Random Events in Nepal

The only thing that has been vaguely Christmas-y this year has been the mandarin oranges. They started appearing in the markets in Salleri, and by now they are getting sour again. I thought they were imported from China, but I have been assured they grow in Nepal, in the warmer southern regions. I only half believe this, but I suppose when we travel to Chitwan Forest and Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, we'll see if there are any citrus trees. This may explain why we can buy a kilo for R80, the equivalent of 1$. They have seeds in them and are slightly smaller with a rougher peel than what we are used to. Oranges are the only fresh food we have in our diet, besides a random apple and the slice of carrot and a slice of radish with our typical twice daily daal baht.

Christmas breakfast looked like this: 

We each received a hard boiled egg. It appears the Nepalese aren't satisfied with just the boiling of an egg- they like to take it a step further and fry it in a bit of oil and spice after peeling off the shell. It does add another dimension of taste. Turmeric is cooked with all the vegetable curries, especially by Kumari, our homestay mother. My toothbrush is stained yellow due to the prolific amount of this spice in our food! We appear to be served eggs only when there are no other volunteers at the house. This may be a cost saving measure- or perhaps Kumari likes us best? She seems quite fond of our chori (daughter), Raven. 

Dec 26

We went to town for another early morning attempt at applying for our Indian visas. The night before, we filled out the very detailed forms online, and printed them off to hand in. Questions on the form asked about our parents' previous and current nationalities as well as our Nepalese, Indian, permanent and work addresses. We arrived at the entrance at 8am, and waited until the gates opened at 9am. It wasn't as crowded as it was last time, probably because we are in the middle of the Christmas – New Years week. Being first paid off, as our numbers were A3, A4 and A5 (we weren’t sure if we needed individual numbers or just one for the family). By 10am the ticket numbers started being called in rapid succession. The machine had broken. Most of the tourists took a chair and waited, after the officer behind the counter said to wait. I noticed a line begin to form in front of his wicket- people with higher numbers than us were being served before us. Some of them the attendant was serving, and others he sent away. I approached with my number and we began our process as a family. Unfortunately he found an error in our form. We had followed the advice of a previous tourist who told us she was turned away because her permanent address and her Nepalese address didn't match. We took a gamble and made both our addresses the one where we are staying in Pepsi Cola. Rumour was that if you were turned away because of an error on your form you had to come back the next day. This is such an inconvenience. When I asked for clarification, the officer said that as long as we came back before 12, with a fresh, correctly filled-out form, it would be OK.

We frequented the shop down the road that had retaken our visa photos last week. These guys make a killing off of people like us. We didn't have time to find an internet cafe with printing capabilities in Thamel, so we paid this business 300 rupees each to retype our forms online. As I was sitting in front of his computer wishing he would type faster, a motorbike helmet that was sitting on a shelf 1 metre above my head randomly and with no provocation fell and smashed onto the back of my head. He was kind and was apologizing, but I told him through my tears to not worry about it and type faster! In Canada, I may have gotten a discount in service for my pains, but not here. He kindly apologized again while handing me my R100 change from the R1000 bill. All things added in, getting our Indian visas in Nepal as opposed to Canada is still more affordable.

We squeaked in before noon, the second set of paperwork was accepted, and we were given a receipt with the date of January 4^th. On this date we are supposed to show up in the morning with our passports, hand them over, then return at the end of the afternoon to reclaim them with our valid visas.

Dec 27

One of the volunteer activities we have been involved with in Pepsi Cola was the painting of two murals at the school, C.B.I.A., Other volunteers, Tina and Karen, sketched the drawings, and Raven and I helped fill in the colours. The girls had great fun painting their faces and hands afterwards. The blue paint was oil based, so Raven had blue hands for a number of days. The murals are on the first floor of the school, on the bottom of the stairs, where all the big kids see them as they continue up to their classes, and the little junior kindergarten kids whose classes are on this floor see them on their way out to play or to the bathroom. “So nice” was heard many times by the curious smiling little faces watching us work.

One of Raven's school subjects fine arts. Distance education leaves this subject very open ended, but it is probably the most difficult subject to do while we are traveling as there doesn't seem to be enough time left in the day after the rest of her subjects. I also don't 'make' her do it, as I know she's not going to fail grade 7 because of an 'Incomplete' in art. Opportunities like the mural will also arise, which can be documented in photos and emailed to her teacher. Because we have a constant home now and easily accessible internet, she has been working industriously on her academics. 'Fingers crossed' that her math package arrives before the 15^th.... Some of her work, such as socials, involves creating 3 dimensional objects. We take pictures of the finished results and put them in her SIDES dropbox for marking. What did we do before the internet? For socials she's had to recreate a pyramid and a canopic jar with very limited resources. (See above) The clay used for the jar was left in a generic unlabelled plastic bag by a previous volunteer. We weren't sure what kind of clay it was, or if in fact it was clay, but we took the opportunity, slowly added water to it, and made clay. Raven created a replica of a canopic jar, a container used to hold a mummy's internal organs. When we showed Darcie her creation- she informed us that the clay was left for her, as it was to be used as a stomach settler, much like charcoal! Apparently when your stomach is upset you mix some with water and drink it. Oops! Who'd of thought?!