A day in Dhading

Not sure if I'll be glad I did this or not, but I ducked out of school early today to catch a bus and come to Dhading, the district center, so I could stay in a hotel tonight just so that I can get up tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. to watch the Monday Night Football television in my room. I know the Packers are bad, but I want to see why. Besides, two bus rides for a total of 100 rupees plus a hotel room for 300 equals a grand total of $5 US. So it's a Christmas present to myself.

Wednesday we take off to Chitwan for a few days for Christmas. We're riding elephants. The rest, as far as I'm concerned, is just details.

Today's bus ride was nice, but not nearly as nice as my last two. We came up to Dhading last Saturday, and we went to and from on the bus. On top of the bus. The first time was just Saroj, Rajesh and I on top of a full size bus, but on the way back it was the three of us plus Andy and Ashish who were coming to visit. This time, though, we were on the roofrack of a smaller bus, and we were joined by two goats, one of whom hid his head under my leg, which was fine, except when he decided to lift his head. At that time I'd get the horn. I remember hearing about riding on the top of buses and thought it sounded pretty cool, but damn, some of those roads get pretty high. The first ride I was on the outside, and I'm not huge on heights, so I threw my earphones on, turned Bloc Party all the way up, and just looked forward. I'd lean in when we were going around corners, like I would on a roller coaster or something. It turned out to be a pretty good time, and it was a beautiful day, so it was worth it.

In other news, I've been sick twice more. The most recent was easy, but the time before was terrible. I couldn't keep anything down at all, and the cramps were brutal, so I ended up taking a nice ambulance ride to a nearby hospital-type thing (I'm not quite prepared to call it a proper hospital). They gave me some good stuff, though, so I felt alright after a few hours, but the doctor had me stay overnight, with an IV in the entire time. Saroj or Rajesh would follow me around holding the IV if I had to hit the bathroom, and one time they both came with me, as we were talking and whatnot. Seemed like a good idea until we couldn't get the door open to get back out. Fortunately we were on the ground floor, so out we went through the window, IV and all.

This week our school had their anniversary where parents and other locals came, and we made a 10,000 rupees donation to a kid in our Green Club who was recently diagnosed with cancer. It worked out nicely, because the crowd donated 27,000 more. I'll try to write more about him (Namarach) soon, he's a great kid.

Anyway, the hotel I'm staying at serves french fries (or finger potatoes, if you will), and the little kids playing GTA behind me keep bumping in to me, so I'm getting out of here. Daal bhat is tasting good again after a few rough days post-sickness, but I love getting some different food. I just finished 'The Odyssey', which I picked up for 25 cents, and the book drove me crazy. They feast every two pages in that book.

Sorry there are no pictures this time, as this computer is a joke, but I may have a chance later this week. There's plenty more to hit on, as well. Hope everyone has a great holiday.

First week in Gajuri

The roomies in our room before we got it all sorted out. While other volunteers have complained about rodents in their rooms, we've only had salamanders.

Our house. I'm kind of disappointed that I don't have a better picture of it, but oh well. Our room is on the right on the second floor. We have as nice a house and as nice a room as any of the other volunteers in other villages.

Daal bhat! This is what we eat everyday, twice a day, at about 9:30 and 6:00. That's the first helping of everything before our 'aama' comes around trying to put more on the plate. The bowl in the top left hand corner is for daal, a broth with lentils in it. The top left and right corners of the plate have different chili-type stuff, and the top is a mixed of steamed veggies. Our family does a really nice job of rotating through different chillis and veggies, so it hasn't really gotten boring yet. On top of that, it's really good, so I don't think I'll have too much problem eating this for the next six months. I figure it's pretty much like a burrito bowl at Chipotle, but the meat only shows up now and then. We actually eat at a kitchen table, too, and it's always just me, Saroj and Rajesh. I was given the option of using cutlery, but I declined.

Our school in Gajuri.

Andy and I doing laundry in the river in Dhading, where our district office is and where we had our last week of traning.

I finally have a Nepali 'home', and so far so good. I can't really figure out where to begin, but I'm going to have to wait forever for pictures to load, so I'll probably just ramble and hope I hit the proper topics.

I can hit the basics first. My host family has four kids, but only three of them live with us. Their eldest daughter is married and lives elsewhere, leaving two daughters and a son sharing the room beside mine. The youngest daughter is in grade 10 at our school, but I have no clue how old she is, probably 16 or 17. She also has a friend who stays at our house because she lives too far away from school. The son is probably about 18, and he doesn't go to school anymore because he failed his exam for whatever grade he was in and decided not to go back. As you may expect, the education system here is a little out of whack, so in order to move on to the next grade you have to pass an exam at the end of the year, which from what I understand isn't the best-written test in the world. Because of this, kids can be all sorts of ages in any given grade. I was in a grade 8 class two days ago and I think the kids probably ranged from like 11 or 12 to 16 or 17. The eldest daughter in our family is probably in her early 20s, and I believe she exited school the same way.

All in all, our family is very nice. Our baabu (Dad) and aama (Mom) are both quite nice, as are the kids, but none of them speak a lick of English. That became a bit of a problem on Wednesday, when my weak Western stomach decided it wasn't cool with the undercooked buffalo-meat from the night before. I decided to stay home from school, and at around noon I was woken up by some guy I'd never seen before. He starting asking me questions in broken English, and I could see aama and baai (younger bro) at the doorway. I told him I was feeling fine and just needed to rest, but he wasn't getting it and kept talking about going to the hospital and other jibberish. He asked where Saroj and Rajesh (the roomies) were, and then asked for their cell numbers. I figured that was cool, because they could tell him to relax. But when he got off the phone, he told me they'd be home within 5 minutes, and they ran home because the guy had told them I was seriously sick. Now, I understand that there was a lot lost in translation, but I was sitting up in bed talking to the guy so casually that I can't believe he didn't clue in to the fact that I was okay. Apparently it's the Nepali way to over-worry about people, which is too bad, because it's the Ryan Mosher-way to want to be left the hell alone. I'd been looking forward to having a few hours to myself, but oh well. The bug passed quickly, as I was eating full daal bhat at six. Aama didn't want to give me any of the spicy stuff, but that's the best part, so I had her pile some on.

School is going quite well, too, although we're not doing a lot just yet. We go in to free classes and play games and talk about the Green Club (our after-school program) with kids. It's pretty odd, because during these free classes the kids could be running around in the school yard, but they all run to class when we ask them to. Kids that aren't in the class often try to look through the windows, and then beg us to come to their class next, it's pretty cool.

Anyway, I'm being called to head to Mike's Breakfast, the greatest restaurant in the world. While I enjoy daal bhat, getting a break from it is very nice. French toast and a banana pancake today, I think.