Support For Nepal

New Website

2011-09-26T09:22:00.001-07:00

Ratankot school.

2011-04-16T08:49:00.000-07:00

Isbells in concert for Nepal.

2011-03-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

Isbells in Concert for Nepal

2011-02-05T05:55:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year ( Audience with HH Dalai Lama)

2011-01-02T13:16:00.000-08:00

To start this new year "2011" We would like to share our audience with HH Dalai Lama (November) !

For 2011 We wish you may find:
-peace of mind
-the inexhaustible source of love in your heart
-the dazzling beauty of life in every moment and every living being!

Enjoy !

Our Audience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHqiCFPUiOo&feature=player_embedded

Projects 2011

2010-12-29T07:33:00.000-08:00

27 november : Exhibition support for Nepal in the worldcafé @ Halle : 2176€

2010-12-07T02:18:00.000-08:00

Charing a magical impression of our trip!

The Support for Nepal team 2010!

Geshe Pema Dorjee Thanking everybody for his hard work and support!

Support by our dear friends Louis and Lieve : 1.165€

2010-10-20T05:48:00.000-07:00

We are so honored that our dear friends Louis and Lieve have decided to donate the gifts of their 25 years anniversary to our projects in Nepal! Thank you so much, we will make sure that this big amount will be efficiently invested in our projects!

2010-09-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

Naam van de activiteit: Support for Nepal “ Verloren hart ”
Datum: 27 November
Uur: 17u
Plaats: Oude Post
Organisatoren: Support for Nepal Team.
Prijs: Gratis

Korte toelichting over de activiteit/programma:
Op 27 november vertelt ‘Support for Nepal’ het verhaal van 8 jongeren die deze zomer hun hart verloren in Nepal. Hun missie is, om in samenwerking met hun Nepalese vrienden, de lokale bevolking te helpen bij hun struggle naar zelfredzaamheid. In de voetsporen van Geshe Pema Dorjee (een boeddhistische monnik met 1 levensdoel: verwaarloosde, zieke en vergeten kinderen en noodlijdenden te helpen) werken zij samen met de plaatselijke bevolking, sociaal - humanitaire ontwikkelingsprojecten uit. Zij hopen u op deze avond voor te stellen aan Geshe Pema Dorjee. Deze monnik is gedoctoreerd in het Boeddhisme en draagt onder zijn enorme bescheidenheid een bron van wijsheid. Zijn komst is niet 100% zeker en hangt volledig af van de good will van de Indische visum-beamten (die al 7 maanden op zich laten wachten).
Dankzij de steun van heel wat sympathisanten slaagden de 8 jongeren er in om 25 000€ in te verzamelen. Op deze avond kom je te weten hoe dit geld geïnvesteerd werd in de lokale projecten en wat hun plannen voor de toekomst zijn. Zij toveren voor jullie de Oude Post om in een Nepalese ontdekkingsreis voor al jullie zintuigen. Kom genieten van de Nepalese warmte en de natuurlijke pracht dat dit land te bieden heeft. Tijdens deze gezellige avond zal je jezelf eveneens kunnen verliezen in het prachtige Nepalese handwerk dat ten voordele van deze projecten zal verkocht worden op een idyllisch Nepalees marktje van juweeltjes, Boeddha beeldjes tot tafelkleedjes en singing bowls

Financial support: Support 4 Nepal 2010

2010-08-06T04:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

We already had some days to recover from our magnificent trip.
Time to give you a final update about our trip to Nepal, what did we actually manage and realise in Nepal?

The past year we succeeded to collect 25 000€ thanks to all your help!

How did we spent this money in Nepal:

The monastery that we support is overcrowded and wants to extend, to realise this they need
130 000€. They already realized to collect 25 000€. This year we donated 14 000€ this means that still 91 000 is needed to build their new building. These children come from very remote areas and are often the victim of neglection and abuse... because of this reason our financial support is of utmost importance within our project. These children get a loving home and a good education in their monastery!

4000€ is donated to the school project in Daman a very very remote area in Nepal that has no school or education facilities at all it is still difficult to convince the local villagers about the importance and the benefits of education. Children between 2 and 7 years are left alone while parents are off for a whole days work on their rice fields...

500€ is donated for sports materials for the school in Ratankot.

500€ is donated for sports materials for the monks in the monastry.

200€ is donated to buy 2 corn pealers for the villagers in Ratankot. People are forced to peel the corn by hand after drying it under their roof tops, this is very labour-intensive. With the corn pealer work will be finished faster. Time is very important for these people. Most of the villagers only work to survive (to harvest enough food) some of them even have to search work around Ratankot with other farmers because their harvest is not sufficient to support their family.

These corn pealers will be property of the community of Ratankot (a group of people who pay every month a small amount of money to join the community) . The goal of the community is to stimulate trading in Ratankot.

In future they will try to buy all the fruits and vegetables in Ratankot and sell them on the market in Kathmandu (this is only possible in big quantities). This way the farmers get a reasonable price for their fruits and vegs and the community keeps a small profit. The members of the community also participate in trainings organised by the government helping afterwards other farmers with the knowledge they gained.

The villagers can also borrow money for urgent medical matters from the community. Afterwards they have to pay the money back without any interests. The community also tries to organise medical cares, social projects and agricultural projects in Ratankot. The community consists out of older respected and young motivated villagers (although I must say they are all very very motivated to help their village!)

2000€ is donated to buy and plant trees.
We bought 5000 butter tree seeds this is a tree with a lot of healing power it is also used for making butter delivers good wood and is a preferred tree for honey bees. We bought and planted 500 fruit trees and Karma got 400 wood trees for free from the government. Later this year another 400 fruit trees will be planted. All the villagers who helped with planting these trees got the possibility to buy some of the donated fruit trees for a very small amount ( in this way the fruit trees will be looked after very carefully. The villager didn't get anything for free but they had to make a small personal investment. The community also had a small income out of the tree selling and they can use this budget to organise similar projects).

1450€ will be donated to pay for the yearly school fees for 25 poor students in Ratankot. The selection of the children has been done in co-operation with the school board and the community. We had the chance to meet almost all the children and to visit their homes. We deliberately emphasized that this is a one time project that we want to support because it only helps the effects and not the cause. We asked them to think about other projects for helping these people to become self-supportive!

700€ is donated to build and maintain the greenhouse. One of the villagers offered his land for the construction of the greenhouse he will receive a very very small income for maintaining the butter seeds and the greenhouse, it is a very poor family. Next year these butter trees will be planted.

300€ is donated to build 10 garbage collection points, this is to prevent the garbage dumping in Ratankot and is the start of organising a waste management system.

1200€ is donated for the water distribution fund. During the raining season people get sick because water get mixed with cow dung and human dung, people drink from these water sources running down from the mountain tops. In the future the villagers want to build a water distribution system to prevent these difficult problems.

150€ is used to buy materials to work on the greenhouse and in the rice fields, these materials are now donated to the community of Ratankot and can be lent to villagers.

Next year we will travel back to Nepal to evaluate all our projects and to continue helping these people who are so motivated to improve their standard of living.

Back from our 4days trekking trip in Pokhara.

2010-07-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

Just a fast message to let you all know we are safely back from our trip!
It was quite hard walking in the Nepali mountains but the nature was breathtaking. We even took natural hotsprings next to a very dangerous river. We all enjoyed enormously!

The tree children I talked about: waiting for their parents which took about 10 to 20 days... heartbreaking

2010-07-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

Ratankot Pictures

2010-07-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

Back from Ratankot

2010-07-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Family and friends,

We finally arrived back from Rathankot exhausted but satisfied after two weeks of very hard work. I have to apologize that this message won't be very long, because in Rahtankot we had no electricity for 7 days and I could not update my word documents (so the battery of the computer ran out very fast). The funny thing was that this morning when we left the electricity switched on the moment we left the house.

My problem is how to make a summary of this inspirational, emotional and exhausting trip...?

Maybe I will start with the highlights or maybe just by saying everybody is in very good health maybe a little low on the blood sugar level... but no one became ill or had some kind of stomac problem (exept for Sofie who had the opposite of stomic problems :) ). The only one who had to skip two days was me. I still have not learned when I reach my limits... so 2 of the last days I spent (of course) ... in bed.

I have to say that the villagers and Karma's family took outmost care of us.

We all think they have gone to a LOT of trouble to cook food for 8 people for about 10 days and make sure their own family had also enough food .

So hereafter the highlights:

-Our walk to Rathankot was really exhausting but on this journey you are overwelmed by the nature and peace (also the heartwarming NAMASTE's immediatly make you feel at home).

-I must admit the food was one of the highlights they made delicious food, noodles, pancackes, fresh bread, of cours everyday Dalh Bad. We ate chicken, goat, I even had the exceptional chance to eat fried hornets larves and I must admit it was gummy but very heavy! I ate this together with Roxy the local selfmade wine.

-Another highlight was the enthousiasm of the children in the school. Normally this year there our 150 children in the school (last year 200). Because of the rainy season the school was closed for two months, but especially for us they opened the school and most of the young children of Rathankot came to the school ( 40 students). Kristof and Melodie gave sports and English lessons sometimes with the help of Jonas Dreesen and Sofie. It was amazing to see them at work ...

Also to see the motivation of these very young students was incredible (luckely I still had some battery left so I had the chance to film a very small part in the school). Due to our battery problem we had to be very economic with our film shootings. Jonas and Sofie also gave teaching about waste managemt. They did a wonderful job. Although we think one waste management session is not enough. Next year I think we will give some teachings to the adults about this because they have to give the example.

-Another highlight is the motivation of the villagers. They were really motivated and they gave all the support to Karma and us in all the projects. They always showed their gratitude through their warm namastés. Their way of living of the villagers was also very shocking for us. They wake up at 5 am in the morning to go to their rice fields, coming back around 7-8 pm only, after the very, very long walk.

-At one occassion we helped on the rice fields and this brings me to an other highlight ... this was I think the most unique experience (next to eating hornets in Rathankhot....): Working together with the villagers on their rice fields! First two oxes plow the field while some one else derives the water stream, so the field could be flooded. Next we walked through it with our bare feed to mix the mud so it was nicely divided. Afterwards the women and very young (8- 15) girls and some elder women came to plant the rice. Their planting speed was incredible for us. We could not believe this: they planted rice at machine speed. When we planted one plant (just pushing it in the soil) they already planted 10 and this even if we tried very, very hard to raise our tempo. You can imagine with 14 people standing in one small rice field this easily gets very funny... so at certain moments some mud travelled through the air, direction neighbour. And slowly, slowly the amound of mud flying through the air increased ending with a mud fight of course. I ( Brecht ) herewith sincerely admit that Kristof started EVERYTHING :) . I must say we were soaked with mud from hair to toe. Just to restore your peace of mind; we 'tourists' were not the only ones playing in the mud. We were also under mud attack from the villagers as we were the local entertainment. After a half day in the rice field we left and our working partners were very sad that we left. After the mud we went for a jump under the little jungle bridge in the waterfalls to wash off the mud. It was heavenly: no clouds and a tropical sun - we even had to search for some shade.

- Another highlight is our greenhouse. We are really proud of it and I think we rightly should be!
We worked non stop from early in the morning till it was dark. We went to the jungle to cut our own bamboe trees ( like 10 meters long) and we had to carry them up the very very very steep slopes to our construction ground. Before this we had to clean the garden of one of the villagers... he will get a very very small salary in exchange (but they are quite poor). I think you all remember the two very very sweet girls standing on the picture together last year. It is in their garden we built the greenhouse. To our very sadness these girls of only 4 and 3 years old were almost every day alone without parents ( all the villagers went to work very very hard on the rice fields). I must say this was truly heartbreaking. Sometimes their mother or grandmother was present. After a week the little girls even started to join the works... they are so so so sweet... incredible, but realy dirty full of flees and with almost nothing as clothes. The greenhouse was really hard work for everyone. In the greenhouse the villagers will plant 5000 butter tree seeds. The butter tree is a very rare tree to find in Kathmandu but it has a lot of benefits. The aim is to make butter out of the seeds and even one make wine to sell.

-As planned on our agenda we also planted 900 trees in the village and the border of the jungle and around the school. 40 villagers came to help. As a favour for their help they could buy very cheap fruit trees from the community (sponsored by us like this the community has new budget to buy next year new trees without our help). In the village they work with a small community who tries to organise everything. There are 20 different families in the community. They all pay 150 Nepali Rupies (1.5€) every month to be a member. From this money people in the community get education organised by the government about efficient farming.... Afterwards they go to other farmers to help them. They also buy all the fruits in the village from all the villagers and in order to sell these in all together in Kathmandu while taking a little profit. Villagers can also lend money from the community to pay for urgent hospital cost, they have to pay back the money but without any intrest.
The community is the main force to help the development in this village inspired by Karma and Geshe Pema Dorjee, carried by the villagers and supported by foreing friends like us.

-A personal highlight for me was helping Karma with the beehives. When I was young I helped my father sometimes while he was working on his beehives. But always with a terrible fear for bee stings. The bees in Rathankot are incredibly calm and peacefull (because it are Apis cerana bees and not Apis meliferas like in Europe). So when Karma and I were giving them sugar water to regain strength and surviving the flowerless period we didn't wear any protection only in short and t-shirt. We could open the hives and put the self made sugar bottles in the hives. I was really happy for the dedication Karma took care of all the bees. From the 14 beehives we bought last year there are still 11 be hives left 3 died. A few beehives are quite poor but most of them are doing good and some of them are doing very very good. We gave them 2 times sugar. And every day Karma went very early to kill some hornets (bee predators), it is a real plage. The hornets in Nepal are realy huge, if you get 5 stings you can die!! :s One night Karma his oncle and some other (brave) villagers went out on hornets hunt. We wanted to join them but they forbit us. Earlier we went to see the hornets nest it was 10m up in a very slim tree. So their plan was to put Kerozine in a bottle attach it on a very very big bamboe stick poor it over and burn it. In reality someone climbed the tree and cut the branch. They said this was the only way to kill them. If one trow stones they immediatly fly to the point the stone was thrown from, if one climbs the tree they fly down the tree to attack and defend. If one makes fire they immediatly start an attack. They are immensely aggresive and smart. I showed Karma how to make a hornets trap but the next day we only cought some bees to my very big disappointment.

-One of the last days we went with Karma (before the darkness fell down over Rathankot) to visit the 25 families for which we will sponsor the school fees from next school year. We only did 6 families an had to end our visit because it was too late and it was raining very very intensively. So we went back to have dinner. The next day (our last day) Olivier and me woke up at 5 AM to leave for visiting the other families because we wanted to take a picture of all of them. We had to climb up to the top of Ratankot and then I realised together with Olivier how big Ratankot was. We climbed 300m up the hill for one hour. And up the top there were a lot of houses spread around the many rice fields. A part of Ratankot I never saw. It had something very magic so early and so high in the mountains. It was enormously exhausting climbing so intense without any food. Luckely we got some hot milk from one of the families. For us it was very hard to distinguish the poor people from the normal people because living standards in Ratankot are very very low. But some of the houses we visited were very small and people were living sometimes with up to 6 people together on 5 square meter... Almost impossible....
But the thing that broke our heart was when we reached the highest place of our journey and we found 2 little houses and on the corner of the field a very very very small house. Karma thought there weren't any children but when we looked closer in the very small house there were 3 very young children (8, 6 and 4) all alone. We asked where their parents were and they told us they were working on the fields and after 1o or maybe 20 days they would come back. At that point I really felt my heart break. 3 small kids all alone looking after them self. Karma gave them the mushroom we found on our trip and told us that their parents left enough food for them to cook. I will put their picture I took on the blog (when you see tree little children standing on their doorstep you will know it was them).

At 9h30 we were back from our very heavy walk... It was very special...

Then we packed our bags and were ready to leave... meanwhile a lot of people and children gathered in front of Karma's parents house (the house where we slept : Olivier Jonas Jonas Brecht, others slept in the house next to it at Karma's uncle's house).
Also Karma's mother was very very busy making a small altar outside with incense and fruit and flowers.... while more and more people came together.
We got a very hartwarming goodbye ceremonie... it was incredible the gratitude of all the people towards us was so fantastic!! Also Karma's uncle said a very very big and quite emotional thank you towards my father which he is so grateful for all his hard work last year.
We all got a lot of Kata's, all the children offered flowers and we also received a typical Nepali head. Sofie and Melodie got a beautifull scarve, I also got a beautifull book for my father and Karma his uncle specialy offered a jar of honey from one beehive as a present to my father. So I really hope I can bring it savely back to Belgium so my father can taste the result of his hard work. I must say the whole group, the villagers and me admire my father for having been here all alone last year and working so hard!

Afther the emotional goodbye from all the villagers and children we left for a very hard walk, all the night and days before it was raining like it should be in a true rain season, but the moment we left the sun started shinning and the electricity jumped back online!

The sun burned a little bit too hard during our trip and some people of our group including me were swetting so hard that even our pants got soacked. Arriving on the top and the road, after a few breaks, we deprived the first shop from all the cola, mango juice, coockies and everything with sugar we could buy.
A few minutes later we realised that Karma and 6 people of the village who helped us carry the heaviest bags were standing a bit further waiting for us. After some rest we had some very spicy noodles in a local restaurant. Last night we decided on asking for a private bus and we were very happy for it when we climed on. On the road we visited a bio farmentation tank which was working but was very basic and mostly under the ground.

Arriving in the monastry the smiles on the faces of the monks almost made me cry.
They couldn't hide that they were so enormously happy to see us. It was like coming home. Tinlee made sure we had frensh fries and noodles it was delicous!! We all went to bed very tired but very happy!

So like always I think I gave a very big summary.... :)
I guess these where the biggest highlights. Still thinking about it, the whole stay in Rathankot was a fabulous experience. Goodnight!

Visit to the birthday of his Holiness the 14the Dalai Lama

2010-07-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

2010-07-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

2010-07-09T12:02:00.000-07:00

Arrival of Geshe Pema Dorjee La in Kathmandu

2010-07-09T12:00:00.001-07:00

Today I'll try to make my story short because like every night it is already too late 23h30 and tomorrow we have to wake up at 5h20 to follow a very unique ceremony in the temple. We won't be allowed in the temple but we are invited to follow the ceremony from the inside balcony. It is called "confession" but it is not what we understand by it in our Catholic way of thinking.

Today was our last day of sports in the monastery. Because it was raining a little bit we limited sports outside by basketball only, because the monks are crazy about it. (Every second of their free time, also between the sports they are playing basketball or some other sports, their energy has no limits... unbelievable).

Olivier and Melodie teached English lessons, Sofie and Jonas Dreesen gave Ping Pong and juggling while Jonas DL made movies and I was giving Yoga. At the same time Hans was organising our pictures on the computer. I am so thankful to him for doing this very annoying job.

Because it was my last yoga lesson today I made it really really hard. The monks yoga skills are becoming very good, so I raised the difficulty level in combination with doing all my fitness exercises the result of this all was that after my second class I started to see stars and black spots. So also earlier as expected I drank my first high energy boost drink that I brought with me. I drank some more water and salt and I was again on top of the yoga class ;) . After our lessons all monks had to clean the monastery because Friday is cleaning day. So we also cleaned our guest house (yes yes with water!).

After cleaning I went with Karma to the airport to pick up Geshe Pema Dorjee La. He came specially from Dharamsala to see us and to thank us for all the work we have done the past year for all his projects. Normally he would have been on a trip to Finland but because he still had problems with his visa - in India it takes a very long time to get a new international passport- he changed schedule.

We arrived in the monastery at 16h40 and he would meet our group to have a conversation at 17h30. So we had the time to prepare some questions. Until 19h00 he had a very intense conversation with us (afterwards he had to go and meet other people, but in the morning he would be back). He spoke with us about the importance of the monastery why it is standing here in Nepal, why most of the children come from India, why he wants to help revive the Bodong tradition, why the children get this Buddhist education. It is too much to explain here but we -the whole group- now understand very very well why this education is so important, why all our work we did to collect money is so needed. I think he convinced most of our team when back in Belgium to start another full year of hard fond raising in order to help all these very poor and neglected children. These children really deserve a good education like the one they are getting here in the Porong Monastry.

Pema Dorjee La also told us that there are some younger people in Rathankot who sold a kidney in order to have money to pay the school fee for their children. He told about other villages in India where people have to sell their daughter and where girls are already pregnant on the age of 15. I really had to fight my tears when I heard him speak of all these horrible things. He as well shed a tear when he was thinking of all these children who are suffering the worst nightmare.

Tomorrow after the confession we are going on a pick-nick with all the monks (this is something we are going to pay to show our gratitude for our nice stay). Geshe Pema Dorjee La is joining us and there we will further discuss our future plans and how to divide the 25000€ we transferred to the monastery.

We ended our day with playing some very very nice games in our group together with Tashi (the accountant) Tinlee the 27 year old monk and an other monk who's name I forgot because it is to difficult to remember.

So now I want to have 5 hours of sleep if the dogs keep quite...
Sunday we leave for Rathankot at 10 o'clock. I think we will stay there for about 12 days instead of 14 days because we still have to arrange so many things.... So I will update our adventures after our return from Rathankot! I thank you all for following this blog and I wish you a very good night!

Ps.: for my parents my stomach is healed :)

Pictures Sports

2010-07-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

Pictures

2010-07-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

Material we took to Nepal!

2010-07-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

08-07 Expedition Bio-gas.

2010-07-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

With the sound of debating monks clapping their hands on the background , we start the report of Day 6 in the monastery. And yet another amazing day it was. Loaded with a fresh and huge amount energy, the monks were already showing off their basketball skills even before sport lessons had started. Enthusiasm in its purest form. Brecht's intestines more or less regained their normal activity level, and so his Yoga lessons continued. Jonas and Sofie skipped the morning sport activities and headed for “expedition bio-gas” to Kathmandu center. Together with the ever so kind Karma they checked the availability of equipment to build a bio-gas installation in Ratankot. Dust, cows, ducks, dust, most of the equipment on their list and dust were amongst the things they found on the expedition. After lunch, the monks gathered for the presentation we had prepared on waste management. It was amazing to see them so eager to listen to what we had to say. We talked about how the things we use every day can become waste that pollutes the environment, and about the things we can do to reduce this polluting effect. They had great fun guessing the best solution during a little 'waste quiz', and the applause we received at the end really was heart warming. We hung up some waste management pointing cards on the monastery walls, so the monks will be daily reminded of the importance of good waste management. Afterward we all went down to Karma's shop. He guided us around Bodanath Stupa, where we went in and out of a thousand shops, or so it seemed like, to buy the most beautiful souvenirs. We won't be keeping them for ourselves though. O no. We will take them back to Belgium and sell them on several occasions (to which you all are warmly invited in advance), with the profit going to the different incredible projects of Geshe Pema Dorjee La who works so hard to help other human beings in need. The tour ended in Dawa's shop (Karma's brother in law), where we had the cutest Namaste of the cutest toddler in Kathmandu (it was Diwa, Dawa's son). Back into the monastery, electricity failed once again...., though it brought us the most romantic candlelit diner together with Tinlee and Tashi. Hans became ecstatic after seeing the french fries Tempah (the monastery cook) had made specially for him. He's still running around with a big smile on his face. As are we all actually, not only because of the great food, but because of the utter privilege of being here all together in the monastery...

07-08 More salty rise with milk.

2010-07-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

Today I stayed in bed. Yesterday at noon I became very sick. A little bit earlier as expected. But I was mentally prepared. Sow yesterday we all had a very very big culture shock. Seeing a violation of human right from so close is crazy. Something we can not imagine in Europe!!
Today my Nepali and Belgium friends took very very good care for me!! I got rise with salt and milk again and I HAD to drink salty water (not the best thing to taste). While I tried to regain strength by sleeping. Kristof gave football, Melodie gave volleyball, Jonas Dr and Sofie gave juggling and pyramids, Olivier and Hans gave ping pong and Jonas De Leener took pictures and made some movies. After the sports lessons we gave theory about the body and about the importance of your own safety if you want to help people in an accident (first aid) we also learned them how to replace an injured victim
as well as how to check for breathing and heartbeat. We also learned how to move a victim into a save position. Afterward we went to Bouddhanath to meet Karma, we saw his lovely daughter and had tea in his shop/house. We also walked around the Bouddhanath stupa to get some good karma. We ended our day without electricity. Good night!

06-07 Birthday of his Holiness Dalai Lama

2010-07-07T06:58:00.000-07:00

We woke up at 5:20 with the sound of a gong on the background. Today we wanted to join the morning prayers. When we entered the temple all monks were sitting crossed-legged and were singing. We took a seat at the back and enjoyed a one and a half hour during Tibetan prayer. The monks made music with special instruments and drank Tibetan tea during the ceremony. We also tried the tea but this was too salty for some of us. Today it wasn't just a normal prair session because it was the 75th birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. All day long we would celebrate him.
At 7:30 we left with 2 buses full of monks to the celebration which took place at the other site of the city. After 5 minutes driving the worst thing happened. A whole army of police officers stopped us and told the monks that they weren't allowed to go to the event. The government of Nepal has strong bonds with China and you all know the situation between China and Tibet. Therefore the police officers received orders that no monk could go to the celebration of the Tibetan leaders birthday, the Dalai Lama. The police sent us from police station to police station. We had to wait a very long time but it didn't help. Police men where very rood to the monks it was realy realy sad to see. We always hear about violations of human rights but seeing it and stand face to face with it, is hartbreaking!!!! The monks had to go back to the monastery ofter 3hours waiting in the bus (they were not alowed to leave the bus). It is so hard to imagine that there are people in the world who aren't allowed to follow their religious practice and cannot go wherever they want to go. We can conferm that democracy doesn't exist in this country. It was all really sad for these monks who are full of peace and love.
Back in the monastery a couple of monks dressed themselves like ordinary persons and made a second attempt with us to reach the ceremony. We had to drive all around Kathmandu to reach the Tibetan community. Everywhere in Kathmandu were road bloks to prevent Boeddhist monks from going to the celebration. Luckily our trick worked! On the Tibetan event there were a lot of Tibetan speakers and also performances of Tibetan music and dance. Everywhere you could see pictures of the Dalai Lama. And on everycorner we could get free rice and free Tibetan Tea. During lunch we went to a local "restaurant". But we had to stop a few times because Brecht was getting lot of stomac problems. The food in the restaurant was realy tasty but we asked our selfs questions about the hygiëne... In Nepali restaurant you get all you can eat always, when we left we could even fill our drinking bottles for free, incredible. When the celebration was done we we went to the Zoo with the 2 monks who accompanied us. It was really funny and we saw a lot of beautiful animals, Bengal Tiger, Rino, Angry monkeys. It was realy beautifull but also realy sad to see all those animals in to small cages. Also here we had to stop sometimes for Brecht his stomac problems. Very tired we returned to the monastery. Brecht went to bed and got some water with salt the rehydrate. We hope tommorow he will be better!
It was quite a day... I will never forget it!
Mélodie

05-07 First sport lessons.

2010-07-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

Here we are again, what a luxury every day we can update our blog through wireless Internet. Indeed Tinlee the future head of the monastery has installed wireless internet. Wonderful!To return to the mysterious surprise that Hans brought us yesterday.The luggage of Hans and Jonas Dreesen was mixed up. This means that Hans his bag arrived earlier in Kathmandu before he did unfortunately. And Hans traveled with the luggage of Jonas Dr. (They had promised us everything would become in ordre). Hans arrived but without luggage. This means that the baggage of Jonas Dreesen had disappeared. But to prevent unnecessary anxiety we didn't want to worry Jonas his parents yesterday. We were reassured that that the luggage would arrive yesterday evening. But this was not the case. To our great joy Jonas Dreesen has finally found his luggage today thanks to good care and help from one of our hosts Karma.
This morning we started to organize the groups and the distribution of the t-shirts we got for free from BVLO (which our greatest thanks). The other t-shirts that we got from the youth service in Halle, we will distribute in the mountain village. The monks also got new shoes and shorts, they were very very pleased.Afterward we started our sport sessions. Melody gave rope skipping, Kristof football and I Yoga. The others provided the necessary photo shoots. Hans and Jonas Dreesen recovered the bag at the airport. After 3 hours sport. We have given the monks a theory lesson, in Nepali, on hygiene. Thanks to the DVDs of the project Kids on top. After the necessary hygiene tips we headed toward the pool. Yes, in Nepal they also have pools to our big surprise. The younger monks were allowed to swim there together with us and Tinlee . I think I have the first under water picture of a Buddhist monk. The kids loved it just like us. Afterward we made a great hike to get to know the environment. We finished the our walk back in the monastery where we received again a delicious diner! The youngest monks even got some extra food because they were so hungry from “swimming”. We ended our day with a basic lesson on Buddhist philosophy from Tinlee and his friend Tups. Tomorrow we go .... hmm the names are so weird here. So tomorrow a full day excursion with the monks to celebrate the birthday of HH Dalai Lama. But first we will attend the morning prayer, so alarm clocks are at 5:20 brrrrrr too soon! Goodnight

Boudanath stuppa

2010-07-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

03-07 Second day in the Monastry

2010-07-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

Another day full adventure.To find out everything you will need to continue following our blog! Today we enjoyed picking up Hans from the airport. We where realy happy to see him. And we where very happy that Ilion travel Halle payed for his new ticket. We are so thankfull for this very good service!When we picked up Hans he brought us some new surprise but more about that later on this week. Nobody should worry Hans is in very good health and full of courage (and fatigue, at the moment he is sleeping as a rose, I am happy he does not snore).After picking up Hans we ate a delicious meal and pulled towards Thamel with the whole group. In Thamel we went looking for sports pants and shoes because after a year the little monks sit through all of their shoes.We also have visited just about every trekking shop in Thamel (or so it seemed). And we are very pleased that we took walkie talkies with us to keep in touch of who is winning when our taxis race to our destination. It is also very happy when we lost each other. We are extremely well taken care off by our hosts. There is a new young monk who will gradually take over the leadership of the monastery. His name is Tinlee he is 27 and after 11 years studying he has his master degree in Buddhism. He is very intelligent and has established that the children now get eggs with their breakfast and eat more fruit and get a more balanced menu during the week. The monks were very happy with the first aid material we gave them thanks to local pharmacies of Halle and Pepingen and to Hansaplast it self!Tinlee is also very enthusiastic about our sports program.
The monks have just finished seven days of exams: Englisch, Tibentan handwriting, drawing, memorizing and philosophical debate. Now they get one week vacation this ensures that we get carte blanche for our lessons. SUPER!
We will perfor 4 times 45 minutes of sportsessions with always a 15 minutes break between. All monks will be divided into 4 groups after each session and will then pass on, after wards they get a theoretical session on first aid, sanitation, recycling and English. Tomorrow we will join the monks after our lesson in the local swimming pool. Unbelievable, to my great surprise, our female companions brought their bikinis. Fortunately we will be able to help our self with sport shorts, we did not expect to swim in Nepal.Now it is time to sleep

Airport trip and arrival

2010-07-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

03-07-2010 Arrival Kathmandu

2010-07-03T08:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,Friday afternoon we took the train to Zaventem, the lovely people of the Don Bosco Church in Buizingen came to say goodbye. (Super friendly)Our adventure began from minute one when we checked in for our airplane. Apparently long beards (such as hans) are not allowed to pass without a fight. Anyone could easily check in except Hans. His proposal to shave his beard was of no use to the situation. Finally the desperate air hostess let us depart to Frankfurt and from there she advised us to contact Qatar Airways.After an exuberant flight and a marathon at Frankfurt Airport towards the Qatar desk, we came to The identification that our travel agent made a mistake and that Hans really had no ticket .... how is this possible ? Inconceivable, indeed!After much calls back and forth between Qatar - Qatar - Lufthansa - Illion Travel Halle the verdict fell, heartbreaking, we had to leave without Hans and he was forced to buy a new ticket. I didn't understood how this is possible, because I had the prove of our tickets.... After the local clerk had promised me to take good care of Hans and our travel agent Illion Travel told they were investigating what was wrong we took obligatory our airplane without Hans. I must say his calmness was admirable. Hans took a later flight, Sunday morning he would arrive in Kathmandu. After this history, we arrived in Doha, where the desert dust caused a very bad visibility. The terrible heat at 6:30 AM in the morning after a chill airco trip was a thick pill to take. After a new flight of 4 hours we finally came in good health to the refreshing Kathmandu. Karma and Dawa welcomed us with open arms along with a horde of Nepalese people hoping by carrying our luggage to win money. Luckily I already had experience with this situations from last year. In our Hyper-big-van we disappeared into the chaos of Kathmandu traffic. Again in the monastery we were received with open arms. We were assigned rooms in their new guesthouse, we can proudly say that we are their first guests. This guesthouse was sponsored by local donations and will later serve as a source of income for the monastery in order to relieve Pema Dorjee so he could go to the next project work. Having funny friendly chats we had our beautiful elegant rooms and a fine DALH delicious meal. Pema Dorjee La also phoned to hear if we have well arrived and notified us the happy news that he is trying to do everything to meet us during our stay in Kathmandu.Now we leave you to catch up our sleep, tomorrow morning I go with Karma to the Kathmandu Airport where we will welcome Hans with our four open arms and a big hug!

First 8kg honey from the bee hives.

2010-06-12T03:34:00.000-07:00

Progress from the community hall in Ratankot

2010-06-12T03:33:00.000-07:00

New pictures from the school in Ratankot

2010-06-12T03:31:00.000-07:00

Move it for Nepal 2650€

2010-06-12T02:39:00.000-07:00

Support from my school the Sacred Heart College Hall

2010-06-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

Spaghetti For Nepal : 2100€

2010-05-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

Quiz for Nepal = 950€

2010-05-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

4th of May

2010-04-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

Due to administrative circumstances it is impossible for Geshe Pema Dorjee La to travel to Belgium and the UK. This ensures that our information evening on May 4 at the Sacred Heart College Hall will not go through. We hope to receive Pema Dorjee La in the autumn. We apologize for any inconvenience!

The proceeds of the Jokedayparty of the Sacred Heart and College at Halle: € 9500.

2010-04-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

Flyer Support For Nepal 2010

2010-03-29T06:49:00.000-07:00

Spaghetti voor Nepal!

2010-03-29T06:34:00.000-07:00

Support For Nepal / Nepal 21 TEAM

2010-03-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

Party For Nepal : 691.18€

2010-03-14T03:05:00.001-07:00

Our soup sales for Nepal

2010-02-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

We are very pleased to inform you that we made €305 profit by selling delicious soup.

Progress in the construction of the community hall.

2010-01-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

The Beekeepers Association has bought 13 hives.

2010-01-15T11:39:00.000-08:00

Ratankot school in a new color + School fencing works are almost done.

2010-01-15T11:29:00.000-08:00

Flowers to plant next year on top of the school fence, these flowers are useful for the bee keepers.

Painting school in Ratankot.

2009-12-25T03:48:00.000-08:00

Progress school project in Daman

2009-12-12T08:09:00.000-08:00

Progress bee hives project

2009-12-12T08:06:00.000-08:00

Progress of the school wall

2009-12-12T08:03:00.001-08:00

Exhibition in my school : Heilig Hart en College Halle

2009-12-12T08:01:00.000-08:00

Intervieuw with Pema Dorjee

2009-11-11T10:23:00.000-08:00

Interview with Pema Dorjee our project leader.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGppRZz6ORg#

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPhJQov6hoE#

Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t078_9UQH98#

Film Ratankot

2009-11-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

Film Ratankot (Mountain village in Nepal)

Part 1
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2LOqdJJ4EDk#

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQW35izJ-So#

Exhibition 5th of November

2009-11-11T03:38:00.000-08:00

Dear all,
We have the pleasure to inform you that our exhibition was a great success. We welcomed many people. Our stock welcome-scarves quickly ran out. People were very interested in both the photographs documentary and our movies. We sold several art pieces we had brought along. The net income reached 1500 €. This entire amount will go to the medical intervention of 3 highly ill children.

A trip through Nepal

2009-10-01T08:53:00.001-07:00

The 5th of Novembre there will be an exhibition about our trip.
People will be able to undergo the Nepali culture, taste mountain tea, feel the warm hospitality of this country, travel through the mountains on top of a bus, see behind the sene of a Bouddhist monnastry ...

There will be some beautifull jewelry and souvenirs for sale.

All the income will go to further projects in Nepal.

Location:
Oude Post in Halle
Kardinaal Cardijnstraat
(achter de Basiliek van Halle)
Open : 19u

A small summary about my general impression.

2009-08-19T16:54:00.000-07:00

Life here is indescribable, it's stunning and heartbreaking.

Under stunning I mean:The incredible warmth of the people in the monastery and the people in the mountain village.The simplicity and sobriety (poverty by our standards) in which people still find their happiness.

The breathtaking nature, which I enjoyed enormously in the mountain village and the two-hour walk to get there. The flashback in time back by two centuries` (but with occasional power) in the mountain village.

The incredible discipline of the young monks, children from 10 years getting up at 4:30 AM for learning their texts, afterwards from 5:30 to 7:00 AM they join the morning prayer. They continue with a whole day of lessons till 6PM. In the evening they attend the evening prayer from 6:30 PM till 7:00 PM. Finally they end their day by philosophical discussions in the courtyard. finally they go to sleep at 22:00 PM, restarting again at 4:30 AM.

Additionally, the indescribable gratitude and motivation for the sports lessons is a joy being a teacher. Most of these children come from remote mountain villages (the majority from outside Nepal)like I have visited. Villages where they have to work in extreme conditions, and often are neglected an maltreated .... it is wonderful to see how they literally throw themselves at this gift of a better life.

Also the courage of the local population that we are working together with, is incredible. Their motivation for making things change in their difficult situation. I have met many people that I will hold as an example in my own life after this trip.

Under heartbreaking I mean: the incomprehensible corruption of people with power, police, politics, doctors ...

Everyone, really everyone complains about it and you see this country lives in chaos.
The streets are really no streets,there are no traffic rules here,
Most of the streets are unfinished, due to road works, electricity cables are sometimes hanging head height with hundreds together. Every dirt they just throw around the corner. A VERY large proportion of the population lives in unimaginable poverty. The pollution of the thousands of cars alone in Kathmandu is just incomprehensible.

These people really need all the help they can get!!

I honestly can say that this has been the most meaningful trip of my life!

57 more pictures

2009-08-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

Brecht has uploaded 57 more pictures of his lessons and his tour around Kathmandu's temples, enjoy!

Our trip running to its end

2009-08-17T19:22:00.000-07:00

Days have been flying by too quickly. The sports lessons are running very well, and the monks are enjoying it a lot. This last week, in every group somebody has to replace me as the teacher during the yoga and fitness exercises. This will enable the monks to continue the lessons in my absence. I noticed their big progress in balance, flexibility, juggling... Every day they enter my class with the same big smiles on their faces and loaded with energy.

Last Friday I had a half day off so I went together with Tsering-la for book shopping in the tourist part of Kathmandu; Thamel. On Saturday (which is replacing our Sunday) I asked Dawah, the brother in law of Karma, if he could join me to visit some temples, my father having returned to the mountain village again. The company of an insider is always nicer and very useful. Dawah accepted and even prepared a whole day trip, visiting the whole Kathmandu Valley.

It was really exciting. First we visited the west part of Kathmandu Valley : the monkey Temple our Swayambhunath Stupa: this is a very big stupa on the top of a mountain surrounded with forest with plenty of monkeys jumping around, teasing tourists.

Next stop was the centre of Kathmandu : Kathmandu Durbar Square , a very big and splendid place filled with temples.

After a wonderful lunch we headed to the south where we visited Patan, again I was astonished by the many temples and castles still left in their original state. I learned that wherever a royal castle have been build, construction of monasteries and temples did follow.

After a good walk and look around we went to Bakthapur, one of the most popular places famous for his pottery. As expected we visited even more temples, castles and stuppas. As temples and castles got bigger entrance fees followed accordingly.

Our last destination was a visit to some very nice waterfalls, a little bit less exotic than I was expecting, because they used the water for electricity production. Despite this, it was very nice. Meanwhile Dawah'sister and a friend joined us because they lived nearby.

We ended our magical day by visiting Dawah's family in law. Over a cup of coffee ( what seems to be a luxury product) we discussed our visits. After our nice cup of coffee I intended to leave this warm harted family in search of a restaurant. However I did not get the chance because they insisted on having dinner at their home. I was honoured and happy, feeling the warmth and hospitality of Nepali people.

I really enjoyed the good food under the all seeing eye of the head of the family making sure I wouldn`t lack anything. We ended our dinner with a plate full of fruits. Leaving very late around 22`0` clock I got 4 bodyguards with me because streets are desserted from 20 `o` clock and they seem not always safe.

After an exhausting day I was very happy to find back my bed. With the day running to its end and the energy devoratig teaching lessons adding up, my energy level was slowly running down. So yesterday I spent the whole day recovering in bed.

Today however I feel fit again and I intend to teach them some last new exercises.

Village projects - Agriculture

2009-08-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

Looking at the agriculture in the village of Rathankot it has to be considered as subsistence agriculture. People do grow crops for their daily life and consumption:
surplusses only are sold.

The conditions in which they cultivate their crops are harsh due to the geographical situation; steep hill or valley slopes which do not allow mechanical cultivation, difficult access to the fields, intensive labour requirements for transportation of goods to and from the fields. The only way cultivation can be organised is through manual labour and the assistance of their oxes for plowing.

The climate is favourable to many crops and they have 3 crops per annum. The soil seems pretty fertile, clay like though with local drainage problems. They grow rice and maize during the wet season. It is remarkble to see how every square (centi)meter is exploited. All rice fields are bordered by soya plants. In between the maize plants one finds the millet plants which will develop to maturity once the corn plants are harvested. Furthermore they grow wheat, mustard and oil rape seed during the rest of the year.

In their gardens next to their homes they grow a big variety of vegetables and fruit trees. Almost every family has a garden.

Vegetables range from potatoes to peppers, tomatoes, beans,leaf vegetables,sweet potatoes, ginger, onions, garlic, corn, carrots, herbs and much more.

At the same time one can find a hughe collection of fruit trees ranging from pears, goba, oranges, kumquat, banana, grenate apple, grapefruit(like)trees,vines, tea, coffee and others.

One can really speak about organic farming as no pesticides are known or used here.

Around each house you find chicken with their chicks. At night they are kept indoors (in the living part of the house)in order to protect them from wild animals during the night. Two years ago they had a tiger dwelling around in the wood nearby. An inspiring idea if you have to visit the outside toilet during the night without any light (or toilet paper). Besides they have also leopards of which the old ones prefer human meat according to some guidebooks. This may be the reason why one find so many dogs around the village.

Additionally one finds several goats and between two and five buffalos. Having these is very labourious for older people as they need to get feed for them from the fields twice a day. All feed has to be cut by hand and carried in typical bamboo baskets back home.

In this village there were no pigs as they are considered to be too dirty to be kept near the house. On the way to the village we noticed some however alongside the road.

Most houses in the village do have cavities in their walls in order to house honeybees. This system is probably thousands of years old and does not allow any handling. Beekeepers are waiting until bees come to install their colony in the cavity. The entrances are holes shaped by cow dung. The cavity inside the house is closed with a stone and fresh cow dung.

Furthermore, villagers do have problems with apes and wild boars feeding on their corn crops.

Despite the fact that nature grows everything you could wish here, it seems it does not come served on a silver plate.

You can see some pictures from the village in this web album!

Teaching sports in the monastry.

2009-08-09T23:54:00.000-07:00

After half day of driving in the busy center of Kathmandu in search of shorts and sports material, I finally started the sports lessons. I have 4 groups:
First group 8 AM till 9 AM ; the eldest monks and the teachers 10 persons.
Second group 9 AM till 10 AM ; 14 till 16 year old children 12 persons.
Third group 3 PM till 4 PM ; youngest group from 10 till 15 year 12 persons.
Fourth group 4 PM till 5 PM ; 15 till 18 year 12 persons.

The main topic is yoga together with a range of fitness exercices(because later this is easy to continue for them). Next to this I thought them how to juggle three balls and the basic steps towards 4 ball juggling. I thought them balance exercices ; walking on stelts, balancing exercices on the balance boards, walking on the slack line. I also tried to teach them as much as possible games, because when they have a day off (saturday) they can play the whole day.

It is incredible to see all the children and teachers being so motivated and being so enthusiastic. Be assured this is a hard life! It is unbelievable how disciplined all these children are. They start there day at 4.30 AM and stop there activities at 9 PM. This means, after waking up they start studying there textbooks for one hour. Afterwards they join the morning prayer from 5.30 AM till 7 AM. This is non-stop praying. For breakfast : Bread and buttertea, and followed by the start of their lessons until lunch: Dahl (lentil soup, rice and some cooked vegetables). After lunch they continue their lessons until dinner at 18 PM. Next they have their evening prayer in front of the monastry. They end their day with filosofical debates from 7 PM till 9PM. ( meanwile stamping on the ground and clapping in their hands ... I think it is very intense.
But all these young kids and youngsters are truly devoted, they are thankful for getting a better life because they all come from remote and very poor villages...

My trip back to Kathmandu.

2009-08-09T22:46:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since my last update. The 31th of July, I took leave of the villagers and my father to return to Kathmandu. I was in the company of Karma his father and a girl from the village.
The trip back took us last time 2hours, only this time it took us 1 hour. This wa entirely due to the pace of my travel companions. I had a lot of trouble to keep up with them. After a well deserved Pepsi in the cafe along the street we took the bus.
As our bus was overcrowded we were forced to join the passengers on the roof together with the 6 goats for a 84km ride. Unfortunately, my battery of my photo equipment was down, but I have everything on film. I only say that this was inconceivable to travel in this way. This is probably the best way to admire the landscape. After a long bus trip, we had a few hours in small packed buses to go through the chaos of Kathmandu. The journey of 84 km has kept me busy for 10 hours.

Lots of pictures

2009-08-08T01:27:00.000-07:00

Brecht has managed to upload lots of pictures from Nepal, you can watch them in this web album!

30th

2009-08-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

We woke up t 7 o` clock. It had been raining the whole night. We also discovered that my father didn't spent the night alone. A clever leech had enjoyed a good meal. After having breakfast, Karma showed us the first part of his village. We saw the very nice community hall that is under construction and has been financed by other sponsoring. After having seen a lot of gardens and various crops, we were offered a cup of tea with some local villagers and a lot of kids who kept following us.

We discussed the main problems of the village. These are: the lack of educated people in the village like a nurse, a veterinarian and an agronomist. Young people with a diploma are moving to Kathmandu to earn more money. This leaves the village with mainly elderly people. In order to resolve this situation, they need a better standard of living. Several options need to be investigated:
-introduction of commercialy grown fruits, flowers, herbs, mushrooms and honey. Also the production of cheese from their goats and buffalos.
-installing internet at the community hall could help education and support of farmers.

Afterwards we visited the school. There we were welcomed by a big delegation of village elders and teachers. They welcomed us with flowers and welcome scarfs.
The needs of the school were discussed, these are:
-building a fence around the steep slopes of the little playground for the 200 children.
-installing wired protection in the open windows of the classrooms.
-installation of a computerclass with one computer and an internet connection.
-the financing of 25 poor children who have difficulty paying their school fees.
-paying the fees of 2 teachers (the school has 5 teachers and only 3 of them are being payed by the government, the other two are being sponsord by the villagers, costs of one teacher for a whole year: 960 euro)
-building a 6th class for children age 10 to 13 (this also requiers an extra teacher) (total cost of the new classroom: 1500 euro)

After the calculation and discussion of all these costs we got a tour of the school. Geshe Pema Dorjee told us that a fence around the playground is highly needed because it is very dangerous now. We saw this with our own eyes and we can only agree.
On the way back we walked to the other side of the village and inspected some more crops and plants. Accompanied by a handfull of children, we returned and had some tea and biscuits. This energyboost was very welcome!!
Before dinner we had our last tour. We had a lot of fun with some children and some local villagers. We named a young boys goat Bella, he was taking her out for a walk. We really enjoy the nice sense of humor of the Nepalese people. We ended the day enjoying a cup of homemade wine while listening to the very adventurous stories of mountain guide Karma.

29 th

2009-08-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

At 8 o`clock in the morning we left to meet Karma's wife, sister and young daughter, who's only 11 days old. Together with Gen Tsering-la we had breakfast and planned our trip and our transport.

Because a trip by car is quite expensive, we decided to do the 84km trip by bus and the last 2km we would walk. At 10 o` clock we left by taxi. That is: Karma, his friendly mother, my father and me. We drove to the other side of town, which took us one hour. We arrived at a very busy road with traffic jams, people redoing the road and plenty of busses and taxi`s. It was also raining again. Luckily we were offered a ride on a tourist bus, which had missed his clients. So we ended up having quite a luxurious ride for a good price! During the trip we stopped for lunch in a small road restaurant. After 70 km we changed to a local bus.

This bus was very crowded with friendly local people. The 12km drive took us 1 hour. While driving, we noticed a similar bus who got off the road and was lying there up side down. Finally, high up on the mountain surrounded by a green scenery, we finally arrived at our destination, 82km from Kathmandu. Or at least that was what we thought....

We had a very nice cup of tea in an authentic bar and then to our big surprise we had to continue our trip. We needed to climb down to the river following a small slippery stream of water.

Totally soaked, with our luggage on our back, we crossed the river on a jungle bridge. After a short break, we had to climb for quite a while on a path where leaches were waiting to attack our juicy legs.

So already a bit tired, we pulled up our socks and started the climb.

And what a climb it was! To my surprise,Karma's 55 year old mother looked like she was taking a relaxing walk in the park. So I pulled my strenght together and followed her example. Finally, after more than 2 hours we arrived at the village Rathankot.

We received another heart warming welcome and enjoyed a nice meal after putting on some dry clothes. In the evening Karma showed us to our beds. After installing our mosquito nets (there was no possibility to close our open window) we enjoyed a well deserved sleep.

28th

2009-08-01T10:12:00.002-07:00

My father's sleep was very short due to the monks, who started ringing the bells at 4 AM. Luckily I used ear plugs. Our breakfast was served in my father's room. Pancake bread, eggs, jelly and milk tea, we are being really spoiled here. The monk's breakfast consists only of bread and butter tea.

In the morning, we met the locale carpenter. We discussed how he would make the balance board,stelts and table tennis board.

Gen Tsering-la gave us a tour of the monastry.

Upon entering the tempel I was dazzeld by the rich and colourful display of their culture. We saw the different classrooms and the hall where I will be teaching sports. It was bigger then I expected but it needs some cleaning up. After this tour I was pleased to learn that the monks eat 3 times a day, so we were offered a meal of rice and dalh for the first time. In the afternoon we went shopping for bamboo. This will be used to make the steltsand sportshoes for the monks.

In the evening, we gave the t-shirts we brought to the monks. It was a very busy day.

Arrival in Kathmandu

2009-08-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

Due to the bad weather in Kathmandu our plane had a delay of 4 hours. Luckily Karma waited for us.

We enjoyed a refreshing cloudburst when we got off the plane. Leaving the airport, we dubbel checked our luggage this time! At the exit we found Karma holding our name tags. Our first impression upon arrival was that it was much greener here than the dusty and dry environment of Delhi.

After 40 minutes we arrived at the monastry. Gen Tsering-la gave us a very warm welcome and we noticed that the monks were shooting us some very curious glances. We also met Tashi who is the accountant of the monastry. All together we enjoyed the typical milk with tea and a very nice talk.

We were shown to our rooms and got some rest. Afterwards, the monastry offered us a welcome dinner in a local restaurant together with Tashi and Karma. For the first time we tasted the spicy colourful Nepalese food. After a refreshing cloudburst during our search for a cab we finaly ended our day, which started at 3 AM in Delhi.

Arrival in Delhi

2009-07-28T05:41:00.000-07:00

On the 26th of July, after a journey of 17 hours we finaly arrived at Delhi.

The temperature was extremely high and it was not easy to find some shade. In the excitement of arriving and finding our taxi driver my father forgot his handluggage in the airport, luckily it was still there. After a chaotic drive, on the left and right side of the road, through the red traffic lights we found out that honcking is a national sport next to cricket. We stopped at a busy road full of shoppers, people working and sleeping in their beds? or on their tricycles. At this early point we experienced our first cultural shock.

Through a very small funny smelling street we arrived at our hotel. We where very surprised how the inside contrasted with what we saw few seconds before. After some rest we put on are tourist shoes and mingled with the chaos of the old part of Delhi.

In the middle of the night we left for catching our plane. We where truly asthonished of the immense amount of people sleeping outside at the most impossible places.

Visit of Rev. Geshe Pema Dorjee at our home

2009-07-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

Today we got the visit of Rev. Geshe Pema Dorjee. He was very pleased with the success of our benefit concert. We had the opportunity to discuss what we could do with the amount collected(+/-6000€). We decided that half of the amount would go to the project of the village Rathankot and half would be going to the renovation of the class rooms at the monastery Porong Pelmo Choeding Monastery (www.bodong.org)plus the purchase of sports materials for the pupils.
The money will be transferred to the monastery and they will make up an overview of the various costs spent.
During our stay we would both have an in depth look at the works which could be financed by it.

Over lunch we had the opportunity to discuss the various issues together with some friends (from www.maketheswitch.be) belonging to the team which organised the concert.

Development projects in Nepal

2009-07-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

The history of our projects:
The projects were started some time ago by the Rev. Gesje Pema Dorjee.
It was when we first met him in March 2007, that we learned about the many projects he had.

Rev. Pema Dorje is very concerned about the equilibrium between mental and physical health for his pupils (between 11 and 20 years)at the Porong Choeding Monastry in Kathmandu. Up to now the mental health was the major and almost only concern.
As a sports teacher I was excited to take on such a challenge offered to me.It will require a combination of skillfulness and inventiveness knowing that normal sports facilities or sport attributes are totally lacking.

The second project is about the development of a rural village (Rathankot) 80 kms of Kathmandu. The major problem being that young people are leaving the village for trying their fortune in the big cities. My father an agricultural engineer will try to help out in order to improve agricultural production. First we need to learn more about the actual situation.

Our first concert for Nepal

2009-06-26T02:04:00.000-07:00

On the 26th of June we organised a small festival in our garden. We had 5 performers/bands who participated on a volunteer basis: Denny Chantrain, Gus Luxmore, Choco La Mousse, De Vets Band & Zonko. What initially started as a birthday party with some gifts for Nepal grew gradually "be it small" to a concert with 373 visitors 60 volunteers and 22 artists. The whole crew of "Make the switch" started to put their shoulders under the project with a first meeting in our garden where the concert would take place.

We would alsow like to thank our sponsors:
Bavik beer - Smiths chips -Red Cross - Sabam - Haifax - Scouting Halle - Federale Inssuance - BNP Paribas Fortis Halle - fifty-one International Coloma - Carbomat - Bakkery Wim on the Brusselse Steenweg 112 Halle - Brewer Marc Dedobbeleer Vestingsstraat 13 (Halle centre)- design flyer frestyle 0479/82.72.35 - Boon Beer- fotographers: Bert Cosijns and Jonas Dreesen.

Alsow a big thanks to the artist who offered us a wonderfull evening not to forget on a volentary basis: Dennie Chantrain - Gus Luxmore - Choco La Mousse - De Vetsband - Zonko.

Especially thanks to the Community and the mayor of Pepingen as well as to the mayor and the city of Halle.

And lost but not least all the volunteers, friends, neighbours and family who made this a big succes!

Count down

2009-06-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

Everything got ready in time thanks to the many volunteers (+/-60). We were hoping the weather would remain dry despite some raindrops and some windy moments around late afternoon. Everybody was dedicated to make it a success.

Further preparations for the concert

2009-06-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

It was beautiful weather something quite unusual for Belgium. Everybody worked hard and according to their belief and capacity.

Preparatory works

2009-06-20T11:16:00.000-07:00