Swayambhu and Other Adventures Around Kathmandu

I might have gone a little overboard yesterday. I got four pairs of pants, one t-shirt, one headband, postcards, stamps, flip flops, and a few groceries. Luckily my huge shopping spree cost me less than 25 USD. And now I have pants. I also got to go with some of the girls to buy new clothes for Dashain, a huge christmas-like festival coming up.

Also yesterday, since it was sanibar(Saturday) and all the kids have the day off from school, the children from both orphanages and all the volunteers went up to papa's house for tiffin (a light lunchtime meal) I remembered my camera this time and took pictures of Sushmita (on the right), one of my favorite girls from the home.

Today Sushmita, who works at the volunteer house to help orient volunteers, not to be confused with Sushmita in the picture, took Felicia, a new volunteer from Australia, and me to see Swayambhu- a beautiful Buddhist temple. I've never seen so many prayer flags in my life. We came to three huge gold statues-one of Buddha, one of the person who founded the Kathmandu valley, and one of the person who brought Buddhism to Nepal. Sushmita told me Kathmandu valley actually used to be a lake, the person who founded it had to drain the whole lake before they could settle it. We then climbed a lot of stairs up to a little monastery where there was a view of the whole Kathmandu valley. I did not realize quite how big Kathmandu is, but it is huge.

Perhaps the most important event today was choosing my first placement. Felicia and I decided to both go to an orphanage in the mountainous region of Dolakha for three weeks. No one from Volunteer Nepal has been before, but we're happy to be the first. We had to find an orphanage because we'll be there for Dashain and all the schools will be closed for at least two weeks. We also wanted to be in the mountains. I love mountains. We'll leave the day after tomorrow hopefully.