Khumjung Day 2-- Our Big Day!!!

Khumjung Day 2-- Our Big Day!!!, Click for FULL set with captions on Flickr.

Well today was our big day, and everything lined up for us just like the Dream Flags make a long beautiful line.

The sky was bright blue, and it was a sunny breezy mountainy day. Mrs. Crow, Mr. Harlan, and I met with Phurba Sherpa to go over and set up the flags by 7:00 before the festivities of the day started up. I liked all the activities and people for me to meet.

They set up our Dream Flags along ropes on poles that were in front of a gigantic (to me) outdoor stage in front of an even giganticer field with chairs and places for smaller people (or dolls) to sit in the front. Everyone pitched in with lots of friends helping, and the Dream Flags were up in no time. I liked how the ones from Khumjung were in front of the stage and ready to connect with the very long line from so many states and countries that Mrs. Crow and Mr. Harlan brought. Mr. Harlan said he carried them in his backpack all the way to make sure they were OK and because he likes them so much. Mrs. Crow said they brought more than 200 flags from other places, mostly in groups of 5.

When they were all set up, I noticed a crowd over by the side of the field. It was the ending of a race that had started earlier. Boys and girls from the Khumjung School and other schools were finishing a race of about 9 miles all through the mountains. Oh my goodness. Mr. Harlan and Mrs. Crow get out of breath just walking up a hill, and those kids were running all the way! I’m not really a running kind of doll. I like watching. And there was lots to watch.

Some kids were having a volleyball competition in the morning too, and we watched a little. Then it was our turn--Dream Flags time! All of the Khumjung kids were ready with their poems and we had kids too (besides me). My friends Tommy, Kate, Nick, and Daniel were ready with their poems and with poems that kids from other schools wrote too. And Mr. Harlan, Mrs. Crow, and Anne Keiser had more Dream Flag poems to read. I was ready too. My job was to help introduce the doll we were giving to the Khumjung students.

A very nice lady in an old fashioned outfit (like mine!) introduced us. She spoke in lots of languages including English, Nepali, and Sherpa. Then the speeches started (not my favorite part—but OK). Phurba Sherpa introduced Anne Keiser. Anne Keiser talked about the dream of Sir Edmund Hillary to build this school and how that connected to lots of other dreams—like our Dream Flag Project! Then Mr. Harlan and Mrs. Crow sang their Dream Flag Song (I think they sang too loud.) and it all got going.

There was a nice letter from the Head of The Agnes Irwin School, Dr. Mary Seppala, to Headmaster Mahendra from the Khumjung School. Mrs. Crow read it out loud, and Headmaster Mahendra said it in Nepali so everyone could understand. Then the gifts—my favorite part. Mr. Harlan gave Headmaster Mahendra a Dream Flag shirt and a whole bag of Dream Flag shirts as a gift from the Greater Himalayas Foundation (that Anne Keiser and Phurba Sherpa do.) Then my turn! Mrs. Crow introduced me, and the whole crowd made a sound like they liked me. And I had my turn introducing the Agnes Irwin doll that we brought to remind our friends at the Khumjung School of their friends in America and everywhere else! I told everyone her name is Kate, and Headmaster Mahendra smiled a lot, so I think I did OK, but I was relieved when it was all over.

Then poems. I love poems. Kate, my new doll friend, and I sat on the stage while the kids and grownups read the poems. Headmaster Mahendra started with his. One of my favorites was a very long one by a boy at the Khumjung School. We all started clapping because we thought it was over, but then he said, “Wait, I have bit more,” and took another sheet out of his pocket. All of the poems were in English so I could understand them. Sometimes the lady in the nice outfit said some into Nepali.

Then we all went down to the Dream Flag lines and we tied the Dream Flag line from The Khumjung School to the Dream Flag line from the Agnes Irwin School and all of the other lines. I helped. All the kids held onto the lines and so did Kate and me. (We held them for a long time because of so many photos, but it was fun.) Then we were done. Boy, was I tired.

We all had a big rest. I went back to Mrs. Crow’s room. Later we went out and did some other things. I didn’t go, but Mr. Harlan went to the Khumjung Monastery and talked to Peter Hillary there. (His dad was the first to climb Mt. Everest, and he's a big climber too!) He told Mr. Harlan some things about what we can learn from the Sherpa today, and you can even hear him say them if you click HERE. (I like making clicky things!)

Also, all day long the Dream Flags were outside and lots and lots of people were reading them. They were doing their Dream Flag job!

At the very end of the day, there was a big big party in the gigantic field, and I think everyone in Khumjung was dancing under the beautiful mountains. It looked a little like this:

Party in Khumjung! from Dream Flag Project on Vimeo.


I bet you can guess I slept really well.
Well, if you’re still here, thanks for reading this.