Youth/YSA Conference

As a friend of mine from Canada mentioned here (such a small world!), we recently held a youth/single adult conference for the Kathmandu branch. Axel and I are both in the YM/YW program and we love it. Somehow we are always given the same calling in every branch/ward we attend, which is just fine by me because it gives me a reason to be a teenager all over again (except without all the zits and goofiness).

The Attendees

The members stayed at a resort in a village high in the mountains just north of Kathmandu. There were 40 attendees and the spirit was as amazing as the view!

The View

What I love about living in this branch is that the leadership is mainly Nepalese and they are ALL spiritual giants.

The Branch President with his wife

The youth here are strong, spiritual, and intelligent. The church has an amazing future in Nepal, and I feel privileged to be a very, very small part of it.

Kali Puja

This week is a very special week for the Nepalese. It is the festival of Dasain and there are a whole bunch of pujas (worships) going on. Our driver said that today was a special puja for all things mechanical. He recently just did a puja on the cars, but apparently this one is special for Kali. Here is the run down:

The god

Kali Destroyer of Evil, who also happens to love coconuts and sugar cane

The worshipping necessities

The worshipper: Devendra, Our driver

The distraction during the worship

"Don't touch that! Let the gods eat the candy first!"

The Tikas

The Men Who Will Be Blessed

'Hunting' with Xay

This is Axel again. One of the real downsides of living overseas is there is no real hunting. Either you live in Africa or you don't hunt. Honestly the US and Canada are the last true places where hunting actually can happen. NOT Nepal.

So being a Bromley and wanting to introduce my son Xay (4) the finer points of hunting, I decided to get a mountain sheep as they are being sold here for the Dashain festival. I went to the market a few days before and selected the biggest one with good horns.

Don't feel bad. ALL of these sheep are going to be sacrificed to the Goddess Durga in the coming days. I was just going to do ours in another manner...

I had my Gardner take the sheep to his house the day before and drove up there with Xay to go 'hunting'. You can't use guns here so we had to use a spear gun I used to go spear fishing in Dubai.

I went into the forest near his house and tied the animal to a tree by the horns and then went back and got Xay. We 'snuck' into the forest and when he heard it we crept up on it like Indians. Or Nepalis I guess...

'Sneaking' up on the 'wild' mountain sheep...

We got close to it and I helped him aim the spear gun as it is pretty powerful for the little guy to shoot.

Aiming together

And the first shot was a hit! The spear went through his back probably piercing the animal's lungs.

Good Shot Xay! Nice hit!!! He is pretty excited right about now. Xay that is, not the sheep... You can see the spear coming out left side.

Then I quickly ran down and finished off the ram with a knife my brother Jake made for me years ago. Cutting the jugular vein puts the animal out pretty quickly.

One knife cut for the rope and one for the neck. Total time from when it got hit to when it died was about four minutes.

Xay was pretty dang excited! He wasn't put off by all the blood either. I was proud of him.

You can see how happy the little guy is. He is REALLY proud of himself here.

So then after killing it and getting it up the hill all the on lookers came over to help us get it back to the car.

Ramesh, my Gardner is the one looking back. I forget how big I am around these people until I see pictures.

Walking down to the car. Xay was talking up a storm.

So after the animal was in the car, Ramesh wanted us to eat lunch at his house so we did. We had been there before. Still it is always a trip to see how they live. Kitchen and cows (behind them) in the downstairs and they sleep (all of them) upstairs. Dirt floors and flies galore.

Us having a post hunt meal of rice and dall.

Ramesh's family. The wife is younger than I am.

'Xavier Bromley, I can't believe you got such a big sheep! How did you shoot it?' Mom adding some excitement.

Then we got home and Terah's Young Women's sleep over activity was still on going. Xay was triumphant in retelling the story of what happened to Heavah and mom and all the girls.

On the way back I bought one of the medical plastic bodies that show the insides of the human body. You can see the plastic organs next to the real ones on the blue plastic.

Xay holding the head while I gut the body

Young Women's activities Nepali (or Bromley) style.

The heart really is the best part. One plastic, one real. Showing the chambers. We ate it that night. Xay kept saying 'let me hold that part dad, I am not grossed out!'. And he wasn't.

So all and all it was a good day. We got to have a great father-son outing. He got to have his first kill and we got some meat, a fleece (if I can figure out how to tan it) and Xay will hang the skull and horns in his room once the flies and maggots pick it clean and I bleach it. It was a pretty good day.

Asa's Blessing

After all of the chaos in our lives for the past several months, we finally had Asa blessed at church this Sunday. Here are some short snippets of the 2 hour blessing:

* He will become a surgeon and save the lives of those in Congress, Hollywood, and the 12 Apostles.

* He, himself, will be an apostle.

* He will have an IQ of 146.

* He will serve a mission in China and baptize millions.

* He will be dashingly handsome (to the likeness of Brad Pitt) and women will swoon.

*He will marry the first female president of the United States.

* He will be extremely athletic and beat Lance Armstrong's record in the Tour De France.

* He will cure cancer.

* He will be a philanthropist who visits various African countries and he will solve world hunger.

* He will never speak ill of his parents and always do as he is told.

Even though we are in a branch where no one understands the language or proper blessing etiquette, I still think Axel pushed the 'blessing envelope' a little bit on this one.

Smocking Part III

I am taking the lazy approach and posting a new dress I just made for Heavah, and an old one that now fits Sedona. What can I say, I am in a blogging funk.

Spiced Tea on Katrina Pattern

Yeah, we wear tikas just for the hell of it

Pumpkins on Anne Pattern

Smocking Part I and Part II.

I suppose all of my creative juices are going into my dresses and not my blogging.

How To Be The Best Realtor

 

...You go visit your clients even if they move to Kathmandu.

                   

Remember this house? It wouldn't have been possible if we didn't have the best realtor ever.  He bought and sold our home for us and he made the deal smooth and painless. 

Not only that, but he thought volunteering in an orphanage in a predominantly Maoist village in Nepal would be a great idea.  He rocks and it was awesome to spend a dinner with him last night. 

Thanks for the visit, John. 

Now, if our realtor can visit us, certainly you can too!

Typical Day

Since you asked, Stacy, and because I have nothing interesting to say these days:

5:00 am - Wake up to a baby yelling, "Mommy, Daddy? Where are you?" As a result, all other children awake.

5:15 - Scripture study and 'feature family member' (when we all say something good about our spotlight family member and the family member must say something good about him or herself. Since Sedona and Asa are too young to participate we just smother them with kisses).

6:00 - Check email and Internet (if we have electricity). Axel works on his various projects, currently woodcarving. Kids play outside.*

6:30 - breakfast and playtime outside.

7:45 - Heavah leaves for school.

8:00 - Xavier does reading and math with mom.

8:45 - Xavier leaves for school.

9:00 - Talk about the day with Axel, send him off to work.

10:00 - Play with Sedona, prepare for homeschool lesson.

11:00 - Go to gym, kick my butt. Take steam/sauna.*

12:30 - Get picked up by my driver and come home to a prepared lunch. Or sometimes, I meet my girlfriends or Axel at a restaurant.*

1:00 - 2:30 - Run errands or send driver and maid to run errands, depending on whether I want to read a book or sew.*

2:30 - Kids arrive from school. Depending on their moods, they will play for a bit or we will start homeschool.

3:00 - 5:00 - Participate in various projects with the children like, write in journals, read books, play math games, do art, etc.

5:30 or 6:00 - Axel arrives home.

6:15 - Eat dinner.

7:00 - Read books together and then read independently.

7:30 - Kids asleep and depending on whether we have electricity, Axel and I will enjoy a DVD show and work on our various hobbies or we will read a book.*

9:00 - Fast asleep, everyone.

*If I am working, it trumps all the fun stuff.