I knew I would love it here. I love the
climate, the people, I love that it isn't as pungent as Malaysia and
Thailand, I love how easy it has been so far. The VNS has been
awesome. The first week is orientation- they take care of
everything, including language and cultural training in the morning
and taking us to a local restaurant for lunches. We tried momos-
Nepalese dumpling/perogies. Mine was steamed vegie (think vegie curry
wrapped in a steamed sticky thin pasta, Heath and Raven had deep
fried chicken. I am pretty sure the chickens were running around out
back. The restaurant was small, with no windows except for two 10 x
10 cm holes in one side of the bright blue painted concrete walls.
The roof was corrugated metal. Hard to find Coca Cola in this part of
town, but you can drink a bottle of Slice- mango juice similar to
tang. Everything is within a 10 'block' radius in the Pepsi Cola area
of Kathmandu. This is a newer area of town- nicknamed Pepsi Cola
because of the manufacturing plant here.
Later in the evening the VNS liaison
went to the airport and delivered our 'lost' bags to us in our
homestay. We are the first placement the The couple are of retirement
age, with adult children living in Australia. The husband lived in
Australia when he was younger, so speaks fairly fluent English, his
wife only a few words. She wears traditional clothes and made a tasty
dinner, served at the traditional time of 8pm. The Dal of the Dal
Baat dinner was soupier than I expected (served in a small brass bowl
on the same brass plate as the rest of the dinner), but tasty, and
not spicy- even Raven liked it. White Baat (rice) was served next to
a slice of radish (big tuber style radish, not as hot), cucumber
slice, and a small pile of spinach. The family watched us as we ate-
Awkward! Hard not to feel a little self conscious, but eventually
they sat down and chatted with us.
Heath' experience of the first night
and day was a little different. While Raven's sick feeling the other
day came to nothing (she ended up sleeping it off and not
upchucking), Heath went to bed early and skipped dinner because he
has come down with the puking/diarrhea 'disease'.
Oct 11. 2012
First full day in Kathmandu. Heath was
out for the count- Tea was served at 8am. Teas is like a sweet
chamomile tea. The wife (names will come later) brought down some
plain cracker/biscuits with it, we ate a few, and thought that
breakfast was to be served at 9am. This never happened, so I stepped
out to get him some juice boxes for Heath and breakfast for Raven and
I. Little corner stores are everywhere- people convert the front of
their houses into little shops. We didn't have a chance to change in
to Nepal rupees, luckily had some Indian rupees that most stores will
take as currency. At 9:45 VSN came to collect us for our lesson. Just
Raven and I went, memorizing the way, as we will be doing it
independently. Baby steps! Walk straight past the common grounds,
left at the goats, right at the sari shop. Random patchy haired dogs
are everywhere. Little kids sing-song “Hello! How are you? What is
your name?” Soon we will be able to say the same in Nepali- verbs
are at the end of the sentence, and they don't differentiate between
his/hers. (Yes!).
Lunch was at the same restaurant. We
tried the chow mein. It was spicier than Raven liked, she couldn't
finish hers, other than that, similar to what we'd find at home.
We learnt that the biggest Hindu
festival is soon to occur- this means there will be no going to
Salleri for 2 more weeks after our 1 week orientation. We will spend
time at the neighbourhood orphanage instead, so we visited for 3
hours today. All the kids love Raven, and have great English- they
range in age from 6-18- a few of the 15 year old boys have crushes on
her- but don't worry- she towers over all of the kids and staff!
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