Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!  I hope you are all enjoying yourselves over the long weekend.  We have certainly been having fun times here.  This week we broght Easter to Pokhara and, whilst not everything went entirely to plan, we had a great time doing it!

Eggs decorated by the Asha Foundation kids

Our first attempt at Easter celebrations were on Thursday at the Street Kids’ Centre.  This was Lynsey and Jess’s last day at the centre and we thought that an Easter party would be a memorable send off.  We planned to decorate boiled eggs, have an egg hunt, egg and spoon races and all sorts of other egg related fun.  However, whilst the eggs made it to the centre, the bag of decorations didn’t.  Ooops.  Luckily, the kids brought out their own felt tips and got decorating.  Unfortunately, the monsoon rains decided to join our party which meant that all games were off.  Instead, we huddled together under the porch roof, ate boiled eggs and pretended to be penguins whilst Shreeram honed his photography skills, snapping all of us from every angle with Lynsey’s camera.  There were then some emotional goodbyes whilst our volunteers said goodbye to the children and staff.  So, whilst our farewell/Easter party didn’t go quite as planned, it was a fun session and a lovely note for our volunteers’ placement to end on.

‘PoD Nepal Easter: Take 2’ took place at the Asha Foundation.  We managed to bring along both the eggs and the decorating materials, but this time it was the children who were missing!  Lots of them were out for the afternoon, but we still had a good sized group of 8 to work with.  Eggs were painted, hidden and hunted out.  Races were run and sweets were eaten.  Very fun times indeed.

Earlier in the week we had a very silly session together at the Street Kids making balloon animals and facepainting each other (photos here).  I proved to be a one-trick-wonder and whipped out a lot of balloon swans.  Jess demonstrated some great facepainting skills before both she and Lynsey gamely gave their faces up for painting by the kids.  As all of this was going on, Bijay quietly slipped away and made his very own, amazingly complicated balloon dog.  My highlight of the day, however, was walking home with tiger-faced Jess.  Her attempts to scare small children with her tiger ‘roar’ amused everyone (imagine the noise a cat would make if it got its tail stuck in a door, that’s somewhere close to the noise she made).  It was beautiful.

Bijay showcasing his balloon dog

The staff and children at Ward6 were very sad to see Lynsey go.  Her contribution was greatly appreciated.  They enjoyed everything about her, from her general attitude to the resources and ideas she brought to sessions.  They particularly loved the introduction of ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’ and ‘The Wheels on the Bus’!  The Chairman came to visit her on her final day and presented her with a certificate and a tikka.  The staff have since contacted us to reiterate their appreciation for her efforts – well done Lynsey!

Our free time has also been quite eventful lately. went on a jungle safari in Chitwan and bathed some elephants.  Lynsey got a birds’ eye view of Pokhara whilst paragliding.  The monsoon started – 5 days of big, big rains.  We were almost washed out of the Silk Road by one particularly heavy downpour.  But, the benefit of big rains at night is the clear skies in morning.  Jess finally got to see mountains on her last day here, hurrah!  We learned how to make momos and chapatti and have generally had a marvellous week.

For more information on our work in Nepal and how to join our team, look at our website or contact Becky in the UK on 01242 250 901.  If you would like to help, but don't have the time to come in person right now, you can always make a donation to the PoD Charity and help fund our work here.