Buddha fest, Amazing Race, and Holi War

Buddha Fest
Yet another festival took place recently. No, it's not actually called Buddha fest, but I forget the actual name. We all (including the 3 new volunteers: Amy, Lauren and Paige) went with Rajiv to Patan to watch this festival, wherein people craft and decorate giant buddha puppets and then wear them around Durbar square. It's a competition between neighbourhoods to see who has the best Buddha. It was pretty crazy, but very beautiful.

There's a dude under there, struggling to keep upright under

all the weight.

Amazing Race: Kathmandu

This is an activity that normally closes orientation week for the new volunteers. Essentially it's a scavenger hunt around Kathmandu where you practice your Nepali and test your knowledge of the city and culture. However, the arrival of the 3 aforementioned volunteers meant that there were enough volunteers to do it for the first time since we got here. And it was hard! Even for me, a seasoned veteran. Fun though, except for the part where I was force-fed daal bhaat and almost choked.

That's me, wearing a doko basket as part of the race. You

wouldn't believe how blatantly people laughed at the silly foreigner.

Holi

I've been looking forward to Holi (the colour festival) since I first started researching Nepal for this placement. Essentially it's a festival, where people douse each other in coloured water and powder. What no one told me was that for a whole week leading up to Holi, little boys throw water balloons at girls and women. And sure, it's funny at first. And then you're on your way to your volunteer placement first thing in the morning and a balloon smacks you in the side of the face rather hard. Or hits you in the boob as you're headed out to dinner. I swear I developed mini Gulf War syndrome, scanning the balconies wherever I went and ducking when birds flew overhead!

But the festival day itself was super fun. We were in a rooftop water balloon war with at least 5 other buildings, and got slammed by people on the street with coloured paste. It was the craziest thing I've seen since I've been here, and that's saying something.

Me, battling the neighbours

Then, Neer (of course) had the hookup for this great outdoor Holi party in town, where we danced and people sprayed water and colour over everyone and it was sweet glorious chaos!

Holi par-tay!


And by the end of the day, we all looked like this.
That's me with Ronnie and Amy, btw.

Canyoning, beer pong and naked babas

A few more happenings that have taken place recently:

Shiva Ratri
This is an annual festival to worship the god Shiva (the destroyer). Because he is the destroyer, this involves big fires. In order to get wood for these fires, children block the roads in the mornings and won't let people pass without giving them money for wood. No one warned me this holiday involved extortion! Anyways, we went to the Pashupatinath temple, where literally tens of thousands of Hindus and hundreds of Sadhus (sometimes naked) gathered to chant, hang out, and smoke massive amounts of ganja. It was pretty awesome to witness, though I almost got trampled by a bull, and Ronnie had to remove a potential thief's hand from his pocket.

One small section of the 'devotees' at Pashiputinath

Rajiv's birthday
To celebrate darling Rajiv's 28th we had our own little momo-mania in the house, where we made and ate about a million momos. Then we had an impromptu dance party. Then Ronnie introduced Nepal to the game of beer pong. And let me tell you: Nepal loved it. Until you've seen 5 drunk Nepali guys arguing in Nepalglish over the fairness of a particular toss, you cannot understand how hilarious it is. Anyways, super fun evening.

Badri, inexplicably blue-steeling for his shot (with Neer)

Last Resort

Last weekend Karen, Jesi, Ronnie and I headed up near the Tibet border to this resort called (cleverly) Last Resort. It's kind of an adventure resort. Getting there was a particular adventure. The roads, as always, were very twisty, and a Nepali guy on the bus got sick more times than I would have thought the human body was capable of. There's not always room to pull the bus over, so at one point he leaned right over Jesi to puke out the window. Once we did get there, Jesi and Ronnie bungeed into this huge canyon, which Karen and I flatly refused to do. Then Karen and Ronnie and I went canyoning down a series of waterfalls, totalling 210 vertical metres. The longest abseil was 45 metres! Karen and Ronnie, being rock climbers, took to it immediately. I, however, slipped and slid and banged my way down all the falls, at one point falling completely upside down, but was always caught by my belayors. It was really fun though. The next day Karen, Ronnie and Jesi went for a 4 hour mountain bike to the Tibet border. I opted out (again, biking uphill for 3 hours is not my idea of a good time) and instead made friends with a British couple and a college group from Montana.

That's me, in one of the brief moments I wasn't slipping

and smashing into the cliff face

Chitwan!

Hello sports fans, I'm back. Sorry for my long absence, but our internet was being bitchy. Anyways, the weekend before last we did the funnest (and cheapest) thing we've done so far: visited Chitwan national park. If anyone out there is planning on travelling to Nepal, I highly recommend it. For a 3 day, 2 night stay in a nice place, all food, and all activities, it was 85 bucks each. Yepper, I love this country.

So Chitwan is a national jungle preserve, and houses pretty much all of Nepal's remaining wildlife, including endangered tigers (but those are pretty rare, and I was actually glad we didn't see any, cause: scary!). A rundown of our activities:

Day 1: Getting there
So everyone's aware of how Nepal's all mountainous, right? Good. This makes for some very twisty roads, and quite a few prayers to the god that is Gravol. Poor Rajiv hurled a couple of times, and Brian wasn't doing so good either. We made it in one piece, and in time to see a hilarious Nepali commercial shoot for cement that was filming at our hotel. We also got to see a Tharu (local ethnic group) cultural program, which involved yet another dude dressed as a peacock dancing around.

Day 2: Crazy amounts of activities
So our day started at an ungodly hour (all the better to catch wildlife) with a jungle safari on elephant back. This was super fun, until our elephants started throwing a tantrum, growling (I swear, elephants growl), pushing trees over, and running. If you've never been on a running elephant, let me tell you: it's both painful and scary.

Our elephant, pre-tantrum

But it did let us get up close to some wildlife, like these

white rhinos.

Then we got to go down to the river to participate in elephant baths! This is seriously one of the funnest things I have ever done you guys! You climb up onto the elephant (quite the feat), and then he sprays you with water from his trunk. Then he shakes you off. Then you climb back up. Repeat 5 or 6 times. Then, because Karen, Ronnie and I were pretty excited at the first water we'd seen in Nepal, we went swimming for awhile. And we tried to teach Rajiv and DC how to swim. Let me tell you, the sight of two men in their late 20's frantically dog-paddling like little kids in about 2 feet of water? Priceless. Then Karen got sick all night because it's hard not to swallow some river water when you're being hurled from an elephant's back, but even she agrees it was worth it.

Ronnie and I getting bathed, elephant-style.

That's some serious trunk-strength, right there.

Then (yes, this is still day 2), after lunch, we took a canoe-ride down the crocodile infested rivers while Brian screamed like a girl every time the canoe rocked 3 inches.

Front to back: Brian (freaking out), Karen, DC, random

Japanese girl, Ronnie, Me, Rajiv and Ram (our guide)

Marsh mugger: they actually do kill quite a few locals, so

maybe Brian was justified.

We followed up the canoe ride with a very hot and tiring jungle walk, where we saw a few giant deer and got bit by many mosquitoes. The walk ended at the elephant breeding center, which was awesome.

1 day old elephant baby omg!!!

After that day we were exhausted, as you can imagine. We went down to a river-side café and chilled out, and then fell into bed.

Day 3: Chilling and driving

The last day was spent wandering around the town and taking photographs. I managed to hold a puppy, a kitten, and a baby goat all in one morning. These incidents were in no way related, but it seems Chitwan is a baby animal paradise. Then we managed a puke-free ride back to Kathmandu. All in all, a freaking amazing time.

Banda, unclean souls, and near-death experiences

Banda, banda, banda
So 'banda' in Nepali means 'shut' or 'closed'. It's often used to describe when streets or stores are closed for various reasons. Well, we've been in the midst of a perfect storm of banda lately. For one thing, the maoist protests have amped up as the April elections draw nearer. On the way out of town Wednesday to visit PA's other children's residence in a nearby village I saw quite a few busses filled with 15 year old boys with lots of red flags, chanting. Everything was blocked, but we finally made it back to Kathmandu pretty late in the day. Another reason for all the banda is the gas shortage. I'm not entirely sure on the cause of, or possible solutions to, this problem. Basically, no one has any gasoline, so no one can go anywhere. This has led to several cars and trucks being abandonned on highways, blocking the routes, and also protests blocking any cars that do have gas. This led to Karen, Ronnie and Rajiv taking a 5 hour trip to Bhaktapur (nearby village) last Monday, which usually takes 45 minutes. Finally, Bhaktapur itself was totally banda Thursday and Friday because there were riots in response to a murder within the town, so Ronnie was trapped there and got tear gassed when he accidentally wandered into the middle of the action. Everyone (mom) calm down, none of this is really dangerous, it's just life here in Nepal.

Bhaktapur police station (on fire)

PA Nepal

Everything's still going well. I managed to do an on-the-fly diagnosis of ringworm for one of the kids last week. I noticed a sore on a girl's neck, e-mailed a photo to Karen at the hospital in Bhaktapur, she passed it on to a doctor, who e-mailed me back a perscription. Bizarre, but efficient.

Me with some of my favourite kids: (left to right) Samir,

Jennie, Robin (being squished by Jennie), Apa, and Sushma.

Sanku

Remember I said we went out to a village? Well, it's another home PA runs for older kids, and they learn village life skills, like farming, handicrafts, brick-making, basically practical stuff they'll need to live in this country. It's really beautiful out there, too, with a waterfall right behind the house where the kids bathe. It was a nice visit, where I got to do a little bit of help with the fields and Rajiv and I took a couple of kids up to this temple nearby. This temple has this bizarre feature: a tiny window. It's said that if you can squeeze through this window, your soul is pure. So I guess skinny people are really pure? One of the boys we were with managed to get through, and then Rajiv tried. Now, Rajiv's pretty skinny, but that window is tiny. He tried bravely for a good 10 minutes as I took pictures and laughed really meanly at him, but no dice. Then the kids wanted me to try, and I had to explain that my soul (or ass) was not nearly teeny enough for me to even try.

Rajiv: not so much with the pure soul

Oh, and check out what grows wild on the hills of Sanku!

Bowling

On Valentine's Day, we went bowling. And Dad, get this: I won the first game! With a 103. Yep. That's pretty much the whole story. Oh, except that Jesi, the country coordinator, finally returned from her massive Christmas holiday, so we have someone else in the house now. She seems pretty cool so far.

Back: DC, Karen. Front: Rajiv, me, Jesi and Brian.

Mountan Biking (subtitle: Neer's a liarface)

Everyone wanted to go mountain biking on Saturday. I told them they should go, but biking up a hill's not really my idea of a good time, thanks anyways. But then Neer tells me that a truck will take us up to the top of this big hill and we'll bike down. That appealed to me much more. So I said cool. We start biking uphill. Alright, I think, the truck stop is somewhere up this hill close by. After the next curve, or the next, or the next. After an hour I made Neer pull over, so that I could (breathlessly, cause: hard!) yell at him "Neer, I show you nothing but love, why the lies?!" And he said the truck has no feul (banda) and it's "just one more hour uphill". So I somehow managed, and the coming back downhill was pretty awesome. Although we were going so fast down such rough terrain that I remember thinking to myself, wow, if I fall right now I'll seriously injure myself. Huh.

DC (front) and me (behind) risking our lives. And that was
before we went off-road.


However, the ride did afford views such as this one. God, this
country's beautiful.

Another great weekend

Wow, updating on recent events is new and exciting for me! So I had another good week/weekend here in K-town (and surrounding areas). Another week of kids screaming and pulling on me, yelling "Aun-tee! Aun-tee!" and of trying to get Indira not to alienate all her donors. That was all much more fun than it sounds. Other things I did:

Patan
Went back for more touring of all the stuff we missed last time. I personally enjoyed the temple to the goddess of power, who demands tons of animal sacrifices and kills demons. My kind of lady. Also, got to listen in on a French tour group, and for once knew what was being said while the guys were totally clueless. Take that, fast-speaking Nepalis!

Child priest at temple.

This sign at a sthupa made me laugh out loud. You guys,
leave Buddha alone.

Hyatt

So Friday, after a full morning of volunteering, Karen and I took a taxi out to the Hyatt hotel for some girl-time pampering. 'Cause we can afford to do that in this crazy economy! So we got mani-pedis, had lunch, and relaxed amidst the sweet smell of money. Also, if you're white, they pretty much don't ask questions, so we took advantage of the health club to steal access to the hot tub (me), the steam room (Karen) and showers that stay hot for more than 4 minutes (glorious!).

The pool at the hotel. Too cold to go swimming,

unfortunately.


Me enjoying the only diet coke in Kathmandu (of course
it's at the Hyatt). That's the Buddhist sthupa Bodinath in
the background.

Chulot/Dhori, take 2

Have I mentioned yet that Allan the ass has left us for Thailand? Cause he has!!! Sorry Thailand, he's your problem now. Two new volunteers have arrived: Brian and Ronnie. Brian is another man in his '50s. This caused poor DC and Rajiv to freak out, thinking he would be a repeat of Allan. I had to explain to them that not all Canadian men go through a douche-inator at age 45, and most are perfectly nice, as Brian has turned out to be. Ronnie's 21, and hilarious. It's quite like having a younger brother, actually, as I've already put him in a headlock. So for the end of their orientation week it was a repeat of the Chulot dinner and dancing at the Dhori. We pulled out the saris again and this time Karen and I had to figure out how to put them on ourselves. We managed with the help of google, but at one point at the dhori, I had to have two waitresses help me fix it in the bathroom, because it was kinda falling off on the dance floor. We all had fun, and this time Ronnie was the most popular guy at the Dhori, primarily because he was wearing this:

That's him in the middle, wearing the equivalent of an armani suit.
Brian's on the left there, and Rajiv's on the right.

Rock Climbing

That's right people. I think I've found my inner adventurer. I was talked into going to a climbing wall by Karen and Ronnie, but I actually had fun. So I got all harnessed up (dude, those things leave nothing to the imagination) and made an attempt at the wall. Fell off 1 foot off the ground. Gave it another go. Fell off 9 inches off the ground. So I was all set to give up, but Karen talked me into trying again. Evidently the worst thing you can do while rock climbing is stick your butt out, which I think I was doing, as I tend to put the ass in massive. But with Karen behind me yelling "love the wall! Love iitttttt!" I actually made it up pretty high, like 50 feet or so!

Look at me go!

Fortune Teller

We got a traditional Nepali astrologer/palm reader to come the house Sunday morning. It was pretty fun, actually. He needed to know the precise time and place we were born, and then spent like 45 minutes doing math-y charts for us. He said I'm a good communicator and manager and would do well working for an INGO. Mind you this was after I told him my degree was in political science and that I'm in Nepal volunteering, hmmm.... Also I am very lucky, powerful, and "well-built". And once I'm 27 I'll have a very happy period in life that will last 17 years. Sweet!

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.

The weekend: mountains, 5 star hotels and trekking

So, after that crazy Friday night, Karen, DC and I managed to drag our tired butts out of bed at 5 am Saturday morning to catch the "moutain flight". This flies next to a really beautiful section of the himalayas. However, I was a little dissapointed that it didn't get closer. I was picturing flying in between peaks! It was beautiful though.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mount freakin' Everest.

(The tallest one, duh)

So then we returned to the house, ate, napped a bit, and Karen and I set off for Nagarkot. This is a five star hotel about 2 hours drive away from Kathmandu, straight up a mountain. Man, were those roads windy. But this hotel is like 25 dollars per night in this crazy economy, and has great food and spa services. The view from our balcony was so amazing that I took a video of it instead of a picture. And now the video won't upload on this connection, so you'll all have to wait. Picture a 180-degree panorama of the himalayas and the kathmandu valley. Now make it twice as beautiful as you were picturing. You're still not close. So I got a massage, which was a bit uncomfortable (and painful - ease up on my calves lady!) and a facial, which was divine. And I was able to - oh glorious joy of joys - take a hot bath in our room! Man did I miss those!

The next day (Sunday) Karen and I trekked to Bhaktapur, a town not far from Kathmandu. One hour uphill (ouch) to a gorgeous lookout, and two more hours downhill. The path was a bit treacherous at some points, but I did very well. And then I wiped out walking across a perfectly flat field, so some local farmers laughed at me.

Karen and I in trekking mode. Don't I look outdoorsy

and tough?

An example of the beautiful views on the trek down. Notice the
stepped fields to allow locals to farm on mountainsides.

So we got to Bhaktapur and our trekking guide also showed us around the Durbar (temple) square there. Then we cabbed it back to good old dirty Kathmandu. We really did this in the wrong order, because I could really have used that hot bath and massage after the hike instead of before, but ke garne?