My girls made me PROUD.

So I've been discussing youth and change and idealism with my young girls group...albeit in very basic terms. However, some of the messages must have sunk in because they decided they wanted to make a difference in our village. Their plan- rebuild the main path, which is quite muddy, rocky, slippery and in general very accident prone. We had been discussing this idea for a while without any concrete action taking place and to tell you the truth, I wasn't one hundred percent sure things would work out. But work out they did. Forget the actual path building- the hardest part of the work took place on Tuesday--they spent the entire day bringing up huge rocks, little stones, and baskets upon baskets of sand up from the stone quarry. Let me tell you, these girls are STRONG. and BUFF. and they work HARD.
The next morning, I woke up early and walked to the village alone (Reut was sick the whole week). Sabita, our Nepali coordinator and translator wasn't there and I was really nervous about things working out. Luckily, with Bijay's (another staff member)help the girls got the general idea and started working.
Clear the mud, sweep the path, put on sand, level it with rocks, put on more sand, pour water and repeat. And repeat and repeat and repeat.
We worked for four hours and it was incredible. At some point, the whole village started to join in. There were my girls, age 14-16, directing little children, mothers, even some of the (mostly alcoholic) men joined in! And at the end of the day we had a beautiful, smooth, and safe path for people to work on.
Such Nachas.

On Thursday, I went, along with three staff members, to visit an NGO called Self Help Group for Cerebral Palsy which is an AMAZING organization.They have a school,vocational center, and physiotherapy institute.Basically, this organization supports all the cases of CP in Nepal with absolutely no help from the government (shocker). If you're looking for a worthwhile cause, here it is. http://www.cpnepal.org/

Other highlights this week include: waking up at four in the morning to hear a Shaman chanting outside my neighbor's hut(sitting in front of a fire, blowing a shofar, and banging drums), ostensibly trying to get rid of evil spirits, Bru's mom coming to visit (and giving me a package from my own wonderful mother), and eating really good lemon meringue pie in Boudhanath.
Oh, and one last thing:
On Monday, in my young girls group, we were going around in a circle saying one thing that happened over the weekend. Well, turns out that Santi (age 15/16), had gotten MARRIED over the weekend. To another village boy (age 18). Oy.
At least she seemed happy about it...