Between trying to understand Nepali, tutoring Kalpana in Spanish, and arriving in France yesterday, my poor brain is reeling and I'm a bit tongue-tied! But I'll try to get my English together well enough to catch our friends up on our holiday events.
Christmas Eve day was cookie decorating day at Ama Ghar! Although the kids are mostly Hindus and Buddhists, they're extremely creative, especially when it comes to making something beautiful to eat... Bonnie gave cookie cutters to a German bakery in Kathmandu, as there is no oven at Ama Ghar - then we mixed up frosting and went at it - with the results you can see at left. The cookies could have been more colorful, but we made the mistake of giving them some Betty Crocker chocolate fudge frosting, and suddenly everything was chocolate-colored! Some things are just universal, eh?
On Christmas morning, Santa arrived in the shape of a grey-haired Jewish guy (see photos at left). The crowd went wild! Santa passed out small toys that Bonnie and I had bought in Bangkok (English poppers, yoyos, light-up pens) and a bag of nuts, fruit and chocolate for each child.
And the Grand Finale of the day was a performance of "A Christmas Carol", which played to an appreciative audience of visiting Ama Ghar board members, some visiting Nepali college kids, and all the staff and children who weren't in the cast. Scrooge, played by Maju (a 13 year old girl), sported a fake mustache and a grouchy attitude - she even said "Bah Humbug" and called Bob Cratchit a "nincompoop"! The dancing scene from Christmas Past was done to a Bollywood tune, and we ended with Tiny Tim and Sano Santosh (Little Santosh)singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"!
We left Ama Ghar on December 29 and are spending the New Year holiday with John & Margaret in France - then on to the US and what we hope will be a great 2010. We'll try to carry the love of those 38 children, and the inspiration they give us, into an uncertain future. And to paraphrase Tiny Tim - "God bless you every one!"
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