Winter coat

The day before Marianne left she had a super down coat custom made.
Super nice and one of a kind!

Marianne is back!

Our friend Marianne has returned back to us for her last days in Nepal this year.
She is absolutely crazy inspiring for everyone who is the tiniest bit adventurous.
Paragliding in Pokhara. I know my mom would love to do that.

Annapurna base camp. I know our friend Christer is planning this trek for next year.

I'm happy doing short city trekkings. On the gound!

Thunder

This summer has started with heavy rain, storm, thunder and lightning.
Since I love rain, when I can stay indoors, I don't mind.

Dinner at Prem's house

Prem is our dear friend. He has his own taxi and is an excellent trekking guide and the other day we were invited to his home for dinner.

We had a great time. Laughing and eating good typical Nepalese food.

Prem's mom is 95 and happy sitting in her armchair. She is so cute with a "fish" hanging from her nose.

Prem's wife is so sweet! I just had to hug her.

The kids played different chants and had a great time.
What Western kids would accept no computers or TV for a couple of hours, entertaining themselves?
No power has it's advantages sometimes.

Crisis

Something is happening here in Nepal.
The last few weeks we have noticed a dramatic change. It's like the whole society has given up.
We rarely have no power and the telecom system is just working from time to time, which is very frustrating when you are depending on internet to work.
We've also realised that it's the workers market here in Nepal.
The workers have suddenly started to decide whether or not they want to work.
When it's wedding season, like it has been for the last two months, we know it can be difficult to have things made in the factories, but now the workers also seem to decide what they want to do and not do.
We have a customer from Russia who has been waiting for a jacket for almost two months now and another in US has waited pretty much the same time for some knitted wool socks.
The owners are just as frustrated as we are. A strange situation I must say.
We are actually a bit worried.
Let's see if the life spirits return with the summer that will arrive on Sunday with the Holi festival of colors.

Busy, busy

The last two weeks we have been so busy that I feel my strenght has left me behind.
We are so happy for all the work coming our way and the sweet, sweet customers coming to Nepal, but with my weak health I'm grateful we got two days at home.
Naho left for Thailand today and Susanne and Kjell-Rune are up in the mountains in Nagarkot for a few days.

Susanne and Kjell-Rune

Our Swedish customers Susanne and Kjell-Rune booked a last minute trip and came to Kathmandu yesterday.
They arrived after travelling for 28 hours, the last flight was delayed 2,5 hours so they arrived in the middle of the night. Poor guys!
But that didn't stop them.
They went, all by them self by foot, to the Buddhist temple Swayambhunath, also called the Monkey temple, and Kjell-Rune got hit by a stone in the head thrown by an angry monkey.
That's the reason we haven't been there yet. Monekys are not our favorite animals.
We ate a fab dinner and talked and talked. It's amazing to meet all these great people!
Tomorrow the shopping begins. Susanne has a meditation studio and is going to open a shop, located in Båstad, in the south of Sweden, in April.

Leya and Alina

Leya has gone to her big sister Alina's home for a couple of days.
I think we all need that break from each other and Leya is so happy to be pampered with make up, fancy clothes and hairstyles.
Things I'm not particulary interested in.

Tibetan New Year

Now we are in the middle of a 15 days Tibetan Lhosar, new year, celebrations.
We haven't been to Boudhanath since it started, but we'll go there one day and see the festivities.
Last year, during this festival, a young Tibetan monk set him self on fire.
I think the guards will be prepared with fire extinguishers this year.

Naho at Boudhanath

Yesterday we brought Naho to Boudhanath.
Nepal is not just about work. We have a lot of culture to offer too. She liked it a lot.

We passed those women who were painting thangka.
Read more about thangkas here.
Wow! They are so skilled.

When we had dinner the restaurant was invaded by Chinese people and their huge cameras.
We had to move to another table.

Shivaratri

Yesterday we celebrated the Hindu god Shiva with an early dinner with Naho, Suresh and his wife Muna.
The festival Shivaratri is the only day that it's legal to smoke something else than tobacco.
It's crazy with naked, high, dancing holy men, sadhus, around the Hindu temple Pashupatinath, but I had to work so I'll go next year.

Felt factories

Yesterday we went to three different felt factories to see the women working the wool in to beautiful bags, purses and shawls.
We were exhausted in the end of the day.
Here they are making the felt, from the Merino wool fibers imported from New Zealand, and the base shapes.

Here they are doing embroidery and other detail work.

Emelie and Naho.

Leya was playing outside with a daughter to one of the workers.

Emelie and Naho

Today Leya and I met two new, wonderful friends.
Emelie is also Swedish and has decided to try to live here in Nepal and today we finally met.
She is interested in and wants to work with environment in textile production like natural dyeing, something that is not easy to find here in Nepal.
We will definitely work together in the future.
Naho is Japanese and lives in Canada since 11 years.
She is here in business, but we have already talked a lot about how it's like to live in Japan, Canada, Sweden, India and Nepal.
A huge subject we need more dinners to cover.
Tomorrow we will all visit two felt factories and I will sure remember to take photos, something I completely forgot today.
We talked and talked so the camera was left in peace in the handbag.

Dung

Those guys are really brave throwing dung from the truck in to our neighbor garden with their bare hands.
I'd prefer a space overall, big boots and a shovel.

Flyers

I'm so tired from all worrying for Nani.
The thought of her suffering from pain, hunger or loneliness is completely crushing my heart.
Not knowing is the worst part. She is not a tough dog who can survive in the streets.
Our landlords think she is kidnapped and what will they do when they realize that she is steralized and useless for breeding.
They will probably dump her somewhere and we'll probably never find out what happened to her.
Tomorrow we will print these flyers and walk around giving them to people in the neighbor areas.
Please help us pray for her safe return home to her family.

Nani is missing

Our dog Nani has been missing since 7 yesterday evening.
I'm so worried I just want to cry. She would never stay away this long by herself.
She might be kidnapped!
Please help us pray she'll be back soon, safe and sound.

Lollipops school

As you probably know Leya is not going to school right now and we have waited for the universe to send a suitable school our way.
We are tired of the high pressure, non-Nepali speaking schools with huge classes with the only focus on exams results.
The other day the principal of a new school bought paint in our landlords' paint shop and they started talking.
Our landlords' son realised that Lollipops school could be a good school for Leya and today we visited the school.
For one year they have had lower classes in the small house with the garden full of toys and coming year, the Nepalese new year starts in the middle of April, they will start with the classes 1 to 5.
They let the kids play, they are allowed to speak Nepali, they will pick Leya up right outside our house with the school van, they provide breakfast, lunch and snacks and the classes will be small, at most 12 students in each class.
For the first time in months Leya was excited to go to school and it was so nice to see her laying in the grass and throwing the basket ball in the school yard.
The first year the admission fee is free and naturally the classes will be even smaller since their school program is new.
This is good for Leya since she is in a period in her life when she feels a little insecure and don't like to be in big groups of kids.
This is the kind of small, family-like school we have been looking for and finally we found it.

Plane crash

From an early spring to the coldest days this winter. What just happened?
Yesterday a plane crashed outside of Pokhara. The first report says it crashed because of bad weather.
All 18 people on the plane died since they had nowhere else to go but crash land in the jungle.
Since 2010 it has been six plane crashes with at least 97 people killed.
The pilots don't have adekvat education to fly in the extreme conditions you find in Nepal and many of the airports are located in narrow valleys.
I would never recommend anyone to fly domestic in Nepal.
God bless their souls!

Rain

After a long winter and months of dry weather we finally got some rain.
I just love to fall asleep to the soothing sound of rain.
Now it's definately weather change towards warmer temperatures, even though it's rather cold right now and the heater has given up for this winter.

Prayer flag print

If you think that everything is made by high tech machines this will show you how most things are made here in Nepal.
I suppose you have seen the Buddhist prayer flags.
They come in thousands and thousands, especially in the area where we live around the Buddhist Boudhanath stupa.

We have found a man that is sitting in his small shop printing flags all day long and he gave me an idea.
I think the prayers are so beautiful. I have no idea what they say, but they feel soothing and peaceful.
Why not print on fabric and make, for example, cushion covers? So I cut a few pieces of old saris I had at home, I have a few as you can imagine, and went to him today.
He smiled and thought I was a complete lunitic, but he printed them for me.
First he rolled black color at the block print laying in front of him.

He put the fabric on the block print.

Then he rolled the fabric like a dough.

Voilá! Fantastic result!
Here is a print with prayers and LungTa, the Windhorse.

And here is Tara, who is a Buddhist diety.