The Poverty Bay Wine Festival just got over and we already have a customer letting us know what a great experience he and his wife had! Here is what he had to say:
"Thank you for the tickets to the wine tasting, My wife and I had a great time and ran into friends we had not seen in years. We left with a case of wine so hopefully we did our part for the cause and I’m pretty sure we will be back next year. I was totally impressed with how well it all ran, how convenient it was with the close parking, coat checking and so many other little things that made the night enjoyable. Finally, even at the end of the night, the folks in the sales room were awesome, the checkout was very organized, friendly and efficient. Please pass on to your Rotary group that you should all be very proud of your efforts put forth at this fundraiser, like so many good works that you do this was just one more example. But, underneath of it all, I know this type of program can only be accomplished by a lot of good people with good hearts working together".
Great job, Fellow Rotarians!
Steve's Blog, March 4th
This will be the last blog entry as I am heading to the airport in 30 minutes. We are leaving this afternoon and will be flying to South Korea and will arrive there at 12:30 am their time. We have an 15 hour layover there. Korean Airlines has booked us a hotel, which will be great. We are hoping to get up early and take a quick tour of South Korea. We then leave at 4:30 pm and will taking a 13.50 hour flight to San Francisco and should arrive there at 10:00 am. We fly out of there to Seattle and I should arrive at SeaTac at 3:15 pm Saturday afternoon. It will be a long flight but I am really ready to come home!
Made it to Mt. Everest yesterday morning - which was awesome! The weather was clear and we actually had the opportunity to see the mountains from the pilot's cockpit twice. Mt. Everest was so close that it was surreal. We were about 5 miles from the mountain. Almost missed the flight, as that elusive wake-up call did not come again! Thank goodness I do not have any more wake-up calls to deal with!
I hope that the Rotary club enjoyed my thoughts and comments that I sent to Lisa. As I have indicated before, it was a great honor to represent our club in Nepal. I did pull this off without getting involved in any international incidents, which I am extremely proud of.
Best wishes on a successful wine festival. I hope that it the best festival that we have ever had. Have fun and I will see you all at Rotary on Wednesday.
Steve Swank is member of the Rotary Club of Des Moines and is on a Rotary sponsored trip to the country of Nepal to view the projects that the club is currently supporting.
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| Steve Kindler |
Late breaking news! Internationally known electric violinist Steve Kindler will be performing with Mambo Cadillac on Friday Night, March 4th, at 6 PM at the Poverty Bay Wine Festival at the the Landmark Event Center in Des Moines.
http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=CPj6LvCmuDc&feature=player_detailpage
For more information on the Poverty Bay Wine Festival or to purchase tickets, please visit www.dmrotary.org.
Steve's Blog, March 2nd
I am back in Kathmandu and I now have Internet service once again. When I last left off in my story, my group left Kathmandu for Pokhara which included a nice seven hour bus tour. The trip was made bearable because, thankfully, there were several stops along the way. The first stop was at some small village along the highway. I could not figure out why we would stop there. Our tour guide walked us past this little store and then I realized what we were going to do. We were going to cross the suspended bridge which was about 100 yards long that was above a river below. We crossed the bridge and came upon this little village that had about every type of shop you could imagine (including a liquor store - I seriously contemplated purchasing some much needed liquid refreshment to endure the remaining four hour bus ride, but I resisted the temptation).
 We stopped for lunch at a place called Manakamana before taking a cable car to the top of the mountain. After lunch, we boarded a cable car for a ten minute ride up to the top of the mountain which was approximately at 7,000 feet above sea level. We thought that once we reached the top that it would be just a nice viewpoint. Instead there was a little village with a population of 2,000 residents with all these restaurants, shops, hotels and other businesses, including a Hindu Temple (not surprising as they were everywhere) . The views of the surrounding mountain ranges was incredible. We left there and headed to our final destination which was Pokhara and the Hotel Kanipur and checked in. Upon arriving we were quickly ushered into the Pokhara Rotary meeting. This was followed by quick dinner. The hotel did not have Internet access and I thought to myself "Okay, I can deal with this". However, when I got back into my room, I realized that the room also included no electricity, no heat (where was my red hot water bottle?) and not much of anything else. I decided that I might as well go to sleep, however there was a restaurant/bar that apparently did have a generator (as well as very live and noisy entertainment!) We had to get up early the next day and I somehow managed to take a shower and shave in the dark. No sooner had I finished, the electricity and power turned on!
In the morning, we were scheduled to take a hike to Sarangkot, which I thought would be a relatively easy hike. We were at approximately 2,000 feet sea level when we began and climbed to a elevation of 5,500 feet. The hike was beautiful, but must have consisted of 2,000 steps which were both concrete and rocks. I am still sore thinking about it! It took about 45 minutes to complete the hike, but the views were incredible. There was also a para-gliding take-off launch with maybe 20 para gliders in the air.
Later that afternoon, we had a volunteer project with a group of approximately 15 disabled children at Phewa Lake which was just across from our hotel. We spent the time working on a variety of activities and had a picnic lunch with the kids. After lunch, many of the children were able to take boat rides on the lake with their parents, which was nice to see. This event was sponsored by the Community Based Rehabilitation Service and TRFIC which is Robert Rose's Foundation. Many of these children were wheel chair bound and will benefit from our clubs participation in the Wheelchair Project which will provide 100 wheel chairs to children in Pokhara and another 100 children in Itultia. The wheel chairs are assembled by adults with disabilities, so these individuals are being trained a skill which will provide them employment opportunities in the future.
This morning we returned to Kathmandu. Today is Festival Day, which is a national holiday with some very interesting traditions. Children block the road with a rope in hope that drivers will pay them rupees if they are allowed to pass. We did give the children a small amount of money. The other tradition is that the women go the temple with their offerings, while the men are encouraged to stay home drink beer and smoke hash (I will wisely declined to comment). On the bus ride back to Kathmandu, however, we did observe what appeared to be some very happy men wandering out of their homes!
Tomorrow, we are going to attempt the mountain flight again to Mt. Everest.
Steve Swank is member of the Rotary Club of Des Moines and is on a Rotary sponsored trip to the country of Nepal to view the projects that the club is currently supporting.
Steve's Blog, February 27th
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| Dancing Yak? |
It's about 6:30 here in the morning and I am still waiting for my 6:15 walk-up call. Oh well, I am getting very used to it. There is no clock in the room - silly of me to assume that there would be. The cultural dinner was fine, kind of what you would expect, dancing and music highlighting the Nepal Culture. It was made entertaining by a dancing Yak during the performance. Dinner included the usual suspects: popcorn for an appetizer, wild boar for one of the main dishes and buffalo yogurt for dessert. Makes your mouth water, doesn't it?
Yesterday we went to the Nepal Association for the Welfare of the Blind (NAWB). This is a braille library that provides books for the blind. There are approximately 75 districts in Nepal, however, at the current time they are able to provide books to only 14 of the districts. The director of the facility indicated that there are approximately 30,000 blind people in the country (sounds low to me) and that they are able to reach only 5,000 people, which is very sad. They have two digital computer machines that were donated by China that allow them to publish 600 pages per hour when the electricity is on. Sadly, in this country, the electricity may be on for as few as four hours per day unless you have a generator which most cannot afford. This is the only library in the nation and its receives little or no support from the government. There are small libraries in the schools but no public libraries in the community. They have a tremendous amount of books, as you will see from a photograph I took, and they are in the process of developing a catalogue system. Good luck with that one!
We are leaving Kathmandu this morning and heading to the town of Pokhara which is approximately 150 miles northwest of Kathmandu. This is a tourist town and is the primary destination for the citizens of Nepal when the go on vacation. It is about a 7 hour bus ride, which should be very interesting and very bumpy! Hopefully, we will not see an accident - it is a tradition in this country that if you are the victim of an accident, the people behind you must make a monetary donation to the victim before they can pass!
I am hopeful that when we get to Pokhara I can get internet service at the hotel. By the way I am still waiting on my walk-up call.
See you all soon.
Steve Swank is member of the Rotary Club of Des Moines and is on a Rotary sponsored trip to the country of Nepal to view the projects that the club is currently supporting.
There are dozens of reasons to come down to the 7th Annual Poverty Bay Wine Festival, from the 23 local wineries, various food vendors, local beer samplings, live music, Triumphs and MINI Coopers parked out front, great crowds as well as the fantastic causes this event supports for the community. Another huge reason to venture down is that it is being held in a grand, historic building that once served as the Masonic Retirement Center of Washington. Built in 1926, this majestic,six-story, castle-like building is so cool that you can get lost just walking around admiring it.
A quick history lesson for all of you history buffs out there: In 1892 the seeds were planted for the establishment of a haven for needy Masons, their wives, widows and orphans. In 1922, the Masonic Lodges were favorable to the erection of a Home in Des Moines. In May 19, 1924 the site was purchased for $78,624.95 -- a total of 82 acres. The building was dedicated on June 21, 1927. The first year the Home had 107 residents. Time and expenses caused many changes over the years including the sale of a total of 47 of the original 82 acres. In 2003, a redevelopment plan for a new retirement community was unveiled. In the late 2000's, the redevelopment plans were put on hold and the Masonic organization opened up the building for use as an event center.
The Landmark Event Center truly is the Castle on the Hill. With beautiful grounds, stunning views and ornate architecture, we recommend that our wine festival attendees venture in and explore the dining hall, the library, living room and wander up the ramp to the third floor auditorium, paying special attention to the long-dead Grand Master Masons whose pictures line the wall, as well as some of the detailed touches, such as a marble plaque dated Feb. 12, 1913 near the entrance. It's no wonder the Landmark Event Center's tag line is "History, elegance and spectacular views.... all in one place!"
The Rotary Club of Des Moines has held the Poverty Bay Wine Festival in this historic site for the last three years. We hope you will join us! For more information on the Poverty Bay Wine Festival or to order tickets, please visit www.dmrotary.org.
Steve's Blog - February 26th
I will give you a quick recap of yesterday. We actually had sometime in the morning to go to the Thamel District of Kathmandu and walk around. I was able to purchase treasure/trash for the grand kids.
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Later in the afternoon, we went to the Disability New life Center and did a volunteer project in which the kids painted these little treasure boxes that all have locks. It was really fun watching these kids select their colors and the volunteers were frequently requested by the kids to draw trees, flowers, mountains or whatever they wanted. I really pitied the kids who asked me to draw, as this is definitely not my area of expertise. However, having said, they seemed to be content with my sketchy drawing techniques. The kids painted these boxes for almost two hours and this one little girl must have changed the colors on top of her box eight times! I was always refilling her paints for her. I became quite adept at avoiding painted fingers so my clothes would not look like the colors of the rainbow.
Later, we handed our little gift boxes to the children that included stuffed animals, candy, wooden or basalt wood airplanes and other little gifts. Not really much in our world but to these 30 kids it was like Christmas morning and just as loud with laughter and happiness - more than you could imagine! Rob Rose also brought clothes to hand out, but it took so long for the painting project that he will have to come back and pass them out later. It is very sad to me that this is the last time we will see these kids. They have asked all of us to please come back again.
No visit would complete with (yes, once again!) mystery food, although this time I did recognize the mo mos which is a dumpling that has some type of sauce over them. They are very similar to pot stickers.
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| Mt. Everest |
It is Sunday morning here and today is the day that we are taking our flight to Mt. Everest which should be an incredible experience. After to flight we will be visiting the Braille Library in Kathmandu. Later in the evening, we will be visiting the Nepali Cultural Dance Center. Which, of course, will provide me with yet another adventurous dining experience! I am pretty sure that pizza will not be on the menu. I am really hoping that they have at least some type of curry.
That's all I know right now but I will be emailing and talking to you soon. Tell everyone in the club I said hello.
P.S. I am sorry for all of the spelling errors but the spell checker is working sporadically as is the writer.
Steve Swank is member of the Rotary Club of Des Moines and is on a Rotary sponsored trip to the country of Nepal to view the projects that the club is currently supporting.
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