Goodbye to Pokhara for Now

We ended our final class with the students yesterday with a party; some cake, cookies, juice, and lots of games. Really drove home the learnings on visceroptosis (beer belly) with this :-). It was loads of fun. Took lots of photos including a nice group one. Really sad to watch them board and leave on the bus. After the clinic closed, we had the therapists over for some coffee/hot chocolate and biscuits (cookies). Really great conversation. We are under the distinct impression that their degree programs are more intense as we got out of our depth pretty quickly when discussing philosophers... whereas they seemed to be barely scratching the surface. We walked them to the bus and saw them off. Really difficult and sad. One of them refused to say goodbye: "see you next time". They've become really good friends to us in a short period of time.

Today was our chance to say goodbye to Pokhara, our home for the last five weeks. We started our day with yoga in the hills at a Buddhist retreat center at the north end of the lake. We then relaxed there in the peace and quiet for an hour.. chatted a bit about our feelings around going.. then went back into the gompa for meditation. Really powerful experience to have guided meditation with a nun who seemed to be walking her talk. We did a bit more shopping afterwards for some cd's to remind us of here. We then sat for a couple hours at a cafe called Boomerang with some snacks and sodas reading our books and soaking up the atmosphere one more time.

We were jarred out of our trance when a woman came running up from the lake asking for someone to call the police. It took a few minutes for everyone to understand she had witnessed someone drowning and couldn't find him. To be honest, it was clearly too late at this point as it had been at least 10 minutes since she saw this. A reminder for us how quickly it can all change. Earlier when we were walking along the lake after meditating, that boy was still alive.

Despite that sad occurrence, we were able to bring our focus back to closure and saying goodbye. We finished up at the cafe and went in search of our new favorite juice: sweet lime.

We took this back to our apartment and enjoyed it while we packed. It is amazing how quickly one can remove ones presence from a place... it didn't take long at all. Though it has been sad saying goodbye, we are ready. We've done all we can here for one visit. We want to go home, revive ourselves, and begin research for all the new ideas we have to continue our adventure (we will be coming back next year and have already set up some connections in the community for this). Last night we had a long conversation with the moneu changers husband. He works for an organization which provides support services and a care home for elderly people with leprosy. This is just one of the things we'll be involved with next time we come.

Off now for one last curry.

Thanks to everyone for all your support in this venture; it has been so worth it. We shared our skills in a way that can continue after we leave. We are pleased about that, and we are grateful to supportive friends, family, and co-workers who helped us to make this happen.

We are off to Baktapur (near Kathmandu) for a few days before coming home. We will be proper tourists for a bit and look at lots of temples and squares (after the seven hour bumpy bus ride :-).

........

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end." (Semisonic)