Nepal- June 10, 2008

Hello Again,
I must first apologize that I haven't been able to post anything for awhile, we have been in transit and really busy with introductions in Nepal. It is really great though!
I used my laptop and wrote a summary of our last days in India, unfortunately I can't get any computer to read my flash drive, where it is saved. I will get it posted as soon as I figure out the problem. Sorry!
There is lots of good news now that we are in Kathmandu. We were met at the airport by two employees of Nagarik Aawaz, one of the organizations that Rita started after Dhaka Weaves. They brought us to the apartment and made sure that we had everything we needed, it was really nice. Stacey and I dropped our bags and walked into town. It is great, really fascinating architecture and people, it is really diverse.
Rita invited us over for dinner and it was wonderful to get to meet her, she is such a neat lady. We talked about Dhaka Weaves and her perspective of the history, lots of gaps were filled and we got the chance to get a lot of our questions answered. Everything just fell into place for us. The following day, our second day here, we met with Rita's Daughter, Pritiva, and went to Dhaka Weaves. It lays just outside of Kathmandu in a rural area that is quickly becoming developed. We spent the day in two meetings with Pritiva, learning about one of the buyers and the weavers. It was really interesting and I look forward to going back and learning more.
Ratna is the man in charge over at Dhaka Weaves and we plan to go tomorrow to speak with him about the records and the plan, it should be good.
Today we spent learning about the other organizations that Rita started, Tewa and Nagarik Aawaz. It was nice to see and learn about how the three organizations are connected to each other. We still have a lot to learn, but there are plenty of opportunities for us to help.
The plan is to learn more and then make a plan. We will spend the next couple of days doing further analysis and then make some proposals to Rita. Once we agree on exactly what we are going to do, we will get started. I am really looking forward to all of this. Dhaka Weaves has proved to be a perfect match for our program and a great opportunity for Stacey and me!