It had been fourteen years since I last visited Nepal and this magical country has held a special place in my heart ever since. That fateful trip birthed this very blog which I have been sharing my journey ever since. In May 2024, I returned to Nepal with Community Homestay Network (CHN) for a whirlwind trip exploring the rural communities of Kathmandu Valley for a week-long trip.  This trip called Community Connect, brought together journalists, travel advisors, and others all passionate about the power of community tourism to change the face of travel.

Community Homestay Network (CHN) is a social enterprise that supports a network of community homestays in Nepal. CHN connects travelers with communities across Nepal, providing a unique opportunity to stay with Nepali families and immerse themselves in real Nepali life. At the same time, local host families can share their culture and landscapes with the world while gaining access to a sustainable source of income through tourism. The authentic experiences CHN offers travelers are created to positively impact Nepali communities, women, and families, as well as the travelers themselves.

The first day of our trip began with a short drive outside of Kathmandu to the historic Newari region of Bhaktapur, an area rich in culture and lavish Newari architecture, Hindu temples, heritage, and beauty. Our first stop was in Madhyapur Thimi, a village known for its pottery and ceramics where we took a pottery class and learned how the community supports themselves through this beautiful craft.  Thimi is one of the ancient cultural and historical villages along the ancient trade route from Bhaktapur to Kathmandu, and is known as the pottery capital of the region. Roughly 11 kilometers southeast of Kathmandu, Thimi is easily reachable for a day trip and continues to play an important role in Nepali culture and tourism.

The impressive 17th-century Hindu Siddhikali Temple. The two-story roofed temple is dedicated to Hindu Gods Kali, Shiva, and Ganesh.

The first thing I noticed while walking the ancient streets of Nepal is that color is everywhere in Nepal and means everything. It can be found in its religion, culture, clothing, food, and of course, within the natural environment.

Towards the end of my trip in Bhutan, we made a stop on the way back to Paro in Thimphu to visit a traditional dezo (paper-making) factory called the Jungshi Handmade Paper Factory.

Bhutan takes immense pride in its culture, history and traditions and the government has tried hard to keep the Kingdom’s artistic heritage alive through its art schools and community programs offering education in the centuries-old traditions of painting, weaving, woodwork and paper making. A visit to a workshop or factory producing these amazing handicrafts is a must for any traveler to Bhutan.

Never would I have imagined that I would have to have a total hip replacement at age 51. Nor would I realize how hard a hip replacement was and what to really expect after having a total hip replacement. I had experienced on-and-off pain for over nine years on my right side but never attributed it to needing a new hip. Instead, I thought everything was related to a tear in my labrum, a thin piece of cartilage that goes around the hip. While I avoided surgery then, it never fully disappeared.

My hip replacement story

It took a year of physical therapy to get rid of the pain and I was back at running again, hiking, biking, skiing, and living my normally active lifestyle. Yet last summer I did a workout that was truly the straw that broke the camel’s back. I did a series of squats and twists with weights and the next day my right IT band was on fire. I thought it was just a sore muscle until it did not go away for weeks and only got worse. That is when I went back to my doctor and they did the X-ray that provided the surprising news. I had nothing left, was bone on bone, and could try PT but eventually would need a full hip replacement. I was truly stunned.

Once the news let out, the questions began. Everyone asked me, “Does it run in your family?“. No. My dad is 80 and still runs and never had a hip replacement. “Did you do something to make this happen to you?”. No, not really. I just lived my life. The questions stressed me out more than the news itself so I simply quit telling people.

51-year-old me at the Dochula Pass, Bhutan

I have been active all my life. Growing up, I was a dancer for 15 years, and a competitive swimmer for five years. I was a runner for 30 years. I downhill ski, Nordic ski, bike, and hike. But when I asked my surgeon why it happened to me so young, he simply said “Bad luck“.

It is hard to believe that it has almost been a year since that fateful late spring day in May on the corner of Cup Foods, roughly three miles away from my house. For the past eleven months, like most Minneapolitans we have struggled to understand the trauma that has happened in our beloved city. And now here we are once again, with our stores boarded up, police and National Guard patrolling our city, awaiting in anxiety over what the verdict will be. While we pray for justice and peace, we wonder what will become of our city. Minneapolis is not a bad place. Yes, it has many problems but so does so many other places around the world. Racism exists everywhere and always has. Dismantling such a powerful system will take generations and generations of hard, relentless work. While I have so many opinions about what is going on and wish I felt that I could share them,  I also have hope. Hope in our children who understand a lot more than I ever did at that age. So, as we await the verdict we will pray for a better future for all.

While many of these incredibly powerful murals have disappeared, their messages still remain strong.

George Floyd Mural at Cup Foods (38th and Chicago in Minneapolis).

It started as a cough. At first, we thought nothing of it except that it was our 15-year old son’s normal fall cold. He gets a bad cold every single year and it always starts with a cough and then a stuffy nose. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except that this cold was about a month earlier.

Besides the cough, our son was fine and continued to get up to do his online school. Over the weekend, we hosted our usual small “bubble” of friends at our house, one of my daughter’s friends and our neighbor, the small group who we have been hanging out with since the pandemic began. We told them about Max’s cough but honestly thought nothing of it. We live in a city of a million people and out of everyone we knew, only one person in our circle of friends had tested positive for COVID. It still felt like something we only read about every day in the newspaper but that hadn’t truly reached us.

Like most of my family and friends, we have spent the past eight months following all the Covid rules and living a pretty boring, isolated life. We wear masks everywhere (thankfully it is a state mandate), my husband works from home, we don’t go out to eat indoors at a restaurant, have not flown anywhere, don’t go to the gym or do anything considered risky. We have hardly socialized with friends except for outside, socially distanced. Since March, we have basically lived a very sheltered, limited life and have only allowed our small bubble inside our home. The only risk we took was allowing both of our teenage kids to play outdoor sports. I had felt as a parent that so much has been taken away from them, and sports was the one thing they had left. The risk was small since they were outdoors but it was there.

Despite all the precautions we took, somehow Covid made it to our house, and when I got the call from our doctor that my son tested positive, I was completely shocked and terrified.