Where: At the Sisters Elementary commons

What: 4-6PM Sales: hundreds of unique gift items from Nepal at very reasonable prices.

6-8:30PM Nepali food free with a suggested $10 donation (12 and under free)

Music by Brad Tisdel and friends

Video update of projects

Why: To raise money to support 16 young women at the Himalayan Education Center. Go to www.tenfriends.org for more information on this project.

Come and enjoy a fun evening with friends.

http://www.nuggetnews.com/main.asp?SectionID=8&SubSectionID=8&ArticleID=19129

Ten Friends helps to support the Hopeful Home orphanage.

From 5:30 – 8:00 PM and beyond we will welcome you for Nepali food, a video,
and more sales. Local artists will be providing music. We have a $10 suggested
donation for the dinner, children 12 and under are free. Come and get updates
on our current projects, visit with friends, and do some holiday shopping. We
hope to see you there

The new students are, left to right, Sumana Rai, Aruna Garung, Susmita Rai and Ganga Garung.

All is well. We are prepping to hit our flight to Tumlingtar this A.M.. Things in KTM went well. Everyone pitched in and helped when needed. A few stomach issues, but all well now. William had a tough time for one night but bounced back quickly and was powering down eggs and potatoes this morning.

We will walk to Khandbari today. Stay two days at the teacher training hostel then start up. After two days depending on the rain we will be splitting the group. Mark, Allison, Rand, William, Anne Marie, Jackie, and Lizzy will head toward Tibet and the rest of the group will be heading with Josh Brody to Makalu base camp. Both groups will be checking on and dropping off libraries on the way. We should be back weather dependent by Aug. 3.

Take care and we will talk to you soon.
Rand / Mark

We hope all is well and summer is treating you well. We’ve had a near perfect journey so far with 16 people in our Ten Friends group, the largest ever. Although a bit overwhelming in numbers the group is really fun and very diverse – from Central Oregon high school students, to teachers, to college students.  They get the full experience of a third world country, the richness of the culture, and participation in our projects in Nepal from orphanage assistance to village community development in small Nepali villages. It’s an amazing connection between countries, cultures, and definately life-changing for our interns and volunteers that are here with us.

Tomorrow we’ll leave for Khandbari and the Himalayan Education Center with 2400 books to initiate more libraries in rural regions in the Himalayan foothills of Northeastern Nepal. We’ll follow up on the libraries with solar panels for evening reading and safe drinking water. Below is a photo of a clay water filter made by local potters. These filters are highly effective at eliminating contaminants and they do not require electricity as most of Nepal does not have it. We hope to bring these filters into the region we’re working in Northeastern Nepal in the next year or two and start production of these filters in the region.

About half of our group will trek to Chamtyang near the tibetan border to verify village projects that were done by Sunita, our employee, during the past winter. Some will go toward Makalu, the fifth highest mountain in the world, to dedicate libraries and village improvement projects in that region. Both groups will work with your blessings and support, bringing basic needs to some of the poorest people in the world. We wish you could see their appreciation. It’s always emotional and makes it all worth it.

Wishing you well, always,
Mark and Rand

Clay water filter made locally in Kathmandu. These are highly effective and requre no electricity.

Ten Friends volunteers buying and transporting books from the streets of Kathmandu to remote villages in Northeastern Nepal.

Everything is great here. We arrived yesterday about 1:00 Nepal time. All of our bags arrived to much relief from the group. It looks like it took us about 38 total hours to get here and that is a record. Everyone did great. William holds the sleep record snoozing away while the rest of us squirmed around and tried to survive the marathon flights. Mark and Dinesh (our employee) met us in Kathmandu and we jumped into small vans and worked our way across the city to the guest house. The kids were really wide eyed and excited. Kathmandu has a way of attacking your senses and it didn’t let us down. Luckily it is a holiday saturday and not too much traffic or pollution. The sky was clear and we could see the entire valley. Everyone quickly met on the roof of the guest house which is one of the tallest buildings in Kathmandu and had quite a view of the city. After a quick rest we met up and talked about safety and city travel and had our first outing. We walked about 30 minutes to see Durbar Square and wandered through the tiny ancient streets with small markets, cooking goat heads and plenty of ripe trash. After many twists and turns we ended up to the classic freak street and explained the rules to the return. We broke into teams and each set of partners had to find their way back to the guest house. After a moment of wide eyes they took off with Mark and I trailed them back through the maze. Everyone loved it. We met for dinner with everyone barely keeping their heads off of the plates and off to bed. We are meeting this a.m. and starting rotations. We will be going to orphanages, seeing the sites, checking on water filters and sponsored kids and many other things in the next few days. Talk to you soon.

Rand / Mark