Our family is getting along
surprisingly well being that we sleep and 'hang out' together under
blankets in a chilly 2 metre square room from about 4pm to 8am, with
a break to go downstairs for dinner. After dinner Vincent joins us
for a fun Israeli card game that we learnt in the tea houses while
trekking. Raven usually wins. The power 'brown outs' have recently
changed their times. Now there's no power between the inconvenient
hours of 6 and 9pm. Heath has been excellent at ensuring that our
headlamps and electronic devices are powered up.
Daily I will sit in the kitchen and try
to converse with the family. They sometimes ask me to help Soobaum
with his homework. I find this is an excellent way to gain an
afternoon cup of tea! Unfortunately we seem to be allotted only the
morning cup. At least now Heath and Raven receive their sweet black
(brown) coffee. Yes, Raven enjoys a cup of morning coffee, not tea.
I am interested in how the women cook,
but the language barrier is pretty big, so I am left with watching
the proceedings. I know most of the Nepalese vegetable names and I am
trying to figure out the spices that they include. Turmeric seems to
be the popular one. We eat a lot of potato and cauliflower veggie
curry with the dhal bhaat. Sometimes they make pickles. In the larder
area there are various jars of pickled items. They taste 'mitho'
(tasty) but look pretty disgusting. If you found one of these jars in
your pantry, I don't think you 'd even want to try to open it!
I am enjoying teaching at the school.
The last few days have been cloudy, so it seems as if I never take
off my fleecy sweater and down vest. The kids wear their jackets in
class, too. Heath has had little luck with volunteering in the
monastery. The monks have been absent for much of the time we have
been here and now they are preparing for exams before they go south.
This means that we will also head south for Kathmandu before too
long. The Tibetan refuge school in Chelsea (higher up the ridge) that
we visited will also close for the winter because it is too cold to
teach.
I can't say that I am too sad to leave
this beautiful area. We are cold much of the time. It isn't a problem
that it is cold outside, but that one can not warm up INSIDE the
house. We can see our breath inside from dawn to dusk, if not longer.
There is no insulation, we can see light through cracks in our walls,
and the window pane doesn't fit in the frame, either. We have to wear
our outside clothes for eating, as the family leaves the front door
open much of the time and there is a cool breeze entering the eating
area. The warmest place is in front of the fire, but the family
usually sits there. Lately they have been sitting around an open
campfire-style iron holder that is filled with red-hot smouldering
embers. It does little to warm up the room, and nothing for the rest
of the house. Washing clothes in cold water is brutal on the hands. I
find I can wash only two articles of clothing before my hands are red
and burning. I have to take a break and shove them in my pockets to
thaw before continuing. Yesterday I
realized I burnt off all the little hairs from the back of my fingers
tops. This must have happened when I was holding them in front of the
stove-top flames to warm up after doing laundry!
Raven has her birthday today. Luckily
for us a bakery just opened that advertised western style birthday
cakes. We asked the baker to make us one, and when we enquired about
the cost he said he'd know after he made it! Don't you love Nepal?!
She will now be allowed access to Facebook, so you may be getting a
friend request soon. We were planning on skipping school on her day,
spending the morning at the internet 'cafe' so she could set up her
profile, then walking to Phaplu for an extravagant lunch in a lodge.As it turned out, Rave wasn't feeling 100% (we think she didn't want to walk far!) So we made fried egg sandwiches at our house instead. The cake turned out pretty good- but the icing was more yak butter than sweet.
As it turns out there is another
festival on Wednesday, so most kids won't be in school anyway- they
will be walking to a temple a few hours away.
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