Expand your social circle in Nepal

would like get update on this. I recently returned to Nepal after living in the west for many years. I would really like to be engaged in developmental works here. I see issues and I feel that I've solutions. Also would like to expand social network.

I'm in Changunarayan, near Bhaktapur, and have an NGO. We host volunteers in nice guest house, just food/utility charge. We also take weekly trips to Kathmandu for site seeing. We have a lot of projects we are doing and presently have 2 Spanish and 1 US guest working on various projects from planting trees to getting our websites back up. We are also developing 5 trekking routes and have a fundraiser to help our police department to rebuild from the earthquakes.

This village is magical. It has the oldest Hindu temple still in use and sits on a hill that makes the summer monsoon really lovely most of the time. I'd love to see the village become like a step back in time and rebuild the homes like in days gone by. Also, I'd like a zip line activity to help fund it. I'm from the US and am retired. I love the village, culture and people here. I can also see some real potential for a world class village.

Anyway, I'd love to learn about any ideas that anyone has and if you'd like to come to help we'd love to have you. You can learn more about our work at http://KayGarnay.org when it gets back up. It completely crashed.

Ways to make friends in Nepal:
1. Go outside and smile. The local people are really friendly.
2. Sit at a temple and watch people or have tea in a guest house rooftop where you can sit and relax. Everyone is very friendly in Nepal and many tourists are open to friendship.
3. Go to one of the farmer's markets on Saturdays. There are lots of NGO people, tourists and locals.
4. Join an online community that has a physical element like Internations.org or the KTMKTM google group. There are many postings of gatherings in Kathmandu and Pokhara in both places.

Over the last 12 years I have been visiting Nepal, I have never found such friendly and approachable people, and agree with Madagascar Now on a few ways - the Saturday farmers market as well as KTMKTM google groups for the social media ways of communicating, a few others would be Sal's Pizza in Lazimpat, a social enterprise cafe/pizza restaurant that runs a quiz every Monday evening that both Nepalis and expats frequent - its a lot of fun - even if you just drop past outside of Monday night, there will always be a friendly face and people have time to chat - great way of meeting people any day of the week.  Alan an expat from the UK  runs RTC English Language Centre in Lazimpat is a great resource (across from British Embassy), British Council is close by with many teachers from all over the world teaching there - they may even have a notice board in there too.  Upstairs Jazz also in Lazimpat is a great place to meet Nepalis and westerns - live jazz/blues on Tuesday nights.  Hope that's been of some help