2006-08-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

These are the chronological thoughts and adventures of the Nepal King´s Kids trek from August 7-27, 2006. It is a one-time post from first to last with as many pictures as I can scrunch in. Hope you enjoy reading these posts as much as I enjoyed writing them!

-Curtis Clewett

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(August 7, 2006 en route to Nepal) ON OUR WAY
We have a 6 hour layover in London Heathrow. Still on Spanish time, though, which only has two periods during the day - fiesta and siesta. So when stuck with extra hours, we make lots of noise, ignore closed gate warnings and play games. The team played "lobo" (wolf) a new game to me so they finally threw me out for cheating. I suppose that will lower my profile as spiritual advisor, but it was fun! This is a great team, expectations seem to be set pretty well, and probably half of them could lead this team given the opportunity. We'll se how it all develops.

(August 8, 2006 Kathmandu, Nepal) ARRIVED
5 more hours of flight delay in Bahrein has still not dampened our enthusiasm. We arrived to a rather dimly lit Kathmandu international airport after dark, missing our first chance to see the majestic Himalayas. Had an entertaining flight and ended up meeting a sharp young man who turned out to be a gurka soldier on leave from the British army. More interesting is that we struck up a friendship to the point that he invited our team to come to a English-speaking school that his uncle runs. We are on a roll!

How to describe the chaos and smells of this part of the world… From the quiet quasi-official arrival hall to the din of countless taxi drivers and street vendors clamoring for our attention and the constant smell of garbage rotting somewhere mixed with sewage. You never just see India and Nepal, you must smell it to get the full experience.

Our host, Brian, a "British Indian", as he calls himself, met us at the airport and tried to fit 16 of us into three Nissan vanettes. Might have worked if it hadn't been for our conservative, but still abundant luggage and backpacks. He told us to wait while he found another trustworthy driver (security alert!) and then it was off to a wild ride that even Mr. Toad would think twice about! Lines on the middle of potholed pavement strips don't really divide the traffic into two directions, they are more of a guideline to aim your vehicle. Cars without horns are unsafe to drive at any speed, and the variety of vehicles from Tuk-Tuk motorcycle taxis to tractors with lawn-mower engines and motorcycle handlebars, bicycle moving vans, rolling carts and the occasional sacred cow makes any driving experience an experience! The YWAM base leader later welcomed us into his nation "where we feel the road belongs to all of us!" We could see his point that night as we finally bumped along a rockstrewn dirt road to the driveway of our guesthouse lodging the next few days.

(August 9, 2006, Godamchur, Nepal) WAKING UP INTO A DREAM
Incredibly green rice paddies beneath towering mountain walls that seal off Kathmandu from the rest of the world. The YWAM base is set in a verdant perch, just above the pollution haze that hovers over Kathmandu, wet with leftovers of yesterday's monsoon afternoon rain. Every corner seems to open up into a National Geographic magazine spread. Hindu and Buddhist shrines everywhere with red ocher stained elephant and cow idols,. Red peppers hang like chinese firecracker strands from village houses. Churning rivers frame incredibly lush fields, and when the clouds part, eternally white 7000 meter (23,000ft) mountains rise up like so many guarding sentinels in the distance. The women in Nepal wear surreally colorful "punjabis" and "saris" that seem to always be neatly pressed and gracefully flowing, even as the tread through the muddy hiking paths they call roads, with the lower castes bearing sometimes hundred pound loads of animal feed and materials using the ingenious method of a headband attached to a rope surrounding the burden the basket sack or kitchen sink.

Today we got a real dose of the "Nepali way" as the base had cement poured to complete an upper third storey of their main building. Rather than a mixer truck with boom, thirty five men and a few women arrived at 6:30am to take up carefully orchestrated positions. 12 mounted different levels of a bamboo scaffolding while 10 more stood on the roof to distribute and spread the wet concrete. Six men wrapped in green plastic garbage bags were the beasts of burden who loaded and unloaded mountains of gravel sand and cement, with four more doing a two-man shoveling technique that was efficient but certainly back-breaking for anyone but these hard working Nepalis. A couple of women tossed water into the mixer where the "Nepali ready-mix" was then dumped out to be shoveled onto gold-pan shaped plates that were airlifted through twelve pairs of sturdy hands to the top. We were told the workers earned an average of 500 rupees (about $7.00) per day, so all told it was pretty economical in financial terms but an amazing exertion of human sweat and brute strength. They continued until after dark at 7 pm before finally cleaning up and dismantling the scaffolding. Meanwhile, some of the base workers and students showed us the Nepali way of cutting grass: bending down with a hand scythe and slicing one fistful at a time. They got the front lawn done and even allowed some of us to take a whack or two.

All I could think about was how a lawn mower or a cement mixer could have made life so much easier. Then, I took another look around. YWAM Nepal has over 200 staff. They are planting 13 churches with teams in villages so remote that it takes a ten-hour bus ride and three day's hike to get there. The base and most ministries are run by Nepalis. The food is Bahd with Dahl (basically rice with a vegetable gruel), sometimes with a little meat added, served three times per day!!! Bathrooms are what we affectionately know as "squatty potties" and the sewer doesn't permit throwing TP down the commode. Despite torrential rains almost every afternoon, the water supply is a tangle of tubes and pumps that occasionally runs dry, making showers iffy at best. Our team has adapted remarkably well, I'm giving them high marks for attitude and preparedness. But, I finally put two and two together and realized if we bought a lawnmower (not even sure they exist here!), we would make the base a foreign place for the nepali workers and staff who come from all over the country. A cement truck would only prove to the neighbors that this Christian based ministry is funded and run by non-Nepali interests. We have a lot to learn from this dynamic base of operations that has been built over the last twenty years.

(12-8-06 Godamchaur, Nepal) FOOTBALL MANIA They called it a football field, a sloping patch of mud, hard earth, monsoon-washed gullies with, yes, even a patch of grass on the southwest corner of the field. Our valiant representatives of Spanish football prowess, dressed in fluorescent orange-yellow, fell to a team of scrappy locals, running at full tilt for the entire regulation time while our warriors gasped in the rarefied air of 1500 meter altitude, vainly trying to feed passes to our forwards. We actually scored two magnificent goals, “tiki-taka” style once we could attack going uphill. Any ball kicked downhill inevitably kept right on bouncing past the changing room (a tin hut with no lights or showers). Damian scored the goal of the day, a looping shot into an open upper-storey window near the mid field line. Alex won the sportsmanship nod when a defender´s push sent him sprawling into a 3-meter deep ditch. He came up smiling with grass-stained teeth, but was OK.

Today, the guys had a truly Nepali experience as the Monsoon struck midway through a game our guys were refereeing. Every boy´s dream, football in the mud, or, to put it more accurately, football in raging torrents cascading downslope. Don´t know what shape the field will be in tomorrow, but, who cares? The guys had a blast!

(13-8-06 Godamchaur) NEPALI CHURCH “That way,” the Hindu neighbors motioned. The rock-strewn path was getting bumpier and the weeds higher when suddenly Alex signalled for silence and full stop, like a SWAT team sergeant. Hearing soft voices and an out-of-tune guitar, he motioned “that-a-way” to an ochre-colored two-storey building peeking through the overgrown cornfield to our right. We packed into the remaining floor space, adopting the cross-legged position of the Nepali Christians gathered on this Saturday, the holy day for all faiths of Nepal. Some songs were vaguely familiar but made a little more foreign by the pastor´s constant G-C-D random chord changes with little or no relation to the actual music. We were late, but so were the 40+ kids, many from our football friendships, who overwhelmed the other 4x5meter room (13x17ft) that served as Sunday School space. I was proud of our ever-flexible team which divided up to teach the kids songs and stories while others shared testimonies, sang “Perfume a tus pies” (a new Spanish song written by Jaz Jacob that is becoming our themesong) and bore with my 45 minute-with-translation message. A great day!

(14-6-06 Godamchaur) LOSING THE MATCH AND WINNING THE VILLAGE Last day of football in the village and I´m becoming a believer in sports ministry! After a powerful worship and intercession time last night, we trooped up to the Hindu shrine on a high place overlooking Kathmandu and prayed for a break in the cloud cover of religious superstition over the nation. We witnessed the Hindu Celebration of the Cow our first night in the village, watching dances bumping to a three-beat drum and cymbal clash, supposedly scaring off bad spirits while collecting alms from the faithful. We learned that little of the money actually goes to the poor villagers or charitable projects. Most is spent on a later drunken fest of the dancers, according to our host.

For the village tournament final, the local organizers insisted that I serve as their “chief guest”, meaning I got to occupy the only chair in sight and view the game at midfield behind the official wooden desk, like some banana republic head of state. I didn´t kick in the first ball, but with my traditional Nepali cap and conspicuous kukuri giant dagger by my side, I suppose I cut a pretty imposing figure!

Anyway, the rain began about halfway through the first game. My figure was a little less imposing with a tiny backpacker´s umbrella propped vainly over my head. It stopped just as suddenly as it had started. The smiling president of the local sports club whisked by saying, “Don´t worry about the rain,” (we´re still talking Monsoon season here, with huge black clouds hovering in the hills behind us), “Kenny prayed to Jesus that it would stop until the final match is over.” I kept a sheet of plastic handy to cover the award certificates, and suddenly realized this young Hindu man had more confidence in our God than either Kenny or I did!

The final match came to an end with shook player´s hands and posed for photos. The much greater honor, however, was to tell the entire village gathered around the midfield circle about the holy man Jesus that we follow. In return for their honoring and receiving us, we gave them the greatest gift we could offer, a prayer for the peace and blessing of God to fall on their nation in this delicate moment of their history. It’s a little overwhelming to reflect on what we just experienced. 500 Hindu villagers in one of the remotest areas of the planet hanging on every word and enthusiastically receiving us and our message because of the friendships gained through a few games of football. Every member of our team agreed it was worth losing a match to win a moment like that.

(16-8-06 Nagarkot) ON TOP OF THE WORLD I couldn´t believe how moving it was to discover there were real working toilets in the country! The breakfast with made-to-order eggs was good, but to again be able to toss used toilet paper down the commode and sit in peace to do your business- it´s amazing what 7 days in the 3^rd world conditions can do to your sense of appreciation for the simple things!

There wasn´t one complaint when the light was switched on a t 4:30am to sardine-pack into the waiting microbus for the one-and-a-half hour ride to Nagarkot, our free-day destination high in the hills surrounding Kathmandu. We were rewarded with the lifetime memory of sunrise over the Himalayas with an unrestricted 360º panorama of the Kathmadu Valley with 7.000 meter eternally-white peaks guarding the the northern sky. Siushma, our fellow King´s Kids leader and guide, then directed our driver to the Club Himalaya resort where bacon and eggs, pancakes and guava-passion-orange drink replaced our usual milk-tea with rice and Dahl breakfast routine. Then the toilet discovery in the Hotel restroom and a quiet tea, reclining on cushions and looking out over steep green valleys with clouds pluming upwards. It was a fitting birthday for Kenny (Happy 23^rd!) and a welcome break for a team that has given all so far.

(19-8-06 Kathmandu) NO GAS The big Friendship Cup Football tournament in the city has begun, another opportunity to do the “chief guest” routine, this time cutting the official ribbon with my trusty kukuri, apparently a first for the nation. It is important to mention that the non-players of our team have had as great even possibly greater impact during the matches by leading the scads of children in games, songs and fun. It will be harder here as we are playing in an actual stadium (Kenny says it was a miracle that they got this technical training field 2^nd best pitch in the nation) but everyone is still faithfully attending the games and interacting with occaisional songs and testimonies shared with the teams and the fans..

Thanks to the help of 6 incredibly fit Nigerians, our apricot warriors finally won their match 5-3, with an acrobatic José Luis Navas, streaking down the left side and finishing with the ball caressing the left pole and into the net beyond the outrsteched opposing goalie. Go Spain!

José, the match hero, was supposed to leave today on a flight to Muscat (Oman) followed by a stop in Frankfurt before arriving in Barcelona to go to work (what´s that?) next week. Only problem is that all roads are closed due to a nationwide spontaneous strike, complete with burning bus blockades, due to an abrupt 25% gas price hike. “Not to worry,” says Noel, the national King´s Kids leader here. Motorcycles are getting through and my brother, Joel, loves adventure.” José looked like a hunch-backed pregnant kangaroo with flying rain poncho covering his doay and backpack on the back of Joel´s bike. Whether he makes it or not, José is gonna remember his last day in Nepal! (Postscript) José made it, but only thanks to Joel´s sweet-talking and fancy bikemanship, getting behind airport security areas and passing through random burning tires and road blocks. On the way back, Joel was stopped 16 times, with strikers threatening to torch his bike. Without an obvious foreigner on his back seat, it wasn´t so easy to convince protesters of his innocent intentions.

(21-8-06 somewhere between Kathmandu and Godamchaur) BIRTHPANGS OF A NATION We are still in the midst of the gas-price strike that has paralyzed all vehicular traffic in Kathmandu for the past two days. We wondered this morning how we would get the team down to their important match, the field being at least 10 km from the base.. “No problem! Bus number 11 can get us there,” our team host Brian informed us. Bus number 11? We thought no traffic was getting through. “Bus number 11 always runs day and night, rain or shine,” he beamed. “No gas required although gas may be emitted occasionally.” It finally dawned on us that bus number 11 was a cute Nepali expression for walking (with your two legs) and off we went for the 2.5 hour trek through muddy shortcuts and across raging rivers. We arrived on time and won our football game, again counting on the assistance of our Nigerian all-stars.

But the importance of the win dimmed considerably as night fell. Sham, the director of a local sport ministry invited all of us (16 people!) to spend the night in his house rather than retrace our steps back to the base, this time uphill! We nearly turned him down in the name of team unity, showers and hopefully food waiting for us back at the base. But as dusk shadowed the streets, things began to get ugly in Kathmandu. Thousands were assembling at the familiar central roundabout on our way out of town. They were dragging dumpsters, handcarts and anything else that would burn into the center of the road to replace the smouldering ruins of the previous day´s barricade. We passed quickly, adjuring David Pérez not to linger for photographs. It was hard for me, as well, to keep my camera case closed and miss priceless shots of this chapter in the rebirth of a nation. The danger of the moment was underlined a few hundred meters down the road. In the gathering darkness we could barely make out the forms of perhaps a hundred young men armed with bamboo clubs, pipes, chains and crude wooden bats clanking toward us. Our security instincts finally kicked in. We regrouped and tried to pass by on the opposite side of the road. The absence of light could not hide the passion in their eyes and pumping adrenaline. Suddenly they attacked – fortunately not at us! Apparently, they were after a young man who either was caught looting houses during the strike, or had killed another man, the facts were never clear to us. Just at that moment, he was discovered by the mob. We saw a red-shirted youth running literally for his life along the ditch to our right, ducking under a bridge and trying to avoid the swinging weapons with perhaps even more dexterity than our vaunted Nigerians. I could hear at least two blows land squarely on his back with sickening thuds. As our pace quickened a shout rose from the crowd silhouetted in the flickering flames of the barricades beyond. We don´t know the fate of the pour soul who suffered the wrath of vigilante justice tonight. Paco insisted on hanging back and “doing something” but we know it was not our fight. We formed a tighter formation with guys walking the flanks closest to passers by.

A half-kilometer more and our long march was halted again by more violence up ahead. A bus driver was trying to run his vehicle through the impromptu human roadblock. We could hear sharp words and shouts in unintelligible Nepali and saw the rear taillights fire up as the driver finally backed his way out of a shower of rocks and probably worse had he continued. Later, we would step over broken motorcycle helmets and miscellaneous car body parts strewn in silent witness to the fury that had been vented earlier.

Needless to say, we reconsidered Sham´s offer of accommodation as a very valid alternative to exploring whatever other mischief might be waiting for us up the long road ahead. “Menos mal!” (“it´s a good thing!”). Sham keyed in the combination and the iron security gate opened. It was then that we knew God is still in the business of spoiling His kids. A literal palace was waiting for us! Four-storey spanking new house, no, mansion! complete with houseboy and maids serving aperitifs while all of us fit easily on brocade couches in the parquet-floored living room. We were in reverse culture shock! Brian said he had never seen the like in all of Nepal. After watching the evening news in English on a huge TV set in the loft and downing a specially prepared dinner, I was waiting for someone to enter and say, “The King will see you now…” We spent the better part of an hour in urgent intercession for the nation and slept like babies, most of us on beds!

We woke up to the news – the strike was over! The government had backed down and agreed to negotiate the price increase and the streets were jam-packed once again with the dust and din of a normal workday. We were overwhelmed by the privilege of actually riding a vehicle again. The simple pleasures of life!!

(23-8-06 Lalitpur) A WIN AND A SCARE The big game - TV cameras rolling fans screaming. "tiki/taka, tiki/taka, rah, rah, rah". Team Spain came thru 2-1 and the guys brought home the cup. We will try to catch the nightly news and buy a few papers to savor the win.

But much more satisfying was the two-hour fiesta with 17 footballers from Godamchaur village who packed into Brian's house to sample tortilla espanola, Spanish olives and other delights prepared by our team. Kenny did a masterful job leading the party, interspersing songs, testimonies, and clear instructions on how to become a follower of Jesus. The creme of the village youth and their spiritually hungry president of the youth sports club lapped up every word and devoured most of the food. We will spend one more time with them tonight and see just how much more God will lead them along. Really exciting!

About 2am this morning, I saw a red light blinking in the concrete block room that serves as our housing. My alarm was already set for an early wake-up call at 5am because today we are set to take a flight that will circle Mt. Everest. We were all in a sleepy fog. Suddenly, the lights flicked on and two of our guys were kneeling over Paco, trying to resuscitate his limp frame. We were all up in an instant watching and debating whether we should risk taking him to the hospital while praying to seal the bond of divine protection over him.

Paco has had several serious and mysterious seizure episodes over the last few years so the grave concern was real. Finally, one of the girls (Anaka) came in and began caressing his hand, softly calling out his name. First one, than another sleep eye opened. We asked him if he knew where he was. “China,” was his first reply. Close, but not good enough. Wake him up again! “Where are you, Paco?”” “Here.” True, but still not convincing. The real test - “Which is the best football team in Spain?” Being from the capital of Spain and an avid fan of Real Madrid football club, his reply - “That’s a no-brainer. Who has won the most European cups?” He was alright and back to his ornery self!

It’s now 715 am and we are anxiously awaiting the flight around earth’s highest pimple. Hope it will be clear.

(23/8/06 Kathmandu) FINAL ENTRY At last, internet! Brian and I are typing away in a dimly lit room with a 41.5kbps connection, trying to record these last few memories before they fade. If only these connections were fast enough to send you pictures. We have seen in Technicolor real time the most spectacular mountain range on earth, crowned by the real Mt. Everest. We discovered that the other mountains we had seen earlier were tall but not the real Sagarmatha (the Nepali name for Everest). Careful budgeting and the blessing of God allowed us to book the one-hour tourist flight to the mountain and back, with mostly clear skies once we rose above 5000 meters. It’s hard to describe the feeling of coming up close and personal with a wonder fo the world that will never be equalled.

Our time is almost done here. Last minute shopping and tasks like this will fill out the remaining hours before we jet back home tomorrow by way of Bahrein and Frankfurt. Gas strikes, football games, dazzling topography and brilliant people will eventual meld into one sweet memory of this exotic land on it’s way into the modern world. We will all come back changed to some extent. I hope that some of the things recorded here will keep me more appreciative of the conveniences we have in the west, but even more so, a believer in the grace and provision of God to go and do His Kingdom wherever He beckons

Signing off for the team from Kathmandu…

Curtis Clewett

Nepal Journal 06 English