The past month or so...

Hello everyone! So I've been extremely lax in updating. Thus, this post is intended to sum up the last month I've spent here. It's been crazy times, but going through my photos, I think I've found the most important bits.

My placement: Prisoners' Assistance Nepal
Ok, everyone: Maddie tells me that some of you are under the impression I'm working inside a prison? That is not in fact the case. I'm working in a home which houses the children of prisoners, who would otherwise live inside the prisons with their parents. I have no pictures from PA yet to show you, but I will take some soon. It's quite good. I go in about 8 in the mornings, help the kids with their homework and to get ready for school, then help out in the office for the rest of the mornings. Sometimes I go back in the afternoons, but it really just depends on Indira's schedule. She's the woman who runs the home. She's amazing, but is very busy, which leaves me with a fair amount of down time. The kids are cute, but crazy. I've learned enough Nepali to use simple commands (come, go, sit, eat) with them, other than that it's basic English and wild gestures. I think they understand more than they let on, but can get away with more if they pretend they don't.

Momo Mania 2008!
How exciting does that sound? Ok guys, momos are the Nepali version of fast food. Except they're actually good. They're these amazing little steamed dumplings filled with meat or veggies and I love them to bits. So last weekend this restaurant in town hosted this big party. We paid about $6 Canadian to get in, and it was all you can eat momos (21 different varieties!), a free beer (but the bottles here are so huge it's like 2), a free pop, live entertainment, and door prizes. There were so many varieties of momos I lost track and dipped the apple momos in the curry sauce, and some chicken momos in chocolate sauce. We ate soooo many momos, and I also won a year's subscripton to "Wave" magazine. I wish I'd won the free flight to Pokhara, or maybe the free stay in a 4 star hotel, but it's better than a kick in the face.

The Nepali band that played: they were really good!

An extremely un-flattering picture of me with momos and
a bottle of Everest beer.

Patan

Patan is a town that's right up against Kathmandu, just separated by a short bridge (think Ottawa/Gatineau). It's where Rajiv lives, so he took Karen and I on a personal tour the other week. It's beautiful there. And also they were celebrating because it had rained that morning. So we went to some temples to watch farmers praising the rain god. Then we went to Patan's Durbar square and hung out like the locals. Seriously, all the young people here spend their evenings sitting on temple steps or on the stone elephants or whatever. It's pretty fun, actually, to sit and watch the world go by.

Newari women offering candles to the rain god.

The Zoo

This stands out in memory mostly because Nepalis cannot pronounce the letter 'Z'. They pronounce it as a 'J'. So for a whole day Karen and I wondered why the guys were taking us to the Jew.

Jewish tigers (very rare).

Neighbourhood kids

Somehow we have become the party house for all the children in our neighbourhood. They wait for us to open the curtains in the morning and then run into the yard yelling "come, play?" at us. It's fun to a point, but then becomes exhausting. They know lots of games, but I was able to teach them "Stella Ella Olla" and "Simon Says". They don't have the best grasp of English, so they always ask me to play "duck duck duck duck duck". I had to explain about the "goose" part, or we'd be playing all night.

Neighbourhood girls attempting to teach me Nepali dance.
I'm still not very good.