Boudhanath and Swayambunath

Sorry it has taken me so long to post! Between our busy schedules of site seeing and cultural/language training in Kathmandu and the variable 14 hours of power outages per day it been hard to coordinate a time to post! We arrived midday on Monday and have been having an amazing time since. We met our program coordinator, Matrika, on the first day and got settled in our hotel (The Millennium Guest House) in Kathmandu. Tuesday we met our cultural and language teacher, Urmila, and went site seeing. We visited two Buddhist temples and one Hindu temple. I'll write more about the Buddhist temples below and Pav will be sharing her thoughts on the Hindu temple in her post. Wednesday we went to a large Hindu square, which Erin will be writing more about. After visiting the square, we had language classes with Urmila in the afternoon. Today (Thursday), Matrika will take us to our host family in Chapaguan (south of Kathmandu). Erin, Pavani and I will all be staying with the same host family. While we have loved exploring Kathmandu, we are very excited to meet our host family and start our work in the health center. Below I've included some pictures from the trip so far. Hope you all enjoy!
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Morgan

Pav and Erin with Gloria (a nurse from Spain who is also in our volunteer program) at a curry restaurant called Zaika.

Me at the Garden Cafe in Thamel of Kathmandu.

The Buddhist temple Boudhanath in Kathmandu. The is the largest stuppa in Nepal. The eyes located on all four sides (one set facing each of the cardinal directions) represent the eyes of Buddha. These eyes are considered eyes of peace and eyes of love and are always watching no matter where you are. 

Pavani spinning the Buddhist prayer wheels. Each wheel has the Buddhist mantra, om mani padme hun, written on it 10,000 times. When you spin the wheel it represents saying the mantra 10,000 times. Buddhists walk clockwise around the stuppa three times and spin the prayer wheels as they make their walk. 

A giant prayer wheel at Boudhanath.

Gloria, Pav, and Erin with Urmila (second from the left), our Nepali tour guide and cultural language teacher while in Kathmandu. In addition to teaching these classes for VSSN volunteers she's finishing up her masters degree in Environmental Science.

Wheel of Life at Boudhanath. This is very popular in Nepali Buddhism. In the center you can see a pig, snake, and bird. The pig represents ignorance, the snake represents anger, and the bird represents greed. According to Buddhist tradition in order to reach enlightenment you must rid your life of these three things. Surrounding the animals in center are people doing good deeds and bad deeds. The next level represents Nirvana in the top half and hell in the bottom half. The people doing good deeds make their way to Nirvana while those who do bad deeds don't. The outer most level shows humans engaging in everyday activity. Surrounding the entire circle is Buddha who is believe to control all of the levels.

Swayambunath in Kathmandu. Another Buddhist stuppa at the highest point in Kathmandu. It's name means self-build God because it is unknown when the temple was built and it has exists longer than the city of Kathmandu.

At Hindu style temple at Swayambunath to represent mutual respect for other religions in Nepal.

Me, Pav, Erin and Gloria in front of the Swayambunath stuppa.

Overlooking Kathmandu valley from Swayambunath. Prayer flags can be seen flying all over the stuppas as well as all over Kathmandu. The Buddhist mantra is written on each flag and according to Buddhist tradition as the wind blows through each flag, peace will be sent all over the world.

Erin and Pav at a coffee shop called Himalayan Java in Kathmandu.

Erin, Pav, Gloria and me with Bikash a Pashmina shopowner in Kathmandu. We were the first Americans he had met in Nepal and he was thrilled to have us. We sat for quite some time and shared Nepali tea with him.