Happy New Year from Nepal!

The last day of 2014 started off with a stunning view of Everest and ended with us unexpectedly becoming the guests of honor at a New Year's Eve dance party. Oh, and we had our first hospital visit as well. Not a bad way to send off 2014!

We started the morning by flying to Biratnagar from Kathmandu. It's a half hour flight, but a 14-hour drive because the roads are poor and there is a mountain range in the way. We were lucky to snag seats on the left side of the plane, because once we ascended above the smog of the city, we had a clear view of the Himalayas. We asked the flight attendant which peak was Everest, and she pointed directly outside the window. Can you tell?

The crazy thing about Mt. Everest is that it's so tall (about 10,000 feet higher than our plane was flying), but compared to the mountains around it, it doesn't stand out. In this photo, it's the perfectly triangular peak in the middle, right in front of the clouds.

We were greeted by 75-degree weather and one of our Jhpiego hosts, Binita. She took us to meet Dr. Kusum (who guided us through our previous Nepal trip), and after the first of what will be many tea breaks on this trip, we headed to Birat Medical College. 

BMC is a medium-sized, tertiary-level facility, meaning it has high-level care, including a designated neonatal intensive care unit. This visit was introductory, so we didn't stay in the NICU very long, but we did get to observe for a little while. There were currently six babies in the NICU, which was fairly well-equipped. The facility has monitors, but not enough for every baby, and when we arrived, they weren't even using all the monitors they did have. We are returning today to spend the whole day in the facility, and we're hoping to observe how the nurses interact with the monitors and what might be the reasons why they don't always use them. 

After our visit, we returned to the hotel, and our hosts told us to rest for the remainder of the day. However, we were tired of sitting after all of our traveling and wanted to explore, so we walked around nearby Biratnagar. Despite being Nepal's second largest city ("Biratnagar" is Nepali for "huge city"), it's an entirely different feel from touristy Kathmandu. The streets are much less crowded, with bicycles and rickshaws being the primary mode of transportation. The biggest difference is that we seem to be the only Americans around- and the extra stares we get confirm that tourists are a rarity.

However, sometimes that extra attention can be an advantage. We wanted to celebrate New Year's Eve in some capacity, but had heard from multiple people that people in Biratnagar do not celebrate on the 31st because the Nepali calendar starts on a different day. This appeared to ruin Plan A, which was to celebrate at an awesome Nepali bar with a friendly mix of tourists and locals. We were seriously considering Plan B, which was to stay up until 9 pm, go to sleep, and celebrate the next morning (Baltimore time). Hey, the time change is rough. Thankfully, due to a stroke of luck, what actually ended up happening was far better than either of these. 

While we were in the hotel restaurant, someone invited us to a party happening in an adjoining room. We thought it was for the general public, so we went to check it out. Turns out, it was a dance party to ring in the new year. As soon as we entered, we became unquestionably the most popular people there. We had our photos taken with dozens of strangers, danced to techno music, and had so many people thank us for essentially crashing their private family party. After counting down to midnight, we joined them in celebrating the new year with cake, slightly creepy masks, and highly illegal fireworks. 

I'm pretty sure I will never again have a New Year's Eve quite like this one. It was a fitting end to what has been an incredible year, filled with unexpected surprises for all of us. Can't wait to start off the new year by working to save babies!