Rice, Rice, Rice

There is a linguistic anthropological theory that says the more words you have for something the more important it is. That’s why in Michigan, we know the difference between sleet, hail, powder, packing snow, slush, flurries, snow, ice, and black ice. After all, it would be hard for a Nepali, or even a Southern to point out the difference. Here in Nepal, rice has the same kind of importance. There are well over 27 varieties of rice that I alone am aware of. Additionally, the Nepali language has a separate word for seed rice (what you plant in the ground), un-cooked rice, and cooked rice. Not only that, but even the general word for food is used as a synonym for….yep, you guessed it, rice. Rice is a big deal around here.

And as the monsoon finally gets started around here, the rice planting season is also beginning. Rice planting festivals seem to be happening every other week in one place or another, and farming families are calling neighbors and friends to help them get their rice paddies planted in time. This year, Buffalo and I were lucky enough to be invited by a friend to help plant their fields, and to engage in the most popular activity of rice planting season: playing in the mud. And trust me, there’s usually a lot of mud to play in during the monsoon.


So last Saturday afternoon, we headed over to our friend’s field to plant rice and make a little trouble. Not surprisingly, I learned a little about farming rice in the process. The first I learned was that rice plants are originally planted and grown in a very small area, usually only a corner of the total field. Then when the plants get to be about a foot tall, usually right around the beginning of the monsoon, they need to be spread out across the entire field. This is where the real rice planting begins. The farmers first pull the seedlings out of the ground and gather them in bundles. Then the men plough the fields, and if there’s enough water, flood them. Once the field resembles a swimming pool, the women go to work, re-planting the seedlings in neat rows across the entire field. Now the rice will enjoy the heavy rainfall for four months, after which, we’ll be heading back to our friend’s fields to help with the harvesting.

Sadly, and to our great disappointment, the rains and the electricity were not in our favor this year. There wasn’t enough water to flood the fields properly, which really cut down on our ability to have the full out mud wars we were planning. In the south of Nepal, the fields get flooded to about two feet of water and the newspaper is always full of pictures of boys and girls splashing around and throwing huge mud balls at each other. But Buffalo and I will have to save that for another year. All the same, it was great fun to spend the day working, playing and learning with friends.

All the same, I have to admit, I was pretty thankful that our friend’s field was rather small, and I can’t imagine how hard it would be to plant the large fields I’ve seen in the terai (south) when I was working there. On the other hand, the rice beer the other women forced on us, sure did seem to dull my aching back at the end of the day, and the tasty treats they fed us didn’t hurt either. Overall, it was a great time, and we are both looking forward to the harvest, and to getting a big plate of that delicious rice!

Oh, and Buffalo and I are shopping for plane tickets now, so not to worry, we’ll be there before you know it.

So much love you’d need a dozen elephants to carry it!
Read more on "Rice, Rice, Rice"!

Magical Places: Raja Rani

Dear All,

So I’ve just returned from yet another trip to the field. This trip was much shorter than I had anticipated, as I managed to get a little bit of a stomach bug pretty early on and had to return to Kathmandu in a hurry, but it was still an enormously eventful few days. In fact, there’s so much to tell you about, I’m not certain I can fit it in a single blog post, but I will do my best.

As is true of any journey, just getting there was half of the fun. This trip Dai was accompanying me so I was able to travel by bus instead of having to fly to Biratnagar and then hire a cab to Dharan. I know I’ve mentioned before the route to my fieldsite, but let me just remind you in case you’ve forgotten. My fieldsite is in the south eastern part of Nepal, not that far from India. In order to get to the villages that I’m working in, I generally fly from Kathamandu to Biratnagar which is about an hour flight. From there, I take a cab another hour to Dharan, which is where Dai’s family lives. I usually stay one evening there, and then I take a public bus in the morning another 2 to 3 hours depending on how busy the roads are, until I finally reach my Dhimali mother’s home. But going by bus is an entirely different adventure. By bus, we board in Kathmandu and ride 15 to 16 hours to the Koshi river. Every time I’ve crossed the Koshi it’s been at a different point and by a different way. I’ve crossed it once in the small wooden boats, just after the flooding. I’ve crossed it once using a bridge that had been quickly restored after the flooding, but which was closed due to strikes this time, and finally, this time, we crossed on the big bus ferries. So far, I prefer the bridge, but only because the crush of people on either of the two types of boats makes me nervous. Here’s a picture of the ferries, so you can get an idea what I’m talking about. (There are more pictures in the slideshow box too.)



While the ferries were in and of themselves a spectacle to see, the bigger spectacle for me occurred as we drove through the foothills in the evening on the way to the Koshi fording point. As we drove through the night, I glanced out my window expecting to see nothing but rolling green hills, but this time, I saw something amazing. Long red lines cut across the hills, glowing in the dark. Apparently, the recent heat had caused a rash of forest fires, and the hills looked as though they’d been transformed in to volcanoes. I tried to take pictures for you all to see, but my camera didn’t do a good job capturing the thin lines of fire in the dark. But I’m not certain a photograph could ever have captured how truly beautiful and slightly heartbreaking those fires were. It was really incredible.

It was only after this evening journey through burning foothills that we arrived at the fording point. As the pictures will show, the buses were literally lined up for days. So we were told to get off our bus, hike down to the river, crowd on to one of the ferries, and catch a bus on the other side. This prompted me to wonder why they actually bother to take any of the buses across the river, but I never got an answer to that question. I suspect some enterprising bus driver will think of it eventually. Dai and I were able to crowd on to the first ferry and so we were up the hill on the other side and back on a bus by around 9am. We arrived in Dharan later that afternoon and I was pleased to find that while the summer heat had set in, cool winds were still dancing through the city, making Dharan seem to be as much a paradise as it always has been to me. We rested for the day and determined to head off to Raja Rana the next morning.

Raja Rani is the sight of one of the more important Dhimali festivals and houses one of their community temples. It is located about an hour drive from my study village, and is situated at the top of a rather large hill. Raja means king in Nepali, and Rani means queen (yes, just like Hindi). Raja rani is actually named after two ponds at the top of the hill, one called Rana pond, the other, Rani pond. The Dhimals travel as a community to this spot once a year to begin their new year and to conduct the year’s first worship. It was both exciting and humbling to be able to join them on this pilgrimage.

Many Dhimals had told me that Raja Rani was a magical place, and as we approached the hill, I began to take these claims more seriously. The landscape was stunningly beautiful and the fields were a green that is seldom seen in the Terai. Usually, the harsh heat of the area leaves most of the land, even the fields, looking decidedly brown. But here, the irrigation streams were well fed, and as soon as we got off the truck, you could hear the whispering of the water as it rushed to keep the young plants growing. But we only took a few seconds to take in the sight before we started the climb up to the top of the hill, where we would be staying the night. (Funnily, it was only at this point that it even occurred to me that I had no idea where I would be sleeping that night, just as I had no idea where I’d be sleeping the night before, or the night after. It seems I’ve grown accustomed to surrendering myself completely to the plans that life and my study community make for me. It still surprises me to think that I’ve become such an adventurer.)
Since I’m not now, nor do I ever plan to be, a trekker, the climb to the top of the hill, especially in the heat, was brutal. I tried to bear it as best I could, but I kept thinking about all of the other American friends I knew in Kathmandu who actually paid money to climb hills like this. It still seems strange to me, but to each his own I suppose. After a brief eternity and a half, we reached the top of the mountain. I was drenched in sweat, and my friends were kind enough to try and stifle their laughter at my exhaustion. Still, after only a half an hour’s rest, I was ready to head off in to the forest to see the ponds, and the temple.

It was in the woods that the most exciting part of the trip occurred, the thing that really convinced me this place was indeed magic. As we were walking we came to the following bridge:

I froze, terrified to cross such a small and shaky bridge, but work was calling on the other side, so there was nothing to be done. (It turns out, there are very few crazy things I won’t do in the name of work.)I started haltingly across, but in the middle, one of the logs teetered and I froze again. In an instant, it seemed as though a million brown leaves began to rain on me from a tree above. It was only on second glance that I realized it wasn’t leaves that were surrounding me. It was hundreds and hundreds of monarch butterflies! I know I may have to apologize for this, but I think that may have been the greatest moment of my life. For that one instant, all my fear and worries vanished, and I was filled with a joy I’ve never known. I stood there basking for a moment before I realized a hand had been outstretched and was gently pulling me across the rest of the bridge. It was a sweet and comforting gesture, but it also startled me, as I realized that for my fellow traveling companions a butterfly downpour was nothing spectacular. And to think, sometimes I pity them because they don’t have running water. I wonder (hope?) that sometimes they pity me because I don’t have an endless supply of butterflies.

Wow, it seems this post has already become obscenely long, so I’ll gloss over the rest of the trip. As I mentioned above there are pictures in the slideshow box, including a picture of the huge spider that was protecting my bed when I reached my Dhimali mother’s home.

I’ll write again soon, as I have more exciting things to tell you including a little bit about my Easter and the amazing priest I’ve been lucky enough to meet here. (He gets in street fights, shares my love of chocolate, and is potentially the most gentle, humble human being I’ve ever met.) I hope that you all also had a very blessed and joyful easter.

If I don’t say it, do you still know I’m thinking it?...Ok, ok, I love you all sooo much.

All my love,

Read more on "Magical Places: Raja Rani"!

Rafting

Dear all,
First of all, I’m heading out to the field again this coming week. The Dhimals are going to be celebrating their biggest festival of the year. I’m terribly excited, but I’ll also be gone for awhile. So please forgive me if I go silent again for awhile. But I am resolving now to write more often as soon as I get back. And I’ll try and write at least one letter from the field. That said, last time in the field, I wrote personal letters to a few of you, but then I realized I don’t have your addresses. So I’m including a form here, if I know you, please give me your address so I can write to you. Of course, you don’t have to, but if there’s no address there’s no chance you’ll get a letter.






Ok, so, today I have another adventure to tell you about. Yesterday, I went rafting with 35 of my closest friends here and it was sooo much fun. We all met at 6:30ish and climbed on to the bus we had reserved. From the first moment, I was completely impressed with how well organized the whole event was. My friend, we call him Buffalo, was the organizer, and he’d not only secured the bus, but he’d gotten us all boxed breakfasts, and he’d remembered to get two huge jugs of water. So before we’d been on the road even half an hour, we were all enjoying a breakfast of vegetable pakoda and my favorite Nepali sweet, julabi. (actually, they call it something else here, but I seem to only be able to remember the hindi name for it right now. Sorry) Once the sugar from the julabi had kicked in, the silliness began. Another of my friends, who has the biggest most constant smile I’ve ever seen, started to sing, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t stop for a full two hours. It wasn’t long before most of the bus had joined in. Sadly, I only know one song in Nepali, a child’s rhyme, but to make sure I didn’t feel left out, we all sang that too. It was hard to hear over the laughter, but it was there.
The trip to Tirsuli, takes about 3 hours, so we stopped once to buy bananas (which were fresh and sweeter than any banana I’d ever eaten in the US.) We actually thought we were stopping for tea, but we’d mistaken a big house for a tea shop, and the woman who lived there was only polite enough not to chase us away with a stick. It was actually pretty funny. Then we climbed back on the bus, and didn’t stop until we’d reached the rafting place. At the rafting place, all the girls needed to change, but there were no changing rooms, so we had to borrow a room from a neighboring farmer. We changed in the room where they kept all their corn, and as we changed we made jokes about how we’d become just like goats. Once we’d changed, we walked down to the river. I was so excited, it was hard not to rush a head. There were a couple groups of tourists as well, but we mostly kept to ourselves. We all got geared up in helmets and life jackets, and looking back at the pictures, I think we all looked pretty silly. Then we split up into four different boats, and headed to the water.
Fortunately, our rafting guides were friends of Buffalo and Skeleton, because we were quite a handful. I got the sense that other rafting groups actually have an interest in rafting, whereas we were mainly interesting in waging war on each other and being mischievous. It reminded me a lot more of a game of battleship than rafting. One boat even had the foresight to bring a bucket. Sadly, that wasn’t my boat. We weren’t even 10 feet from the shore when the splashing and chasing began, and for a good twenty minutes all of our boats simply rotated in place as we were all more interested in splashing neighboring boats than moving forward. Eventually, our guide was able to gain control of our rambunctious crew and we headed out in to the river.
Our rafting route was actually pretty long. We went about 16km before we stopped for lunch and then after that we went another 5 or 6km. It ended up being about three hours all together. The river was tamer than I had expected and we only hit a few really big rapids, but I still managed to lose my seat a couple of times. We also had plenty of chances to jump in and swim, and the water was so refreshingly cool and deep. It was really nice. In fact, being a Michigan girl it was just nice to be near water again, and I couldn’t help but think of all the canoeing trips I’d taken back home. The scenery wasn’t all that different from home either, except for the occasional waterfall and of course, the ever present hills looming in the background. Buffalo caught me looking dreamily at the water, and being as intuitive as ever, worried I was missing home too much, but it was more a happy nostalgia than a heartsick feeling. In a weird way, it felt good to miss home that way. But it also made me resolve to get at least one afternoon of jetski-ing in when I get home.
After rafting, we climbed back on the bus and headed back towards Kathmandu. We stopped once for fried fish on the way. At the fish shop, there were 5 or 6 different kinds of really small fish, all about the size of my palm, and they were fried whole in oil. Everyone said they were delicious, but I’m a strict veggie over here, so I didn’t try them. They smelled pretty tasty though. After our quick fish dinner, we headed back home. Despite our exhaustion, the singing picked back up in a matter of minutes. We played a game where one side of the bus would sing a song and then the other side would have to sing a song that began with the last letter of the last word in the other side’s song. It was very summer camp-ish, but it was also a ton of fun. Once again, I wasn’t able to contribute much, but I did sneak Happy Birthday in, which made everyone laugh. When most of the bus had drifted off to sleep, a few of the guys started singing old nepali love songs, and I fell asleep to their soft singing.
In short, it was another wonderful day full of great friends and great fun. I uploaded the pictures and you can see them in the slideshow for now.
As always, I’m sending my love your way.
Sarah
Read more on "Rafting"!

Mom and Dad have arrived!!

Hey All,

Just a quick note to say that yes, my parents have arrived safely and are settling in nicely. We didn't do too much the first day they arrived, but yesterday we explored Pashupati temple and Patan's Durbar Square in the afternoon, followed by a delicious dinner with Didi and Dai and the baby. (I think that was the best part of the day for all of us!) This morning we walked from the hotel to Boudha Stuppa and then we headed over to Assan for some shopping and to see Hanuman Dhoka. It was a great time and if I get the chance I'll post more on our adventures together, but for now, please check out the photos I've posted to the slideshow boxes.

Oh and we saw the Kumari today! But more on that later, I promise.

More adventures to follow! Love you all!
Read more on "Mom and Dad have arrived!!"!

In to the field..and through the hills

This post was written for you all from the field. Sorry it took so long to post it here.

Dear all,

It’s been a long two days, but I’m finally here in Dharan. Dharan, is not my fieldsite, but it’s only about a 2 hour ride by motorbike from here. Dharan is also Dai’s childhood home. Right now, I’m writing from his mother’s front porch. This porch is one of my favorite places in all of Nepal and I feel so incredibly at home in Dharan it’s incredible. I think it’s probably because last year when I was ill I was so well cared for here that I couldn’t help but feel safe and happy here now that I’m visiting while healthy. That said I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that I’m pretty sure Dharan is actually the garden of Eden. There are tall palm trees and flowers of every kind and color. The houses are all beautifully painted in warm oranges and cool greens and blues lending to the paradise effect this place has on me. But I think for me, it’s the butterflies that really make the place. I was telling a friend in a letter the other day that if you were to take a butterfly with snow white wings and paint it anyway you liked you’d find that it was already here in Nepal. And there’s nowhere that seems more true than here in Aamaa’s garden. But spoiled as it may sound, after our long trip to get here this slice of heaven feels well deserved.



So let me tell you a little about the trip out here. We headed out from Dai’s home at 3:30pm yesterday and traveled by taxi to the bus park in Kalanki. Dai’s younger brothers (though both are still Dai (older brother in nepali) to me) had arranged 2 tickets on a night bus for us. The bus was supposed to arrive at 4pm and arrived right on Nepali time at 4:45pm. As we climbed on the bus, I was pleased to find that my brothers had remembered how tall their little American sister was and they had secured me the seat with the most foot room, just behind the driver. Dai and I were also surprised to find that one of Dai’s cousin was also on the same bus (this proved to be a lifesaver later) (Oh, you should see the butterfly that just flew past, it was as big as my hand).

Anyway, the bus left shortly after arriving and for the first 45 min we headed up to the hills without a problem. But 5 min past the first police check point, we hit a jam caused by a broken down truck. We fought with similar jams for the next few hours and when we stopped for our first break I had the distinct feeling we hadn’t gotten very far at all. And it was at the 1st break that I realized how fortunate I was that Dai’s cousin had come with us. Had she not been with us there would have been several bathrooms breaks I would have maneuvered through far less gracefully. Of course, that’s not to imply I didn’t still look like a bungling American but at least I was a bungling American who managed to get the job done.

After our 2nd break (around 10pm) I finally managed to fall asleep. We stopped again several times, but I slept through most of them. At one stop we had to wait for a police escort to take us through a bandit ridden slice of forest and I wanted to stay awake to see the police but I simply couldn’t manage. When we arrived at our destination at 4:45am I still had difficulty rousing myself. When I did finally climb off the bus, I was astounded to find that our destination wasn’t a place at all. Or rather it wasn’t a place in that there was nothing there; no buildings, no houses, just a few buses. I had assumed we would be going to some town or village or something, but it turns out that since the Koshi flood, most of the traveler’s stops are just places that happened to be dry. From there, we had hoped to get a jeep or a microbus, but after waiting for a long time we all piled into the back of a rust red flat bed being pulled by a tiny tractor. So there I was, watching the sunrise over a flooded landscape from the back of a tractor with 15-17 other people and luggage to match. For a few minutes, I was the romantic traveler marveling at this once in a lifetime moment I’d been given, appreciating the pinks peaking out from behind the mountains in the distance and watching the water buffaloes wake up and wander about…but then, I had to pee…..really badly and I realized that my legs hurt and that the people in the truck with me were complaining about how uncomfortable we all were. I never cease to be entertained by these sudden perception shifts I have. Of course, I tried not to let reality rob me completely of my romantic musings, but it was also an important reminder. As travelers, it’s easy for us to romanticize hardships and discomfort when they are short-lived experiences, but we also need to remember that for others this is not a “once”, but a lifetime experience.

After about 30-45 min in the trailer we arrived at another place that was not a place, this time next to a very swollen river. There were several other buses, jeeps, ect and there was an assortment of over crowded boats waiting in the water. Our boat reminded me of the boats you see in cartoons about Egypt. It was long (15ft by 6 ft maybe) and though it was dug out like a canoe, large woven bamboo mats had been placed across the entire top and that’s where all 45 or so of us sat. Here's a picture that's pretty close, though imagine a ton more people. The boat swayed a bit before the diesel engine puffed to life. Dai’s cousin was scared and I have to admit I spent a moment or two planning my escape route should the boat tip, but the water didn’t seem to b e very fast and I haven’t seen any crocodiles so I wasn’t too afraid. (Yeah, ok, I laughed when I wrote that too. How did my life come to a point in which I judge my safety by whether I saw crocodiles?) The oarsman on the other hand looked terrified the entire 20 min crossing and though he was making excellent money, I couldn’t help but wonder how long his poor heart could take this kind of work.

Once across, we again caught a tractor, which took us to another, though significantly smaller, swollen river about 15 min away. This time we crossed by bridge, which was really a football field worth of bamboo mats strung together. Had I any sense, I might have been terrified, but fortunately that’s not often a problem for me here. Instead I was busy being annoyed that we had to pay 10 rupees (less than a quarter) to cross the bridge and trying to figure out which of the men that were collecting money I could mentally accuse of being the bridge troll. (After seeing more of the Koshi aftermath, I’ve rethought this part of the trip. I’d now happily pay significantly more to help all the people who have lost so much)

Once across, we took a bicycle towing a wooden platform (the village version of a rickshaw) up to the nearest bus park. I enjoyed the ride though I felt terrible for the poor man pulling all four of us and our luggage and for only 20 rupees. Dai reminded me I was contributing to the local economy, but I still felt a bit inhuman and I tried to keep myself from worrying over the man’s calorie intake.

At the bus stop, we had tea in a local shop. From the tea shop, Dai and I took another bus to his father’s farm. We visited the farm for a short time, and then we caught another bus to a place called Itahari, from there we caught our last bus of the journey to Dharan. It was afternoon when we reached Dharan, and I was sent straight to bed to nap. After my nap, I found myself here writing to you. I know it was a long post and I’m sorry if you were bored, but it was also a very long journey. Can you believe that I’m going to do it all over again in just a week’s time? Hooray for adventures!

I’m working on a post about my fieldsite now, but it seems as though all of my pictures may have been deleted. I’m going to fight to recover them for a bit, and so I’m going to wait and try to post and put the pics up at the same time. Wish me luck!

All my love!

Read more on "In to the field..and through the hills"!

Day Trip To Tirsuli

So this post is very late in the making. I had promised to write about my trip to Tirsuli, but almost 2 weeks have passed and I hadn’t written a word. I’ll do my best to capture the excitement of the trip, but I’m just going to admit now that you’ll probably get a better sense from looking at the pictures. Because I haven’t asked permission from all my friends, the pictures will only be up in the slideshow for a little while, so enjoy them while you can. (If you ever miss any of my slideshow pics tho, feel free to ask me and I’m happy to send you a link. I’m just super cautious about the internet privacy of my friends and family. See U of M, your ethics training does pay off.)

So the other day, I was out enjoying Kathmandu with a near and dear girl friend of mine when we ran into some of her friends. They told us that they were planning a day trip for the next day and that we should come along. I was hesitant at first, thinking that I had things to do the next day to help Didi and work I should being doing before I left for my fieldsite, but eventually I agreed to join them. I’m so glad I did.



The next morning, one of my new friends picked me up from my class on his motorcycle, which was super exciting in and of itself. After all, I don’t mind taking the long bus ride home, but how could I pass up a motorcycle ride!?! We met up with the rest of the group at a shop near my house. (I’ve since learned that several of my new friends own shops very near to my house, which is great because now I can stop and chat on my way home and as you all know chatting with friends just makes my day)

There were eight of us in the group, distributed on 4 motorcycles. We were going to take a day trip to another town just outside of the valley, called Tirsuli. To get there, we spent about four hours riding through the mountains on the bikes. It was so beautiful and so much fun. Everyone in the group is very sweet and fun loving, and they took advantage of every opportunity to stop and play. If you’ve ever seen one of those hindi movies with the group of college friends, you’ll already know a lot about my new friends. (I like to think of the adorable group of friends in the movie Jaane Tu Ya Na Jaane, which also happens to be my favorite Hindi movie.) On the route, we stopped to take pictures in front of the hills, we played in the waterfalls (even though the mountain water really is as cold as ice), and we tried to take pictures of each other as we rode along.

We also managed to do a lot of sightseeing in a short amount of time. Along the road, I accidentally scared my bike’s driver because as we climbed one hill I saw my first snow capped mountain and I was so excited and taken by the sight that I couldn’t help but let out a little squeal. Shortly after my mountain glimpse and some profuse apologies to my friend, we arrived in Tirsuli. We made a quick visit to the town itself, but we spent most of our time playing in the local dam. Then we went to the river and played some more. The boys were especially rambunctious in the river and ended up in a huge splashing match. Fortunately, they were gentlemen enough to leave us ladies dry.

On the way back from Tirsuli, we visited one of the palaces of the first king to unite Nepal into one country. We had arrived there later than we should have, so most of the buildings were closed, but we still toured the grounds and had more fun with the cameras. I think the pictures of us all sitting in a row at the palace are my favorites from the trip. Then we started racing home to try and minimize the time we’d spend in the hills after dark. We ended up spending quite a bit of time riding home in the dark and while I knew that Didi would never approve, I couldn’t have been happier. For years, motorcycle riding has held an almost meditative power for me, and adding the dark mountains, the cool air and a night sky like I’d never seen was intoxicating. Even two weeks later, thinking about that ride makes me smile from deep inside. I spent hours sitting on the back of that bike just taking it all in.

I wish that I could really make you appreciate the scene from that night, but nothing I could say would ever really capture it. I remember looking up and seeing some of the brightest stars I’d ever seen flickering in a field of darkness, only to realize that they were in fact the lights from homes high up in the mountains. But they were so high up how could I think they were anything but stars? And then I’d turn my head, and tilt it only slightly and find myself staring into a wall of stars more plentiful then anything else I’d ever seen. I’d never appreciated the night sky like I did then, when the only light to compete with them was the occasionally mountain “star”. And of course, all this while cruising along a crisp night on a motorcycle with dear friends. While I’d be lying if I said that life here was always easy and wonderful, I still enjoy days like these like they were the last bite of a perfect chocolate chip cookie. And my gratitude for my experiences somehow makes them all the sweeter.

Still, even on that perfect day, you should all know that I thought of you often. I’m finding that even in the happiest moments, the moments don’t mean as much until I can share them with the people I’m missing back home. Even as we rode, I thought about what I would write to you, and what special bits I would share for this person or that one. So mushy as it sounds, you are all really with me wherever I go. As always, I’m sending big hugs and happy days to all of you.

Best,
Sarah

Read more on "Day Trip To Tirsuli"!