Leaving Bhujung for the last time (at least for a few years), we have just had one of the most bizarre, enjoyable and sentimental weeks of our lives. A festival of local foods and cultural dance and a very official district sports tournament, followed by the most unbelievable send-off ceremony we could have imagined made us feel very at home and wishing to go back as soon as possible.

We returned from Pokhara with our shmick new photos for the Bhujung Gurung museum only to find that the curator was away for another week... Nevertheless, we showed them off to all the impressed staff and settled on keeping them in our room until she came back. Meanwhile, we worked on creating a museum donations appeal, and looked into the idea of introducing a gift shop for local products. Unfortunately the biggest hurdle for this modest little museum seems to be making sure someone is around to let the tourists in!

One local product we became quite interested in was nettle fibre fabric. Stinging Nettle is known in the west only as an annoying pest, however in Bhujung and other parts of the Himalaya locals have been collecting and processing the fibres of this plant for centuries. Despite it's nasty reputation, certain species of stinging nettle can be used to make fabric as strong as hemp and as soft as cotton, and it's much easier and more sustainable to grow! Even the leaves are used to make a healthy soup!

Due to popular demand, Jess decided to run another massage course. One curious old lady (head of the mothers commitee) lent out her bedroom/kitchen/living room for a group of six young mothers to practice, and was quite happy to be the first client for Jess's demonstrations each night. Even our host family and cook got involved, with Jess agreeing to get up at 6.30am to teach another class for them. These classes were always lots of fun and sometimes felt like an excuse for the women to get out of the kitchen and hang out together over lots of laughs. A few of the girls responded really well and we're pretty confident that Bhujung will be able to open a small clinic sometime in the future. Their husbands were certainly looking forward to it!

The massage classes worked well to break the ice and our host family began to feel much more comfortable around us. Between them and the friendly little hotel next door, we spent much of the last fortnight sitting around the kitchen fire with these families, drinking local wine and speaking a strange mixture of English, Nepali and Gurung.

As the weather continued to warm up, our last week in Bhujung just happened to coincide with the annual Lamjung Festival. This was held in the capital of this region, Besishahar, and we decided to make the six hour trek down into the valley to see what all the fuss was about. It was a chance for the surrounding villages to show off all their prize livestock and vegetables, as well as their unique and beautiful cultural dances!

We only stayed a couple of days in Besishahar, as Bhujung was about to host a district sports tournament. We arrived back just in time to arrange a couple of football and volleyball teams. The rag-tag teams included us, an English volunteer (Dom) who is teaching at the school, a chef who had just come back from Dubai and a few left over teachers and students.

It was a week of drunken teenagers and partying, much like any sports tournament back home, but on the field it was quite a serious and official event. About 90% of the village dropped all their usual chores to get involved, whether it was organizing, commentating, selling hot food and drinks, providing beds and meals for all the young out-of-towners or just cheering the teams on!

In the football, we played the Bhujung B team, so the supporters were split. Being the only girl in the competition, however, Jess managed to gather a large female support group, cheering madly from the side. Fittingly, it came to a one-all draw, and Bhujung B came out winners in a penalty shoot-out.

The Bhujung A team had a good run, including a draw with neighboring Pasgaun. They played extra time, followed by another penalty shoot-out and remained tied. Finally the Captains settled on a coin toss, and Bhujung A went through by an extra flip! In the end, it wasn't to be. Neighbouring Nayu, where we stayed for one snowy night on the way to Bhujung, eventually took the money in an emotionally fueled grand final!

Our volleyball team unfortunately lost out in the first round aswell, which left us with more time to cheers everyone else on. Partly due to our shouts of "Shabas, let's go Bhujung!", The top Bhujung team eventually took the money in an exciting volleyball Grand-final against Singdi.

The evening before the finals was celebrated with the Bhujung Youth Club putting on a great cultural dance performance to show off their moves to all their guested neighbours. As the night progressed, the local tunes grew more upbeat and peaked when a 12 year old started thrusting to some Nepali pop. Every now and then, one of the young boys would compliment the dancers by walking onto the stage for a quick jig, before throwing a handful of rupees into the air.

After this all settled down, we miraculously found the museum curator, and showed her everything we'd been working on. We re-arranged the museum to fit it all in, and she was so excited that she invited us back the following night for a few fermented millet drinks, some delicious local fish soup and a bit of sing-along.

The festivities continued when three locals, who were home on holiday from working abroad in Dubai, invited us to a family picnic. To properly catch up with their hard-working families, and force them to relax for a day, two goats were slaughtered for a good day out in the jungle. We felt privileged to be included and had a amazing day eating all sorts of strange animal parts, drinking and hanging out. Taking advantage of us and our enormous camera, many of the villagers wore their traditional dress for some family photographs. We spent an amusing couple of hours snapping away and laughing as the younger generation encouraged their conservative parents and grandparents to stand closer together and even hold hands for the photos. The whole day was great fun and it was nice to spend our last full day in the village surrounded by such happy and good-natured people.

When it came time to leave, we were blessed by our host family, which included sticking rice to our foreheads, as well as placing several white scarfs and chains of flowers around our necks. We hugged and started walking off. As we were passing the ACAP office we were ambushed by all the staff and about half of the village, who sat us down and proceeded to bless us one at a time. By the end we had a couple of extra kilos of flowers and scarfs around our necks, not to mention a healthy coating of sticky rice all over our faces and heads! It was an extremely flattering send-off and there were even a few tears. They kept telling us never to forget them, and we kept reassuring them it would be impossible to forget...