full of bugs, little gnat like creatures that are very annoying when you are outside.

The next day we were away doing our missionary work.  We were meeting with the President of the Nepal Medical Association and then with the Director General of the Health Ministry, trying to get the HBB program implemented appropriately.


  While we were gone they finished the sod.  It look great!

When we got home Our Didi, Rukmina was sitting on her stool and I asked her what she was doing and she explained to us that she felt like she was in Manila at the Temple because is was so peaceful
 and beautiful.  She then told us about a place in the City call "The Garden of Dreams", We have this little piece of heaven our "Sapana ko Gagaicha".

I made Rukmina pose so you could see what we saw that day.  There she sits in the tranquil world that we created together.



She told us the she will go out each morning and sit and feel the peace and quiet that she feels in this place.





This last picture was very difficult to get, the reason is that Rukmina is always smiling.  She had a very difficult time standing so still and not smiling for this Nepali Gothic a copy of the famous American Gothic by Grant Wood.  I personally think they did a great job.

As you can see we can make a difference one small step at time.

Next chapter:  Dashain what is it?