The 20th of April marked the six month anniversary of our arrival here in Nepal which gives us an excuse to look back over the last half year and see how far we've come. We celebrated the occasion with a candle lit dinner – necessarily so as the power goes off every Friday evening.

Our time here has shot by very quickly, but it seems like an age since we packed up our home in Sussex and dashed for the airport. We are settled in a lovely house in Pokhara, far better than anything we imagined we would be living in here. We have made some really good friends already, both among the small group of expat INF'ers and in the local church and community. People have been so friendly and helpful - we have been made to feel very welcome. (photo: recent family portrait)

Life here is so involving, I have found that you quickly forget havng lived anywhere else and just take each day as it comes. Some aspects of life here are very uncertain – you really come to appreciate it when the electricity works, or there are no strikes and the roads are clear. Other aspects of life you can be sure of: if you drink the water you will get ill; things will not start on time; and if you have a white skin, you will be stared at and everyone will take a great interest in the smallest details of your life. As people who enjoy privacy, this has been one of the hardest aspects of life here to deal with.

Five months of full time language learning is probably enough to drive anyone up the wall, but that too has been a positive experience, getting to grips with a completely new script and language structure. We are in turns amazed at how much we've learned and frustrated at how basic our understanding still is. We will probably continue having one or two lessons a week for as long as we stay here. We have started work and enjoy the feeling of being able to contribute. There is so much that you can get involved in, the difficulty is restricting your efforts to where they will be most effective.

We have generally stayed fit and healthy, adapting to the local flora and fauna quite well, although between the three of us, we've been on four courses of antibiotics in the last six months.

We have got slightly more used to the idea of having help around the house. Getting anything done here involves huge amounts of manual labour, and our household is no exception, with one Didi working almost full time looking after Evie, another helping part time around the house, and an old one eyed fellow who comes round now and again to help with the garden. Collectively they have been great and are very protective of us.

Evie has gone from being a happy but underweight baby who stayed where you put her, to a huge bundle of energy who shows a great interest in everything around her. She talks constantly (albeit in her own language), can climb stairs and is on the verge of walking. She is very happy and outgoing, just loving the attention that everyone here gives her. The Nepali diet seems to be good for her and she eats almost anything in sight - a huge worry given the number of bugs about! She is sitting on my lap now and her contribution is j hhipn fxf4t6e4rwq3swz\/ -[.ok m,m, dddddddddddddddd3r2e2w.

Looking forward to the next six months!

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