As I type this, Kopila, the members of the Board, the ladies and their children and families are heading off for a picnic!  The weather is getting warmer and it is a good time to celebrate!  Yesterday, Gopal and Kulprasad from the Board went shopping for rice, vegetables, juice, fruit and favourite picnic fare.  Everyone is very excited and looking forward to a time of sharing and relaxing at Sanischare, a small village where two of the ladies live.  There is a community run forest nearby that is very popular for picnics.  The picture shows a photo of a monument in the park to local martyrs who died in the Civil War.

In Nepal, the weekend is one day long.  (Took some getting used to! Ed.) Some offices close on Friday afternoon, and all have the Saturday off but then it’s back to business as usual on Sunday. Because they were working to complete the loose bead orders, the ladies decided (totally their own decision) to work a number of Saturdays to make sure they could deliver their orders on time.  The Board members really appreciated their hard work and determination and decided a while ago to have a picnic as soon as the pressure was off.  And today is the day…there will be much eating, laughter, singing, dancing and we hope LOTS OF PHOTOGRAPHS FOR THE BLOG!!!

Ultimately, the ladies will manage the polymer business independently.  At the moment, this is not possible but everything is run in a very cooperative way.  Everything is decided by the 8 ladies consulting with the Board members and Kopila. Together they decide on all the issues that come up like pricing, ordering materials, wages, work priorities, health and safety issues etc.  They are become more confident in setting prices, making decisions about when to order more stock and how long something may take to make.  It is exciting to see their confidence grow.  And they have LOTS of ideas about the new rooms and we will be sharing these in the blog very soon.

We finally have photos of the land where our new office will be.  At the moment, you can see it is being used for crops, but we hope to begin building in the next few months and will have progress shots for you all!  Until then, this is the land!!! To Ron, Cynthia and all the wonderful people who have donated for the building, picture it here!