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Hi Everyone! I hope all is well. I have arrived in Nepal for our first Knowledge for People autism education project (to read more about it go to http://knowledgeforpeople.org and click on the orange visit our blog link on the left). This trip is quite different from other trips I've taken because the main purpose of coming this time is to give back to a community that I fell in love with 8 years ago. I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the rest of our team! Dori, Ann Marie, Tanya, Zahida, and Blaine will be here in the next day or two. Before I moved to Seattle, Dori and I worked together for 4 years in Grosse Pointe and little did we know that the next time we would be partners-in-crime would be in Nepal! I'm very excited. Kathmandu is still busy, dirty, and wonderful all at the same time. You have to be really careful not to get hit by cars and motorbikes. I honestly can't believe they allow cars to go down some of the narrow allies.

Tanya arrived yesterday and she's wonderful (we hadn't met before this). She heard about Knowledge for People from an email that I sent to the Autism Society of Oregon. We took it easy and walked around before heading to bed early. This morning we walked to the Swayambhunath Stupa, aka Monkey Temple. Streets are not marked and maps are vague, so it was an interesting adventure. We walked through a village between homes and crop fields on narrow muddy paths. We finally made it to the staircase leading to the temple and were greated by a ton of locals waiting to sell us their goods. During the climb we were surrounded by monkeys. I visited this place last time I was here and I ran out of film taking photos of the monkeys...I'm very thankful for my digital camera because, once again, I felt the need to take a photo of every monkey I saw. You have to be careful because they will try to steal your things or if you get to close they will motion like they are going to jump on you. At the top of the stairs is a huge beautiful stupa that you have to walk around clockwise. The view is incredible, but it was a little hazy because it's monsoon season, so we didn't get to see a ton of mountains. We did get to see all of Kathmandu stretched out before us.

The rest of the crew gets here this evening. We decided to spend their first few days getting acclimated to the culture of Nepal before working with the families because if you haven't been here before it can be quite a culture shock. In the morning we are heading to Chitwan for 2 nights and then we will come back to Kathmandu to start working.

Have a great week!

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