Proud, excited, relieved, overwhelmed, emotional, happy...these are all things I feel as I reflect on the 2009 Knowledge for People project (http://knowledgeforpeople.org) for Autism Care Nepal (http://autismnepal.org). I knew that we were going to make a difference, but I couldn't even begin to fathom how powerful this would turn out to be. When Tanya took the stage to give her presentation about parenting a child with autism, the packed room was listening intently. She began with, "My name is Tanya Savko and I am the mother of an autistic child. I am honored to be here to talk to you [View Full Entry]

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Nagarkot was wonderful! We drove about 2 hours up and up and up into the mountains to a beautiful mountain town. Our hotel, The Hotel Country Villa, was perfect. It is perched up on a cliff overlooking the Himalayas and the stunning view was visible from our beds!! The clouds would roll in and out and we were literally in them when we stood on our room balconies. When the clouds cleared again, it was breathtaking. We were able to watch the eclipse from our balcony! When it was happening it got really dark and the temperature dropped 15-20 degrees very [View Full Entry]

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Hello! Having Knowledge for People work with Autism Care Nepal (ACN) and the families has been more amazing than we could have imagined! I tear up just thinking about it. The center is now jointly run by many parents, all who have a child with autism. ACN is completely funded by the parents. They have managed to rent a house for ACN for 12 months to start, but they are still in great need of trained therapists and supplies in general. I am so impressed with how far they have come, but there is a long way to go. I really [View Full Entry]

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Hello Everyone! Hope all is well. We have had 2 amazing days in Chitwan! It is hot beyond hot, but the continual sweating has been worth it and we are forever grateful for our air-conditioned rooms. Our guide from the Hotel Parkside, Gopal, is awesome and has done a wonderful job explaining some of the culture of Nepal. He told us about the 3 "isms" and said that tourism is just as important to them as Buddhism and Hinduism. The community thrives due to the travelers. We started at the crack of dawn with a dug-out canoe ride through the jungle [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Here are some short videos that I took from my camera in Morocco... [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone, It has been another great few days! We realized that we could get to the Mediterranean Sea in only a 90 minute taxi ride from Chefchaouen, so we did a day trip and were able to stay in the Blue City for an extra night. The beach town we went to is called Ouad Lau and the sea was gorgeous! We were the only tourists in sight and the only women (aside from 13 year old girls) wearing bathing suits, but we didn't get any bad looks or anything so we felt okay. They have taxis here called "grand" [View Full Entry]

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We arrived to Chefchaouen on the 24th. I had really been looking forward to coming here and, aside from being smack in the middle of the Sahara, this is my favorite place so far in Morocco. The town is nestled in the Atlas mountains in the north. The city is built into the mountains so the streets are winding and very steep and there are many sets of uneven, steep stones stairways. The city earned it's nick-name "The Blue City" because the majority of the walls and doors and stairs (pretty much anything you can paint) are whitewashed various shades of [View Full Entry]

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Hello! I hope you are enjoying the summer back home. I have to say that even though it's supposed to be dry heat here, it still feels very humid. I can tell we are in the desert because soaking wet clothes dry within an hour! Kelly and I spent our last night hanging out with some British tourists and some locals. We had some really good talks about the differences in our cultures. They said it can be very difficult for them to travel because they are Muslim and everyone assumes that they are terrorists. We also talked a lot about [View Full Entry]

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Hello! Kelly and I are now in a town called Essaouira, which is about an 8 hour bus ride from Casablanca down the west coast of Morocco. Getting off of the bus was quite overwhelming! It didn't appear to be the quaint ocean town we had read about. The ocean was nowhere in sight and it was dirty and dusty. There were people everywhere trying to get us to go to their hotel and women with only their eyes revieled trying to get us to look at their goods for sale. It was hard to read the level of "friendliness" without [View Full Entry]

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