Nepal: Arrival and Opening Ceremonies

Blog Post 6.29.16

We have arrived safely in Nepal! We arrived on Sunday the 26^th , we were all so tired after such long flights. Our flight schedule was crazy! We flew from Salt Lake to LA which was only an hour and a half, and we had a 5-hour layover in LA. From LA we flew to Tokyo, the flight was 11.5 hours and it honestly felt like forever considering there was a crying baby that wouldn’t go to sleep. In Tokyo our layover was an hour and a half and then we got back onto the plane and headed for Singapore. The flight from Tokyo to Singapore was a lengthy 8 hours, which wasn’t so bad because basically everyone slept the entire flight. Once we arrived in Singapore we had a 6-hour layover. We arrived at 3am so we had to wait for everything to open, hungout, and  called our parents. From Singapore, we flew to Kathmandu. This last flight was 5 hours and was not too bad. Once we arrived in Kathmandu, we filled out our customs and visa forms and got in line. Once we all got through immigration, we headed for baggage claim. Unfortunately, we had baggage mishaps, but we made it safely to the Happiness Guesthouse as a team. Once we got situated in the hotel we headed for lunch at the Golden Eyes restaurant and we met the translators. After lunch we headed back to the hotel and met in our committees to sort through the Youthlinc duffel bags.

On the first day in the village, we had opening ceremonies and it was a blast! The kids came out and sang the Nepali National Anthem, and we sang them the Star Spangled Banner. The teenage girls came out and did a beautiful dance and we did the Cha Cha Cha for them. After the opening ceremonies, we had time to meet and play with the kids. The kids were so kind and fun to play with!

After we met with the kids, we broke out into different groups as a team, I was very lucky to go on the first home-visit. The home-visit was truly amazing, the people were so kind to us and they offered us fresh cucumber, left over cake (that was the only thing in their refrigerator), and tea. We visited five different households and each household we visited told us that they didn’t own their own land. They told us that they were required to pay rent for the land and it was impossible for them to buy it, and so they are stuck in this ongoing cycle. One woman told us how thankful she was for us to be there because she knew we are here to help the children and the school in the village, and she feels helpless. After we returned to the school, we found out the first few English lessons were very successful and we have started 3 different construction projects; we are painting the interior and exterior of the school, we are building them a kitchen that requires us to add on a new structure to the school, and we are building them a patio outside of the school.

–Maddie Kwun