Thursday, November 24, 2011

 A fond farewell to Andrew!

At the end of October, everyone at SHN was delighted to welcome back Andrew Salvietti, who volunteered for us previously in June and simply couldn't stay away! He arrived during Tihar and has done great things with our students. Sagar and Santosh are making excellent progress now, competently performing leg massage and really developing their massage skills in general.


The students and therapists have had some treats too, courtesy of Andrew. Pictured are Chiran, Sagar Santosh and his wife Manisha enjoying a live Blues concert in Thamel in the evening, and exploring Bhaktapur in their leisure time.









In addition to teaching, Andrew has also helped us by painting the front entrance and designing and gifting to us two beautiful new signs for our gate. The smaller sign is carved from slate and Chiran is pictured giving it the 'smell test'!  

We also owe a massive thankyou to Andrew for once again raising a substantial sum of money for us to support the continuing training programme (Andrew is pictured handing it over) and bringing a rucksack full of donated equipment (assistive aids for the blind), chocolate, downloaded music, whisky for Chiran's birthday (which he is pictured opening) and many other goodies. :) :)

Andrew has built lasting bonds with all our staff and students and will be sorely missed. Pictured are Sagar and Santosh saying their goodbyes.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Tihar Celebrations
High season is now upon us and we have been frantically busy with both clinics hitting record numbers in October. This is particularly good, considering that both Dashain and Tihar (Deepwali) fell in that month so we had the usual festival-related disruptions with staff and students heading home to celebrate with their families. Fortunately we managed to keep both clinics open for all but a couple of days. Pictured is the Kathmandu clinic adorned with candles and a mandala for Laxmi Puja, a special festival day in Deepwali when people light their homes to tempt in Laxmi (the Hindu goddess of wealth) and bring them prosperity for the coming year. The mandala was made by Sneha who is pictured with her handiwork and we lit it later in the evening, at the same time marking our first year's anniversary for the new clinic in Kathmandu.



Laxmi and Chiran are both well (Laxmi came back to work in September) and seem recovered from their traumatic experiences. Both have asked us to pass on their thanks for the many messages of condolences they recieved at that time. A busy clinic in Kathmandu has helped to keep them distracted and we are all really pleased to see client numbers increasing so well after the slow monsoon months.

In other news - we got new stairs at the existing clinic (first step towards a planned 2nd floor expansion) and Govinda got himself some new teeth - which look fantastic. Both are pictured.



SHN on facebook
If two blogs and a website weren't enough..we now have a facebook page as well. If you are on facebook, please give our page a look..and hopefully a 'Like' too. There are lots of interesting photos on there and we particularly like these before and after montages of our staff - their faces say it all!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Seeing-Hands-Nepal/172867839460992