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Leaving Nepal

My last weeks in Nepal has been spent on saying goodbye to colleagues and friends. Despite the fact that I am happy to leave and am looking forward to moving to Syria and the many new challenges that awaits, it is still sad having to say goodbye to life in Nepal. During the last 18 months I have had many good experiences and met many fantastic people.

In the two organisations where I worked big traditional parties were held with speeches, tika and mallah (flowers). Steve and I were then in charge of the more western way of parting; party with booze, barbeque and dancing.

Time for change

As some of you might already know the time has come for me to leave Nepal and my job with MS Nepal. In November I got offered a position with UNDP in Syria. I will be based in Damascus working with the UNDP gender section focusing on gender mainstreaming of UNDPs programmes and women's empowerment.

I will leave Nepal in time for Christmas at home, spending most of January in Denmark attending Danida and UNDP courses. Before heading to Damascus in the end of January.

Unlike my other postings I will not be going alone this time but will go together with my boyfriend, Steve. This will be a new and interesting experience for both for us and we are extremely excited about spending the next two years in Syria.

And as always....friends and family are more than welcome to visit

Visit from back home

October and November are known as some of the best months to visit Nepal and I certainly benefitted from this with visits from back home.

The first visitors were my parents who spent almost three weeks here before we all went to Thailand to meet up with my sister and her family.

We had three great weeks in Nepal with lots of good experiences. Though living here I seldom have the time to play tourist and I really enjoyed being able to enjoy the pleasures of Nepal with my parents.

We saw what is supposed to be seen in Kathmandu, went trekking in the Himalayas, saw the birth place of Buddha, went elephant riding and spent some time relaxing in my home in Nepalgunj.

Shortly after parting with my parents the next visitor arrived, my good friend Hans. We went on some crazy white water rafting in the cold waters coming from the mountains of Tibet! Hans turned out to be quite the extreme sport person with Canyon Swing, Paragliding and bike cycle safari followed by a more relaxed elephant ride in the jungle where we managed to disturb two rhinos in the middle of a mating ritual.

It has been great having visitors from back home and I hope for many more in the future….