It’s not easy. Especially in a language with 4 different d’s AND 4 different t’s (I know!). Mistakes are to be expected, right? There really isn’t much to be done except embrace these wonderfully embarrassing moments as the gifts they really are: priceless entertainment.
Like the time Andrea, attempting to ask our tailor and a friend if they were family, politely asked ”are you animals?” Or a few weeks ago when I realized that instead of telling a girl at the center to be careful, I had several times told her to forget. (Forget! Forget! Forget!) No wonder she seemed confused.
My personal favorite was when Anna (from Sweden) somehow managed to convey that she had a boyfriend in Norway, and that, as calling is expensive, she writes a lot of e-mails. I’m still not quite sure how they established all this; I think it was the result of too much nodding in a bewildering conversation.
As I write this, I am sitting in a sort of tropical garden, complete with brightly colored flowers, tinkling fountain, lily pad-covered pond and palm trees swaying overhead. Surrounded by the perfectly lazy sounds of birds chirping and leaves rustling, one would never suspect that there was something so disturbing as a big demonstration a few meters away, on the other side of the high, white, rose bedecked walls.
This morning we got up at 5 a.m. (my favorite time of day, really) to go downtown to the Indian embassy, as we are in the process of getting our tourist visas for our tip to India in January. The “system” at the embassy is as inefficient as things get and takes several days of countless hours in line (unless, of course, you are willing to pay a wee bit extra…). Determined not to contribute to the continued existence of this extremely annoying corruption, we have waited, and waited…and waited in line (prepared, as the good Scandinavians that we are, with wool sweaters and a thermos of coffee). Now we just have a few hours to kill before we finally can pick up our precious visas.
Which brings us back to the demonstration. On our way out of the embassy this afternoon we encountered deserted roads, a few burning holes in the road and scattered bricks. It didn’t take long to run into the angry-looking, stone-throwing crowd and the cluster of not-too-happy-looking, armed police. Sharp as we are, we decided to go in the opposite direction, but hadn’t taken more than a few steps before the angry crowd decided to run our way, apparently being chased by the angry, armed police. I must admit we were more than a little bit spooked, and without stopping for a powwow we took to running as well. Like a herd of cattle we were swept down a side street in the trampling, shoving, yelling chaos, without a clear idea of what exactly we were running from. As the threat of the (did I mention armed?)police behind us faded, the intense and courageous shouting gave way to whoops of laughter and delight at the three western girls (probably looking very confused) who had obviously been very much in the wrong place at the wrong time. We knew we could relax when they started shrieking and running around us just for the fun of watching us jump.
We have been given several jumbled-up and widely varying explanations of the day’s demonstrations by eager participants, but still haven’t been able to piece together a complete story. The exited boys running around the streets remind me a lot of kids at school smelling a fight and scampering off in a rush to join the action; I’m not sure how many of them really know the details of what it’s all about. But they sure care fiercely.
I guess we’ll have to wait to get the news until we get home. Our afternoon has mostly been spent avoiding these slightly unpleasant gatherings, till we found our hiding place in this most serene of all gardens. It’s the kind of place where dust and loud noises just don’t exist, and you wouldn’t be surprised to discover a magic carpet swooping down to offer you a ride.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Pictures
I thought I'd try to show you some pictures.. but I only managed to upload a couple (the internet is not cooperating today).
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The Stupa by night.
Voilà the table where we pretty much live (read, eat, sit, write, sit, drink tea, visit, sit..)
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Work
Time for an update! We have now been at work for almost a week, and have nearly gotten used to being covered in considerable amounts of spit, pee and the occasional dose of throw-up at the end of every day. As you can see, our daily routine has changed a bit since I last wrote, we are done with Nepali lessons in Jawalakhel and have started work in Jorpati.
As lovely as our job sounds, it’s a little exhausting. Six to eight physically and mentally disabled children are kept in one room all day, with, until now, one teacher and one didi (responsible for washing and cooking). Several of the children almost require one adult to watch them 100 % of the time; I have no idea how Mana, the teacher, managed by herself... I guess most of the children entertained themselves a lot of the time. One of our main goals for this year is to teach a couple of them to read – they have been capable of learning, but there has been noone with the time to teach them. Mana is excited about this, I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to work full-time with these children, seeing the potential and knowing she just can’t possibly meet all their needs; the widely varying diagnoses make it even more difficult to give each of them ideal treatment. For some of them, learning how to read and write will be absolutely crucial, possibly giving them a shot at a normal life.
Most of the others are less fortunate. According to Mana, many of them have improved their communication and cognitive skills a lot since they came to ABBS, but some still seem to be completely oblivious to the world. Sometimes I catch myself wondering what they might have been like, had they not been neglected and isolated for many years.. But this only makes me want to kick things, so I try to stay focused on the job we actually can do to help them now that they’re here. The sad truth is that there are still a lot of disabled children out there, with parents either not able or not willing to make the effort of bringing them to a center like ABBS. At the end of the day when the parents show up, we may cringe at how a father slings his blind daughter over his back like a sack of potatoes, and wonder what these kids really go home to. But the fact remains that this little group is priviledged.
On the not-so-depressing side, the tired feeling at the end of every day is a good, very satisfied tired. The kids are so happy to have us there, and those who don’t need constant attention (those able to feed themselves, walk and talk without danger of falling over) still very much want it. Playing games, reading (well, sort of) and running around in the sun is always popular, as well as turning the Hindi-music up till the walls shake and dancing (again.. sort of). :)
We are making good use of our limited Nepali at the center. Or should I say, parts of it. For instance, we are getting very good at phrases like, ”have you peed yet?”, "what color is your hair, do you remember?" not to mention ”be careful!”
Well, I must be getting back to the world (sigh). Right now I am floating in a sea of prayer flags on a rooftop, with the sun almost setting behind the stupa, and the distant sounds of talking, chanting, barking and hammering. Soon half the horizon will be taken up by the Himalayas... After a blog post, a bowl of soup and about 4 cups of tea here at Saturday cafe i can escape from the world no longer, and must go home to make dinner. :)
Sentence of the day:
”timilaai dukhkha laagyo?? (with emotion) ke bhayoooo??”
(Are you sad? What happened??)
As lovely as our job sounds, it’s a little exhausting. Six to eight physically and mentally disabled children are kept in one room all day, with, until now, one teacher and one didi (responsible for washing and cooking). Several of the children almost require one adult to watch them 100 % of the time; I have no idea how Mana, the teacher, managed by herself... I guess most of the children entertained themselves a lot of the time. One of our main goals for this year is to teach a couple of them to read – they have been capable of learning, but there has been noone with the time to teach them. Mana is excited about this, I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to work full-time with these children, seeing the potential and knowing she just can’t possibly meet all their needs; the widely varying diagnoses make it even more difficult to give each of them ideal treatment. For some of them, learning how to read and write will be absolutely crucial, possibly giving them a shot at a normal life.
Most of the others are less fortunate. According to Mana, many of them have improved their communication and cognitive skills a lot since they came to ABBS, but some still seem to be completely oblivious to the world. Sometimes I catch myself wondering what they might have been like, had they not been neglected and isolated for many years.. But this only makes me want to kick things, so I try to stay focused on the job we actually can do to help them now that they’re here. The sad truth is that there are still a lot of disabled children out there, with parents either not able or not willing to make the effort of bringing them to a center like ABBS. At the end of the day when the parents show up, we may cringe at how a father slings his blind daughter over his back like a sack of potatoes, and wonder what these kids really go home to. But the fact remains that this little group is priviledged.
On the not-so-depressing side, the tired feeling at the end of every day is a good, very satisfied tired. The kids are so happy to have us there, and those who don’t need constant attention (those able to feed themselves, walk and talk without danger of falling over) still very much want it. Playing games, reading (well, sort of) and running around in the sun is always popular, as well as turning the Hindi-music up till the walls shake and dancing (again.. sort of). :)
We are making good use of our limited Nepali at the center. Or should I say, parts of it. For instance, we are getting very good at phrases like, ”have you peed yet?”, "what color is your hair, do you remember?" not to mention ”be careful!”
Well, I must be getting back to the world (sigh). Right now I am floating in a sea of prayer flags on a rooftop, with the sun almost setting behind the stupa, and the distant sounds of talking, chanting, barking and hammering. Soon half the horizon will be taken up by the Himalayas... After a blog post, a bowl of soup and about 4 cups of tea here at Saturday cafe i can escape from the world no longer, and must go home to make dinner. :)
Sentence of the day:
”timilaai dukhkha laagyo?? (with emotion) ke bhayoooo??”
(Are you sad? What happened??)
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Everyday life
Today I thought I’d give you an idea of what our daily routine has become over the the past week or so. After the festival of Dashain (in a couple of weeks), we will start work, but until then our daily life will continue to go something like this.
The day begins, slowly but surely, at around 6 a.m, to the sounds of Kathmandu waking up. Some of these sounds are almost pleasant, laughing, talking, barking and bicycle bells. Others are less pleasant; the tearing down of our neighbor house comes to mind, as well as the incredible throat-clearing, slime-pulling, cough-spitting concerts. I believe it is the goal of certain neighbors to empty out the contents of their entire upper body through their mouth. This does not happen quietly.
Andrea gets up first at around 8, usually followed by Anna half an hour or so later. I bravely attempt to ignore the lively sounds right outside the window and have been known to doze as late as 9 a.m. A sleepy breakfast is then followed by a quiet morning of waking up, doing some laundry, cleaning, or reading on the roof. At about 11 it’s time to lock our two doors and one gate (security is good) and set out to attack the day’s busride (this is a separate chapter, more stories will follow in future episodes..).
Our Nepali lessons with Samjhana take place at the Norwegian House. This is a guest house not far from the old Norwegian School, and here they have saved quite a bit of the old furniture, books, and other equipment from destruction along with the school. :( Samjhana (an old Norwegian School staffer too) meets us at around 1-2 (you may have noticed that we don’t do exact time; Nepali time and Nepali traffic make this rather difficult), and for two enjoyable hours we sit and drink tea or ice water and talk Nepali culture and language.
Getting home in afternoon traffic doesn’t leave much time for post-Nepali lesson activities. Depending on what needs to be done, we go for a walk, get a snack, and do some errands on our way home. It gets dark quite suddenly between 6 and 6:30, and it’s usually very dark by the time we get home. If it’s one of our electricity-free evenings we spend a few stressful minutes knocking things over and stepping on eachother, trying to find the matchbox or a flashlight (as we rarely remember to leave them in their designated spots). Dinner, Nepalipractice, and tea make up our plan for most evenings. We always manage to fill the hours at home, and always seem to have things to do: writing the occasional letter, reading, visiting with our neighbor, watching a movie, taking in the laundry from the roof.. Somehow even sitting around doing nothing, talking about nothing in particular, and listening to music takes up a lot of time.
On Saturdays Sushma-didi comes, and we make yummi Nepali food with her. That is, she does most of it and makes it look very easy; she can make 3 different dishes in less time and making less of a mess than if I were to fry an egg. We ”help”, watch and entertain her by our less-than-perfect skills in the kitchen (and in Nepali), and then we all sit down for a fantastic lunch. Most of Sunday is spent attempting to copy Sushma’s performance of Saturday, with varying results. We have a bit of practice to do before we can reach her level of ease, not to mention her perpetual good mood while cooking...
Last Monday we spent the morning at one of the ABBS centers, to get an idea of what we will be doing. At this center there are around 30 children with 6 staff members, and one volunteer. For those of you who don’t know what this is: ABBS is short for ”Asha Bal Bikash Sewa”, which means ”Hope Children Development Service”. ABBS offers a rehabilitation program for children with disabilities and their families, and there are now three, soon to be four, centers in Nepal. Two of them are in Kathmandu: one in Jorpati (the smaller one, where we will be) and another in Lalitpur (where we visited). ABBS is run by HDCS (Human Development Community Service), a Christian Nepali NGO involved in health care, education, and community development.
Our first impression was that the staff at ABBS is nothing short of amazing; with limited resources, equipment and space they do a wonderful job with the children. It’s draining work, children officially up to age 16 (really up to 21) and challenged in many different ways are divided into groups of about 6, with one adult per group. It is apparent how devoted those who work there are to the children. And ABBS is an amazing offer when you consider the fact that a few years ago, children like these in Nepal were shut up and hidden away; seen as a disgrace to their family.
Well, I'd better stop this novel before it looks too long to be interesting!
If you want to read more about HDCS and ABBS: http://www.hdcsnepal.org/
Sentence of the day: "Aaja bihaan, maile chhaanamaa kitaab paDhe."
(This morning I read a book on the roof.)
The day begins, slowly but surely, at around 6 a.m, to the sounds of Kathmandu waking up. Some of these sounds are almost pleasant, laughing, talking, barking and bicycle bells. Others are less pleasant; the tearing down of our neighbor house comes to mind, as well as the incredible throat-clearing, slime-pulling, cough-spitting concerts. I believe it is the goal of certain neighbors to empty out the contents of their entire upper body through their mouth. This does not happen quietly.
Andrea gets up first at around 8, usually followed by Anna half an hour or so later. I bravely attempt to ignore the lively sounds right outside the window and have been known to doze as late as 9 a.m. A sleepy breakfast is then followed by a quiet morning of waking up, doing some laundry, cleaning, or reading on the roof. At about 11 it’s time to lock our two doors and one gate (security is good) and set out to attack the day’s busride (this is a separate chapter, more stories will follow in future episodes..).
Our Nepali lessons with Samjhana take place at the Norwegian House. This is a guest house not far from the old Norwegian School, and here they have saved quite a bit of the old furniture, books, and other equipment from destruction along with the school. :( Samjhana (an old Norwegian School staffer too) meets us at around 1-2 (you may have noticed that we don’t do exact time; Nepali time and Nepali traffic make this rather difficult), and for two enjoyable hours we sit and drink tea or ice water and talk Nepali culture and language.
Getting home in afternoon traffic doesn’t leave much time for post-Nepali lesson activities. Depending on what needs to be done, we go for a walk, get a snack, and do some errands on our way home. It gets dark quite suddenly between 6 and 6:30, and it’s usually very dark by the time we get home. If it’s one of our electricity-free evenings we spend a few stressful minutes knocking things over and stepping on eachother, trying to find the matchbox or a flashlight (as we rarely remember to leave them in their designated spots). Dinner, Nepalipractice, and tea make up our plan for most evenings. We always manage to fill the hours at home, and always seem to have things to do: writing the occasional letter, reading, visiting with our neighbor, watching a movie, taking in the laundry from the roof.. Somehow even sitting around doing nothing, talking about nothing in particular, and listening to music takes up a lot of time.
On Saturdays Sushma-didi comes, and we make yummi Nepali food with her. That is, she does most of it and makes it look very easy; she can make 3 different dishes in less time and making less of a mess than if I were to fry an egg. We ”help”, watch and entertain her by our less-than-perfect skills in the kitchen (and in Nepali), and then we all sit down for a fantastic lunch. Most of Sunday is spent attempting to copy Sushma’s performance of Saturday, with varying results. We have a bit of practice to do before we can reach her level of ease, not to mention her perpetual good mood while cooking...
Last Monday we spent the morning at one of the ABBS centers, to get an idea of what we will be doing. At this center there are around 30 children with 6 staff members, and one volunteer. For those of you who don’t know what this is: ABBS is short for ”Asha Bal Bikash Sewa”, which means ”Hope Children Development Service”. ABBS offers a rehabilitation program for children with disabilities and their families, and there are now three, soon to be four, centers in Nepal. Two of them are in Kathmandu: one in Jorpati (the smaller one, where we will be) and another in Lalitpur (where we visited). ABBS is run by HDCS (Human Development Community Service), a Christian Nepali NGO involved in health care, education, and community development.
Our first impression was that the staff at ABBS is nothing short of amazing; with limited resources, equipment and space they do a wonderful job with the children. It’s draining work, children officially up to age 16 (really up to 21) and challenged in many different ways are divided into groups of about 6, with one adult per group. It is apparent how devoted those who work there are to the children. And ABBS is an amazing offer when you consider the fact that a few years ago, children like these in Nepal were shut up and hidden away; seen as a disgrace to their family.
Well, I'd better stop this novel before it looks too long to be interesting!
If you want to read more about HDCS and ABBS: http://www.hdcsnepal.org/
Sentence of the day: "Aaja bihaan, maile chhaanamaa kitaab paDhe."
(This morning I read a book on the roof.)
Friday, September 26, 2008
Buses and waffles
I might as well get into a good habit of writing every few days while I have the time, so here goes post number two of random thoughts and stories.
Our neighbor, Robin from Norway, came down last night for evening banana bread and tea. Very cozy! He is a Norwegian student at a Buddhist school here in Kathmandu, and has been very helpful. Halfway through the meal the electricity suddenly came back on, (it was off) and we all jumped. After some ooing and aahing (light, woohoo!) I started thinking about how we start appreciating these things in a new way here. Small things, like electricity, warm water or a driver who uses his blinkers (!) make us happy. Did they make us happy at home? We’re actually getting pretty good at doing things in the dark here. Every day power is off for 3 to 6 hours or so (supposedly following a schedule.. haha) to save electricity. Our candles are at all times placed in strategic spots around the apartment, and by now it feels quite normal to do everything from reading to eating to peeing by candlelight.
In the outside world our biggest achievement since we arrived is, without a doubt, learning to take the bus. Did I say bus? I meant the little white vans that rattle along, fitting up to 34 people inside (yes, we've counted!), including the people often hanging on in the open door. These microbuses (that’s what they’re called) don’t really ever stop. There is a guy standing in the door who is in charge of shouting out the destination of the bus, shoving people inside, holding them in, and making them pay. A slap on the roof means stop, two means go. To get on a bus you have to be quite agressive; stepping out into the road to ask where it’s going, and then scrambling in while it’s still moving slowly. The first day, Anna and I ended up with the stand-in-the-door, hang-on-to-the-roof, look-out-for-telephone-poles spots. These are really not bad. Andrea was bent double with her butt outside and her head just under the roof inside, and of course Nepalis love to laugh at people (especially white ones) who don’t know what they’re doing. The first few days I’m sure we gave a lot of joy and entertainment to our fellow passengers, but the last couple of days we’ve actually managed to do the whole 1 ½ hour ride and transfer smoothly! They don’t even make us pay more than the average Nepali, which is a sure sign that we don’t look like clueless tourists anymore. Progress!
Our first bus ride included a monsoon rainshower. I am talking heavy, hard drops that soak you to your skin within seconds, not an annoying drizzle. We got off to transfer to another bus, and found ourselves splashing around in an ankle-deep river (the road), trying to see through the pounding bucketfuls of water being dumped over our heads. Running around in 3 lanes of white minivans, trying to find the right one.. we soon abandoned all hopes of keeping anything dry on our bodies for the rest of that day. But the rain brings back good memories: of muddy swimmingpools in the streets, warm rain, catching frogs.. the roads are just as muddy and stinky as they always were. We try not to think of what we’re stepping in on our way home (to quote Andrea: ”it looks like we’re walking in a nice stream of diarrhea” – unfortunately this is probably not too far from the truth).
Today we went to the Norwegian embassy's friday "waffleparty", to meet other Norwegians (and for the brown cheese of course). We met Alice Holmen, who recruited us, and who is going to show us around HDCS headquarters (the organization that runs the center where we will be working) on Monday. We are looking forward to getting started, even though we enjoy the days of roaming around town, reading, eating out and knitting by candlelight at home. I will tell you more about our job when we've seen it ourselves!
Sentence of the day:
"yo microbusmaa chautis janaa chha!"
(= there are thirty-four people in this microbus.)
Our neighbor, Robin from Norway, came down last night for evening banana bread and tea. Very cozy! He is a Norwegian student at a Buddhist school here in Kathmandu, and has been very helpful. Halfway through the meal the electricity suddenly came back on, (it was off) and we all jumped. After some ooing and aahing (light, woohoo!) I started thinking about how we start appreciating these things in a new way here. Small things, like electricity, warm water or a driver who uses his blinkers (!) make us happy. Did they make us happy at home? We’re actually getting pretty good at doing things in the dark here. Every day power is off for 3 to 6 hours or so (supposedly following a schedule.. haha) to save electricity. Our candles are at all times placed in strategic spots around the apartment, and by now it feels quite normal to do everything from reading to eating to peeing by candlelight.
In the outside world our biggest achievement since we arrived is, without a doubt, learning to take the bus. Did I say bus? I meant the little white vans that rattle along, fitting up to 34 people inside (yes, we've counted!), including the people often hanging on in the open door. These microbuses (that’s what they’re called) don’t really ever stop. There is a guy standing in the door who is in charge of shouting out the destination of the bus, shoving people inside, holding them in, and making them pay. A slap on the roof means stop, two means go. To get on a bus you have to be quite agressive; stepping out into the road to ask where it’s going, and then scrambling in while it’s still moving slowly. The first day, Anna and I ended up with the stand-in-the-door, hang-on-to-the-roof, look-out-for-telephone-poles spots. These are really not bad. Andrea was bent double with her butt outside and her head just under the roof inside, and of course Nepalis love to laugh at people (especially white ones) who don’t know what they’re doing. The first few days I’m sure we gave a lot of joy and entertainment to our fellow passengers, but the last couple of days we’ve actually managed to do the whole 1 ½ hour ride and transfer smoothly! They don’t even make us pay more than the average Nepali, which is a sure sign that we don’t look like clueless tourists anymore. Progress!
Our first bus ride included a monsoon rainshower. I am talking heavy, hard drops that soak you to your skin within seconds, not an annoying drizzle. We got off to transfer to another bus, and found ourselves splashing around in an ankle-deep river (the road), trying to see through the pounding bucketfuls of water being dumped over our heads. Running around in 3 lanes of white minivans, trying to find the right one.. we soon abandoned all hopes of keeping anything dry on our bodies for the rest of that day. But the rain brings back good memories: of muddy swimmingpools in the streets, warm rain, catching frogs.. the roads are just as muddy and stinky as they always were. We try not to think of what we’re stepping in on our way home (to quote Andrea: ”it looks like we’re walking in a nice stream of diarrhea” – unfortunately this is probably not too far from the truth).
Today we went to the Norwegian embassy's friday "waffleparty", to meet other Norwegians (and for the brown cheese of course). We met Alice Holmen, who recruited us, and who is going to show us around HDCS headquarters (the organization that runs the center where we will be working) on Monday. We are looking forward to getting started, even though we enjoy the days of roaming around town, reading, eating out and knitting by candlelight at home. I will tell you more about our job when we've seen it ourselves!
Sentence of the day:
"yo microbusmaa chautis janaa chha!"
(= there are thirty-four people in this microbus.)
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Namaste!
Here comes the blog I promised I would write, to update you all on our year of volunteering in Nepal. I am pretty proud of myself that I have managed to get this far (as some of you may know, computers aren’t my best friends). Although it’s hard to describe life here in words, I’ll try to update you regularly with news and stories from our life in Kathmandu. Feel free to comment or ask questions!
So far our move to Nepal has been pretty smooth. (That is – smooth isn’t the right word for Kathmandu. They dont really do smooth here.) We arrived on Friday the 19th, and after a bit off shuffling between hot and sticky lines of tired and grumpy people, a bit of sign language and a few dollars we got our visas. The many complicated and detailed questions on the forms seem to make up for the apparent lack of interest and the half-hearted checking of what we wrote on them; we had a funny feeling that the stack of nicely filled-in forms disappeared mysteriously shortly after we left the site.
From the minute we stepped out of the little brick airport (it hasn’t changed a bit!) and into the crowd, it was good to be back. From the many hands reaching out to carry our bags (for a few rupees, of course), to the turbulent taxi-ride , roads that look somewhat like pictures you’ve seen of the surface of the moon, the smell of burning garbage, smoke and dust, food and spice, dogs and cows... it was a well-known and familiar sort of landing.
I’m getting ahead of myself here. First came the loooong plane trip: 10 ½ hours + 4 hours in Bangkok + 3 ½ hours to Kathmandu. We were pretty awake during the first flight, but managed to fal asleep in a very elegant position (all three of us slumped on top of eachother) on a bench in the BKK airport. (This was, of course, after a plate of mangoes and stickyrice, and a fruit smoothie) We did get a few funny looks, but there comes a point in tiredness where you just don’t care.
Some of our highlights from the flight include:
- Anna falling asleep with her head lolling in the middle of the aisle and getting backed into by a friendly little Thai stewardess: ”very tired?”
- ”Look, we’re going to crash into that plane right over there.” – Andrea on the runway, lack of sleep licking in.
- Anna nearly running down an even smaller Thai lady, ”They’re so tiny, I can’t really see them.”
- Andrea mistaking the wing of the plane for fascinating Nepali landscape. (Lack of sleep becoming severe.)
Though I behaved completely normally and with dignity as usual, I did contribute with my ”moments” (recognizing a significant place or smell, triggoring vivid childhood memories). A moment is a moment.
If we though we were tired in BKK, by the time we got to our flat at 2ish, took ashower, went out to explore, and sat down to eat (determined to stay up: beat the jetlag), the ground was definitely swaying slightly. The first day was followed by a solid 12-hour sleep, and a few days of getting settled. We live in the area of town called Bouddha, where there are a lot of Tibetan immigrants and Buddhist temples. We live just down the street from a Stupa similar to the one you see on the picture here, which is the most peaceful place, (almost) away from the noisy, dusty streets of Kathmandu. It’s a beautiful area, and we have now found our favorite mobile phone-guy, vegetables-and-rice-guy, fruit-girl and fabric-lady. We love just wandering around, taking in life in the streets. Traffic is an experience, as our upstairs neighbor says ”it’s like a videogame, where hitting a cow is game over”. We were ecstatic today when we saw our driver actually use the blinkers!
Sunday we went to the international church, where I met several old friends from Nepal days. I really love being back here, it feels almost as though I never left! I even find myself remembering things in Nepali that I didn’t know I knew. Today we met with Samjhana, who will be our language-helper and who will introduce us to the place we’ll be working at. In a couple weeks we will have settled down into the rythm of everyday life here.
We have found a dream in life: a book and a pot of tea on a rooftop in a sea of prayer flags, overlooking the Bouddhanath Stupa. What more could you wish for?
So far our move to Nepal has been pretty smooth. (That is – smooth isn’t the right word for Kathmandu. They dont really do smooth here.) We arrived on Friday the 19th, and after a bit off shuffling between hot and sticky lines of tired and grumpy people, a bit of sign language and a few dollars we got our visas. The many complicated and detailed questions on the forms seem to make up for the apparent lack of interest and the half-hearted checking of what we wrote on them; we had a funny feeling that the stack of nicely filled-in forms disappeared mysteriously shortly after we left the site.
From the minute we stepped out of the little brick airport (it hasn’t changed a bit!) and into the crowd, it was good to be back. From the many hands reaching out to carry our bags (for a few rupees, of course), to the turbulent taxi-ride , roads that look somewhat like pictures you’ve seen of the surface of the moon, the smell of burning garbage, smoke and dust, food and spice, dogs and cows... it was a well-known and familiar sort of landing.
I’m getting ahead of myself here. First came the loooong plane trip: 10 ½ hours + 4 hours in Bangkok + 3 ½ hours to Kathmandu. We were pretty awake during the first flight, but managed to fal asleep in a very elegant position (all three of us slumped on top of eachother) on a bench in the BKK airport. (This was, of course, after a plate of mangoes and stickyrice, and a fruit smoothie) We did get a few funny looks, but there comes a point in tiredness where you just don’t care.
Some of our highlights from the flight include:
- Anna falling asleep with her head lolling in the middle of the aisle and getting backed into by a friendly little Thai stewardess: ”very tired?”
- ”Look, we’re going to crash into that plane right over there.” – Andrea on the runway, lack of sleep licking in.
- Anna nearly running down an even smaller Thai lady, ”They’re so tiny, I can’t really see them.”
- Andrea mistaking the wing of the plane for fascinating Nepali landscape. (Lack of sleep becoming severe.)
Though I behaved completely normally and with dignity as usual, I did contribute with my ”moments” (recognizing a significant place or smell, triggoring vivid childhood memories). A moment is a moment.
If we though we were tired in BKK, by the time we got to our flat at 2ish, took ashower, went out to explore, and sat down to eat (determined to stay up: beat the jetlag), the ground was definitely swaying slightly. The first day was followed by a solid 12-hour sleep, and a few days of getting settled. We live in the area of town called Bouddha, where there are a lot of Tibetan immigrants and Buddhist temples. We live just down the street from a Stupa similar to the one you see on the picture here, which is the most peaceful place, (almost) away from the noisy, dusty streets of Kathmandu. It’s a beautiful area, and we have now found our favorite mobile phone-guy, vegetables-and-rice-guy, fruit-girl and fabric-lady. We love just wandering around, taking in life in the streets. Traffic is an experience, as our upstairs neighbor says ”it’s like a videogame, where hitting a cow is game over”. We were ecstatic today when we saw our driver actually use the blinkers!
Sunday we went to the international church, where I met several old friends from Nepal days. I really love being back here, it feels almost as though I never left! I even find myself remembering things in Nepali that I didn’t know I knew. Today we met with Samjhana, who will be our language-helper and who will introduce us to the place we’ll be working at. In a couple weeks we will have settled down into the rythm of everyday life here.
We have found a dream in life: a book and a pot of tea on a rooftop in a sea of prayer flags, overlooking the Bouddhanath Stupa. What more could you wish for?
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