Day 5: Pokhara Workday

today was our full first work day. we got up for 7am tea as per usual, and had 8am breakfast to follow. the breakfast was more western this morning, with eggs, toast and sausage. it was very good. it had a classic nepali twist though. after breakfast, we headed out to the workshop. we sent out dr van dyke to buy some items we needed immediately. we sent him out with a list to buy some parts for the angle grinder, including wire wheel, cutting wheels and grinding wheels. we also ordered the bike wheels for the prone trolley and wheelchair. we started by cutting parts for the prone trolley first. our order of operations is going to be to try to finish the trolley first, and the wheelchair after. however the projects will not be completely in series. we will start to cut wheelchair steel pieces as soon as we finish cutting prone trolley pieces, while we are still finishing the prone trolley. we got a solid amount done today. we had cai on removing rust from the steel pieces from the steel yard, bethany and thomas on cutting with the chop saw, blake and travis on welding, dr. giraldo on grinding the cut pieces, and dr van dyke on shopping for parts. i have to give a special shout-out to rewanta for his help, with welding tips and general oversight. he elevated the workshop experience. he also seemed to like the music i was playing. i took liberty to bring a jbl speaker to play music while we work in the shop. the team was forced to listen to my mix of oldies music (70s, 80s and a little bit of 60s tunes). we finished two large parts of the frame for the prone trolley. we expect to be able to finish the frame for the trolley in the next few days. we took a lunch break at around 12, where we played some basketball and then headed out to lunch. after our work day was finished (around 5:30pm), we went back to our rooms to clean up a bit before dinner. we went into town a little for dinner tonight, and we had some great food. on the way there, it was raining pretty hard. on either side of the street in nepal, there are grooves for water to drain through, and they were pretty much river rapids. blake took the opportunity to stand in the rushing water and try to walk in opposition to the current. he was suprisingly successful. the shop owner was a great guy, and we were joking with him about lots of things, including dairy queen. we finished out the day with some devos led by the one and only blake clemmer, on joshua 1:9. impeccable day.