My Preaching

In the back of a monastery behind the main shrine room in a Tibetan refugee camp in Chorepatan, Nepal, an old woman attends the butter lamps.

Most of Nepal is still very rural, and village life seems to dominates the collective imagination, even of those who now live in large cities such as Kathmandu.

Dashain is the time in Nepal for families to come together, sharing food, and gifts, and all sorts of traditional activities. One of these is swinging on huge bamboo swings.

Though I have been here for only a month, it seemed time for a road trip.

An old motorcycle, a good traveling companion, and an open road... freedom.

Most of the rice is now heavy with grain, almost ready to harvest, but not quite. Much of it needs a bit more time to finish growing. But this last little bit of time has its own problems.

Today is the first day of the rice harvest, with the first field I have seen being harvested right outside my back door. As one would expect, everything is done by hand.

A patchwork of small farms cling to the hillsides in Lamatar on the edge of the Kathmandu valley.

In Lubhu, a town to the south of Kathmandu, there are two main industries: weaving and making yeast cakes for chang.

This morning in church we had pretty incredible readings.

I live with a Tibetan family in an apartment in Siddha Nagar, a neighborhood over small a ridge north of Boudhanath. This is the view from our roof. 

Around town there are a few open taps, "springs" where people come and get water and do laundry all day. It certainly is a talent to keep your long skirt dry while doing laundy in a pool of water.