Hello all!

It feels like it was only yesterday that we were walking up the stairs of the Hope Home for the first time, admiring the surrounding temple-dotted hills and rice paddies, feeling a little nervous to meet the girls. Things could not be more different now that we are saying good bye. No, we don’t mean that the views are any less epic, but we DO mean that we’ve developed some very real, deep, and lasting relationships with the young women here — and it’s safe to say that any nerves we once felt are now gone (learning how to dance in front of one another will do that).

These last few weeks have been tough. Beautiful, rewarding, and worth it, but tough. We’ve spent many hours painting walls, weaving scarves line by line, moving bricks one by one, mixing cement, and dancing to song after song. We’ve gotten sick, missed home, felt overwhelmed by the heat. But dang if it’s not worth it. Never before have we realized the value of hard work or seen more clearly the things we take for granted back home. Knowing that our humble work is giving the girls more fun (who doesn’t love ping pong?) and new walls to decorate (with adorable finger paintings and photos) made all of the sweat and discomfort a small price to pay for the new friendships and insights we are able to take away. Seeing the girls’ smiles and sharing in good bye hugs only reiterated the depth of experience we shared together.

The Hope Home and our Small World team, including our new friends Sonam and Karma, are doing amazing things for at-risk women in Nepal. After learning more about the harsh realities of child trafficking in Nepal, including seeing a skit performed by young women who were saved from the perils of trafficking, we feel even more grateful for the work that is being done by the Hope Home. Please consider supporting their mission by donating a few dollars to their cause. You can do just that here.

And so, we leave the Hope Home feeling a lot of different things. We feel engaged. We feel motivated. We feel grateful. We feel exhausted. We feel like our work is small but important. We feel connected to Nepal. We want to keep learning and pushing ourselves and trying to understand the lives of others, however hard that may be.

Speaking of hard — tomorrow starts our trek! We’ll be signing off for a few days, trading in internet connections for sweeping Himalayan views. No apologies for our lack of interest in wanting to talk to any of you. 😉 These mountaintops are just toooooo exciting.

We’ll be in touch after our trek!

Namaste in a big way,
Ady, Meg, & the team