Katrina K. Photography

I feel overwhelmed with gratitude by the outpouring of support from friends, family, colleagues, and students. Thanks to you, we received about a dozen boxes and two dozen bags of donations!  Not all of it was completely appropriate clothing, so some of it will be donated to local homeless shelters.  That said, the vast majority will be going to Nepal.  

Nepal was struck by a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake in April, leaving millions homeless.  These people then had to struggle with the nearly non-stop monsoon rains and ensuing mudslides, while still living in tents.  The rains have subsided, but the struggle continues.  In late September, Nepal 's deliveries of supplies, food, medicine, gas (petrol), and fuel for cooking have been cut off due to protests about the new constitution. People have been forced to cut down protected forests, as that is the only fuel available.  Now winter is coming, and people are still living in tents, lacking warm clothes and fuel to stay warm.

You may think that we've forgotten that we're here to do a project, that we're not on vacation. Sure, we are having fun doing parahawking , but despite what it may seem, we have not forgotten our purpose. In fact, in addition to following birds off cliffs, we are talking to people about education. Indeed, our time here has given us quite good material to include in the book. We have also worked out some organizational issues and are slowly catching up on our transcribing, among other things.

Tadashi and I went parahawking again -- this time for sunset. Although we weren't leaving until 4 pm, we weren't too keen on leaving the Maya Devi "compound", as it was Holi . Holi is a Hindu holiday during which kids and young adults throw colored powder and water (plain and colored) at each other. There are kind adults who will gently give you a tika . Tadashi and I were both blessed with a tika by the Maya Devi restaurant manager, Nani.

A friend of ours had told us about Parahawking in Nepal. It's paragliding using hawks to find the good thermals. We watched a bunch of YouTube videos before we left, and were very excited to go once we arrived in Nepal. The parahawking is done in Pokhara, Nepal -- a 7-hour bus ride from Kathmandu. We were able to fly with two Egyptian vultures, Bob and Kevin. The great part is that we each got a falconry glove and were able to feed the vultures mid-air! In the picture at left, you see Bob on my fist as well as Tadashi and Brad in the background (Tadashi's in front). It was absolutely amazing.