The Descent into Madness

Hi guys! It sure has been a loooong week. As usual, I'm running completely short on time and have only a few minutes to recap a lot. There is so much more that I want to say about the current situation in Tibet for those of you who have been following it in the news. I'm not sure how much news is making it out of Tibet and into American/European news, but it really is devastating. They estimate that 80 Tibetans have died so far in the protests and 10 civilians have been burned alive since Friday. Of course they have shut down the borders and the Chinese government is putting increasing pressure on the Nepalese government to close down the mountains on the border. The reason being that the Tibetans violently protested the Chinese flag being placed on top of Everest during the Olympics' Passing of the Torch Relay. Currently, Everest is closed off to climbers and to those trekking to Everest Base Camp. This has been really devastating for the great numbers of Nepalese who own trekking companies and normally make the greatest amount of their income during this high season. This has also been extremely bad news for climbers and travelers who have already purchased climbing permits and a great deal of equipment that has been sent ahead of them to the mountains already. It will be interesting to see what befalls in the next couple of weeks.

In other news, Nepal's Constitution Assembly elections are soon approaching and the political climate in the country is getting noticeably more and more tense. I'm not really sure what to expect as far as the security situation in the weeks preceeding the election, but I'm trying to change travel plans so that I'll be as far away from Kathmandu as possible during that time. I was originally going to depart from Kathmandu on the 10th for trekking, but I think I will try to break away sooner than that for the mountains now.

Anyways, I'm going to have to leave it at that for now until I have so more time to update. Until the next time....blessings.

Yeah, it really is a picture of me dancing all by myself with the impromptu urging of a whole village attending a wedding party. I think I have truly lost all sanity.


My new village of Phalabas where I've been working at a very small, but impressively equipped community health clinic established by Helping Hands International.

We met a fantastically hilarious couple of Brits during my second day of paragliding...we laughed for hours that night.


That's a goat riding the same bus as me.

2 months in and still smiling....most of the time...