Back to Kat

Yesterday night before our big travel day back to Kat, we learned that the monsoon rain we were stuck in midday yesterday also caused landslides on the road. We weren't sure if it was passable. Luckily we woke up to sun (for whatever reason it has mostly been raining at 3am) and took off at 7am.  It wasn't nearly as bad as anticipated.  We had a little extra waiting time but not much, and of course, there wasn't a landslide while we were driving so that was cool ... again such good luck! The hard part was to say goodbye to Shambu, our driver and Mahesh, the father of the family who created our last 6 family-friendly days.  It really worked out well.  We were able to do and see what we wanted and have time to explore India. Of course the part that sucks is the lack of a land border crossing.  Can you imagine if the US shut down its land borders and made everyone fly or boat into our country? I'm wondering if this is a Modi government specialty.  He is very right wing. Entering a new country to a small upscale town with a waterpark is infinitely better then flying into the 2nd largest city in the world, but of course it was time to deal with our reality and we dropped $1000 on plane tickets to Delhi.  We leave at 1:35pm today. 

Extra stuff:

1.Mango trees are all over Chitwan. They gave us a dessert I thought was mango sorbet.  It was chilled mango puree.  Yum! Mango is Cate's favorite food.

2. It's hard to beat the US for women's rights. I discovered that when working in Germany after college. Of course that extends to Nepal (it's nowhere near places like Jordan and Egypt, but still not great).  There are two organizations we came acrossed who are empowering women.  One teaches single women, widowed women, and those with handicaps how to knit and weave. They make incredibly professional goods. The other was the woman-owned Sauraha Tharu villiage cultural center teaching women to be warriors.

Yeshelpinghands.org

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087216524902&mibextid=ZbWKwL

https://www.chetana-weavingforlife.org/

3. It's hard to acclimatize to a country and learn the flow of a big city at the same time. Personally, I like to get out of dodge as soon as possible, however, eric and brennan like cities and want to explore Delhi, so here we go (Eric interupted to ask if the kids can brush their teeth with sink water). You ask why i live in Chicago? Its a long story but basically I would rather be outside cities/suburbs.