Alison Healy reports on the remarkable meeting between the Nepalese and people of Virginia Nepal team in Cavan.
They come from Nepal, the tiny mountainous kingdom on top of the world, and they have ended up in Cavan, one of the flattest counties in Ireland.
Yesterday, the eight-member Nepalese team was finding its feet in its host town of Virginia. Despite the vastly different cultures, it was the similarities they noted.
"This country is very like Nepal," said track and field athlete, Basanti Regmi (18), through an interpreter. "The trees and the green country are similar. I am very happy to be here."
It has been one new experience after another for the five athletes and three officials since they arrived from the south Asian country on Sunday. The 25-hour trip from Kathmandu to Dublin, via Abu Dhabi and London, was a wearying experience for the athletes who had not flown before.
"We were quite tired when we got to Virginia but the host town committee had made so many preparations to meet us that somehow we forgot about tiredness and sleep," said Dr Jyoti Sherchan, head of the delegation and chairman of Special Olympics Nepal.
Yesterday, the athletes, aged between 16 and 25, had a McDonald's meal for the first time. Then they giggled and whooped as they tried tenpin bowling - another new experience.
The athletes have been preparing for this trip for some time, having spent the past month in a training camp in Nepal, building up fitness levels. There was also daily education on Western habits and customs. Bathrooms are not as common in Nepal as in Ireland, and Nepalese eating habits vary greatly from ours.
Traditionally, some Nepalese families sit on the floor to eat and use their hands instead of cutlery. "Society and family life is very different in Nepal," said Dr Sherchan. "It was important to prepare them because, if they did not eat when they got here, we would have a problem."
But it's not only the visitors who are coming to terms with different customs. Nepalese people greet each other by joining hands, as if in prayer, and bowing.
The host town volunteers have been doing this so much in recent days they have to stop themselves doing so when meeting friends on the street.
Virginia is one of the few host towns to accommodate the athletes in a hotel, rather than people's homes. Volunteer co-ordinator Mr Eddie Winterlich said this decision was made in the interests of the athletes. "This is a small group in a small town. If we separated them, they wouldn't be with anyone who knew the language and they might not like that. We thought they might want to be left together. We had the money to put them in a hotel so we thought that was the best way to use it. The important thing is that they are happy."
Ms Sharada Petticrew, a Nepalese woman living in Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, has been helping the people of Virginia with their crash course in all things Nepalese.
When the team arrived at the Riverfront Hotel in Virginia on Sunday, she performed a Hindu blessing ceremony. "That went down very well with everyone," said Mr Winterlich. "We were all going around with red dots on our forehead for the night." Ms Petticrew also helped the committee with useful phrases such as namaste (hello) and subhakamana (good luck) and provided 200 of Nepal's distinctive double-triangle shaped flags for local schoolchildren.
Getting to Ireland has been a battle for the team. Originally, 22 people were supposed to travel but financial constraints meant this had to be whittled back to eight.
The team had to rely on voluntary contributions, as their government did not subsidise the trip. Political unrest, in the form of a seven-year-old Maoist revolution, also added to difficulties in fundraising, but a ceasefire is now in place. The athletes have not seen their families in over a month and the high cost means relatives will not be travelling to the Games. "We try to give them as much love and care as we can so they forget about missing their families," Dr Sherchan said.
It does not look like the athletes will have time to be lonely. Yesterday they were up at 6 a.m. and training in the local GAA field by 7 a.m.
They sampled the local Chinese restaurant last night and a civic reception will be held in their honour in Cavan town tonight. A concert of choral and traditional music and dance will be held in the local theatre tomorrow night, while a shopping trip and a display of football have also been organised.
"We had a lot of ideas but we just won't have time for them all," said Mr Winterlich. "We don't want to wear them out before they get to Dublin."