Day 13: Pokhara Church & Workday

On our way back from the worship night last night, one dog followed us all the way back to our rooms. He was still outside a while later when we checked. Then this morning, he showed up at breakfast and was intently watching Travis to see if he brought food. We decided to name him Freddie as he followed us to Rewanta's wheelchair basketball game. Rewanta is one of the Nepalis here that helps us out in the shop every day. He had a spinal injury years ago that put him in a wheelchair. He has since recovered but they still let him play on their wheelchair basketball team. Travis' friend Sasank told us that one of the players there is on Nepal's national team! We caught Rewanta at the end of the game and asked him if he would be willing to go to church with us. Previously, he had told us that he didnt follow any religion; that he was a "free man." But he agreed to go with us and met us there on his motorcycle after stopping at home to change from his basketball outfit. We went to the same church as last week but this time there was a guest speaker who didn't put any English on his slides. We followed along the best we could, picking out the passage (Hebrews 6:13-20), watching the pictures on his slides, and picking out the few Nepali words that we knew. After church, we said bye to Rewanta and grabbed lunch on our way back to the hospital. Then we all headed to the shop to get a few things done. The main task for today was welding the wheelchair so that it would be ready to prime tonight. Travis and I stayed to work on that while Thomas, Blake, and Cai went to play ultimate Frisbee in the pouring rain. Our biggest hassle in the shop today was getting the 3 degree camber. Once we finally configured a way to measure the angle of the bolt, we hammered the rear wheel mounts from either side till the angle was exactly 87 degrees. But when we went to weld over the tacks, the welds pulled the mounting plate out of alignment. Eventually, we used that to our advantage and used the welding to pull the angle the direction we wanted until it was fully welded and not changing anymore. That took way longer than expected so we ended up going to dinner later than usual today. We set out to see what places were still open, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then Travis, Thomas, Van Dyke and I went back to the shop to wrap up for the day. Travis welded on the handle bars and then I put the first coat of primer on so that hopefully we can paint it tomorrow morning.

Total tea count: 198 (we think)

Pictures: Rowanta (white jersey) playing wheelchair basketball and the fully primed wheelchair!