Nepal Programs Come to an End

This past Sunday, volunteers from Swim India’s August 2009 Nepal programs came home after one of the most successful trips yet! The group, led by program supervisor Lindsey Brown, worked closely with the Nepal Swimming Association, an organization that trains lifeguards as well as coaches Nepal’s Olympic athletes.

Over their three week stay, our volunteers taught the water safety education program 23 times to 1,140 individuals! Many of the students were children but they also taught police cadets and army personnel in Kathmandu. In Pokhara, they taught many of the boat operators who make a living transporting people back and forth across Phewa Lake.

The team also had an opportunity to meet with lifeguards in Kathmandu. Many lifeguards don’t receive any formal training., so our team took the time to teach them and practice rescues and escapes as well as how to deal with head and spine injuries.

The volunteers also made the most of being in Nepal by experiencing the culture everywhere they could. They visited Buddhist stupas (temples) in the Kathmandu valley, got invited into homes, and saw one of Nepal’s major festivals. They even had an article published about their trip in Kathmandu's Nepali Daily "The Annapurna Post" (see above). They transcended the typical ‘tourist’ experienced and truly became a part of the community.

Thank you to everyone who supported these programs. We truly made a difference in the lives of many Nepalis and our volunteers. Thanks also to the volunteers whose hard work and commitment to Swim India's mission has been demonstrated through their success.

Please visit our SmugMug gallery to view pictures from the trip. The blog has all of their posts from the road and you can read our volunteers’ accounts first hand.

Ben Schaub
Executive Director, Founder

Thank You to Robert Markley

I want to thank Robert Markley Salon & Spa in Tucson for putting on an outstanding fundraiser night this past Wednesday. Robert and his staff provided Swim India supporters with massages, facials, haircuts, and other excellent spa treatments! He then donated 100% of the proceeds to Swim India to help the organization grow and fund future programs!

Because of his support, we will be able to provide drowning prevention programs to even more children and we will be able to recruit more volunteers to teach these programs in South Asia!

Please visit www.robertmarkley.com for any of your future salon or spa needs.

-Ben Schaub

Lots of Pictures!

Our trip is quickly coming to an end and we are sad to be leaving. On multiple occasions while talking to street vendors and other locals telling them what they do, they have asked us to teach them! We wish that we had more time to stay here teaching everyone. Take a look at the pictures of some of our lessons and some of our down time.

Teaching the boat guides CPR in Phewa Lake, Pokhara

Self rescue in Phewa Lake, Pokhara

Reach assist

140 students...not intimidating

Kelsey teaching water safety at the Penguin Swimming Pool (a school), complete with Penguin Slide.

CPR

Throw assists

more CPR

Local kids on the streets of Pokhara

Ben is still making friends with the locals

Motor bikes!

160 meters...

-Corey

Namaste from Pokhara!

After 12 days in Kathmandu (including 6 days of teaching) we are now in beautiful Pokhara breathing nice, clean air. Teaching has been going great, we have been teaching at boarding schools where there are swimming pools so it is nice to really be able demonstrate everything. On Thursday, we conducted an impromptu LGI training for some gym lifeguards and Friday we taught additional rescue techniques to Nepali army men.

Today we explored the lake on some sweet rented moterbikes. It took a couple minutes to get used to laying on our horns like the Nepalese do, but we were into it by the end of our trip, eventually honking at all the hottie Euros as we drove by (Kelsey, Corey, and Ben, not me, of course.)

Our good buddy Youbraj has been so great setting everything up for us and showing us all the ins and outs of Nepali culture. He has taken us to all the local places to sample the best food and beverages Nepal has to offer. He introduced us to Nepal's wild card Olympic swimmer and proceeded to tell him that he should take me out to dinner. Thanks Youbraj.

Anyway, everyone is well and having fun: the mysterious sickness that affected Corey, Ben, and Kels went away pretty quickly so we will all be able to teach tomorrow (last day of teaching!) and enjoy the rest of the trip. Love you guys back home!

-Lindsey

"I've felt better"

The past day and a half has been riddled with sickness. It started off with Ben throwing up in the morning and missing out on our afternoon lesson. We did not take the trip to the zoo because as Kelsey had stated before we taught some local lifeguards lifeguard things which went very well. Our afternoon lesson was cancelled and then quickly replaced with another one thanks to the great help from Yubraj and the Nepal Swim Association. Because of him we also made the local newspapers, telling of our efforts to teach and train children in water safety! There is supposed to be another article today complete with pictures but we have not picked up a copy of that yet to confirm. During the afternoon lesson yesteday I began to feel a little sick, which quickly turned for the worst. After the lesson Yubraj insisted that we see the largest stuppa in the world. I was a little reluctant because my health was quickly falling but I did not want to ruin the trip for Kelsey and Lindsey. After a 45 minute walk through some very busy streets we finally made it to the stuppa. We walked around it once and were planning on heading back to the hotel when Yubraj then proceeded to take us to a local eatery for some food. At this time Kelsey was also not feeling well and Lindsey recognized that we needed to get back to the hotel sooner than later. To make a long story short Lindsey has been the only healthy one for the past day. Ben had a trip to the hosiptal by himself while we were gone last night but is feeling much better today. I am feeling slightly better and I think Kelsey is as well.

Our spirits are still high and we head to Pokhara tomorrow! Good things are sure to come, including teaching lessons in the lake. More to come later!

-Corey

Busy Bees

So we know we have not blogged in awhile and sorry from all of us, but you should know its from how busy we have been! A festival that we were unaware of put a small kink in our teaching plans and so we jumbled the schedule and now everything is going better than ever!

We went for a two day one night rafting trip, which was so much fun for all of us. On the first day it rained for basically the whole trip but we met a really fun group of Americans who were doing some work at a orphanage. One of the other American girls named Molly fell out of the raft and made for a sufficently fun rafting trip. The second day there were some English guys that joined the raft and it was sunny the whole day.

When we got back we went right into teaching. We have been teaching everyday since Sunday and its been really fun. The kids here are very intelligent and catch on to our teaching right away. Sunday through Tuesday we taught at a 'college' which is the same as 11th and 12th grade to us. The kids were all very respectful. Tuesday evening and the past days including today have been at more boarding school type atmospheres and we have access to a pool. The teaching is really wonderful when we get to go in the pool. We are teaching little kids and older ones and every age really seems to absorb the information and get as excited as we are about it. Today we have two more lessons lined up one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We might take a trip to the zoo in our down time! The later lesson is supposed to be with lifeguards who are interested to see what we are taught by the Red Cross, but they went on strike a few days back so it is possible we will have to save it for a later date.

We hope all is well in the States! Nepal is so beautiful we just can't get over it on a daily basis, but the sun is just as harsh when it is out, Corey and I got very sunburned yesterday but now we remembered the sunscreen.

-Kelsey
(sorry for spelling errors :) )

A Few Pictures

Here are a few pictures to keep you upated. We will have a more comprehensive update from the past few days very shortly.

Our first dinner in Kathmandu at the Rum Doodle.

Breakfast in the roof garden of Helenas.

Ben made friends with the waiter

This is the view from out room looking out.

And this is looking down from our room at a traffic jam.

Candid picture outside of one of the schools.

This was a beggar who sang for us....

Thats it for now. More to come later tonight!

First Day!

So we have all arrived in Kathmandu without any troubles! We all met up and got to our hotel in one piece.
Yesterday we roamed around Tahmel the tourist district of Kathmandu and I can say I am throughly excited by the amount of Euro-hippie population that is here buying gypsy pants in the off season. We had water buffalo steak for dinner and continued our romping around the city. The weather is actually not too bad, it is more sticky than Tucson could ever imagine being, but not overly hot because it has been very cloudy. Yesterday we did not seen any monsoon and we shall see what today holds for our rain jackets and I can find out if mine is actually waterproof.
This morning Lindsey and I took a walk around town and managed to get lost to some extent but I would call it catching up with the city. We also were blessed without consent (aka he wanted us to pay for our blessing and informed us how lucky we were after he grabbed our wrist and tied the red and yellow string around it) by a man all dressed up in the Hindu garb. It was bound to happen and now we are a little more apart of the culture.
We are so excited to teach soon! We will keep you updated with our mishaps and excitment!
Kelsey

En Route

After a quick flight from Tucson to LA, paying $9 for a meal from McDonalds that should've cost $3, and waiting a few more hours we finally boarded the 747 to Taipei. I personally was impressed with the flight, from the touch screen TVs that had the amazing game Insanequarium and a plethora of movies to choose from, to the meals we were served, cheesecake brownie and all! So the space was a little tight and only got tighter when the person in front of us layed back, the flight itself went smoothly. Right now all 3 of us (Lindsey, Kelsey, and myself) are laying down for the first time in 13 hours. We are on the tiled airport floor but it just feels good to stretch out. The girls are sleeping and I know I should be but can't. Our flight to Bangkok leaves in an hour. We are 15 hours ahead of Tucson time rightt now. We should be meeting Ben in Kathmandu very soon and then begin our teaching!

-Corey Hass

I am terrible at sleeping on planes. A friend of mine gave me the idea to bring a beach ball and lay over that. I was able to get a few little snoozes with it on the plane that were almost cut short by the person in front of me trying to lean back...but I fought for my space and won! The airport floor is a welcome rest to the plane. Off to Bangkok!

-Lindsey Brown

Thank You to Our Donors

Our programs in Nepal begin today and couldn't be possible without the extraordinary support from our donors:

Peter and Pamela Baum
Rachel and Gerard Benson
John Carson
Brian and Denise Chandler
Susan and Robert Christopher
John and Kristine Conroy
Valerie and David Culbertson
Judith and Carl Dane
Janet and C Demos
Joann and Donald Dickson
Mary Peace Douglas
Antonia Fiddner
Kathy Forger
Linda Fountain
Charlotte Galante
Frederick Gamble
Charlotte Gasker
Margaret Glauber
Julie Groo
Jacquelyn and Marvin Grote
Terri and Scott Hamstra
Donald and J Hass
Eric and Rochelle Hass
Stanley Hass
Donald and Doris Hastings
Jerry Havel
Brian and Kimberlee Hilty
Richard and Carla Hinton
Janet Holmes
Robert Howard
Intergrated Engineering Solutions, Inc
Bob and Dawn Jacobson
Iris and James Jr Keene
Michaela and Joseph Kelly
May and James Kepler
Patrice and John Kezer
Kathryn and Steven King
Lucy Kraft
Monique and Richard Kundrat
Abby Lerman
Arthur and Elizabeth Lopez
Larry Mackey
Maureen Mader
Judy Mamer
Kelly and Glenn Matchett-Morris
Jan McCarty
Wendy and Robert McCleery
Robin McSpadden
Bonnie Nash and Donald Wing
Paula and Glenn Norton
Glory and Bob Novak
Maureen O'Brien
Hilary O'Hara
Dorothy Ann O'Hara
Deirdre O'Hara
Russell Owens
Susan Perkins
Beverly and Robert Pruden
Mary Ellen Quinlan
Bryan Quinlan
Melissa Rapp
Patricia and John Redden
Brett Reeves
Roman Shades by Mara
CE and EA Rose
Carolyn Rose and Wayne Adams Jr
Nancy and EJ Sanaghan
Jill and Jim Schneden
Charles and Judith Schultz
Suzanne Selby
Donna and Marvin Sepin
David Skidmore
Hal and Trudy Slanina
Joan Smith
Southwest Airport Services, Inc
Scott Steehler
Mark and Debra Stratton
Robert and Kathleen Takac
Thomas Associates
Vivianne Uyeda
Larah and Mickey Walker
Dyann Whittaker
James and Terri Zarling
Laura Zevnik