Totally in awe

If I wasn't in awe of Nepal before I am now. For the last three days since my last blog post we have been visiting various organizations that are working to solve the social issues of Nepal. Each of these organizations has graciously welcomed us and allowed us to tour their facilities and learn about what services they have to offer.
Day 4: On our fourth day in Nepal we were able to visit Women for Human Rights (WHR) and learn about the work these women are doing to help out widowed women in Nepal as well as to advocate for Nepali women's rights. From the moment I walked through the door I was amazed by the work that this organization has done to create such an effective system for offering help to women to educate and get them jobs as well as working to advocate for better legislature. I was most thoroughly impressed however by the fact that this was all started by one amazing woman who herself became a widow at a young age. Her story was amazingly uplifting and it was clear that her work has paid off.
Day 5: This day we spent our time divided between Chhatrapati a free health clinic and Ama Ghar a local children's orphanage. At Chhatrapati we were able to tour the facility and get to question the clinic's president Mr. Shrista. Not only are the services offered by this free clinic admirable but it was also great to hear Mr. Shrista's insights as to why he believes the mortality rate for women is lower than that of men in Nepal. He talked about the amount of work women do as well as the rising issues of hypertension and diabetes as the environment becomes more stressful. At Ama Ghar we met with Bonnie and her 50 "kids" that have been rescued from across Nepal and are taken care of at her orphanage. Bonnie was another admirable woman who you could tell truly loved the kids she looked after. She also was fascinating to talk to as she discussed the issues she faces through the government and legislature.
Day 6: Today we got to visit Maiti Nepal (or as Shaun calls it Mai Tai Nepal). Maiti Nepal is a shelter for women and children victims of domestic violence and human trafficking. Because I work at Canyon Creek Women's Crisis Center back at home, a local shelter for women and children victims of domestic violence, I was most interested in this organization. I was also amazed that they are currently housing 475 women and children and that they manage to rescue 3,000 women and girls a year. Coming from a small shelter this was particularly surprising. However, I think I was most surprised to find out that the work they do at Maiti Nepal is so similar to the work I do at home. They serve as a shelter, offer counseling and legal services, educate local communities, and advocate for victims however, they also go above and beyond by having other locations across Nepal, helping send children to school, and more. Needless to say I was thoroughly impressed.
Trivial updates: In other news I'm pretty sure we almost all got eaten alive by tarantula-like spiders last night....perhaps a slight exaggeration but the things were huge. Luckily, spider hunters Drew and Shaun were nearby to save us all.On day 4 another highlight was shopping in Thamel and I'll just say that while fun shopping in Nepal is NOT like shopping in the U.S. On day 5 we did yoga again which was a-mazing and we were also lucky enough to have a guest speaker come and talk about Buddhism and answer all of my questions :) And last but not least, today, day 6, we got in a little more shopping which meant two Buddhas for me before having a delicious lunch of woodfired pizza at a little restaurant where we could see the local Buddhist temple from the window and were able to listen to Buddhist monks chant.
Okay well that's all for now, dhanybhad (thank you) for reading! :)