Nepal

A friend sent a magnet with her friend who passed it to yet another friend who took it to Nepal. This is the response, once again passed from friend to friend to friend:

"We have been having another great adventure in both Bhutan and Nepal.  I gave one magnet to a Nepalese naturalist in the Chitwan national park.  He was very kind and helpful.  I took his picture and explained the project to him.  Yesterday We got into the river after our daybreak elephant ride and washed and got on the elephant in the water.  The elephant soaked us."

Cambodia and Vietnam

This post is a continuation of Tom and Brenda's trip to southeast Asia. See the previous post.

Cambodia is a country that has been devastated by wars. Brenda described it as being like a sick person still recovering but not yet up to full strength. So many of those who would now be considered the older generation were killed leaving few to go back to raising food, teaching, doctoring, and so the younger generation have to figure it out on their own. I've heard similar comments from others who visited that country.

 

An American who was working there as an economic developer and other investors bought an old pepper plantation with the idea that it could be a model for growth to rehabilitate the plantations. He also built a resort and this is where the magnet was left. What's interesting is that the brother of this developer left a magnet there a couple years earlier. Such a small world.

I think she got the magnet. One of them did.

On their first day in Vietnam, Brenda and Tom took a tour of the Mekong River. There they saw a floating market, all in the water. Vendors advertised their wares by hanging samples on poles and the people wore conical hats. They say vendors in Vietnam are very aggressive.

Traffic is very heavy in Saigon and when drivers get frustrated the aren't above going onto the sidewalks. It can be dangerous being a pedestrian. Another site visited was the Presidential Palace where there is on display a helicopter captured when they were landing on the roof, loading up and taking away as many people as possible at the end of the war as Saigon was lost, or gained, depending on viewpoint. In Vietnam they people don't talk about politics. At all. None.

The Imperial Palace

A magnet was left with the manager of the hotel where they stayed in Hue.

　

　

Thailand & Bhutan

This is another story about the travels of Brenda and Tom. They are described in a prior post about Austria, Germany, Slovakia and Italy. On this adventure, they toured southeast Asia. I will break this up into two posts to keep it short so stay tuned for Cambodia and Vietnam.

The first stop was in Bankok, Thailand. Brenda is a member of a worldwide network of musicians who have their names and locations in a catalog so they can find each other and play duets together. The violinist Brenda is playing with was the recipient of a magnet.



This is a bridge made of boats leading to a market.

Bhutan is a country that does not want to be 'westernized' and thus retains its own culture. People in Bhutan still wear their traditional dress. Men wear a short robe called a goh and women wear an ankle-lenght robe called a kiri. This is a Buddist country where there are a lot of little pagoda-like temples for people to stop and pray, sometimes in the middle of rice paddies. Prayer flags can be found in surprising places.

 



A visa is required for entry and a tourist must be accompanied by a guide each day. In the photo below, the guide in traditional men's dress is eating his lunch in the company of a hopeful couple of dogs.

The fellow on the left was their guide who was given a magnet.

 

Burundi and Rwanda

Judy, one of my neighbors, went to Burundi as part of the Friends Peace Team to work with the African Great Lakes Initiative (www.aglifpg.org), a group working with survivors of the genocides that took place in both Burundi and Rwanda in the 1990s.

In Mutaho, Burundi, land was donated to build a guesthouse for those who participate in the REMA gatherings. Rema is a word that means 'be comforted' which is appropriate for women who lost their husbands and family members in the genocide.  Judy spent most of her stay working with this project. She said she wanted to leave a magnet with someone with a refrigerator but nobody had one. The office had one but it was aluminum and the magnet wouldn't stick so she left it on a shelf in the kitchen.




Beginning the building process.

The REMA women.

Burundi drummers, always good entertainment!

Judy also attended HROC training in Kigali, Rwanda. Participants came from several African nations as well as the USA. HROC stands for Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities. They are striving to build a sustainable peace through trauma healing workshops and gatherings such as these.



Overlooking Kigali.

At the Peace Garden there were lots of these.

The magnet in Rwanda rides on the dash of the car owned by the the African co-ordinator for the HROC project, a man Judy has great respect for.