Please meet our newest elder in Pharping, Nepal! The Senior Citizen Care Home recently welcomed Janaki, who comes to us after being put out into the streets by her stepson. You can see from Shaha dev’s text to me that after her husband died, her stepson sold all the family properties and then left…
Happy New Year! Here are some highlights from 2024. What a great year for our participation and support at the elder care home in Esquipulas, Guatemala! From starting off the year ensuring they had new cookware and a new sewing machine, to providing food and sundry support during our visit in August. Our shopping list…
Let’s do a quick review for those who are new here: At the end of September, 2024, raging floods and landslides swept through areas around and in Kathmandu. They wiped out hundred of acres of crops, destroyed homes, killed livestock, and wiped out mountain roads leading to remote areas of the Kathmandu Valley. Across the…
A dinner for the community in Pharping Just look what you guys did! 🙂 For those who are new here, back in late September, massive monsoon rains caused flooding and landslides across sections of the Kathmandu Valley, at last count killing more than 200 people with nearly 200 more injured and nearly 200 still missing….
‘Tis the rainy season in Nepal. It’s kind of hard to imagine that a country high up in the Himalayan mountains could have a monsoon season, but it’s true. And every year, these monsoon rains have been hitting the country harder and harder. Here’s an example: In 2019, I interviewed a 96-year-old man in Beltar…
After all these years, it’s still interesting to see people’s responses when I tell them what I do for a living. As soon as I say, “We help to rescue homeless and abandoned elders in Nepal and Guatemala,” there is invariably a moment where the other person’s brain seems to short circuit: “Wait. What?” Since…
Please meet Francisco. Francisco is quick to smile, and generous with what little he has. He shares his time and food with the nuns at the elder care home. His first wife died many years ago, after giving birth to seven healthy children who are all grown now. He remarried a short time later, and…
Fun Facts and photos from Guatemala! Guatemala is a beautiful country on so many levels, but let’s not forget that it’s still trying to recover from a 36-year civil war (one which the US started, by the way, and continued to perpetuate via massacres across the country). Here are some fun facts and photos, but…
Please meet Doña Juanita When we first arrived at Hogar Betania, I saw a tiny, hunched over woman come out of her room and go straight to lie down on the bench. She was very unsteady, holding onto the doorway of her room, then reaching for the bench with one hand to hold herself up,…
Surviving a heart attack changes a man. I’m not quite clear on what’s changed from last year to this year that would cause this change, but Padmal seems to be almost an entirely different man. As trite and emotionally manipulative as this may sound, I was moved to almost tears when he saw me for…
Please meet two of our newest elders in Pharping! First up is Sahrda Aama. As you may (or may not) remember, we already have a woman named Sahrda at the elder care home. She is married to Padmal Singh, the lovely man from India who had a stroke a few years back, and then a…
Look at this beautiful man! This is an elderly Newari man. If you’ve read the book, you’ll recall that Newars were one of the original tribes that settled what is now the Kathmandu Valley. It’s their culture that survives to this day — all the fancy woodwork, the palaces, the festivals — all of this…
Nanicchori is doing well. We have a tough road ahead of us, and many things are uncertain, but she’s doing quite well for her age and circumstances. Shaha and I had the opportunity to visit with Nanicchori the other day, and she was happy to see us both. Hugging isn’t big in Nepal, but I…
Shades of last year. Before we dig in, I want to give a shout out to the folks who could join our last Zoom call from Pharping! The first group got a bit more of my attention, while the second group got a chance to meet almost every elder at the home as they woke…