my nepal encyclopedia

To try and capture more of Kathmandu than I can by camera, and to record all the random things that make up this trip: an encyclopedia of words, places, moments. (All the Nepali words are my spelling, since the actual language uses another alphabet...)

Aunty: what the kids call us and the other house moms. I taught the kids to call me Kiki Aunty since they had trouble pronouncing Kirsten!

Bai: younger brother

Bus rides: bus rides in Kathmandu are crazy. The ceilings inside are maybe five feet tall, so if we have to stand, we all have to hunch over - while packed in so tight it's impossible to move. The ticket-taker, who rides on the step outside of the door, also works to cram as many people inside as possible, a puzzle-master of sorts. Make sure you have the right change so you don't get ripped off.

Chai: Nepali chai is sweet and heavenly. Mix black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, milk, black pepper, and tons of sugar.

Chia: tea. Nepalis drink either super sugary black tea or milk tea. Milk tea is boiled milk with black tea and sugar, and I drank it constantly at the children's home. The more, the better.

China: none. Example: when Rajn came up to me and said, "Panties china!" meaning, "I have no panties" :( Don't worry, he does have panties, but he wets his pants so much still that he runs out all the time.

Dahl bat: rice and lentils - the staple Nepali meal.

Dai: older brother

Danyabat: thank you (pronounced DAHN-ya-baht)

Didi: sister. I guess Nepalis call each other Didi, Aunty, Uncle, Bai, or Dai constantly - either attached the end of a name or all by itself.

Dogs: I really dislike the dogs in Kathmandu. They either bark, howl, or shriek all night long, especially at the children's home. And we heard two dogs die in huge dog fights two nights in a row at the kid's home. It was so horrible!

Higher Grounds: a Christian owned coffee shop close to the Debortolis that actually really looks like a western coffee shop and feels like home. And has yummy pancakes. I've only been there once but really want to go back before we leave.

Jamasi: a Christian greeting meaning victory in the Messiah (pronounced jay-mah-SEE)

KFC: not to be confused with Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Kwality Food Center serves Indian food like momos (dumplings) and naan. Lyssa and I can eat there for about 300 rupees, or barely four dollars, depending on how much naan we get...

Khokana: the village right outside Kathmandu where the children's home is located. Lots of rice fields around - it's beautiful!

Lazarus: the Debortolis' red jeep, so named because it's died and been resurrected so many times. Should fit five people, but can fit twelve... The van at the children's home, a rickety thing that should fit eight, has fit 21 Nepali kids with Gonga driving. I saw it with my own eyes, and then rode in the next trip with 14 adults and bigger kids. I don't think I need to say that there are no seatbelt laws here.

Mirinda: an orange soda, like fanta, that comes in a glass bottle. Yum!

Miro nam Kirsten ho: my name is Kirsten (pronounced MEER-oh-nam)

Mo lie chya dinus: give me tea!! (pronounced mo-LIE chee-uh din-OOS)

Motorbikes: they're everywhere. And while at the children's home, our primary transportation. Lyssa rides on the back of Nelson's and I ride on the back of Dinesh's. Slightly terrifying - Nepali roads, if paved, are dense with potholes and loose gravel, people, animals, buses, other bikes. Also exhilarating!

Naan: garlic or butter, we eat this stuff in mass quantities when we go to Indian places!

Namaste: hello! (accompanied by pressing your palms together, like in prayer). Direct translation is "I salute the gods within you" which is why "jamasi" is such a cool greeting for Christians.

Numbers: I can count from 1-10 in Nepali now! Ech, dwee, teen, char, baht, cha, saht, at, noo, das.

Pani: water

Paneer butter masala: my favorite Indian dish - butter masala with chunks of cheese.

Rupee: Nepali currency - 76 rupees to one American dollar. For 76 rupees, you could get two cokes, or eight pieces of roti, or one and a half pieces of naan, or four donuts.

Soaking: a Saturday night worship session at the Debortolis' house. Always by candlelight. We listen to a sermon podcast, have Communion, sing, sleep, praise the Lord. It's the best!

Ta piko nam kay ho: what is your name? (or timro nam kay ho for someone younger)

Tiksa: "it's all good". Most useful Nepali word to know, I say it all the time now!

Thammel: the trekking district, full of narrow shops with fake North Face (and any outdoor brand you can imagine) gear. Rumor has it you can buy three Patagonia down vests for $40...

Toe pie la danyabat: a super polite way of saying thank you, meaning "thanks to you"

Universal: a bright green, orange, red and blue cafe with delicious Indian food and the best naan in Kathmandu.

on being nothing

There've been some moments on this trip when I've felt like nothing. (Also moments - many of them - where I've felt full, content, happy, in awe of the Lord, excited to be here) - but several moments when I've felt like nothing.

One of them was during our trek. We'd been hiking since six in the morning, and I'd been sick all afternoon as we scrambled downhill toward a river. When we got to the river, it was four o'clock, sun was setting, and we still had five hours of hiking ahead of us. Usually I love hiking, but this day had drained me of everything. I was using a walking stick, leaning on it too much, sweaty and shaky and feeling like I had nothing left inside of me. I don't know if I've ever felt that empty before.

Another couple nothing-moments happened at the beginning this week, at the children's home, after hours of playing and being pulled in 23 different directions at once - and looking at the time and realizing I still had three more hours of craziness until dinner. 

And in general, it's draining to be living in a completely different world (in many ways), away from normal things and people that I know, living out of a backpack.

And I'm realizing, in a new and intense way, that I'm nothing without Jesus. I have no strength of my own, can accomplish nothing on my own. I couldn't hike for five more hours on the trek and I couldn't play for three more hours at the children's home - not without some serious divine intervention. I've been wondering why I didn't feel like this (at least too often) during the summer, which was so busy, with my job and two internships - I think it's because at home, we have health food and energy bars, constant internet access, books and TV shows, so many things to unwind with. So when we feel empty and drained, we turn to these things for a recharge.

All of these things are good - believe me, I'd love some an energy bar right now - and I'm not bashing them in any way. I'm just realizing that they're false supports, and can make us forget that the only real recharge and refill is Jesus. Because in Nepal, especially at the children's home, none of my usual recharge strategies are available. All I have is Jesus!

"They [the Lord's people] have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." - Jeremiah 2:13

I'm learning that my broken cisterns can't hold water. Even when I do have the little luxuries of internet or chocolate or a couch, they're not enough. Which is so great! I love that Jesus is the spring of living water, that when we fill up on him, we'll never go thirsty. He strengthens us with all power according to his glorious might, so that we may have great endurance and patience (Colossians 1:11). He takes great delight in us, quiets us with his love, and rejoices over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). This strength is thousands of times stronger than any energy bar or chocolate chip cookie. Evidence: I climbed that mountain by the light of my headlamp until 9 o'clock that night, filled with a strength that was certainly not my own (since I'd had none at the river). More evidence: after recharging with the Lord at the children's home, I couldn't believe how fast time flew and how much fun I had with those crazy kids. For the whole entire week!

I'm still craving some healthy food, some cheese maybe, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a movie night - but not for any source of perfect or lasting energy. For that, we have to go straight to the Source.

at the children's home

Finally, after two weeks, I'm doing what I told everyone I'd be doing in Nepal...living and volunteering at an orphanage. Actually it's called a children's home because these kids aren't orphans any more - and you know it when you walk in the door. They're the loudest, kindest kids, a family of 25 with a heavenly Father. They all eat more than me. And they're so tiny!

Our first day, we played catch and hand-clap games, counted in English and sang the ABCs, worshipped in the evening and ate dahl bat (it's what they eat for every meal). It was fun but exhausting - maybe more exhausting than trekking 13 hours? Just kidding. Not really.

My favorite thing is that they all call us 'aunty' and shout it all the time at us. 'Aunty watch!' 'Aunty here!' And for some of them, aunty is the extent of their English - which makes smiles and laughter so meaningful.

Here are a couple pictures:




(the view from the roof: this area is called Khokana, and it's right outside Kathmandu. Tourist buses come here all the time because it's marketed as a real Nepali village. Compared to the villages we saw, it's not at all...)




(we taught them 'down by the banks' - a group hand clap game. 'Again, aunty, again!')




(Sita and Rajn)





(the children's home)




(the front door)




(praying during worship this morning)

It's so beautiful to see these kids, who all have sad and grim pasts, joyfully praising God, at home, learning, eating enough food. And it's beautiful to see the Nepali house parents who live here (Dinesh, Sita, Nira, Suna, and Nelson) and dedicate themselves to bringing up these kids. They are such patient people.

I've been thinking a lot about Philippians 2:

"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Sometimes I just want to have internet and gourmet food,a softer bed, all these selfish things, and need to remind myself that this trip is not about me. Or if it is about me in any small way, it's about me being a humble servant, which is hard.

Pray for these adorable kids! I'll post more pictures when I can.

...all that we have accomplished you have done for us

himalayas from the plane window!

Last night, my trekking/outreach team of 23 people debriefed over spaghetti and garlic bread. We'd just spent seven days trekking near the Annapurna region of Nepal, sharing the Gospel with unreached villages - so there was a lot to debrief and reflect on. We laughed, shared stories, sometimes cried, and over and over again came back to Isaiah 26:12: "All that we have accomplished, you, (the Lord), have done for us."

excited to be landing in Nepal!

Everything that happened as we trekked and shared the Gospel last week was for the glory of God, only for his glory. Which is a really good place to start this blog post. Because some crazy things happened, things I've never seen before and things I definitely wasn't comfortable with. But when it's all for God's glory, and all because of God's love for people, it's easier to understand.

lhasa, tibet (layover)

Lyssa and I got to Kathmandu on October 10th, after a nearly 40 hour travel day. The next day, we set off for rural Nepal on a rickety bus, with backpacks and hiking boots and no idea what we were heading into.

The team:

Joel Debortoli: the missionary Lyssa knows through her church. Six foot eight inches tall, carted around a 90 pound backpack all week long. Truly seeking after the heart of the Lord for Nepal.

Jordan Debortoli: his 14 year old son, who kept us distracted on long trekking days with senseless and silly riddles.

D and B: an amazing missionary couple, names omitted because of where the Lord is calling them, full of stories of God's grace on their lives. LOVED getting to know them.

Kyle and Annie: a Canadian couple serving with Iris. They've been in Nepal since April. And they pronounce house "hoose" like all good Canadians.

Ryan and Katie: an American couple who's been in Nepal since April, like Kyle and Annie, but aren't working with Iris. Ryan is an engineer, and he's working on a water project in Dadhuwa, the second village we trekked to.

Gonga, Nelson, Babu, and Dinesh: four Nepali guys who work with Iris and are possibly the most Christ-like men I've ever met. It was an honor to see their fire and passion for the Lord. Also, they're hilarious. My favorite Gonga quote: when someone told him that he was the man, he said "Yes, I am 100% man."

The Kona YWAM team: Hayley, Cody, Jen, Sarah, Sarah (or Sarah Squared), Amy, Scott, Don, and Chris are from all over the States, serving in Nepal for three months as part of their six month YWAM training. Like me, most of them had never seen anything like the things we saw on this trip, and were completely excited and honored to be doing God's work in rural Nepal.

tired hikers

mountains over puma

washing dishes

Day one: After a seven hour bus ride from Kathmandu to Besisahar, we trekked into the hills. Straight up into the hills, actually. We gained 1000 meters in about four hours, sometimes climbing up a trail that seemed more like a cliff. It was rough, one of those hikes with endless false summits. But when we arrived in Puma at dusk, with the Himalayas crisp and blue and close to the north, cooking fire smoke and radio chatter curling around us, we knew we were exactly where the Lord wanted us. See, one of the YWAM girls received a word from God, way back in Kona - and the word was Puma. She googled the word, and it happened to be a tiny village in Nepal. A couple weeks later, there we were.

Day two: I'm honestly not that familiar with receiving words from the Lord. To be completely honest, I'd barely heard about it until I came to Nepal. But after Puma, where most people looked completely blank when we asked if they'd heard of Jesus Christ, I believe that this word, Puma, was definitely from the Lord. We spent the morning perched on the edges of the village's steep paths, reading our Bibles and looking up again and again at the Himalayas, so close-looking I could almost touch them but so far away and vast.

puma (our view as we prayed)

i love doors! (also where we prayed)

puma is gorgeous

We ate roti (fried bread, see picture), hard boiled eggs, and beans for breakfast. Then split into groups and spread around the village to pray for people and tell them about the Jesus Film, which we were going to show that night. My group went to one house, small and clay with a thatched roof and swept porch, chickens wandering around, and ended up staying there for over two hours. As soon as we started praying, about fifteen people showed up. We prayed for women with aching backs and teeth, for a man with stomach pain, for a woman with a fever and fear in her heart. And the Jesus completely healed them! It is a wild experience to lay hands on someone, to pray to the Great Physician, and then have this person tell you that all their pain is gone - and to be able to see it on their faces, to see peace and joy and surprise. I was surprised - never stopped being surprised at these miracles and at the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit in these people who seemed to believe in Jesus' healing power without even knowing who he is.

roti

dahl bat and veg curry

morning light, himalayas

After a dinner of dahl bat, or rice and lentils, with veg curry (eaten by headlamp light) we showed the Jesus film to a crowd of probably 100 people. I've never seen the Jesus film before - it was made in the 80s and lasts about two and half hours, and it's a way more powerful tool than I ever thought it could be. After, Jesus healed countless aching knees and backs (life is hard in Nepali villages). I think I was still in shock - or at least trying to take this all in - we all were. Was this really happening? Nepali people are very honest, and if they weren't feeling any better or different, they'd tell us, and we'd pray again. But when these old and wrinkled village woman realized their knees had stopped aching, they would dance. Literally. Bend their knees and hop around.

games with the kids

Hardest moment of the day: the village outcast, a man with one blind eye and a shriveled frame who always hung back. We prayed for him for maybe an hour or more, our whole group, all our hands on him, praying that the Lord would heal him as a testimony to Puma - and nothing happened. It was confusing. But I wrote in my journal, "I trust the Lord worked in his heart, which matters more; God's love was so clear as we surrounded him and touched him." Still doesn't answer the question of why God didn't heal him, and I'm still processing that. But, (and this is getting ahead of myself), Jesus uses miracles and healings as testimonies to his power and glory -- as signs of something deeper and more powerful. What he really cares about most are healed hearts. And maybe, who knows, only Jesus, something was touched or healed in the blind man's heart.

sunrise over puma

i loved hiking along right next to the HIMALAYAS!

Day two: Journal excerpt: "We hiked 13 hours today. Maybe more. Lost count." Crazy day. We left Puma at 6 a.m., after watching the sunrise turn the Himalayas pink, and hiked along a cliff with views of the greenest terraced fields I've ever seen. The early part of our trek was easy, cruising terrain, with constant views of white peaks so far up in the sky. We stopped for lunch in a village along the way and ate beaten rice with sugar and fried bread (with peanut butter from our packs). The afternoon, humid and windless, got hard. It was all downhill, an elevation loss of about 4000 feet. And then I got sick. We got to the bottom around 4 o'clock, shaky legged and exhausted, faced with another 3000-ft climb on the other side of a rushing river. The locals said it would take us anywhere from three to seven hours to climb. There were no villages around. So we pooled our snacks, loaded up on carbs and sugar, crossed the river on a swinging suspension bridge, and began to hike up. It was a lesson for me in praying without ceasing as we first climbed through terraced rice fields, then headed into the jungle, full of whining bugs and snaggy tree branches, slippery rocks and humid dark. We hiked until nearly 9 o'clock by the light of our headlamps, up and up and up, carried up by the Lord. Because if you'd seen us at the bridge at 4 o'clock, you would have seen a bunch of physically and emotionally exhausted people, on the verge of collapse. We only made it up to Dadhuwa by the strength of the Lord.

not clouds. mountains!

terraced rice fields in the foreground

so much green, my camera couldn't handle it

dried corn, dadhuwa

Day three: Difficult day for me. After our trekking day, I spent nearly the whole night in the buggy and spidery outhouse near the school classroom we slept in, sick with some kind of food thing. So I slept most of the day.

Our team spent the whole afternoon praying in Dadhuwa, experiencing more healings and a beautiful openness to the Lord. I got to join in later, for the evening. Cool backstory: Dadhuwa's church had three people before last week. Ryan and Katie, the engineering couple, have stayed at the believers's home there several times while working on their water project - Dadhuwa used to have easy access to water until an earthquake changed the water table fifty years ago, so now their water source dries up soon after the monsoon. They have to walk 30 minutes to get to the nearest source of drinking water. So Ryan and Katie's connection with the village is strong.

nepali woman

Before the Jesus film began that night, in a packed-out field filled with probably 300 people, one of the believers, Chandra, shared his testimony to this Hindu village. In a country that persecutes Christians openly and is 80% Hindu, this was an amazing thing. And then the Lord moved in a powerful way. After the film ended, and Gonga shared his testimony and invited people to come forward for prayer, we were swamped. Didn't have nearly enough translators - the seven people on our team who know Nepali were completely overwhelmed (Gonga said later he was trying to translate for up to four groups at once). So we asked two girls (one who was a believer already, one who'd become a believer than afternoon) to help translate for us. I've never seen anything like it. It was the book of Acts alive - crazy, we'd just look at each other like WHAT is going on as one boy's fractured and immobile wrist was completely healed, as one man's tumor shrunk and then disappeared -- and as the church in Dadhuwa more than doubled in size! There are six believers now, praise the Lord!

prayer

laying hands

finally in the valley!

Day four: Dadhuwa sent us off with bouquets and bouquets of flowers, and then basically tried to keep us from leaving by bringing more sick and aching people to us as we left. So we didn't leave until nearly noon - but it was so good. The new believers translated and prayed with us. Jesus healed backs, knees, a deaf man's ears, as literally seventy or more people gathered around to watch. They saw testimony after testimony of Jesus's healing power! I'm so excited for Dadhuwa - the Lord is doing so many good things there. It was truly an honor to be able to witness it.

We hiked out to Bangrabeshi, our last village, after the morning of prayer. The hike was super steep downhill, painful on my knees. The humidity stuck. I've never sweated so much in my life as I did on this trek - every hiking day, I was soaked from head to toe, day four included. But a beautiful thing happened at the bottom of our descent. A river! After crossing on a bridge of three logs tied together, we ditched our packs and stinky shoes and jumped in the water. It was cold and clear and soothing, and we washed our hair and faces, then just sat half-submerged on rocks and ate lemon and chocolate biscuits, stared at the green hills and were overjoyed by the beauty of it. And the total freedom of dunking in a river in all my clothes and not caring one bit!

the river

we washed our hair!

our beauty salon

so clean and so happy

the valley as we hiked out

The last part of the hike to Bangrabeshi was easy and beautiful. The sun was setting as we trekked out of the valley and everything was gold-colored. We got to Bangrabeshi just in time for dinner - dahl bat, of course. Dinesh grew up in this village, but left after his family became Christian and was persecuted by the whole village. The atmosphere there was completely different than Puma and Dadhuwa - darker, more frenetic, more hostile to us. Didn't help that a baag, or tiger, roams the village at night, or that the place we stayed was infested with some of the biggest spiders I've ever seen. They weren't spiders - they were terrifying beasts, bigger than my hand. Anyway, the first night we showed the Jesus film, nearly everyone left before it was over and hardly anyone came up for prayer. I remember thinking, why are we here, Lord, why are you letting everyone just walk away? The answer came when one of the only men who asked for prayer told us he used to be a believer, had backslid because of persecution but wanted to follow Jesus again! His whole right arm was paralyzed, but he regained full movement of it as we prayed and then totally gave himself to the Lord.

kids watching, bangrabeshi

Day five: Because some of Dinesh's family still lives in Bangrabeshi, we spent most of the morning eating. As Joel said: "When you know people in Nepal, you eat a lot." We ate rice pudding, chickpeas, a Mt. Everest of roti, and of course, dahl bat. In the afternoon, we split into groups again to pray. My group encountered a lot of hostility. The first house used to be Christian until the woman's son died (what do you say to that?), and the second house told us that Nepal is 80% Hindu and they had no interest in prayer. At the third house, though, a young girl was living alone with two sons, and she let us pray for one of them, sick with jaundice - he was screaming when we arrived but sleeping peacefully when we left.

nepali kids are so tiny

Then we got a call from Gonga: one of the groups was praying for a demon-possessed woman and wanted everyone to come. And this sounds so weird but it totally happened. She's been demon possessed for twenty five years, ever since she went to a temple in India. The demon spoke Hindi, though the woman only spoke Nepali - so Gonga, who knows Hindi, spent a lot of time talking to it. Its name was Kali, the goddess of death, and it couldn't look any of us in the face - because it can't look into the face of Christ! Basically, we just worshipped there in the yard, asking the Holy Spirit to come, praying over her, proclaiming Jesus' powerful name over darkness that's already been defeated. It wasn't scary at all, just sad. And confusing at the end, because although apparently many of the demons left (there were thirty or more total), the woman wasn't completely healed. We all struggled with that. But Mom told me a story when we got back about a bishop she'd talked to in India - he'd had a similar experience with a demon-possessed woman in a village there, prayed and had to leave, but returned years later to find that the church had faithfully prayed and the woman had finally been healed!

beautiful flowers, hike between dadhuwa and bangrabeshi

The atmosphere at the Jesus film that night was entirely different. The coolest thing happened: though we had all felt the spiritual darkness and hardness of this village, the new believer's wife and daughter came to Christ, and two children who had been mocking us all day came to Christ as well! And three women who've been Christians in Bangrabeshi for six years came forward as well - we got to pray for encouragement and joy for them. How amazing that the church in Bangrabeshi has eight people! Though we were exhausted and weak after six days of trekking, Jesus did so many amazing things - proving that his power is made perfect in our weakness, and proving that he did everything we accomplished.

And at our debrief, we proclaimed that over our whole trek. We also agreed that while healing and miracles are awesome signs of God's power, the only true and lasting healing is salvation in Christ. And that we need to go back - especially to Puma - to encourage the new Christians and continue the Lord's work. He will do so much more, maybe through us or through people and ways we can't even imagine - but he will definitely continue this good work he's begun in Puma, Dadhuwa, and Bangrabeshi.

from kathmandu with apologies

I'm sitting in a coffee shop called Higher Grounds in Kathmandu, Nepal, listening to traffic outside and catching up on my journal. I just ate the best, fluffiest, biggest pancakes ever, for only 220 rupees (about $2.80) and drank two cups of black coffee (about 75 cents each). Food here is cheap and Western food like this is a delicacy - possibly confusing and dangerous for my stomach after seven days of eating nothing but dahl bat in remote Nepali villages.

I've obviously meant to blog a lot more than I have so far, and will, but this is Asia. Meaning that China blocks Blogger (and Facebook), so I couldn't access this at all for 10 days, and then we spent our first week in Nepal trekking through remote villages near the Annapurna region, having crazy experiences that I haven't even begun to process and eating nothing but dahl bat (rice and lentils, with vegetable curry) for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Which brings me back to the pancakes and coffee, and the tomato soup that I'm going to have for lunch since we might be here all day, and the strangeness of city (noise, smog, cars, motorbikes, no quiet terraces of rice or soaring Himalayan peaks), and the million things I want to blog about - and will - as soon as I drink this coffee and figure out how to share (testify about, explain, communicate to a Western culture and my own Western mind) exactly what happened this week.

outside history

I first read Eavan Boland's poem in the UK last fall. I don't remember where I was - I wish I did - probably curled up with a mug of tea at one of the study centers we stayed at, heavy Irish poetry anthology in my lap, near a window. Anyway, I do remember that it gave me shivers.

In the poem, Boland's stars are outside history. They're untouchable and untouched, their light reaching us from hundreds and hundreds of years ago, existing outside our sphere of reality. Boland mourns the stars - their inability to reach anything, touch anything, to step from myth into reality. They are always cold and distant.

As Boland mourns the stars, she mourns her own distance from history, using an image of hordes of starving Irish, unsave-able and doomed during the Famine times. Like the stars, she's too late. Her poem ends with the refrain, 'and we are too late / we are always too late.' Too late to save the victims of history and too late to save the victims of the Troubles - of hatred, violence, the cycle of unforgetting - in modern day Ireland.

(It reminds me of a hauntingly similar quote in a Seattle Times article about the Sudan famine - an aid worker warning that any aid is already too late for thousands.)

I read this poem a couple times this summer, always in an attempt, I think, to reach back through history to my own time in Ireland and the learning and stretching that happened there. Too late, like the star's light, of course, but I also found other meaning as I read and reread. Could I be like those stars for Nepal? Always existing outside its history, its recent political turbulence, its poverty, I'm barely able to see it from so far away. And now I'm stepping from outside history into the darkness (spiritual, political, human) of an ordeal (or a country, a history, a people), that's just now reaching me. Briefly, with less than enough knowledge of culture and language and history, to do what I'm not sure, but here's the twist: with Jesus Christ, it's never too late, never too late. Which changes the entire poem.

the next adventure

So I gave my two-week's notice at work today. This means that I'll be finishing up two weeks from tomorrow. It was definitely freeing to say hey, I'm peacing out to go to Asia for a while, see you all later, but also sad, because I really like my restaurant.

Working there has been a huge growing experience. I've learned how to do a million things at once, how to shout CORNER loudly, how to balance the give and take of intense teamwork, and how to act like I'm calm and cool under pressure and stress, even when my brain is kind of exploding. And I've learned how to always be cheerful and kind with customers, even when they're being picky or rude, and how to look beyond the perfect 20% tip -- and instead, just plain enjoy taking care of people no matter what they leave lying on the table.

Even though I feel like I've spent three quarters of my summer in the back zone, steaming in spaghetti smells and sweating like crazy, calling back baked chickens and taking orders and running food around, (and this bothered me for a while, that I hadn't had my usual, lazy summer), I will miss it. Especially the people I work with, who always make me laugh.

But. On the 24th, I'll clock out for the last time (at least for a while), and I'll be on to the next adventure. Nepal and China, here we come!