But a thousand words is still a thousand words.

hello everyone, I miss you all.
I've been very busy here, spending most of my time playing with/teaching the kids and running around Kathmandu doing errands with Bonnie so that I can get a feel for the city and learn how to get around. I've been overwhelmed here by everything, the people, the setting, the weather, the culture, everything. I was so flooded by the awareness of being here that I found myself mentally incapable of taking photographs for the first three days that I was here, I simply couldn't process the visual information on that level. Even now, I find myself staring at things rather than photographing them.
Ama Ghar is located Southeast of the heart of Kathmandu in an area called Godawari. Godawari is a peaceful area nesteled in the hills that surround Kathmandu, it's cooler, quieter, and cleaner than Kathmandu and it is always a relief to go back to back home after dashing around Kathmandu in crazy taxi's in street with no lanes and no rules and lots of smog and soot. The house is surrounded by rice fields and farms and rolling hills. Photos can't begin to describe the intensity of green as you look out over the hills and valleys. When the weather clears after the monsoon season, I will be able to see the towering Himilayas beyond the green hills. I have seen the giant white-capped mountains on a couple of clear mornings and their scale unbelievable.
The childreen at Ama Ghar are beautiful people, ranging in ages from 4 to 14, a mix of 39 boys and girls from all different backgrounds. They are the best part of being here. They are intelligent and fun to be around. I'm teaching guitar lessons as best I can to whoever wants to learn, and will soon be in charge of organizing the childrens' computer learning schedules. I'm always exhausted when I finally hit the sack around 10ish so i can be up usually before six. I usually wake up around 5:30 to the sound of roosters, dogs, children, and cooking. So far I have been blessed with good health and relatively few mosquitto bites.
Many of the pictures I posted were from a bon voyage/graduation party of a young woman who was an Ama Ghar child that is now working and living on her own. There was singing and dancing and live music all evening and into the night.
I have yet to establish a routine of living here, and I believe that this is one of the main reasons for my exhaustion, each day is full of new, different, and exciting activities. I feel that my brain on the verge of explosion, trying to take on, catalog, and learn so much new information every second of every day. I find respite in staring at a blank wall in my room. I'm trying to learn Nepali as quickly as possible, but the children posses an impressive command of English and so I am able to communicate with them, and they in turn are my Nepali tutors. I took them swimming at a nearby hotel (http://www.godavariresort.com.np/indexcentral.htm) the last two days and am now sunburned, Jenuka attempted to teach me to play jacks which I am HORRIBLY inept at, the older boys have been teaching me to play table tennis on jallopy a plywood ping-pong table, again schooling me. Ashok beat my severly at chess three days ago, and yesterday afternoon I learned the Nepali rules to hide and seek. I cannot stop thinking about Neverland, a place of lost boys (and lost girls in this case), all orphans, but living in a magical world where they never grow old. I seem to have taken the second star on the right straight on til morning and ended up here. And yet, right outside the gate is poverty and hunger and dirt and corruption and suffering. It is a situation which warps the mind, but more severly breaks the heart and wrenches the soul.
Thus is my experience so far, I welcome you comments and I pray that you all are well.
-ben