A long-awaited update

I have been receiving complaints concerning the absence of updates on my blog lately… I am very sorry for the delay and I hope to make up for it with a long and newsy chapter! December is a busy month for everybody, right? Despite a quieter Christmas than usual, a lot has been happening here as well; we’ve survived four whole bus rides on the road out of Kathmandu, (if you’d seen the road you would be impressed – it meant countless 2-inch misses and passing several cliff/hillside wrecks) gone paragliding, and nearly been eaten by a crocodile (only slightly exaggerating).

- Christmas – a very different one this year, but nevertheless a very good one. Without the usual amount of homework and other annoying distractions, we became our mothers more than ever and took charge of the baking, cooking, decorating, knitting etc. We brought some of these sweets to work with us, but nothing was as entertaining as when the three of us performed our little St. Lucia parade and song, wearing white and covered in glitter. Although we failed to make a wreath of candles, the fat candle perched on Andrea’s head was a success, and the giggles lasted for days.
The Christmas season also gave us an opportunity to be with some very good friends. While Christmas Eve was celebrated at home in good old Scandinavian fashion, the days before and after contained cozy friends, Christmas movies and everything from Norwegian mutton and rice-pudding to stuffing, turkey, and pecan pie. In other words: for being so far away from home, my Christmas was quite complete.

- Christmas Show – this deserves a paragraph of its own, as it was the definite highlight of the year for the kids (and a lot of us!) at ABBS. The anticipation has been building steadily; the Christmas Show has been the number one topic of conversation for months. In fact, I’m not sure what we’ll have to talk about this spring.
All the families were invited to the “big center” (our kids got picked up in a special, decorated(!) bus and driven to headquarters) where the kids performed dances and songs (we’ve worked hard at these, watching them perform I felt all proud!). We eight volunteers contributed as well; this involved singing and dressing up as Santa, rats and a cat. The whiskers were very popular. The show was followed by lunch for everyone, and a present for each of the children. Having everyone dance to loud, thumping (I won’t say screeching) Hindi-music was of course inevitable at some point, as no gathering is quite complete without this. I’m sure we were quite a sight; those who could walk helping those who couldn’t, those who could see helping the blind, wheelchairs spinning and rattling, and an occasional volunteer with whiskers.
When it was all over and we watched the kids leave (grinning from ear to ear), it was surprisingly hard to say goodbye for two short weeks.

- Chitwan – not that I was left time to brood. The next morning we took off for a weekend in Chitwan National Park with the staff at ABBS. American volunteer Ben went along too, which added some English-speaking fun (not that we don’t love constantly conversing with Nepali ladies in our extremely fluent Nepali).
As mentioned above, this was a bit of an eventful weekend: elephant riding, rhino-spotting, boat ride on the river, elephant babies, and a crocodile. And in the evening after a stick-dance culture show, hours spent around the fire with a drum and Nepali ballads (with a little dancing) that lasted well into the night.
This all sounds idyllic enough, but remember, this is Nepal: nothing will go too smoothly. In this case it was our bus. It broke down regularly during the trip, giving us the chance to hang out and eat some more, go swimming in a river, snack some more, sing some more, and eat some more. I believe I ate about 7 oranges in the course of a few hours.

- I now come to the event which changed my outlook on life forever, and which caused me to discover the true purpose of my existence: PARAGLIDING! I have no words. Except that it was amazingly fun and exactly like flying, and that if you haven’t done it DON’T! Because you will become addicted and never do anything productive with your life again. I personally plan to spend all the rest of my time and money on training and traveling and very expensive paragliding-equipment.
I should mention that this revelation took place during our 5-day trip to Pokhara, a lovely town sandwiched between a big lake and the mountains. The rest of these days deserve a spot in this blog – quiet cafes on the lakeside with a beautiful view, hikes to hilltops with a spectacular view, golden-pink sunrises over the Himalayas… and of course, the good books to be enjoyed in the middle of all of this. The break from the polluted, dusty, loud and crowded streets of Kathmandu was quite appreciated.

There you have it! Now we are back at work and enjoying it more than ever (most of it at least... did they always used to pee this much?). For those of you who think our life here is all safaris, parties and quiet lakeside cafes, I can assure you that that is not the case. Power cuts have reached 12 hours a day, soon to become 14, 16 and maybe 18 (it has been said that by March they’ll have reached 24 hours and 15 minutes). Hot showers are a distant, hazy memory; especially morning showers are like vivid flashbacks to dips in icy Norwegian fjords. The cold tiles and brick walls inside don’t seem to ever warm up; the only way to get warm is to place yourself and all your layers in the sun. The kids are like ice every morning, and on their skin fresh blisters, cracks and sores from their two weeks at home.

What I wouldn’t give to plop some of them in a steaming hot bath, scrub them, wrap them up in a warm, dry towel, set them on the heated tile floor, cover them with lotion, blow-dry their hair, and let them toast their toes by the fire in my home in Norway!